My EDM 310 Blog Assignments Are Now Complete

My goodness I actually finished this blog with 2 hours to spare! Come on I know there are a couple of you still blogging tonight! :)
I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and I will see ya'll next semester!

EDM 310 with Dr. Strange

What have I learned in this class....gosh there are so many things.

• Blogs, Blogs, and more Blogs
• Itunes and what all it has to offer besides music
• Podcasts, what a great tool
• Some of the many features and tools of Google

There really is more, but that highlights the important ones. I had never used blogger before this class, but I really, really enjoyed getting to use it. In fact I plan to use blogger instead of trying to keep up with Myspace and Facebook and Shoutlife and just put a link in each of those to tell people to visit my blog and that way I only have to update one place.

I have used iTunes for music, audio books, and to download my church's video podcast, Bay Community, when I miss church, but I had no idea what all iTunes had to offer and what a great educational tool it is. I definitely plan on using this resource in my future class!

Google....my goodness I had no idea it had so many features. I had a Gmail account before this class, but I had no idea that it was capable of so much and how this could benefit and be used in a classroom setting. And it's all FREE!!!! :)

I really thought of myself as pretty computer savvy before entering this classroom, but I was proved wrong. I plan on using the skills taught in this class to better "school" myself on technology and apply it to my everyday life and classroom.

Classmates's Blog

I chose to read Ashley Cleveland's blog. We have another class together and sit next to each other and I thought it would be neat to see what her perspective on things were. I think it is neat to read her thoughts and takes on the same things that I listened to and read. It is amazing how two people can read or watch the same thing and both take something different from it. I believe this is an important aspect of this class blog. We are learning things and then learning that someone else learned something different and then after reading their post we get to learn that information as well.

I think this assignment was great! I actually talked with my parents and was telling them that they needed to watch some of the podcasts that were a requirement for this assignment, especially the Randy Pausch podcasts, everyone should watch that! It is so motivating!

This blog is also a great communication tool for us now and in the future. All of us are at the same school, working on similar degrees and taking most of the same courses. We can make contact with other classmates in the future for resources for things like...did you take so and so for this class and were they hard, etc.!! :) Also we can use it to bounce ideas off of each other and learn from each other.

I do not think that I had a full appreciation for this blog assignment until this week, which is when I have actually done the majority of my blog posts, due to time constraints and putting it on the back burner, and being a regular procrastinator. DR. STRANGE....please do you future procrastinator students a favor and DO NOT tell them that you don't check the blogs until the end of the semester!!!! This assignment is so important and we learn so much from it and it is really done an injustice when it is not done in a steady progression of assignments. I learned so much from this assignment and the whole time I was doing it I kept wishing I wasn't rushed and could explore more!

Electronic Contact Assignment

After many attempts to contact a teacher in another area with no success I had an electronic conversation with a friend of a friend in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Meleena Camp. She attends Hopkinsville Community College and is trying to get some of her general studies courses out of the way.

Meleena and I discussed how technology is used in her classes and she says she is taking an online history class that is completely online, but is taking an online English class that requires her to visit campus several times during the semester to take proctor tests. In the history class the assignments are usually ones that require her to read an article posted on a website and then write a report about it.

I asked her about blogs, itunes, podcasts, and websites and she said so far she has not had to use any of these technologies except blogs. The only exposure she has had with blogs in an educational setting is her online teacher has a blog where he posts a progression time line to keep students on track and helpful information about assignments and contact information.

I think it is a shame that Meleena has not had to use any more different types of technology in her courses, but maybe as she progresses in her college career this will change.

11/21/08 Duke University CDS

I listened to Looking Back: 9/11 Across America : An Acoustic Exhibit Presenting American Voices in the Aftermath of Attack. This can be accessed through Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies.

In this podcast many different Americans are interviewed and share their experiences on the events that happened to them on 09/11/2001. There are bits of people sharing their experience. You can hear in the voices the realness of what they experienced. In all of the different people talking you can hear the emotion in their voice. While listening to them it is hard not to think of your own experiences and how they affected you on that day and the days to follow.

This podcasts and similar podcasts would be a great tool in the classroom to show students viewpoints from other individuals and to show them that they are not alone in their thought process. It can also be away to facilitate group discussions on issues and/or promote creative writing assignments so that students can express their opinions and thoughts.

11/14/08 EDM 310 Podcasts

I listened to the following four podcasts:

• Useful Websites by Shyane, Erica, and Ashley
• Using You Tube for Educational Purposes by Joel and Noelle
• Blogging and Education by Silas, Andre, and Lashonda
• Technology in the USA COE by Sara and me

The first thing that I noticed in some of the podcasts is that the participants sounded really nervous and they are, I was, but you can not let this come across over the podcasts for the listener. I noticed that several of the individuals in the podcasts actually read their information. I would suggest that in the future if you are going to do a podcasts if you have to read your presentation just put bullet points and read the information before the podcasts and refer to your points so that you can have a conversation rather than reading.

I also noticed that in one blog in particular it seemed that the discussion was not equally distributed. In the podcasts two of the people read facts about the topic and then left it to the third person to talk and discuss the topic. This made the podcasts very uneven. The reading of the factual information while important did not need to be read and then followed by a talker that is just talking off the top of his head in the discussion with a lot of enthusiasm.

Also at the end of one of the podcasts the participants began talking while the facilitator was closing the podcasts which is not professional. It is important to act like a professional when on the air, especially when discussing topics that are dealing with your future profession, a teacher.

While I do not think that we had a perfect podcasts, I believe that Sara and I had a good podcasts because we did not print out a lot if information and memorize it; we had a discussion of points and how they were real and a part of our everyday life. All we had to reference was the order of topics that we were discussing.

11/7/08 Mathmatics with Technology

In these two podcasts Judy Chandler with the Maine Department of Education discussed the importance of technology in order to effectively teach math. Currently students in math classed either get it by repetition and memorization or they don't get it and fall behind and get frustrated because it just does not make sense to them.

In this podcast Judy discusses that fully integrating technology into math lessons makes the class student centered instead of just the teacher giving the information day after day. When the student is actively taking responsibility for learning the material and visually seeing what is happening in the math problem the student is learning more and better understanding why the concept works instead of just memorizing it for a test.

Most teachers do not want to integrate technology into the math lesson because they feel they do not have the time and the students are doing okay. If the teachers would just integrate the technology they would see that the students are doing better and would have to spend less time re-teaching concepts for students that don't get it and in the end actually save the time.

I have learned from this podcast that just because it may be inconvenient to me as a teacher to integrate technology into math or some other lesson it is not about me, it is about the students and the benefit of the integration of technology for the students far out ways the inconvenience of the teacher.

10/31/08 Stanford

In this podcast it discusses the growth learner and the fixed learner. The growth learner is one who believes that learning is a continual process and that it is okay not to know everything. The fixed learner is one who thinks that because they have learned a set amount on a subject, they know the subject.

The podcast discusses a study done where some students are given study skills in fixed learning process and another group taught growth learning. The growth learners performed better because they were motivated to learn. The fixed learners did not perform as well because even though they were given the skills to perform well they lacked motivation.

I believe that growth learning is important for a successful life in today's society. Our world is changing so fast and to be successful an individual must be able to be flexible and grown and continually learn to keep up with the latest technology.

I can use the growth learner concept in my classroom to teach kids that it is okay to not know everything, but develop the desire in my students to want to learn and to make learning fun. This can be done by making academic concepts real for my students and apply them to everyday life.

10/24/08 WGBH

I watched two videos from grades K-5 section. I watched Observing Clouds and Solar Eclipses.

Observing Clouds was a short video about observing the movement of the clouds and the shape of clouds. In the video it had video of clouds moving and pointed out one particular cloud mass disipating as it crossed the screen.

Solar Eclipses explained that a solar eclipses are when the moon's shadow is on the Earth because the moon is blocking the sun. The eclipse or shadow is only visible on a small portion of the Earth. It has diagrams and pictures showing how this process works.

I can use podcasts of this nature in my classroom to show to students as an extra reinforcer to lessons that I am covering. I can also use them as aides to give me ideas to use in my preparation of teaching a lesson for my class.

In my future classroom I can get my student to watch podcasts of this nature at home to re-emphasize the material covered in class or offer it as a suggestion to give my students another point of view or learning tool that may help them better. Students can alsouse this to show their parents what they learning about in class.

10/17/08 Edutopia

I really enjoyed watching these two clips: The Edible School Yard and A Night in the Global Village. It seems that these are both great examples of progressive education, where students take a sense of responsibility for their education.

In The Edible School Yard the students get hands on learning by actively doing all the stages of farming food to eat. The students planted the crops, grew the crops, harvested the crops and prepared them to eat. While doing this the students learned math, science, history, communication skills, problem solving skills, and healthy eating skills to name a few.

In A Night in the Global Village students spent the night on a five acre property that had replications of living conditions in Guatemala, Thailand, and a refugee camp. The students were divided into "families" to live in the living conditions that people from these countries live in and each group had a part of what they needed to survive the night. The students had to try to communicate with each other and bargain for the resources they needed. Again the skills these students learned were many by "living the lesson".

I believe that by these students actively, hands on participating in these two different lessons they learned and experienced things that they will never forget. When a teacher makes these lessons so real to these students the students can not help to learn. What a great way to prepare kids for everyday life in the adult world.

I believe that even though I may not be able to do a lesson of this magnitude in the school system that I plan to be in, I can still implement creative ways to teaching lessons keeping in mind that students learn best by doing or hands on. I can incorporate hands on aspects of lessons to re-emphasize concepts the students need to learn.

I can also as a teacher show podcasts of this nature to my class and let them see how other students learn and give them options to do a similar project in my class, with of course the permission of the district and administration. Even if I am not able to do a project of this level, I can show my students that there are other methods out there than just the teach em', test em' method used in the schools in this area.

10/10/08 Listening to Podcasts

After listening to the six assigned podcasts I learned that podcasts should be relaxed and informative. It should also keep the listeners attention. Some of the podcasts sounded like a individual giving a lecture and others sounded like a radio talk show.

Regardless of the way the podcasts is presented it should do several things:

• be clear
• only one person talking at a time, when you try to talk over each other it sounds confusing
• do research before doing podcasts so you know what to talk about
• keep the listener interested
• refrain from saying um and having long pauses in speaking
• organize your thoughts

I learned from listening to these podcasts that when doing a podcasts the talkers should be relaxed. You can definitely hear if the talker is nervous or unprepared; at the same time you can hear in the talker when the talker is well prepared and knowledgeable of the topic.

Podcasts can and do take the classroom learning environment to a whole new level. I had no idea what all was available on iTunes. The only thing I really paid any attention to was music, audio books, and my church's podcasts when I missed church. I definitely need to be schooled in iTunes!!!!

10/03/08 Randy Pausch

Oh my goodness, what a phenomenal video! When I saw that the lecture was an hour long and I am on a blog a thon to complete my blog in time I thought oh I'll just skim through the lecture, but that was not an option. I was captivated by his lecture.

Randy teaches throughout his lecture not to give up on your dreams. When you are working on your dream and hit a brick wall it is there to help you decide or motivate you to determine how bad you want something. It is during these brick wall moments when you should self reflect and make sure you are moving on the right path.

I especially liked a quote he used, "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted." This is so true and I hope that everyone can appreciate that sometimes in life it is not where you got to, but the things you learned on the journey to that point.

I also liked the idea of his project based classes with no set curriculum and high expectations. If this was not the case in the building virtual world class the students would have only achieved to the potential that he set for them. By having no set limits his students soared beyond his wildest imagination.

09/26/08 Using iPods in Instruction

http://cit.duke.edu/pdf/reports/ipod_initiative_04_05.pdf

I read the above link which reports on Dukes integration of iPods for instruction. In this report it states that in 2004 Duke University passed out to 1600 incoming freshmen an iPod with recording capabilities for academic purposes. During the Fall semester 15 courses and in Spring semester 33 courses incorporated the use of the iPods with their class.

The academic uses for the iPod were:

• course content distribution
• classroom recording
• field recording
• study support
• file storage and transfer

The iPod offered convenience and flexibility for both students and faculty.

09/22/08 Dr. Christie

I chose to write about Dr. Christie's The Changing Face of Literacy.
http://www.alicechristie.org/ppt/literacy/index.htm

In this post she discusses the changing definitions of literacy. The old literacy definition is print-based, static, and teacher centered. The new definition is multimedia, dynamic, open ended and student centered. In the new economy society focuses on knowledge base verses in the past being a product based economy.

In her post she says that we must help our students by showing them how to effectively sort through the information that is available to them to help to prevent information overload. WE can do this by training them to determine if a website or source is credible or not. I can use this to make sure that my students understand and reinforce training on credible sites verses junk on the Internet.

09/19/08 Wikipedia

After reading these articles at this point in time I do not think that you can trust any information on Wikipedia. I mean who wants to re-check every bit of information you look up just to see if it has been changed when you can just use another source of information.

The only way that Wikipedia may be a trusted site in the future is if they use this information to change their policies and stop people and/or corporations from changing information on the site. I honestly do not know if this would instill trust for this site now or not though. After reading these articles it made me wonder, what other sights may have the same problem as Wikipedia and we just do not know about it yet?

09/15/08 180 Days?

For this post I read 180 Days? http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2007/04/180-days.html

In this the author discusses that teachers always complain that they do not have enough time to get all instruction done in 180 days, but the PowerPoint in the blog shows that there are actually 60 days wasted and only 120 at best of actual days for instruction.
The power point show days that are "wasted" such as:

• the first day and last day of school
• days before a major holiday
• testing days
• special event days, such as career day, assemblies, etc.
• weather days

I believe that the point in this blog is to show and get teachers thinking that although we can not avoid the days beyond our control, we can use better time and class management skills in the days that we actually have for instruction.

09/12/08 Teachers Technologically Illiterate????

Is teachers being technologically illiterate today the same as not being able to read 30 years ago the same? I think so. I completely agree with this blog; the students that we are teaching now and in the future will be technologically advanced. This phenomenon is not slowing down, it is growing exponentially. I agree that we can't wait for tech illiterate teachers to decide to catch up. This will have to be something that these teachers are forced to do or lose their certifications.
Yes, I also agree that teachers have way too much on their plate, but if teachers are not capable of providing students with what they need in life to be successful then they are not doing their job. Basically it is time for tech illiterate teachers and administrators to change their stinkin' thinkin'!

09/08/08 International Blogs

The first international blog that I visited is http://p2grace.spaces.live.com/

This class is in Singapore and is a primary 2 grade class which I guess is like our second grade. This appears to be a fun class blog where the students pictures from holidays are posted and pictures from the class doing fun things such as an ice cream party are posted. It also posts the class role for the new year and has farewell posts from previous students. When the teacher was not in class a couple of times the teacher made a post telling the students why she was not in class implying that either the students or parents check this blog often.

The second international blog that I visited is http://dvmunca.blogspot.com/

This blog is one of an EFL instructor in Moldova and the blog belongs to her summer class. Her summer class consisted of students that were chosen from around the Soviet Republics to come to the class and improve their English and their knowledge US culture. The blog show pictures from the class as well as lesson plans that the teacher used in her class. There are also links to websites with fun games that the teacher used in the class.

09/05/08 US Teacher Blog Post

The first class blog that I visited is http://class621.blogspot.com/

This class blog is Mr. Banerjee's blog for his social studies class at William's Parkway Senior Public School. On this blog you have access to video from class field trips, school newsletters, upcoming assignment dates and instructions. Also on the blog is the list of monthly student awards and the student responsibilities for the day/student helpers for the day. This blog also provides link to games that will help the students increase knowledge on topics they are covering in class.

The second class blog that I visited is http://fgcs-peregrine-falcons.blogspot.com/

This blog belongs to the falcons team for the fourth grade at Forrest Grove Community School in Forrest Grove, Oregon. This blog contains weekly activities the class has done and displays pictures of the students engaged in activities throughout the year. It also give a list of upcoming events and the weekly schedule.

09/01/08 FischBowl Post

My reaction to this movie....goodness I don't know. While watching it I had so many thoughts go through my head. The longer I watched it the more anxious I felt. I mean here we are going to school working on a degree that is ever changing. Which reemphasises the need to continually educate yourself even after graduation. How can a teacher expect to get a four year degree and that education be enough to teach for the next 25+ years? Teachers have to continually go to workshops and training to try to stay on the cutting edge of what is out there so that they will be equipped well enough to teach future children.
I was also amazed to see how the world is changing "exponentially". It never stops amazing me and it re-affirms my belief that I am living in one of the greatest generations that has yet to exist in this world. I wish that more people would realize this and stop taking for granted all that we have been blessed with.

Blog Post 08/29/08 ACCESS Program

The ACCESS Lab or Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators and Students Statewide is an education initiative of the Alabama Department of Education. This program provides opportunities and options for Alabama public high school students to engage in Advanced Placement, elective, and other courses that the students may not have access to in their current school location. The program was designed because many rural and low-income schools have limited course offerings for students and some school can not offer AP courses and can not offer courses such as physics, calculus, and trigonometry.
This program offers leverage of existing resources and distance learning through web-based course offerings and video conferencing. It also provides high quality classroom courses and teachers via technology. This is done by students interacting with student and teachers from other schools.
I believe that this would be a useful tool for future teachers to allow students access to many resources outside of their local school. It will also allow students to receive technology training which is always important in this fast moving world of technology.

Access Lab Visit

For my ACCESS Lab visit I set up a group visit with Mr. Joe Roh at Daphne High School. The ACCESS Lab at Daphne HS was in its second full year, although at the moment it is not used for too much. Mr. Roh explained to us that while the concept and idea of the ACCESS lab is great, there are many challenges the state faces and the individual schools participating face to make it work successfully. Some of these challenges are:

• Different schools all run on different bell schedules, it would take alot of effort on every one's part to come up with a streamline bell schedule just to make it work


• Schools in different areas of the state celebrate different holiday schedules


• The class offerings are not up to par yet, such as Chinese and Latin; the students have too much that is required to take "pleasure" classes


• Hiring a facilitator just to run the lab (budget cutbacks)


• When the state put out the bid requests they allowed two different vendors to provide systems for the lab to run on and surprise, surprise these two vendor's systems will not communicate with each other; so if one class has one system and the other class has the other system they can not work online together (gotta love the state process of doing things:)

While there were many challenges to running a successful lab in the future, Mr. Roh did show us a Promethium Board that just rocked! He said that the board would be something that we would be more likely to deal with in our classrooms and it just blew me away. It is like an electronic flip chart that you can save all your data and revisit it at any time. You can also download lesson plans in Promethium format from the Internet to use in your class. I can see where this board will be a must have in classroom in the very near future.