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This article describes what the Language Immersion Program is (specifically talks about spanish), how it is beneficial, what the drawbacks are, research studies, and how children are effected by using the program. The author's opinion is clear, so in her whole article she has a slightly persuasive tone and she makes the program look and sound amazing to probably everyone who reads it. There is some good information about the program and some research studies, and the benefits/drawback are very interesting.

In "using the technology of today, in the classroom of today" authors Eric Klopfer, Scot Osterweil, Jennifer Groff, Jason Haas start to give basis to the argument that technologies such as videogames and social networking sites help shape learning. They focus on how they are learning outside of school but in completely different ways than teachers focus on. They argue, "Nearly all institutions- business, industry, medicine, science and government - have harnessed aspects of these technologies for decades. Games and simulations have been a key component of training doctors and military personnel, but even businesses like PricewaterhouseCoopers used a game about a mining company in outer space to teach its employees about derivatives. Although that may seem a bit "off the wall," the fact is major corporations, the Department of Defense, and the medical community would not use these tools if they were not highly effective" to illustrate how corporations use videogames so the educational system shouldn't reject it them as a learning tool. They point out how videogames can serve as a simulation for real life just as mining in outer space can teach about derivatives. Videogames are also a highly interactive learning environment. Instead of being told information, students are right in the middle of the action and the learning. They also discuss how social networking is a new way of collaborating with other about a wide variety of subjects including school work. The authors write, "Of course, educators have long been aware that learning is a social activity, where learners construct their understanding not just through interaction with the material, but also through collaboratively constructing new knowledge with their peers" but teachers reject the use of social networking as means of learning because of the other aspects included safety or privacy. But what teachers can learn from social sites is that "'knowledge cultures' assembled in these o

This article is very rich with information that has to do with how digital games, social networks, and simulations can be involved in classrooms. With the involvement of them is more than just entertainment that children or people actually learn stuff from them.

As I was looking for articles to do more research on my topic, I came upon an article that seemed to have a good amount of information that could be helpful to my research. A question that was asked in the article was whether or not all this technology that is being used in classrooms could be giving kids anxiety.

Annotation: Benefits of Using Multimedia in Education, and "Kids views on technology in the classroom" On this website, Benefits of Using Multimedia in Education, it states many benefits of using technology within the classroom from the professor's point of view as well as the student's perspective. It states how educators believe that "multimedia tools provide students with opportunities to represent and express their prior knowledge" and "empower students to create and design rather than absorbing representations created by others". These observations are seen through researches that have been made on other websites and are linked right next to each statement of observation and benefit. Furthermore, it shows how multimedia tools benefit students work from "four perspectives: 1) as researchers, they must locate and select the information needed to understand the chosen topic;2) as authors, they must consider their intended audience and decide what amount of information is needed to give their readers an understanding of the topic;3) as designers, they must select the appropriate media to share the concepts selected; and 4) as writers, they must find a way to fit the information to the container including the manner of linking the information for others to retrieve(Smith,1993)".

In "Classroom Technology and Teacher-Student Interaction" by Geneva Logic, they discuss how teachers can use the system called Vision on computers within the classroom and it will benefit the interaction of teachers and students. For in the article, it points out how the "ratio to public school students to instructional computers with internet access had shrunk to 3.8 to 1 in 2005" (14 percent improvement in availability over 2003). Today, in the year 2010 less than 10 percent of students do not have access to a computer. However, researchers have found it is the teachers who are intimidated by bringing in technology within the classroom. Researchers stated that "technology brings about changes in classroom organization and the role the teacher plays; providing teachers with the tools they need to negotiate these changes is crucial to their success". (Muir-Herzic, 2004) This shows that if we were to provide teachers with these tools then teachers would see how technology within the classroom "leads to qualitative and quantitative improvements in teacher-student interaction.

In the video, "Evolving Technology", created by cre8tivem, on January 07, 2009, he brings up many facts about technology that many have never even thought of. It questions your knowledge and makes you wonder about things that you didn't even know were issues or existed. It makes you realize just how fast we are evolving. (It's a good video to get you brainstorming and think about different issues you would like to do a research and has many interesting facts that are useful.)

This is a very interesting and informative article. I was interested in how texting can affect a students literacy level and this piece answered all my questions. Research has been done to prove that texting does not negate students' literacy levels. Professors all over the world accept the new form of communication and are willing to use it in the classroom

In the online article "Playing Music can be good for your brain/Stanford study finds it helps the understanding of language", by Sturrock it goes over research done by Stanford. In their study they had two groups of adults, musicians and non-musicians. They found that musical experience helps "the brain improve its ability to distinguish between rapidly changing sounds that are key to understanding and using language."

"Could we survive without today's technology," by Isentry; this was the video that I looked at on Youtube.com for my research. It talked about how in today's world everyone is so dependable on today's technology, that it has enslaved us. It had many great examples, as in we pretty much worship the television, because the fact that we take so much information from it, and listen to it on everything we have to do. This goes from where to shop at, to where to eat, and even where not to eat. It also talked about how many people in today's society get anxiety attacks when they do not have their cell phones, or even just their Ipods.

In My Freshman Year the author, Rebekah Nathan, has been a professor at a large university for 15 years. Over time she has realized that students are different then when she went to school. She wants to find out what freshmen really go through living on their own, so she decides to re-enroll as a freshman herself. She gives the university her high school transcripts, and they accept her application

danah boyd is a lead researcher in social media. Her website has links to most of her scholarly articles

great resource for articles that research the web and social media.

In an article written by Professor Shelia Tucker of East Carolina University, the hotly debated issue of Online Education vs. Traditional Education is analyzed and scrutinized thoroughly. Appropriately titled, "Distance Education: Better, Worse, Or As Good As Traditional Education?" Tucker discusses how each type is viewed in the field today, the ideal group of learners for each type of education, and the research study conducted as well as its results. To read more about the article visit my Google site at: https://sites.google.com/a/mail.csuchico.edu/walker333/

The Technology and Assessment Study Collaborative of the Lynch School of Education at Boston College did a study based on the "Use, Support and Effect of Instructional Technology" otherwise known as USEIT, in 55 classrooms in nine Massachusetts school districts. They were trying to research if student usage of technology would affect their tests scores on standardized tests.

For those of you researching Facebook...interesting article

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1613,156178-252192,00.html here is a glazed donuts recipe, use a chocolate glaze and a voodoo cookie cutter, put a crazy design, fill the middle with red jam, and stick a pretzel stick through the heart!!

This article offers some research that was done on how many relationships are person can have at one time regardless of how many facebook friends you have. It states your "friends" on facebook are more of contacts.

For those of you who are thinking about theories of "play" and how they relate to technology, this is really interesting: "A professor at USC shares video from a recent meeting that brought together artists, educators, researchers, and technology experts to discuss "tinkering" for learning in the digital age."

In the chapter "Civic Identities, Online Technologies: From Designing Civics Curriculum to Supporting Civic Experiences" from Marina Umaschi Bers book, Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth, the author claims that online games, such as Zora, help our youth engage in community and civics. Zora allows it's players to create their own individual avatar, with physical, mental, and emotional traits that the players choose. Bers argues that Zora is a great way for children to think about their identity and civic life by making choices that will show them how to acquire certain sills and attitudes to become good citizens. Like many other researchers, Bers agrees that it is easiest to learn by doing, and games like Zora are helping to improve the youths social awareness. This chapter describes engagement in society not only by voting and being political, but by forming communities and volunteering.

In "Civic Identities, Online Technologies: From Designing Civics Curriculum to Supporting Civic Experiences" by Marina Umaschi Bers, Bers discusses a scenario that is being used all across the country. Zora is a three dimensional multiuser environment that students use to think about identity and civic life. Students make avatars and are in charge of everything going on in the city or summer camp. This came to life after identity construction environments (ICEs) were found that creative things to do on the computer make children learn better. The students work mostly with different civic identities like police, Jewish people, etc. along with real life, controversial community related issues which the students try to solve. Many of the tools used in Zora can then beused in real life and the moral values can be used both on the computer and in real life. Zora is different than traditional learning because "Children are put in the role of producers, instead of consumers, of information, knowledge, and habits of mind."