Wednesday, June 13, 2012

EDUC 422 Article III response "Not an Expert? Then Go Out and Find One"


Heldman, B. (2011 August).  Not an Expert? Then Go Out and Find One. Learning and Leading Technology. 30-31

            Teachers in this age of technology have found that the new technology may be complicated and difficult to grasp the concept. The basis of this article is to encourage teachers to ask technology experts for help. SME’s or Subject Matter Experts are the specialists that are out there to help teachers. Most SME’s provide online streaming and tutorials to help teachers and maybe even students become tech savvy. Lynda.com and Oracle Academy are sites on the internet that help students become familiar with adobe and updates in software. Since SME’s are employed they may have fees for use of their tutorials. Other SME websites such as Digital-Tutors and 3DBuzz are other sites that enhance students’ knowledge. The Digital-Tutors is a pretty cool site because it allows students to teach other students about technological concepts on the site. Bill Heldman provides many links to various sources that may be valuable for students and teachers to contact SME’s.

            This is a valuable source because I am planning on becoming a future teacher. The advancements in technology make contacting the SME’s and viewing their sites. Bill Heldman provides a lot of insight into six different SME sites that are valuable for students. If I have any questions I feel that one of my students or I can contact one of these SME sites.

            I feel that this best fits ITSE NETS-S 3 “Research and Information Fluency”. Pretty much students have to evaluate sources and digital tools based on the appropriateness of specific tasks. So the students can go and access the SME’s and if they need to receive help on technological concepts or like Digital-Tutors help out fellow students.



           

2 comments:

  1. Matt, this is very interesting. I have never heard of SME's before, but I am definitely glad I now know about Subject Matter Experts! There is always some new technology coming out and it intimidates me because I am not very comfortable with learning about new technology. It makes me feel better to know that I can ask the SME for help with new technologies. I will be interested in working with the SMEs when I become a future teacher.

    Colleen

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  2. Yes I agree, there are many online tutorials and resources. Youtube is pretty good these days too. One of the most helpful things I've found in troubleshooting is just searching the question online and there's always some forum where your question has been asked and answered by some computer genius. Be careful though the reliability of the forum source, same with youtube or any other online source. I still love going to the good old program manual. Maybe I'm a total dork, but reading that gives you a legit overview and then a point of reference to associate with when you encounter an issue. And now along with or in place of the paper copy of a manual, the searchable online manual is very comprehensive! Good article, Matt; it brings up a very relevant question for us as we will encounter many new programs in our future education paths :)

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