Goodbye Everyone

I enjoyed being in this class with all of you wonderful people! I have met many lifelong friends and have kept some existing friendships! I hope everyone has a GREAT CHRISTMAS!

My Personal Learning Network

For My Personal Learning Network I contacted four people through email and one through Twitter and Tweetdeck. I first contacted Mrs. Sharon Barnette by using her email at sbarnette@bcbe.org . She had a lot of interesting techniques on how to incorporate technology into an elementary education classroom. She gave suggestions such as Promethean Planet . It has great ideas on how to use the Promethean board that is now in a lot of public schools. She also suggested United Streaming . It has culminating ideas that can be usede in Science and in Social Studies activities. Mrs. Barnette also says that a lot of her second grade students use the computer to take tests on in reading and also to practice their keyboarding skills.

Another educator that I contacted through e-mail and through Twitter was Ms. Jennifer Smith. She teaches fifth grade. You can contact her through her e-mail at jnsmith@bcbe.org or through Twitter using her name aujensmith. She suggested using a software called Kidspiration. It is a graphic organizer that allows the students to be creative and be able to put pictures on their otherwise boring looking graphic organizer.

My third educator that I contacted was Mrs. Erin Payne. She can be contacted at epayne@bcbe.org . She teaches fifth grade as well and has many ideas on incorporating technology in the classroom. She suggests using google to search for powerpoint that are posted by other educators around the world. She also says to use guided research inquiry. This is a more hands on approach in technology. It gives the students a set of websites and guided questions to find information about an assigned concept.

The last educator that I contacted was Ms. Danielle Watson. She can be contacted at dwatson@bcbe.org . She says that video clips are an easy way to incorporate technology into your classroom curriculum. It helps give the visual and auditory learners a more appealing form of instructional enhancement.
I have learneed a lot from all of these eduactors about how to incorporate technology into an elementary education classroom.

New Classroom Rules by Education Innovation

For this blog, I read two lists of things stupid and brilliant that teachers do with technology. I also looked at the New Classroom Rule by Education Innovation. Out of the three lists I picked out three of the data that I believe was the most important. The first piece of information comes form the list titled 7 stupid things that teachers do. The first one is that teachers do not have back up data. Doug Johnson says that doing it once, he feels sorry for the teacher. However, when the teacher allows it to happen twice then they are just plain stupid. It is very important to have copies of your data any many different ways. Such as saving it to a flash drive, on your computer, and then onto another computer, and even maybe on your email. I would even have a hard copy of my data just in case of an emergency. Th second piece of information also came from Doug Johnson's 7 stupid things teachers do. It is not supervising computer-using students. I believe this one is particularly important because students are a lot smarter than they come across to be. Students are capable of getting through Internet filters. Students and children use the computer and technology during most of their during their everyday lives, so they figure out little tweaks that they can make to a computer to get into what they want. The last piece of information that I looked at and thought was important came from the new classroom rues by education innovation. This was bring required materials to class, including your laptop and your cell phone. I think that it is absurd that students arenot allowed to bring their laptops to class because if they have it they will always have the Internet available to look up any multiple amount of information on a subject. Students also can do this from the cell phone if they needed to and having a cell phone is also a good safety precaution. To look at each one of these lists go to the following sites: 7 Stupid Things ,
7 Brilliant Things , New Classroom Rules

What I Learned in this class this Semester

This semester my EDM 310 class has been a very rewarding experience. I have learned many new things about technology and how to incorporate it into the elementary classroom. Before I began this class I did not believe that a teacher could incorporate technology into the classroom other than by using PowerPoint and allowing the students to play games on the computer.Now after going through an entire semester in my EDM 310 class and learning about all different types of technology, I now know that I was wrong and that technology can easily be put into an elementary education classroom. I learned that as a teacher you can have a class blog to help keep parents and students aware of what is going on in the classroom and it can also be used to keep in touch with teachers all around the world. Another kind of technology device that can be incorporated are cameras. Cameras can be used to take pictures outside for a Science experiment or for and Art assignment. The children can learn about cameras and learn how to use them effectively in life. Twitter is also a helpful source because it helps the teacher keep in touch with students and parents as well.This also allows for the use of a cellular device because one can check their email, twitter, or even a class blog from it.

There is one thing that seemed challenging to me while in EDM 310 and that is the spreadsheet assignments and learning how to use all of the formulas effectively and right during a document. This will be very useful to me in the classroom because I can keep up with supply costs, lunch money, or even field trip money by using spreadsheet and the formulas that come with it.I would not, however, change anything about this course because everything in the course is significant in becoming a teacher. I do believe that I am more technology literate than I was before I came into EDM 310. However, I do not believe I have made it all the way. There are a few obstacles regarding technology that I need to overcome and definitely plan on doing in the future. To improve my knowledge of technology I will continue to go to workshops that are technology based and teach you more about the different kinds of technology.

At The Teachers Desk

This week I looked at a professional blog called At The Teachers Desk. This blog was very interesting. It had many gadgets on the layout such as Worldwide Visitors, Contributors, Other blogs, a labels section and a couple more. It was a very easy page top go through and look at.

While on the professional blog, I looked at a few of the posts on it. One of the posts that I looked at was Using Technology for Effective Communication. This post gave many ways on the computer and on your phones that you can communicate with people all over the world. It is also important as a teacher to be able to know how to use these devices and communication sites because it makes it easy to communicate with parents. The site suggests using Twitter. The post says that Twitter is a quick communication device, but that parents do not access it enough to make it a worthwhile tool. It also mentions facebook and using your mobile phone to communicate with parents about your students progress or behavior in school. You can easily tell the parents what assignments the student missed while they were absent or any other thing.I also looked at some other post on the blog such as How do I know I am not just being selfish?

I believe it is important to have a professional blog because you can communicate with other teachers, post your thoughts, ideas, experience, and feelings onto the Internet for others to see. It is important to do so because you can easily help out future teachers or even teachers already in the workforce.

Michael Wesch

In this video, Michael Wesch talks about media versus culture. Media, he says, is not just a tool but that media mediates our conversations. When media changes, our conversations change. His buddy Marshall McLuhan said"We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us. Michael Wesch says that our conversations are mainly impacted by television. Our conversations come from television and create our culture. This is a great line that Michael Wesch said because I definitely believe it is true. We are always talking about things we see on television because what is on television impacts everything in our daily lives. He gives an example, when he shows a picture of his college classroom. The students seem uninterested and unexcited about his lecture and being in class. Then he shows a picture of the American Idol Casting Call and everyone in the photo seems excited and cheerful. What is the difference he says? The word "Whatever." Michael Wesch followed the history of the word "Whatever" and the meaning it has come to have today in our "MTV" World. The meaning it has today is that we believe we are the most important person in the world.

He believes that we have completely forgotten how to have a real relationship with another person. We are so wrapped up in ourselves, we just do not know how to do it anymore. He says that youtube is something that helps this problem. On youtube, you can connect and interact with people all over the world and create relationships with them. It does not matter if you are shy or outgoing it is just easier. I really enjoyed listening to Micheal Wesch and his lecture. To listen to it click here: Michael Wesch

Why we should publish our work on the internet

I believe that we should post our work on our blogs or in other ways of the internet because we never know who wilol see our work. It could eb our future boss or even our future or past students. We never know whose life we will touch or change by exposing our work. Jus tlike the children in the video "Landslide". The children posted their work on the internet and the video and osng was heard by Stevie Nick's manager. She said she cried each time she heard them sing the song and she even asked them to perform it in Madison Square Garden for Sleetwood Mac show. From reading the comments about the post, other peoples lives were touched by their work as well. MAny of the commentors said they cried when they watched the video. Another reason we should post is because when we post information about useful websites, some teacher around the world or student could need help and could find their information from our blog post.
One example that we have done and discussed in class is Dear Kaia. This little girl exposed her work and posted it onto the internet and she touched the lives of many people all across the world. People see nature differently because of her pictures. Antoher example is when a person is trying to get a job. Their future boss can go unto their blog or a myspace network and learn about that person. It can help people to understand your personality and what kind of person you really are. I think that this is a very important thing.

I think it is real important that we publish our work onto the internet because we never know which individual we can help around the world ort even next door. If you would like to watch the "Landslide" video go to: "Landslide"

ACCESS

ACCESS



All of the information I am writing on i found on the following website: ACCESS .
ACCESS or Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators, and Students Statewide is a distance learning tool. Their goal is to "provide equal access to high quality instruction to improve student achievement through distance learning. The website provides online courses and even has AP classes which are Advanced Placement course that are college board approved, remediation module for Alabama High School Graduation Exams. This website was launched on November 1, 2004 and is available to all public high school students.

The website has many resources to choose from. These resources are Alabama's Virtual Library, ChemLab, Curriculum Pathways, ALEX, Elluminate, Graphmatica, APT Plus/ Discovery Streaming, MathType, Nettrekker, and SREB. tHE alabam Virtual Library is an online library and information resource that is available to all students, teachers, and citizens. The ChemLab provides simulation software for education including chemistry courses. Curriculum Pathways provides innovative web based resources in core disciplines for grades 8-14. Elluminate is live multimedia collaboration on the internet. Graphmatica allows teachers and students to print off or copy different types of graphs from the Internet. APT Plus/ Discovery Streaming has free exciting multimedia educational material. MATH type allows you to create mathematical notation for word processing, web pages, desktop publishing, and presentations. Nettrekker delivers digital content and is organized by grade and reading level. SREB is Southern Regional Educational Board.

This website is very useful when it comes to student, parents, and teachers because is gives a variety of resources to look at and choose from when trying to do projects, homework, or research papers. You can accumulate a lot of information from this website about one or more subject areas.

ALEX

ALEX



All of the information I received about ALEX or Alabama's Learning Exchange I went to the following website: ALEX . Alex is a project of Alabama's Department of Education that is designed to index and share many types of educational materials and information through a time-saving, one-step resource for educators , parent, and students. A majority of the resources, such as lesson plans, web links, and interactive activities, are all located and connected to the Alabama Courses of Study by National board certified teachers.

While on the web site, you are able to download, print, adapt, and use lesson plans from the websites database and use them in your own personal classroom or even share them with other educators. Also on the website, it is easy to connect to the Alabama Department of Education, Alabama's Virtual Library, and Alabama's Public Television. When entering the website, there are may different categories you can choose from to fins information or lessons plans in education. The categories you are able to choose from on the website are Courses of Study, Lesson Plans, Search, and Web Links.

If you click on the topic Courses of Study, you are then given many other different options. You are then able to click on the subject area in which you are trying to find information or lesson plans for and you can also choose the grade level in which you are searching for. If you click on the lesson plans topic you can search by grade level and by subject. In the search topic you can also have your lesson plans categorized by grade level or keywords. The topic I found most useful was the web links topic. This topic allows you to find web link that are educational for the subject you are searching for. It has links for teachers, administrators, and students. You are also able to recommend websites to add to the list.

This website is very useful for teachers, parents, and students. As an upcoming teacher it will help by making it easy for me to find lesson plans for my students that are interesting and fun for each subject area. As a parent it will help me when I am trying to help my child with his homework because I can find information on projects or even research papers. This is also helpful as a student to help me with homework, projects, research papers, etc.

Dear Kaia

Kaia



I really enjoyed watching Kaia's first phtot essay . I also enjoyed reading the other blogs from the sites and comments about her phtos. It is amazing that here dad has her using technology at such a young age. However, I do think more parents should do this with their children. As a parent, I would be hesitant because of the dangers but I would just have to hope and pray that the good over does the bad. I think it is great that he understands the risk of it but that he is not keeping her hidden.

I also agree that children should spend more time outside. Technology is a factor of why they do not spend time outside, but I do not think that it is the problem to be blamed. I think the problem is that parents do not know how to manage their childrens activities well. They should allow the children so much time to play outside and so much time to work or play on the computer or video games. Being able to go outside is a nessecity for children to be children and so is technology. Children and adults can learn so much from technology and from being outside.

As adults we can learn so much from children, even if we do not realize we are learning from them. I like reading the comments on the blog and the comments actually prove that we can learn from children. I really thought it was neat how Mr. C's class got so involved. This was a great experince for me!

The New Media Literiacies by the NML Staff

This video was very short but very helpful. The video explains the new set of skills that everyone needs to deal with our culture today, to be able to function with current media literacy's, the Internet, cell phones, and to interact with information regarding our culture. They say that everyone needs them to become creative artists, workers, and citizens. In the past media literacy's were made to try to get consumers of media to think critically about what they were watching.

They believe that a child is not only a consumer, but also a producer of media. Instead of asking questions about creator, we actually need to be asking questions about ourselves. There are eleven skills that are said to be needed to function with our culture today. These skills are judgment, negotiation, appropriation, play, trans media navigation, simulation, collective intelligence, performance, distributed cognition, visualization, and multitasking.

Judgment is being able to judge if information on the web is reliable. Negotiation is knowing how to get in different groups and spaces and understand how different norms are. Appropriation is knowing how to remix and sample content in a meaningful way. Play is said to be one of the best skills because it is having the capacity to experiment with your surroundings. The other skills are pretty self explanatory. I believe that the skills that I hold are negotiation, play, appropriation, visualization, and multitasking. I do believe that I need to conquer the other remaining skills, but that it will take a little bit more time. To acquire the others I will just research and practice conquering each skills one by one.

The News Media Literacy project is a research initiative based within MIT's Comparative Media Studies program. It explores how we might best equip young people with the social skills and cultural competencies required to become full participants in emergent media landscape and raise public understanding about what it means to be literate in a globally interconnected, multicultural world according to there website. You can look at this website by going to: NML .

The Networked Student By Wendy Drexler

This video had a very effective way of keeping my attention. In the video, a story was told about a student who was studying American Psychology. The student attends school three days a week and does two days on the Internet. He has no textbook. His teacher hardly ever lectures. His teacher is a student of connectivism. Connectivism is a theory that learning occurs as a part of social network of many diverse connections and ties. This was made possible by various tools of technology. The tools are said to be not as important as the connections made possible.

Anyways, the teacher empowers her students to take control of their learning and make new connections with others who will strengthen the learning process. The student must spend his time building his own personal learning network. He practices finding valid websites and to access the website to find its credibility. He use Google Scholar to find scholarly articles about his topic and he shares the site he finds. He looks at blogs from people around the world to see their point of view on his topic and he even has his own blog that he posts his point of view on. He uses reader to subscribe to his blog.

The student loves his MP3 and he uses it to subscribe to video and audio podcast. He can find lectures on his MP3 player and can also find documentaries. While he was looking at his virtual textbook that he had created in social book marking account in RSS Reader, he shares his knowledge to the world. Information management is said to be a big challenge in the 21st century.

So the question is does the networked student need a teacher. Well the answer is yes. The teacher is there to show him and teach him to build the network and guide him when he gets stuck. She is to show him how to communicate properly with experts so that he can respectively ask questions for help. She teaches him how to differentiate from good information and propaganda and helps him organize his information. She hopes that he will maintain his learning network to navigate his future.
I believe I am ready to teach a networked student. I will definitely use the advice that this video gave to make sure I do all I can to advance my student in technology and to make sure he or she is guided in the right direction for their future. To listen to this video go to: Wendy Drexler

Dr. Richard Miller: This is How We Dream Part 1 and 2

In the video, Dr. Miller starts off by saying he believes, " we are living in the moment of the greatest change in human communication in human history." He says we now have the capability to communicate instantly globally. Dr. Miller says now is the time to be engaged in work of literacy. When he began in the profession, he spent his time understanding writing as a solitary activity. He loved books and has always loved books since he was a child. He talks about some incremental changes we as a culture have gone through. One of the incremental changes is how we work with laptops and not pens, pencils, and paper. Our workplace is now at a desktop. We can research the riches of the world because it is stored on the web. We can do an entire project without having to step foot in a library. It is now possible to collaborate using networking technology, not compose with text but with film. We need to try and teach our students to produce multimedia not just listen and consume it.

He says as we work we find ourselves confronting a new kind of material. On the web the material changes right before our eyes, it is updated instantly, and it is aggregated. It shows visual representation and we can compose items using iTunes U. People seemed to be please, Dr. Miller says, by the success and liability of the academic lecture. He says there are people who understand that ideas do not belong to us individually but they belong to us as a culture. He says as educators we must be in the business of sharing ideas freely.We can not just look at the material and use it, we can actually go behind it and see how it was put together. We can distribute information globally and freely.

Dr.Miller says he sees a time where students will not compose material using Word Processors, but with the kind of digital composing material that him and his colleague are learning how to use themselves. He commends Jonathan Harris' material in the video. He commends it because it's fascinating attempt to try and use the web to present the affect of the globe.

As an upcoming teacher, I believe that I am working at being able to write with multimedia, but that I am not all the way there. But I believe that with practice, hard work, and actually putting the time into it my students as well as myself will be able to use it. If you would like to listen to these videos go to Dr.Richard Miller's Videos

Using iPods in the Classroom (Duke University)

I have studied information on how iPods can be useful in the classroom. I went to this website: Duke University and Ipods .

Duke University uses iPods to enhance learning at their school. At Duke University, about 1,200 students will use iPods. Duke gave away iPods to 1,600 upcoming freshmen. Duke only gave iPods away to students who's professor requires them for course work. The classes are those that are coordinated through Duke's center for Instructional Technology. Part of Duke's Digital initiative is designed to encourage digital multimedia use in classroom instruction. The iPods they will give away have a recording plug-in device. The plug-in device makes it possible to make digital audio recordings of lectures and interviews.

At Duke University, the following classes are some of the classes that will be using the iPods in the classroom for course work: Foreign Language, Engineering, Music, and Documentary Studies. Duke University is also fixing to include: Mathematics, Biomedical Engineering, and dance in the list of classesw using iPods. The new iPods that are coming out store and display pictures and videos on a small screen. An example of how one of the classes will incorporate the iPod in the classroom is a history course call Digital Durham and the New South. The class will use iPods as students record data from court records and other public archives. Another way to use them in the classroom is to create podcasts or online presentations that require the use of copying recordings.

iTune University

iTunes University is a free service hosted by Apple that allows instructors, administrators, and affilliates to manage, distribute, and control access to educational content. It helps users easily search, download, and play educational content. To download iTunes University you can go to the website: iTunes Download .

Teachers can podcast lectures on iTunes University. It allows students to be able to go back to difficult parts of a lecture and take better notes say Dan Mckinney according to Science in Society website:
Science in Society . iTunes University features free lectures, language lessons, audiobooks, and more. You can explore over 200,000 educational audio and video files from top universities, museums, and public organizations from all over the world. To learn all you can about iTunes University you can watch a video at iTunes U Introduction .

iTunes University can help me as a teacher because it will give me and my students a good resource to receive information about a topic we may be studying in our classroom or may be getting ready to study. I can even as a teacher listen to a lecture on a topic I am getting ready to discuss with my class and here how another teacher talked about it. Then I can see if the way they taught will work for me and benefit my students or maybe even just be able to get a few ideas from it to enhance my classroom.

Dr. Alice Christie's Website

Dr. Alice Christie's website will be very useful when becoming a teacher or even as a student. It gives many websites and information about many different things that can help you as a teacher. She made the website to share what she has learned from being a teacher for forty years. It has many different sections such as multimedia, educational technology, Web Design, photography, etc. The section that I found most useful was the educational technology section. It gives many ways in which teachers can use technology to enhance their teaching and to help their students' learn. I looked under the sub section Multimedia. I found it very interesting because it had all different type of multimedia that you as a teacher can teach to your students in the classroom and still use the curriculum. For example, how to make an electronic postcard. Dr. Christie gave many websites that you can use to find out how you can integrate postcards in =to the classroom, what activities would work, and how you can still use the teaching curriculum with it.

It also had websites to different glossaries, where students can look up important terms and vocabulary. It had sites on Art and how you can use it on the Internet. It gave different links such as, Museum of Tolerance Multimedia Learning center. The link had an extensive collection of Holocaust Pictures. This would help me as a teacher if I was teaching History to my students and we were studying the Holocaust. The website also gives instructions on how to use a digital camera, a resource page about them, and the different features that digital cameras have.

I really enjoyed looking at Dr. Christie's web page because it will be very beneficial to me as a teacher and allow me to integrate fun and interesting things into my lessons to help keep my students excited about learning.To look at her website or see her photo from above go to"Alice Christie

The Wired Story on Wikipedia

On the Podcast that I listened to about Wikipedia, the senior editor of Wired Magazine was interviewed. He discussed the new program called the Wikipedia scanner. The Wikipedia scanner was invented by a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology named Virgil Griffeth. To be able to post anything on Wikipedia, Nicolas Thompson says that you either have to leave your name or you can post anonymously. However, when you post it leaves a trace of a number that identifies your computer. Virgil Griffeth came up with two different databases.The first database is a database of all the IP addresses from several different companies. It shows all the changes that was made to the Wikipedia page.

The other database makes it to where you can go back and see that there was a change made to the Wikipedia page and you can see exactly what the changes were. Wikipedias main concern, Nicolas Thompson says, is the accuracy of their program and the source of where the changes came from. For the fact that anyone can make changes to Wikipedia and their information, it changes the way you look and use Wikipedia. Nicolas Thompson believes that because the information you make to Wikipedia can be traced back to the source it will scare companies away from making any changes to Wikipedia. He believes that the Wikipedia Scanner will be beneficial to Wikipedia and allow Wikipedia to become a better website.

To listen to the podcast about Wikipedia with Nicolas Griffeth go to:
Wikipedia Podcast and click the LISTEN button.

Tiny URL practice

This is a practice

Tiny URL Image

Randy Pausch'sLast Lecture

Randy Pausch was born in the 1960s and died of Pancreatic Cancer. As a child he had six childhood dreams. These dreams were being in zero gravity, playing in the NFL, authoring an article in the World Book Encyclopedia, meeting Captain Kirk, winning stuffed animals, and being a Disney imagineer. It is very rare for someone to actually achieve their childhood dreams, however Randy Pausch actually achieved all of his childhood dreams. However, he had to go through a few obstacles to achieve these goals. He says"Brick walls are there for a reason:they let us prove how badly we want things." I think this is a great statement because we never know how badly we want something until we see how hard we work to accomplish it.

Randy achieve his first goal: being in zero gravy. He achieved this when he was a college professor and his students won a trip to ride the "vomit commit". The vomit commit allows you to see what it feels like to be in zero gravity for 25 seconds. It took overcoming an obstacle to get to be in zero gravity, but Randy did whatever it took to achieve it. His second goal was playing in the NFL. He never actually played in the NFL, but he did play football for a man that went by Coach Graham. This coach showed up to their first practice with no football because he believed if they practiced without them they would understand the fundamentals of football. During practice coach Graham was hard on Randy. However, the assistant coach told Randy "to be glad he is being hard on him because that means he has not given up on you." Randy says that critics are the ones who care and love you.

Randy graduated from Carnegie Mellon with his PHD. He try to use his PHD to achieve his goal of being a Disney imagineer. However, it did not work and they sent him letter declining him. Then one day when he was giving a lecture on virtual reality he saw Jon Snoody. He went to lunch with him and asked him if he could possibly work with him on their next project. Jon Snoody said it would be difficult but they would work it out. After approving it with his dean, Randy worked with Jon Snoody and the Disney team for six months on their project.

Randy Pausch had a class called Building Virtual Worlds. It had 50 students from all departments of the university. They had two weeks to design their project , which meant they would have five projects for the semester. After the first project, his students did so well that they had a campus wide exhibition. The students bonded throughout this exhibition and a ton of people came to watch it. It was a success. Randy then was granted his own department in the university. He has no dean to report to and he had a project based curriculum. He made the Dream Fulfillment Factory while having his own department. It involved artist and technologists. After going through it the student would receive a two year professional degree.

Randy then taught about lessons learned and said that the only way to achieve your childhood dreams depended on your parents, mentors, and students. I loved listening to Randy Pausch's Last Lecture. He made some very valid points about achieving childhood dreams. He has accomplished so much and has impacted so many peoples lives.

Karl Fisch: Is it okay to be a technoloigcally illiterate teacher?

I enjoyed reading Karl Fisch's post on technologically illiterate teachers. I agree with him in that teachers should be very familiar with technology. We can not teach our students and children about technology if we do not know about it ourselves. We must know how to use it. Karl Fisch made a very good point when he used the example about getting a job in the 20th century without knowing how to read and write. He compared it to today and being able to get a job without being technologically literate. Within the next few years, I do not believe people will be able to get a job unless they know how to use technology.

I also agree that just because you do not think you are good at using technology does not mean you do not need to learn it. I think it is dumb to be proud of not being able to use technology. Eveyrone should know how to use it because our world lives and breathes by technology. It is sad to think that some of our children are smarter at using a ocmputer than we are. I honestly think it is ridiculous. As an upcoming teacher I will make sure I do everything I can to stay up to date on technology so that I can teach the students everything I learn.

Michael Wesch: A Vision of Students Today

The video defiantely caught my attention. I can relate to this video so much as a college student. I understand about buying a $100 or more textbook that I use maybe once throughout the course. It aggrevates me because I could have not bought it and saved that money for something I would use or need. Another point that I can greatly relate to is the point that a lot of students are on their laptop in class twittering or on facebook, while I am listening and trying to learn in class. The part that is aggrevating is that I might come out with a C or B in the class and I paid attention and tried my best, but the person sitting beside me was playing on their laptop or maybe did not hardly ever come to class and they made the same grade or higher than I did. As a student and first time mother, I maybe get 4 or 5 hours of sleep at night. I spend most of the night when my baby is sleeping studying or doing work for my classes, and some of the classes I feel that I don't even need for my profession.

In the classrooms, there are too many students. Some of my classes have maybe 30 people, however some of my other classes range from 50 to 100 people. I am the type of person who needs to be in a smaller class to learn what I need to succeed. It is harder for me to learn in a huge class where you do not receive any individual attention the whole semester. In my classes now, I am happy to say that all of my professors know my name. However, this has not always been the case. Sometimes I will get in a class where my professors act like they do not care if you fail or pass their class. I have been lucky this semester and some past semesters to have professors that really do care if I pass and help me to make sure I succeed. I really enjoyed watching the film and believe that they should not add or take out anything in the video.

Mr. McClung's "What I've Learned This Year"

In Mr. McClung's blog he gave a whole lot of great advice! He gave many points on how to be a more effective and better teacher. Some of advice consisted of listening to your students, communicating with your students and coworkers, Being reasonable with yourself and students, being flexible with your lesson plans, appealing to the crowd, and never stop learning.

By listening to your students, your students will know that you care about them other than just as a teacher. They will feel wanted and I personally believe that will better succeed in the classroom if they know that you as a teacher care about them. Communicating with your fellow coworkers is a huge must in the work area. To be able to work together and communicate will allow everyone to have a happy and beneficial work environment. If you have a problem with another teacher or coworker, you both must sit down and talk about it so the problem can be solved. Being reasonable with your students means that you shoulod not set your expectations too high for the students because you could be setting them up for disappointment. If they feel like they did not meet your expectations they will feel as if they have failed you as a student. Appealing to the crowd is a very important piece of advice because if you as a teacher do not make the lessons relate to the students, they will not comprehend what you are teaching them therefor they willnot learn.

Mr. McClung made all these very helpful points in his post and they will benefit me as an upcoming teacher and allow me to be successful in the workforce.

Practical Principles Epdisode 20

In the podcast, Melinda Miller and Scott Elias dicuss how to become an Apple Distinguished educator. To become an Apple distinguished educator, one must fill out an application. The application must be accepted before continuing on in the process. After having the application submitted, a video must be watched and reviewed. To apply for this one does not have to have a ton of knowledge of Apple software. There are four roles that need to be metbut there is only one role that is actually necessary. It ios the advocate role. However, one does not need to be a technology whiz, they just have to be passionate about hat they are doing.


Anyone can apply to be an Apple distinguished educator that has an educational knowledge. This includes a teacher, a distict technology personnel, or anyone with some involvement in education. People with different types of strengths are brought to the table when in the Apple distinguished educators.Int he conferences many things are discussed. In the most recent conference brands were discussed.They were discussing whether or not to bring branding into the school system. For example school branding, class branding, or personal branding. The podcast was very informative and I enjoyed listening to it.

Podcasting and how to make it better

I watched a podcast from a past EDM 310 class and overall I thought that the students did a pretty good job delivering their information. However, there are a few things that can be improved with the pdcast and their delivery. When some of the students were talking, they were did not sound very personable. The listener could definately tell that they were reading from a piece of paper. If I were making a podcast I would review a few times over what I was going to say and make sure I knew the information quite well so that I would not pause very much and I could make the delivery more personable. This would help keep listeners listening I believe.Also to improve the podcast that I listened to, I would have some of the students delivering talk a little slower.One or two of the students talked a little too fast and as a listener I could not tell what they were saying some of the time.

Overall I believe the podcast that I listened to was veyr well delivered and just need a few minor changes.

Podcasts

link

In my EDM 310 class, I was just introduced to Podcasting. I listened to four different podcast and learned a lot about it. The podcasts that I listened to were
SmartBoard Lessons

KidCast

EdTechtalk

MacBreak Weekly

I learned a lot about podcasting while listening to these podcast.Podcasts can be very informative. In the SmartBoard Lessons podcast, Ben Hazzard and Joan Badger interview different people. In the specific episode that I watched of SmartBoard Lessons, they interviewed a professor named Arnold. He appeared and spoke at a Microsoft Teacher Conference and he is chairman at the Idea Factory. Arnold works with designing human systems and had just recently worked in Singapore. I enjoyed listening to the podcast. However, a disadvantage that a podcast can have is that the people in the podcast can talk a little too much and can easily get off subject which can lead to losing the listeners attention.


Another podcast that I watched was Kid \Cast. I enjoyed listening to this podcast. It was very informative!I listened to episode #50. In this podcast an interview was conducted. Michael Shiet was being interviewed on how to help students develop a sense of argument for their work. Michael claimed that students often think of arguments as scary or as two people screaming and hollering. However, an argument is a lively discussion between two or more people. He claimed that a billboard is an argument because a company is trying to sale you something and they are going to argue why their product is so good. Another type of argument is when you buy clothes. One has to decide whether or not they wasn't to buy the clothing. An argument, he says, governs our everyday life. This podcast was very interesting and made a lot of since to me.


The third podcast I listened to was Edtechtalk. This podcast discussed Google.com. The gadget on Google they discussed was GoogleDocs. They interviewed the product manager and engineer for Google. They gave a lot of information on how to use GoogleDocs. It was said that a lot of teachers these days only allow work to be submitted through GoogleDocs. In the podcast, they said that GoogleDocs has documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Also discussed in the podcast about GoogleDocs was templates. A lot of people did not know what a template is, so they discussed it on the podcast. A template can be personalized or not. But all in all it is a theme for a page.


The last podcast I listened to was MacBreak Weekly. In this podcast, all that they discuss is Macintosh technology. These include: Macintosh computer, the I pod, I Phone 3G5, and anything else made by Apple. Alex Lindsey is the podcaster and he interviews many people. He talks about new releases coming out by Macintosh.


In conclusion, I really learned a lot about podcasting and enjoyed listening to each of the podcast.

Next Generation Learning

The video was very informative. It talked about the many different types of technology being used in schools. By having different types of technology in schools, it allows and makes learning more fun and interesting for students. Not all schools are technologically enhanced, but more and more schools are getting there.


In the video, it talks about a little boy named Henry and how his school is technologically enhanced. For example, in his schools communication is very important. Henry's parents can keep in touch with the teacher about his grades and so forth. Henry can download his homework and upload to the computer to turn it in.


Also, Henry and his friends can play the Wii to help them with exercise. They get more fit and it makes them healthier. They also are allowed to have digital cameras in the classroom, to help their memory in a lesson. They can take pictures of things that they believe is important. By taking these pictures they can remember what they learned later on. I really enjoyed watching this video and it helped me understand that having technology in the classroom can help benefit not just the teachers but the students and parents as well.

Media Rich Posts

Michael Jackson


(CNN) -- The Los Angeles coroner has concluded preliminarily that singer Michael Jackson died of an overdose of propofol, a powerful sedative he was given to help him sleep, according to court documents released Monday.

Los Angeles' coroner Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran reached that preliminary conclusion after reviewing toxicology results carried out on Jackson's blood, according to a search warrant and affidavit unsealed in Houston, Texas.

The affidavit outlines probable cause for search warrants of the offices of doctors who are believed to have treated Jackson.

The Associated Press is quoting a single law enforcement official, who says the L.A. County Coroner has ruled Michael Jackson's death a homicide. The Los Angeles County Coroner's office told CNN they had "no comment" on the report. An LAPD spokesman says the story did not come from their department.

The 32-page warrant said Dr. Conrad Murray, Jackson's personal physician, told a detective that he had been treating Jackson for insomnia for six weeks. Murray said each night he gave Jackson 50 mg of propofol, also known as Diprivan, diluted with the anesthetic lidocaine via an intravenous drip.

Worried that Jackson may have been becoming addicted to the drug, the Houston cardiologist said he attempted to wean him from it, putting together combinations of other drugs that succeeded in helping Jackson sleep during the two nights prior to his death.

But on June 25, other drugs failed to do the job, as he recounted to detectives in an hour-by-hour account that was detailed by detective Orlando Martinez of the Los Angeles Police Department:

Vicki Davis

This video I enjoyed very much. It shows me just how much the classroom, students, teachers, and parents can benefit from technology. By having technology in the classroom it makes it easier for students, teachers, and parents to communicate.


Teachers can keep parents and students up to date with their grades and their work. For example, if a student misses a day of class because he or she is sick, the teacher can reach the student through the internet if she cannot reach them through telephone.

Mrs. Davis is a teacher that is trying every possible thing to enhance her students learning abilities. I think she is a wonderful teacher that is very dedicated to helping their students learn as much as they are capable of learning. Computers are becoming a big part of life today and are helping enhance learning abilities all over.

Sir Ken Robinson- Creativity

I found the video to be very informative. I enjoyed listening to Sir Ken Robinson. Not only was he informative, but he made it entertaining as well by telling jokes every now and then. In the video, Sir Ken Robinson talks about creativity in the schools and how we drain out the children's creativity through education. He says," Creativity is as important as literacy and should be treated the same."


He uses two different examples of children's creativity. One includes a little girl drawing a picture of God in class and the other example includes his son when he was four years old in a play. Sir Ken Robinson then says that children are not afraid to take a chance because they are not frightened of being wrong. He says,"If your not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original." I believe this is very true because there would be no creativity if someone in the world was not afraid of being wrong.


He believes that if we do not grow into creativity, we will be educated out of it. In the school system, Sir Ken Robinson says the curriculum is listed from important to least important. It is Mathematics, Language arts, Humanities, and then the Arts. However, he believes that this is wrong and that the Arts should be as important as any of these subjects. He says that after so long we begin to educate our children from the waste up, and then just in the brain.


In the video, Sir Ken Robinson made very valid points on creativity and how it is drained out of our children in the education system. I agree with everything he has based his argument on. When I get to work in the classroom, I will try my best to make sure I allow my students to use their creativity as much as possible. I really enjoyed watching and learning from this film, and would not mind watching more from Sir Ken Robinson.

2008 Latest Edition- Did you know??? 3.0

I thought the video was very informative on a lot of things that I was not aware of. The information was very unique and very interesting to me. I thought it was interesting to know that India has more honor kids than the United States has kids alone. I never knew this and it shows how much we need to work on our children's education. The fact that we are preparing our children for jobs that don't exist is still kind of confusing to me. I don't understand how we can prepare someone for something that does not exist. It just does not seem logical to me. Also preparing them to use technologies that have not bee invented yet is confusing to me for the same reason.


Another point that I saw in the presentation is that a person will have 10-14 jobs by the age of 38 (I think). As much as it is hard to believe, this is already becoming quite true in the United States. People change jobs all the time for different reasons, and if a person does not quit or change their job, he or she will probably be laid off sooner or later for economic reasons. Another fact that was said in the presentation is that 1 out of 8 couples met online. This just proves that the internet is becoming a huge social networking device. This may be because of the advertisements on television for sites on the computer such as eharmony.com or match.com.


The internet is growing more and more everyday. For example, there is 31 billion searches done on just Google alone every month. Could you imagine if we counted all of the searches done for each informational source?Not even considering that the search number for Google look-ups was 2.7 billion in 2006. Technology has become more and more advanced over the years as well. For example, the presentation says that the number of text messages sent and received a day is over the planets total population. That is outrageous!


All in all, I really enjoyed watching and learning from this presentation on you tube. It helped me learn a lot about how much technology is growing all over the world.

First Post

Hello!
My Name is Megan Bass and I am a junior at the University of South Alabama. I am majoring in Elementary Education and can not wait to start teaching! I am happily married and I have a beautiful new baby boy named Clay. He was born 10 days ago on August 7th. I love working with children and teaching them new things. Not only can the children learn from me, but I can learn from them as well. There is never a dull moment with children and I enjoy every minute of working with them. I can not wait to learn more about technology, so that it can help me benefit in my profession!