Monday, February 28, 2011

Timeline 9b

Blog Post 6

Social Network-learning- This was a great video and I actually learned some things from this video that I didn't know about. I like the way the video used drawings of cartoons to do the skit/video. It shows that you don't have to always have elaborate use of technology to get the point across. I know we read a blog a while back on how to use your ipod, but I guess I missed the part about actually going to ItunesU. That is really awesome that we have access to colleges and books all over the world that we can put on our ipod.
This video showed how children in the classroom are able to learn through the internet and social networks. Blogging and podcasts can allow the students to learn valuable information with other students around the world or share their information.  After learning so much about podcasts the past couple of weeks, they have become something I am really interested in. At the beginning of the semester I said that, I don't think technology should be so involved in the classrooms, what will happen to the teachers? Now, I am all for technology in the classroom, because it allows such useful information for students around the world. The teacher is going to be used to help the students know how to use the internet and the social networks appropriately. I know there have been plenty of times where I have questioned the information I was using that I found on the internet.
 Welcome to my PLE- 
This video was very informative for me, because to be honest I was a bit confused on what exactly a PLN was. The student did a great job of showing how exactly a PLE is organized and created. The girl showed how she had her classwork, blogs, and social networks organized on each line. I think this is great way to keep school work organized and to know what assignments you need to get taken care of everyday. I am really excited about making my PLN now. I think my PLN will help me keep organized with different assignments I need to do during the week, because I can just go right to it. I have several things every week that require me to be online to do assignments.
Smart Boards:
Both of the people who wrote the blog about smart boards, you can of course tell they are not fans of them. You would think after the arguments possibly my opinions towards smartboards would change but I completely disagree with these people. They both argued that it wasn't worth the money that the schools spend on it and they are basically like trophies for the administrators. I wish when I was a student we would have had smart boards, because I remember just getting excited about going to the chalk board, I couldn't imagine how excited I would be to play on a smart board. The smart board gives students the ability to be interactive in the classroom. There are so many activities and learning opportunities on smartboards.  I found a blog with someone talking about how smartboards and other uses of technology are helpful in the classroom. Edweek-positive smartboards This blog talked about how the smartboards and computers can be helpful in the classroom for students.

Friday, February 25, 2011

C4K Post

My first kid was from a blog sight called blog Building Blocks associated with Classroom March 2011 Edublog Blogging Challenge. I was assigned to a young girl named Nicole and for her assignment she had to list down eight random things about herself. The most interesting thing about her to me was that she has seen a shooting star with her best friend next to her. I have seen a shooting star, but never with someone next to me. I also thought it was interesting that the fact she has only been to the United States one time was one of them. I started to think about eight interesting things about myself after reading this, I always find it hard to come up with things like that.
My next student was Flora at Pt. England School in Auckland, New Zealand. She is in Room 13 and her teacher's name is Miss King. The room numbers are how they organize the website to get to the classrooms blog easily. In Flora's first blog assignment she talked about how she excited was to be getting her netbook. She talked about the day they got the netbooks and were able to open up themselves and charge them so they could get them to turn on. Flora also talked about how after they got their netbooks they had to go to morning tea, which I thought was interesting. In the United States most schools have "snack time" for young students in the schools. In New Zealand they obviously have Morning Tea. Just opens my eyes to how awesome it is that we are talking to young kids around the world.
My third student was Mr. Wolfe's class and they are the first group of children from Alabama we have been able to blog with. This blog was very creative, detailed, and had lots of pictures. I was impressed that a child made this blog, because all of their assignment were very detailed with great pictures. I commented on the post about her being excited about the Valentine's dance, because she had a partner. I remember being excited about going to dances when I was younger. Unfortunately I didn't get a response from any of the students, but I really enjoyed reading all of their posts.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

My Sentence Video

Blog post #5

Podcasting in the Classroom- I have never actually thought of how podcasting can be a useful tool in the classroom and outside of the classroom. That is a really good idea for teachers to have the lectures in class on video, because when a student is absent they can view the lecture. I remember missing a week of school and falling so far behind, but with podcasting children can keep up with the other students. It's also a good idea to have a podcast on blogs so other students and teachers can view them and comment on the podcasts. Podbean, sounds like an great site to make use of for teachers to have blog sites for their students to use to chat with each other outside of the classroom.
Podcast help The website Judy Scharff Podcast Collection was a very helpful website on how to do podcasts. The definition alone was very helpful for me, because I'm going to admit I just thought it was another name for video. There were several links to go to that will be helpful in making a podcast and how to download certain softwares to help you make a podcast. I am really looking forward to making a podcast after reading and watching these videos. It led me to a video called PODCAST 101 which was a bit lengthy but it was a great help. I'm going to use this website to go back and get the links to download the softwares to help me with my podcasts.
100 Ways to Use Your Ipod This website was really interesting, I didn't know you could download all these things onto your Ipod. I know that they have all these applications for Itouch and Iphones but I didn't know you could use them for Ipods. That's probably not what they are talking about and I just sounded like an idiot. I'm going to assume they are though and their are so many cool things. I like the one for learning Spanish and English, that's really awesome if you want to learn another language. I also like the application, where you can download the Bible and listen to it, somebody like my grandmother would love this. Thanks for showing all these websites, that are going to be very helpful in making podcasts.
Third Graders Podcasts- I went ahead and watched this one, because I was really interested to see what the third graders did on their podcasts. This was an amazing coming from third graders, I learned quiet a bit on the Romans just from this video that was very informative!!!

Friday, February 11, 2011

Blog Post 4

Don't teach your kids this.
This blog was very interesting and confusing. I had to read over it a couple of times and read over other students posts to get a full understanding. My thoughts at first were that, wow this guy really hates technology! I see now, that he is just opening our eyes to see that technology is in face dangerous, but we need to do something about it.
   I think parents should take more effort to protect what their children can view on the internet. Children that are giving a computer or cellphone have full access to things unimaginable. Dr. McLeod is an associate professor in the Educational Program at Iowa State University and the Director of the Center for thr Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education. He has been awareded many awards for his excellence in education in levels K-12.
The ischool.
I can't believe a student in high school made this video. It was very inspiring to make someone want to go to "ischool." I like it and I don't like it. I like it because it saves money in the school system and we definietly  need money in the school system. Maybe if this took place, we could have more funds to go towards more teachers and other activities in the schools. Ischool can help save the enviroment, save more trees. Just in Mobile alone, it's unreal much woodlands are gone and neighborhoods are taken over. I can't imagine how this looks for people who are much older.
   At first, I thought he meant just to cut out schools completely and use the ischool for school. I know technology is great, but I hope it doesn't one day completely take over the classroom. Children need to be in classrooms and be around other students, so they can have social skills. Very interesting video, thanks for sharing it with us!
Lost Generation
Wow, this video was awesome!! Our generation is going to be a lost generation if we don't do something about it. Even compared to my parents generation, she is always saying my generation just doesn't care about anything. Which is true, not very many people have morals or care about what's right anymore. I like how the script reversed and made it a positive outlook on the next generation. This was a really inspiring video that I think everyone in our generation should watch.
Choir
OH MY GOODNESS! This video is unbelievable, literally I couldn't believe what I was watching the entire time. This takes talent on both the instructor and the members of the choir to be able to perform something so beautiful. I can't believe technology has brought us to this. I'm going to show this video to everyone today, because I am in shock at how wonderful it is
Teaching in the classroom
This video confused me at first, because I wasn't sure if it was saying technology was good or bad. I got the understanding that this video was saying if internet access is going to take over our children's knowledge, then we need to teach them how to use it. If students are going to learn from the internet then they do need to know to use it correctly. If children aren't taught about plagirism and copyright, all of their work can be just someones work with no real learning.
We as teachers need to take advantage of the internet and learn how to use it ourselves, then teach our students. There is no running away from technology, it's here to stay so we need to take advantage of what we've been given.

Friday, February 4, 2011

C4C Posts

C4C#1- My first classmate blog assignment was Courtney Bengtson's blog. Courtney is from Daphne, Alabama and teaches at a local daycare. Where she seemed to really enjoy working and loves the kids! I found that we have something in common and that is spending Sundays with our family. I spend almost every Sunday with my family in the afternoon after church. I enjoyed getting to know Courtney through the post. I responded by saying, I was jealous she gets to live in Daphne. I love doing anything across the bay and I really hope to live in Daphne or Fairhope one day.
C4C#2- My second classmate blog assignment was Alexa Howie's  blog. Alexa Howie is originally from New York and has moved around quiet a bit. Her reasons for moving around so much is because her dad is in the Coast Guard. Alexa has always wanted to be a teacher, inspired by her mother. Her parents are her heroes, which I think is really awesome. Alexa also talked highly of her mother, it reminded me a lot of myself. My mom is also a teacher and I strive to be like my mother!

C4T and C4C Posts

C4T#1- For my C4T assignment I was assigned to the blog site,  Connected Principals. The first post I responded to was, Guts: An alloy much stronger than gold, posted by "cbirk". In this post, she discussed how we as teachers need to have guts in order to be good teachers. Teachers with guts aren't scared to get out there and do things to better their students. She also gave a list of teachers and principals who have done remarkable things that required guts. I thought it was interesting that two of these teachers created a survey for their students, where the students can evaluate them every week. This lets the students speak up and let the teachers listen to the problems they might be having in the classroom. It creates a relationship between the teacher and the student. I responded to the blog by stating that I really enjoyed her blog. I unfortunately did not get a response.  
C4T#2- For my second assignment, I chose another blog to respond to. The second blog was, Multicultural Education, posted by Dave Bircher. Dave talked about how we should have more multiculturalism in the classroom and in the schools. At his school, they have dedicated a day to Multicultural Day, where the students have a day completely about other countries. The Vancouver's drummer and dancers that performed at the 2010 Olympics perform at their school. I responded back and said that when I was in high school, we had an event called International Festival at school. It was kinda like the Mobile International Festival, but the students put it on at our school. I haven't received a response yet, but I noticed he responds to everyone so hopefully I will get one.

Blog Post #3

A Vision of Students Today: This video relates to my college experience perfectly. College is overwhelming when most of us are used to sitting in a class of thirty and then we walk into a class of a hundred. There wasn't anything on those notes they held up that doesn't relate to me. We are expected to spend so much money on books and it's so aggravating when the teacher never even requires us to open it up.
   I will also have to agree that if I have a laptop in class, I'm most likely going to be on facebook or another website not related to class. I'm not sure if this video is saying that technology is not necessarily a good thing, because anything to do with technology was saying we spend a lot of our time on it compared to school. I'm not sure if I can add anything else to this video, because it really covers anything I would have to complain or say about college.Thanks for this video, I really enjoyed it :).
It's not about technology: This blog post was about how we don't necessarily need technology in the classroom to better educate children, it's about the teacher. I think that Mrs. Hines is so right, because teachers need to be able to teach along with the technology they are given in the classroom. A successful day should be the product of a productive day of learning in the classroom!
"I equate teaching and learning to a basic physics principle. If an object does not move, no matter how much force has been applied, no work has been done." This statement is so true and it really stuck out more then anything in the post. Teachers always blame it on the student if they aren't learning, but never sit back and look at themselves.
Is it okay to be technology illiterate? This post makes me look at technology in a different way now. It's crazy how someone's thoughts on an issue can change your opinion on a subject. Everyone should be technologically literate in the 21st century, because technology is pretty much the basis of everything we do. In almost any job field, you must know how to use a computer.
I have never thought about how it's okay to say "we aren't good at math" but we can't say "we aren't good at reading." People would think we were crazy if we said we didn't know how to read. It shouldn't be okay to be bad at math or any other subject.

Social Media Count 
This site was UNREAL!  I can not believe how social media counts go on within just thirty seconds. People are literally just obsessed with technology and being updated on social networks. There is no such thing as privacy anymore if you have anything to do with social networks. It's like the world is constantly moving and changing right before your eyes on this website.
  This just goes to show that teachers need to continue learning for themselves, because the world around us is changing. Technology is taking over and I often wonder what it's going to be like by the time my children are in schools.
The other videos were really funny and very true. I liked all the newspaper comics about technology!!