Sunday, September 26, 2010

Blog Asissnment #5

Langwitches
I never thought about using podcasts for younger children until reading “Langwitches”. The children used so many skills during the pod cast. We would not think they would use in this kind of project. Technology really is so helpful in all grades and is continuing to get better.
The Education Podcasting Network
I think this website will benefit all teachers who are a little older and did not learn how to use podcasts and or computers at all. If teachers will use this website to learn how to do podcast then teach their children they will give them a better start for the future. I think this website is great and will help those who do not know much about technology, if they are willing to put for the effort.
Judy Scharf Podcast Collection
Mrs. Scharf’s tips on how to do a podcast were very helpful. She gave step by step directions on how to succeed in your podcast and how to plan according to a certain time frame to get your podcast done. She was very helpful about how to research your topic. If you follow these steps she has laid out you should have no problem.
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Sunday, September 19, 2010

Blog Assignment 4

Don’t Teach Your Kids this Stuff. Please?
In “Don’t Teach Your Kids this Stuff. Please?”, Mr. McLeod makes some comical points. He is telling parents, teachers, board members and administrators not to teach children about anything having to do with computers or technology. As we all know though our world as we know it is coming to a very technological state. Everything we want to know is at our finger tips and children need to learn about it. But at the end of his blog he says please do not do any of this; “cause I'm doing all of it with my kids”. He is trying to say you all don’t do it, I am and I am going to kind of experiment and see how far my children go with this extra knowledge.
The iSchool Initiative
I think this is a wonderful ideal. If a school can just save on paper cost alone they would save a ton of money and that would mean not as many teachers let go. This would also be wonderful when we have book shortages in class rooms with the iSchool all children would get a book and would have a chance at learning. All of the cut backs would be great for any school system.
The only drawback to this idea is that some parents or guardian do not have access to a computer to look at upcoming events or to look at their child’s grades. And would the public school system by all of the students and iSchool or would the parents buy this device? But I think this is a great idea if it will help cut back cost and improve spending elsewhere in the school systems across the nation.
Lost Generation
WOW!! This was an amazing video, I loved it. I was shocked at the beginning of this video and at the end I was amazed at the creativity. We are the ones who can change the world; we need to make a difference. The technique used in the presentation was awesome I have never seen anything like it. This was my most favorite video so far!
Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir
I grew up going to church and listening to the choir sing. But I have never heard such beautiful voices in my life. Our church choir meets at least once or twice a week for several hours at a time to practice. And these people have never met. This was the most amazing thing to watch. It is scary that we don’t even have to meet a person in person to practice something. And it’s also amazing to think what a little mic and camera can do and can connect 185 people together from across the world to organize a choir. The internet absolutely amazes me every single day there is more to learn.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Additional Assignment #1

Google Squared is very educational because it gives you numerous more facts than what you typed in. It is like a flower, it petals out into additional information that has to do with what you searched for. It takes information from other websites and puts it in a spreadsheet. Wolfram alpha is educations because it computes number for you and facts about numbers of population or stock; just anything to do with numbers. Before this assignment I did not know about Google Squared or Wolfram Alpha. I am very happy I found out about these sites, I will definitely be used the sites for future searches. My thoughts and comments I made in my blog about Did You Know have not changed. I did not talk about statistics in my blog post. Statistics cannot be taken seriously until you compare ratios of the countries first. The stable boy story was very sweet! I work at a day care and I had my ipod touch out and a for year old came up to me and started playing games and moving stuff around it was very amazing! Kind of similar to the story we read.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Blog Assignment 3

A Vision of Study Today
This video is very factual. Every year we spend thousands of dollars on book that we do not even use in a class. What is that doing for us? I will be probably in debt about $30,000 when I graduate. I pay for my own college.
If you are a good persistent student you usually really do spend about 3.5 hour’s online everyday if not more. I too work about two to three hours a day. I full time college student can’t hardly work much more than that. I agree with the seven hours spent sleeping every day, if I get more than that I must not be doing enough homework. I loved this video it was all so true and we don’t thing about every other college student going through the same thing we are, it’s world wide.
It’s not about the Technology
Ms. Hines starts by telling us that technology is not the key to learning everything in schools. First teachers need to know there students to get anything across to them. If the teachers do not know the latest trends in learning then they might not get across to the students. She says we have to “work smarter not harder.” This means some students might learn differently so if we “work smarter” meaning getting them to learn according to their learning ability it will stick better.
The use of computers in schools is useless if the teacher does not know how to use it. Why have a smart bored if the whole time during class the teacher is learning how to used it while teaching, that is taking time away from the children learning. Ms. Hines says that if a teacher can come up with a creative new way to teach a certain subject then go for it! This will only help and prepare the student for what is yet to come.

Is it ok to be a technology illiterate teacher?
I agreed with everything Mr. Fisch had to say. If we do not use technology in today’s class room how are we going to connect with our children in our class room. Today’s world revolves around technology and computers.
We have to teach our children how to look other places to find answer and to explore outside or a text book. I wish I had these types of skill before I entered college. So as future teachers we are going to have to engage in technology and help our kids learn as much as they can about it. This will change our world as we know it.

Social Media Count
This media count is ridicules. We do not actually think about any of this on a daily basis. This means that personal networking is booming and people are staying connected in so many ways more than face to face. This would never have happened twenty years ago. Now we can learn so many new things as future teachers that we would not have learned about unless we went to a billion workshops. These new online tools will help us greatly.

Summary C4T #1


In Mrs. Ann Carnevale’s first blog I commented on she explains how to bookmark pdf files.  She also added a link to a page that showed us fourteen exercises to do on the first day of class; some get to know your class activities.  I replied to Mrs. Carnevale’s post by say thank you for the tip on how to bookmark a pdf file, this will save me a lot of headaches in the near future I will no longer be scrolling up and down a page for hours trying to find what I read ten minutes ago.  And the fourteen ways to get to know your class link was very cute and very good ideas about how to see what the kids and I have in common with the each other.  The second blog I commented on was about websites Mrs. Carnevale thought would help teachers in the class room pertaining to technology such as the smart board and voice thread.  She also posted a video of an introduction to the wonder wheel on Google.  I replied to her blog by saying these different tools used in the class room will help with all types of learning abilities.  I wish my teachers would have used interactive learning techniques when I was in school, I think I would have done a lot better.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Did you know
This video was amazing. I could actually see all of these facts actually happening. They seem unrealistic at first but they are so real. And apparently American kids are not as smart as Indian kids, which is really sad for us as future educators to think about. We need to make a bigger impact on these children lives so we can change these statistics.
Seeing how all the technology has changed over the past twenty years is insane. Who knew the first text was in 1992. I thought the first text was maybe in 2002. It is kind of crazy to think how different life might be ten years from now, and how technology shapes our lives.

Mr. Winkle Wakes
This move was very funny. If I woke up and everything was different I would have freaked out. Mr. Winkle was very brave to go and explore the city he was in. Even if someone was in a coma for a year or so and woke up they would probably feel as though Mr. Winkle did. In this day in age we come create new technologies every day and build new buildings daily. You cannot miss a single thing now or you will be lost in society, things change daily around here.
The video was right about schools not changing in the way we sit in class and listen to the teacher. But even though we still do school the same way we have added a bit of technology to it. We now bring computers to school with us and submit homework online sometimes. We also have smart boards along with countless other new technologies.

The importance of creativity
If your are scared you are going to do the wrong thing then you will mess up. If we just go with what we are feeling we will probably come up with something creative. I have never thought about schools killing creativity as Sir Kin Robinson said, but he is absolutely right.
If one kid is acting out or not being quiet he or she is sent to the office. Then these children think they shouldn’t do anything else, for fear of being sent to the office. This will prohibit them from coming out and showing their creativity. We need to encourage our kids in the class room to be themselves. This will create even more creative people in the world. I loved this video he was very funny and was completely honest with his thoughts and ideas.

Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts
This video was very informational. I wish I would have had a teacher like Mrs. Davis when I was in high school. She helped her kids prepare for college technology class and helped enhance their personal networks of learning.
I believe we should have classes like this in all high schools across the United States. The graduation rates would be up in all schools if the kids had more help and knowledge of how to look certain items up and looking at others blogs that have already done the stuff they are doing. We as future educators need to work this type of system into our class rooms to not only teach our children but to stay connected with them even when they don’t make it to school.