My EDM 310 Blog Assignments are Now Complete

I really enjoyed this class and i learned a lot from it so to all my classmates thanks for the experiences in blogging with you!! Good luck to everyone in becoming teachers!

What I Learned in EDM 310

This semester i learned alot from Dr. Strange in Microcomputing. I learned about an entire blogging world on the internet that i didn't even know existed and got to participate in this. I learned how to use a computer more efficiently with things such as spreadsheets, word, presentations, and things of that nature. These things will greatly help me in the future. I made a website and maintained that which was fun and i will need as a teacher. Alot of things i learned in EDM 310 were small things but things i will use in the future. For example, I learned how to link websites to my blog and other places and learned how to make pictures viewable to the blind. I also learned alot about technology and what is going on these days in advancements. One of my favorite things that i was introduced to this semester was Itunes. I now love Itunes because i can download music, listen to podcasts, there are free radio stations on there, and recently i have started renting movies on Itunes so thank you Dr. Strange for introducing me to Itunes. I learned alot from this class and i am glad i took it because technology is the future and this class helped me to keep up a little bit. The only thing this class did not teach that i would have like to have learned would be things internally in the computer, because i am always messing my computer up and having to take it to someone and it would be nice to know little things that i can do to try and fix it, but that is very time consuming and would be a lot to ask so i am happy with what i learned this semester.

Electronic Contact Assignment

Member Profile - noelle : Teacher Lingo

This project didn't go as i thought it would. I started it towards the beginning of the semester. First i went to Teachers.net to try to find a contact. I e-mailed random people i saw on there and i put stuff on the board to get people to respond, but i never heard back from anyone. Then i went to Teacher Lingo to try to find a contact. I made a whole profile telling why i was in the site and sent out emails and put stuff on the boards and i only had one reply the whole time and it was from a local girl who was a future student in the same situation as me so i couldn't use that as my contact. Above is a link to Teacher Lingo where you can get on and look at my profile page to see some of my efforts. My name to look me up on Teacher Lingo is just Noelle. So after that, i gave up on the teacher sites and went to Facebook. I found a guy named Martin from Germany and talked to him, but he would not talk about technology or education and it was hard to talk to him because German is his first language. So, i failed at my attempts for an electronic converstion, but i did put alot of effort into this assignment and i hope this won't affect my grade.

ACCESS lab visit

My trip to the ACCESS lab was very interesting. I went to Davidson High School to do my research. I was a bit nervous there because when i walked in the door the assistant Principal had a wand out looking for a weapon that he thought the student had, but the student didn't have anything on him. So after that i went to the ACCESS lab which is run by Mrs. Wright. I went in while they had a class going on in there so Mrs. Wright told me what they did in the ACCESS lab and i sat with the class, which was all optional to each student kind of like an advanced course. Mrs. Wright thought that this was a great program that they started and would be beneficial to each high school in the future. I didn't get any time on the computer, but i watched some students in their class, but there was one problem. Someone had turned the heater on in the classroom the night before and it was 90 degrees in there, which is why i have that awful face in my picture, because it was too hot to stand. So i observed the class for a few minutes after i was told what they do and then i left because it was too hot to stay in there. The lab was operational, but not completely. Mrs. Wright just went and got her certification and so they are just starting and i don't think they are doing everything yet, but they are on their way and doing some stuff in the class.

Experiences in Blogging

I decided to view Lisa Frye's EDM 310 blog for this post. She was one of the people in class that kept up with her blog throughout the semester like i did so i thought her blog would be interesting and not rushed. Lisa's blog was a lot like mine. Most of our assignments were all the same besides a few where we got to look up our own schools to write about. Overall all of our blogs look the same, just a little difference in views as what we saw from our assignment.

Lisa's views and ability to write well made her blog very readible. You could tell she knew what she wasn't writing about and had completed each assignment thoroughly. I read her views on podcasting and she took a different approach to that assignment than i did. I talked about individual groups and what they could do different and she found the biggest plus or minus and focused on that. She was saying how Dr. Strange was involved in one of the podcasts and how it enhanced it and she wished he had particpated in all of them. I agree completely. I wished he would have gotten involved in my groups' podcast and gave us his thoughts because i think it would have enhanced ours greatly.

Things that could have been improved on our blogs were the assignments. I think he could have gave us more options on choosing what we wanted to write about. Lisa's blog looks alot like mine and i am sure all of them do too. If someone looked at our class blogs they would only want to read one of them because no one wants to read about the same thing over and over. I would never by choose read twenty of the same thing just worded different so i think if they were all different blog readers would be more prone to stop by our blogs and read more of them.

I loved doing the blog even though i didn't like some of the assignments. I had never blogged before and it was alot of fun. I like to write even though i am not great at it. The blog made the class fun and i liked tha it was something i could do at my own pace instead of in class. I never knew there were so many blogs and people writing until EDM 310. Also alot of the assignments i did like. I enjoyed reading about the Edutopia and Randy Pausch last lecture. I learned alot about technology and education through blogging. Overall i think the blog was a lot of fun and i learned a lot.

Duke University: Center for Documentary Studies

I watched a podcast on itunes from the Center for Documentary studies done by Duke University about South Africa and they showed alot that we don't hear about Africa. South Africa is not a glamorous place like movies make it out to be. People see this country as a country on a downward spiral or in turmoil as it is referred.HIV and AIDS is the biggest problem in South Africa and the reason it is in a downward spiral. Many families are being broken up because of all the deaths from AIDS. The disease is affecting the country in that everyone is ill and this is not good for the economy and also affecting the people in the country negatively. Their are more social problems coming from the disease like violence, robbery, and the most common, death.

In South Africa their are programs being made up to help the morral of the people and children in the country to get their spirits up and to let them know everything is going to be alright. An example of one of these programs is role playing where students come together and perform skits as a group and it brings everyone together and helps the kids get their minds off things and feel like their are people there for them.

The students in South Africa put a lot of time into these programs. Duke University is helping to get the word out that Africa is in the middle of some hardships, but the students are going to prevail through this and be a successful new generation. The young generation in South Africa are working very hard to overcome their obsticles so they can live the future that everyone deserves, especially these kids because they have been through so much.

EDM 310 Podcasts

In DR. Strange's EDM 310 class we, as a class, made podcasts in groups of three or four. The podcasts were good overall, but all of them had room for improvement. The first podcast i listened to was "Itunes for High School Teachers" by Lisa Frye, Lisha Portis, and Joshua Andry. Overrall the group did a good job on the podcast. The group had a lot to talk about and seemed to have alot of knowledge about the subject, which means they did alot of research to prepare for their podcast. A few of the problems i saw were nervousness, but i think everyone was nervous and some take over on the podcast. I think Joshua Andry kept trying to take over the podcast. If one of the group members would have run out things to say i could see Joshua stepping in and helping out, but it seemed like he would interrupt the girls while they were talking and take over. I noticed this a few times and you can only hear one person at a time on a podcast so this wasn't good.

The second podcast i listened to was "Technology used in Classrooms in the College of Education" by Tina Dillen and Sara Large. They also did good overall. They talked about Foliotek, which was good, becuse this is the most important piece of technology we use as an education major. They did bad mouth the professors a little bit, which probably isn't good for their careers if they need a good word, but it was the truth. They talked alot about stuff we use everyday in our education classes and i learned a few things from this podcast. One problem i saw was they were using their problems in their classes and talking about the professors and discussing their problems with professors and name dropping to benefit themselves instead of sticking to the point. They did a good job overrall though and that was the only thing i saw that got them off subject i think and could be perceived as a problem.

The third podcast i listened to was "Blogs and Blogging" by Silas Smith, Andrea Williams, and Lashonda Pruitt. There podcast was also good and they looked like they did some research before the podcast. They know a lot about blogging especially because EDM 310 is based off blogging so it was a good topic for them because they have experience using blogs. The only problem i saw was there was a lot of joking to get around the nervousness and they went off the subject a little i thought talking about people having separate myspace pages to hide stuff but overrall it was good.

My fourth podcast i listened to was my podcast with Kimberly Kelley and Joel Graham about Youtube as a tool for education. We did ok overall but there was some problems. I was really nervous and kept stumbling over words and forgetting what i was going to say. This was a big problem for me i noticed when i listened to the podcast. It was very evident that i was very nervous. We had alot of information and examples but half way through our podcast we started to forget what what we wanted to say and left alot out because we were so nervous we forgot which in turn made our podcast shorter than alot of other podcasts in our class. We had alot alot of useful information and did a good job even though we were nervous and it ended a little short.

Mathematics with Technology

Judy Chandler, with the Maine Department of Education did a podcast on mathematics with technology. She found that most teachers say they don't have time to use the technology that is provided in their classrooms. The teachers think that they have to get through just the chapters in the book and the technology is too much trouble. This is not the case at all. Technology was made for a reason and it actually is a more useful tool than the textbooks we have been using for years. Technology uses and incorporates many new things with mathematics and it gets them more intrigued in their studies and also helps them learn about technology at the same time which will be useful for them in the future. Technology provides tools to engage the students in learning and incorporates useful things for the future that a textbook can't do. It extends students thinking when they can use things from daily life and throw technology in it to learn mathematics than to just do examples out of a book which no student wants to do. It better prepares the students for more useful learning in the future and can benefit a students' learning and go beyond with the technology. The technology models things to connect ideas and expands ideas. It also uses hands on experiences which can make a student better understand the material better. Technology is the future and if they have found a way to integrate it into the classroom where it can better prepare a student for the future than the teachers should think about their students and use this if it is offered.

Technology is the future. There is no question about this, it is a fact and it needs to be learned and used as much as possible. Technology has found a way to be integrated into education and is proving everyday that it is better than textbook learning. Textbooks are boring and it makes students feel like they will never use the stuff out of the textbooks. Technology is a way that we can learn things in mathematics,which we can incorporate, and use one day in our careers. It also teaches us about technology which everyone is going to have to know to do anything in the future.

Mathematics is the subject the majority of the world is bad at and hates probably because they are bad at it. When i was a student i was horrible at math, hated it, and most of the time went to sleep in the class because i was tired of starring at examples out of an old textbook. This is true for most all students and finally their is a solution. Mathematics in technology is a great thing. It incorporates technology, math, and things you will one day use all in one. I am going to be a kindergarten teacher when i graduate and just the other day i saw a wonderful example of technology in math class. I have been volunteering at Corpus Christi school in a first grade class for a few weeks and i just learned about this thing called a smart board. With this you can load things from the internet and use it in math class. The students love it because it is interesting to them and they are learning other things too. For example, during their math class they had pictures of all kinds of animals and they had to tell what the animal was, write it down, and then the screen started adding and subtracting the animals making it into a math problem. So just from this one picture they incorporated identifying animals, spelling them out,and adding and subtracting. Basically they combined three lessons in one with the technolgy in their math class. I thought this was great,but what made it so great was that the students loved participating because it was almost like a movie. They looked forward to it and learning thier math. Anything that can be this useful to ones' education and get them excited about learning at the same time should be used as much as possible by teachers.

The Stanford Challenge

In 2007, Carol Dweck, a professor of Psychology at Stanford University and also the author of a book called "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success", did a podcast on a study she did comparing growth mindset and fixed mindset. It was an eight session workshop where some got study skills for the fixed mindset and the rest got study skills and the growth mindset lesson for the growth mindset. The students who got the growth mindset learned to use their brain as a muscle, to open their minds, and made connections in which they learned alot. This groups' grades improved and teachers could point out who went to the growth mindset lessons. The ones who got just the study skills didn't learn as much and mainly learned to memorize.

Another example of the growth mindset was a race car driver tried the growth mindset lessons and it helped him out on the track during races. He said that the races lasted for hours and every mistake on the track can cost a race or a life. The growth mindset lessons helped him to not make mistakes and when he did make a mistake it also taught him to deal with the mistakes and handle them the best way possible. This made a big difference in his driver because the main difference between a winning driver and a losing driver is their mistakes and how they deal with them. The growth mindset helped with this and improved his driving.

Well i wish that i could participate in the Stanford challenge because i would love some growth mindset lessons because i think they would be extremely useful to me. I probably won't get this opportunity but it seems like such a good thing to learn. I think it would open my mind instead of just learning how to memorize i might actually learn more of the material given to me. As far as being a teacher this would greatly help my teaching. If students could learn growth mindset it would open up alot of possibilities in the classroom as a teacher. We could do so much more and learn so much more as a class. I am not a big fan of memorization and i always had a problem connecting things and this seems like the answer to all that. If we could get students to think outside the box and use their minds as a muscle, always growing and strengthening, this would be a great accomplishment in the field of education.

K-5 Video Podcast

When i searched through itunes on WGBH i found an interestinf video in the K-5 category on the coral reef called A Night in the Coral Reef. The video showed a coral reef and alot of the different fish that inhabit the coral reef. The video was like a virtual, underwater tour through the coral reef. The video compared the coral reef like a little city for fish. The video talked about the feeding habits and hunting of fish and talked about different kinds of fish that life in the reef like the Atlantic Spade fish and the Angel fish. The video was a guide explaining what a coral reef was and how it was part of an ecosystem to a younger audience who might not know.

These podcasts are very informative to and very interesting. I found the coral reef video in the K-5 section in itunes so this means it would be shown to students who are between the ages of 6 and 11. Students this young probably don't know much about coral reefs at this point yet but after watching this podcast video they would know what a coral reef is, what it looks like, who uses it or feeds off of it, who inhabits it, and what it is like in a coral reef.The video was very informative for me and i am 21 years old; think about how much a 6 year could learn from videos like this.

Videos are a good way to teach i think because everyone likes tv and movies and this incorporates this love into school. Also the video was entertaining, which no student will ever learn while they are bored. I am a very visual person so this video would be alot easier for me to understand and interpret information than to read from a text book.These videos are a new, exciting way of learning in which students will look forward to watching the videos and learning whatever is on the video.

Edutopia

The edible schoolyard was a really good idea. The program i viewed was at Martin Luther King Junior Middle School as part of their integrated studies. The program came about with a teacher growing her own garden behind the school with the help of students to improve the lunch at the school. The way the class works is the students in the class get to plant their own garden or together grow a garden of their own. They have to do research about what they are growing, maintain their vegetables, fruit, or flowers and make sure they grow. When i was in high school we had a program like this called Agriscience, but it wasn't as extensive as this program. No one ate the food or did much with it, we just helped maintain it every so often in my class.

The edible garden is a very good way to teach because some people are better at books and some people are better with their hands so it gives each student a chance to excel at school. It is an interactive way to learn about science, agriculture, and life. The students learn about ecology, photosynthesis, the water cycle, and many other things that explain the life of plants. Also, this class teaches the students responsibility, how to take pride in their work, and may give some students who don't excel in the classroom a way to excel and feel good about themselves. The edible garden is a wonderful idea for teachers because it gets everyone involved in some way whether its books or hands on. If someone is good at books they can research how to care for the plant. If someone is good with their hands and more manual labor than they can actually plant the plants or do the digging and they actual maintenance.

A night in the Global Village at Heifer Ranch was a pretty scary concept to me. This was a social and emotional kind of learning. They took the students out to a secluded camp and split them up by tribes and each tribe got a different necessity like one got wood, one got food, one got water, and one got nothing and they had to trade and live like people really do in impoverished areas in the world. The ranch also donates livestock to the impoverished.

The night in the globe village over at the Heifer Ranch was a really great way to learn about how the poor really lives. People don't believe how bad the conditions are in third world countries and this shows the students with first hand experience. The students learn about poverty and makes the students survive on their own. As a teacher this would be a good way to teach because it makes the students work together, gets them interested, and is a new style of learning where when students get involved they learn more. This would be an exciting thing as a teacher to get your students involved in and a good learning tool.

Podcasts

Podcasts are a thing of the future. Podcasts are like radio stations that anyone can talk on and listen to. No longer do you have to have your own radio station to be heard. Podcasts are spreading like wild fire. If you can use a computer you have access to all these podcasts ranging from news, to education, to sports. Some podcasts are random stuff people do once and some are weekly things that get very popular on itunes. The only thing i worry about is in education teachers and students have access to the same stuff. If a student listens to the same podcasts teachers do about teaching, lesson plans, and etc. then won't the student and teacher be on the same educational level? This is not in a classroom for a student to think they are as amart as the teacher. There is no authority in the classroom if this happens.

I listened to some educational podcasts, one that felt like the news to me, and one about what is going on in photography this week. The educational podcasts range from teaching on the podcasts to talking about teachers and lesson plans. I listened to one called kid casts and it was talking about a program where they take teachers to a place for a week. The teachers went to this workshop to learn new advances in science and they studied some new things in science. At the end of the week the teachers made podcasts to tell about everything. This workshop were supposed to be learning how to open science up to students. This brought the podcast into talking about questions. The Kidcast talked students being scared to ask questions and how if they would just ask everything would go smoother in the learning atmosphere. I thought this podcast was pretty interesting, but i wanted to hear more about the teachers' trip and not about how to ask a question.

Some of the other educational podcasts i listened to made me think about talk radio. I am not a big fan of talk radio, but i listened. One of the podcasts was about parents getting involved in their kids life and getting involved with their schooling. One was about teachers and things they are trying to do with the students and lesson plans. One podcast was actually teaching on it. This podcast was about algebra and it was a complete guide about how to do certain algebra problems. .It even had a screen on it showing you how they solved the problems. At first i thought this podcast was students to learn, but it wasn't. The podcast was to show teachers how to teach students how to do the problems. This was pretty cool for teachers. Other podcasts i watched were one on photography, which talked about photography and the new photoshop stuff. After that i watched macbreak weekly, which they just argued about technology and computers the whole time. It was like talk radio for technology buffs.

The podcasts i watched made it seem like teachers are always striving to come up with new ways to teach, new lessons, new workshops. I am going to be a teacher and i didn't think it was going to be a night and weekend job. From the way podcasts are making teaching look, it seems like very difficult job. I think maybe all this technology might be helping teachers, but maybe it is making teaching harder also. If students can look at the same things teachers can then the students can always be ahead of the teacher. Maybe all this technology like podcasts are undermining teachers and putting students on the same educational level. Teaching cannot be as effective if the student thinks they are smarter than their educator.

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

I watched Randy Pausch's last lecture and it definitely was worth the hour spent. I feel like i actually learned alot just from his lecture. His lecture really touched my heart. At the beginning of the lecture we found out he had brain tumors and he was terminal and throughout the lecture i felt like i got to know him. By the end of the lecture i felt the overwhelming urge to cry. His lecture really inspired me greatly. It made me wish i had a mentor like Randy Pausch to help motivate and guide me into the person i want to become. His way of speaking and the way he motivates through his life and life experiences really made me think anything is possible.

The things he said made so much sense, but i had never thought of it before. What he was saying about bringing something to the table to make yourself valuable. That is completely true in all cases. The lecture made me start thinking of what i can bring to the table? What can make me a valuable person or part of society? Everything he said was genius. His quote, "experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted," really made me think. Experiences make up your life and you learn so much from them even if you didn't get exactly what you wanted. Maybe you end up with something even more in the end. Randy Pausch is all about living your life with values and morals. He believes in karma and that if you live your life this way everything will work out. One of his head fakes was how to lead your life while trying to obtain your dreams. Everything he says makes you want to achieve gold and to go about it the right way. Most people these days will do anything to get ahead in life, but he teaches his students to achieve their dreams the right way and it will be more gratifying in the end.

I love his theory about the brick wall. I know when i hit a brick wall my first thought is to give up. That is everyones' first thought. Take the easy way out. Randy Pausch says no! He says that a brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want things and show our dedication. Pausch gives such good advice. He says that everyone needs help and you can't do it alone. That is so right. One way to fail is to be too proud to ask for help. He thinks that critics are good for you. When you are doing something wrong and people stop criticizing you to make you do better then they have given up on you. I never thought of it that way, but i would rather have a critic telling me what i am doing wrong so i can do better than not to have one because they have given up. Some more of Pausch's expert ways of going about life is to tell the truth, be earnest, apologize when you screw up, and focus on others, not yourself. This advice could lead you for an entire lifetime; a lifetime of no regret and achievement.

Basically Randy Pausch is saying to do the fundamentals, work hard, be honest, and bring something to the table to show your true potential. His students are some of the geniuses of the world now because of Pausch, his teachings, and his classes. He teaches his students in a way to open the imagination and take them to their true potential. While he is achieving this with his students he is teaching them lessons in how to go about living your life. Teaching students to have values and do the right thing. He teaches them to not give up because it is only a brick wall you have to break through. He has changed so many lives with his teachings and i just wish i could have known him and learned from him, but i feel like i have learned alot just from listening to his lecture. He has left such a legacy behind that maybe others' teaching and learning habits have changed from his example because if people went by his teachings and advice i believe everyone's life would be much better in careers and in life.

ipods in instruction

USATODAY.com - iPods now double as study aids

The first websites i looked up were reports that Duke University has been doing on ipods. Duke University was one of the first colleges to experiment with incorporating ipods into their classes and studies. After reading up on the experiment i thought that the use of ipods to help with classes sounded very beneficial. After enrolling into the classes at Duke ipods are distributed to everyone and if they pass the course they get to keep the ipod as an incentive. With the ipods they can listen to lectures. This is especially good for those who have to miss a class so they won't get behind and students can now study just walking down the street at any time. I know i learn better by listening to something than i would reading something. This would be very beneficial to me because i could soak up the information easier and more quickly. Duke also used ipods in doing group projects where they turned in an mp3 instead of a paper. This worked very well with group and individual work. This use of ipods also made the students think about technology and all the different things that they could use them for in their projects and studying. Overall the program worked very well and got the students more excited about the class and the work they were doing. The initiative to be able to keep the ipods if they passed the course also helped I'm sure.

I have also found some more sites that showed ipods being used in K-12 classrooms and not just in college classrooms. Some schools i have found are using ipods as their books because ipods can hold everything their books can and ipods are not so heavy. Also students can use their ipods instead of going to the library because everything from the library can be stored in an ipod. Schools can now use ipods for almost everything in a classroom from reading, projects, discussions, and much more. Students still attend class, but the ipod is a very good tool for studying and using for projects. It also incorporates technology into learning, which is very good for students to start learning because technology is the future.I found a school that is using ipods with younger students even as young as elementary school. Jamestown Elementary School uses ipods with research papers that they do for grades in their classroom. They do all the regular research, their papers, and everything like they normally would and then they present it to the world including other students, their parents, and anyone else who wants to watch the presentation in a podcast via the ipod. This makes the kids more excited about doing their assignment because they get to use an ipod, which most younger people love and they get to share their work and be proud of what they did. I really think the idea of using ipods in a classroom is a great idea and wonderful way to take learning into the next century with technology.

YouTube - News Report - iPods for Education

My Presentation

Dr. Christie's Constructivist Learning Resource

Dr. Christie has very interesting views and thoughts about learning and teaching. I looked through her site and was really inspired by her last lecture that she held. She talked about how her family inspired her to do all of the work she has done over the years. How because she stresses being proactive and self-reliant in turn made her a better teacher. She was taught to learn from life experiences and all the people that cross her path. She also talks alot about integrity, putting her energy into what she wanted to do, and just having fun. She uses all this in her teaching which is a very effective method i think.

I was very interested in Dr. Christie's learning theory constructivist. The theory makes students more partners in learning than teacher/student learning. The teacher and student work together to learn and collaborate ideas. This makes students want to be more involved and try harder. It makes them involved in the process of learning and makes thinks more creative opening doors for the imagination. Dr. Christie also stresses using technology to help with teaching, but not too overuse technology where it is teaching. Dr. Christie's ideas are very good and i am sure she was a great teacher. I think that if students think they are involved and that a teacher needs their help to do a process than it would make students strive more to learn and help, especially because it is making learning more social than book work. Students who use their creativity and hands on methods in learning usually learn and retain more information. Her views would definitely help me in a classroom in the future. She has the theory to make students feel useful, let them use their creativity, and teach them to be self-reliant. Putting all these thinks in a classroom with a little technology to help out and their is no way it couldn't be a useful method to use.

Wikipedia Can't Be Trusted!!

I read all the articles about Wikipedia from the NPR and Wired and i was really shocked. I knew that when i was in high school all my teachers always said not to use Wikipedia, but i never knew why. I always just stayed away from the site because my teachers always made it sound like the devil or something. Now i know why they didn't want me to use Wikipedia for sources. I mean anyone could just go on the site and put whatever they wanted.I thought it was kind of funny that all the companies are changing all the negative things written about them. I kind of wish there was something written about me on Wikipedia so i could go in and edit it. The only difference between me and these major corporations is that i would go use someone else's computer so it wouldn't get traced back to me. You would think that if a corporation was going to change public documents that they would at least be smart enough to go to a computer that would not get traced back to them. I am glad that Virgil Griffith made that scanner to catch all these companies trying to false advertise to the public. I know now not to trust anything that Wikipedia says. I think if i get bored one day i might just go on there and change all kinds of things. Its definetely a thought, anyways.

April 2007-Blogging 1984-with Parents

I was very interested in the blog about the project the girls did on 1984. I thought that if Mr. Fisch did a blog about someone else's work being good that it was worth checking out. When i began reading Fisch's thoughts on the girls' blog i had no clue anything about the commercial or the book 1984. I really looked through this blog thoroughly and all the links to find out what they were talking about. I watched the commercial and the spoof with Hillary, which i thought was disrespectful, especially seeing Obama's name at the end on the credits. Anyways after i got done searching through Fisch's blog i then searched Maura and Anne's blogs and then googled the book 1984 to find out what the book was about. After all this research i finally had a full understanding of the project like the students and the parents in the class did.

This was a very interesting way of getting everyone involved in the book 1984. It definitely got the students thinking and probably inspired them to read the book with their parents instead of looking up spark notes before the due date. I learned alot about history and 1984 just by this blog and finding out what 1984 was about. I am very against a government being in complete power, which was what the book 1984 was about. The commercial looked very controversial and to make a spoof of Hillary Clinton being the dictator and trying to rule the country was ridiculous i thought. This kind of thing really gets people thinking and the whole idea of the book 1984 blew my mind and was almost kind of scary and to say that if Hillary was elected it would be like the book is preposterous to me. No one can take over that much in the U.S. The idea of that is a bit extreme to me. I am glad i read this blog though, because i did not know about any of this. After reading it and doing some research on the book i feel a little more up to date in history and politics, being that i never had to read this in high school. From what i read this was a very controversial subject and book. I wish i had been made to read 1984 in high school and do a project like the blog Anne and Maura did. I think i would have really benefited from projects such as these.

Is It Ok To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?

I agree with everything that Karl Fisch said in his blog. No wonder he won an award for the most influential blog in 2007. We live in a world of technology and who do we expect to teach us? We expect teachers to teach, of course. What would happen if a teacher whose job it is to teach didn't know what they were doing? In this scenario a student would end up by-passing a student. Mr. Fisch is right in it being embarrassing to be technology illiterate. Imagine being a teacher and your students knowing more than you, the authority in the classroom would go right out the window. Students have to learn technology and it be applied in their learning for the future.

Technology and computers are how everything is starting to work and by the time the students of the class of 2020 graduate everything will be based off technology. If teachers aren't familiar and teaching technology how are students expected to learn it and use it for the future? Teachers who don't know and are unwilling to learn the essentials of technology should be fired. There is no doubt about it in my mind. If you don't fulfill the requirements of the job then you are gone. Not knowing how to us a computer is really like not knowing how to read a few years ago like Fisch said. Being illiterate at anything no matter what it is should be embarrassing. Especially an educator having to say they don't know how to do something, especially something that almost every student knows. Teachers should keep up with the times and teachings before their students by-pass them on learning and they are left behind.

International School blogging

E3
The name of the blog i found was E3. It is a classroom blog of sixth graders in Tauranga, New Zealand. In their class blog they did many things. First they had an art day where all the children painted and they showed all of the students' art in a slide show on the blog. They had a math game, kind of like a puzzle on their, which probably encourages the students to want to do their math work. Their was a blogger's prayer on the page, which i thought was interesting. Everyone knows how dangerous communicating on the internet can be and this is just a prayer to help and probably make people realize they must be careful. The blog had a step by step experiment about electromagnet done by a student name Pete and even a speech semifinalist video where everyone could voice their opinions about things she could work on. They have a very gross looking blue tongue lizard in their classroom they put pictures up of, and showed the bake sale where they raised $273.80. This was a very interesting blog, which showed me alot about their classroom and what they do on a daily basis.


Manaia Kindergarten
The next blog i found was Manaia's Kindergarten blog in New Zealand. This blog is almost like show ans tell i thought. The students are so young though, this was probably the best way to set up this blog. The blog shows a picture of a lamb, which followed a student to school one day so all the kids got to play with it. Next a student in the class went on a vacation to Fiji and he brought back pictures and told about his vacation. They showed where they had a pizza making day, which got the parents involved in the class. The class also had a face painting day and a slide show showed their faces and even a slide show showing the frosty day they had at school. The monkey named Ekko that is pictured above is another blog the class made. This monkey is a stuffed animal, which takes turns going home with all the students and it is kind of like a field trip. This is a very good idea to make kids excited about school and opportunities.

K-12 Classroom Blogs

After browsing through school blogs for a while on the wonderful world of the internet i found Mr. C's Class blog. I felt like this was a very extensive blog. This is the fifth grade class blog at Noel's Elementary School in Noel, MO. The blog has everything they do in the classroom on it. It has a photo album of the class and some videos of the class. It showed alot of the experiments they were doing and even had a contest on it for various things in the class. The blog had links to other websites, like the school's website and the library. What i thought was the most interesting in the blog was the students blogs. Each student had to write a blog much like we have to in EDM 310. The posts that the students added to their blog were very interesting. One was about an earthquake in San Francisco, one was about a journey to the center of the earth, and there was another about if they could make a law, what would it be. Also their was a post at the bottom about a girl named Kelsey. She was changing schools and she did a character sketch and they put that on the blog and said they would miss her. If i was Kelsey i would be pretty excited about that, especially because she is having to change schools. I think a blog is very interesting and beneficial to students, especially at a young age.

http://mrcsclassblog.blogspot.com/

This blog i found is Mrs. Elliott's Fourth Grade Beach Party. This blog is a little different this Mr.C'S blog. Mrs. Elliott doesn't have the students add to the blog, but it is more for the students and their enjoyment. Her blog has pictures of all their field trips or adventures as she calls them. She has lots of games and fun stuff on her blog. She has different stuff she wants them to learn and read on the blog. It looks like it probably gets the parents involved in the students learning also. The blog showed the students experiment they performed called 'Need for Speed." It showed pictures of it being performed, where the idea came from, and all the steps to perform the experiment. This blog is probably really fun for the students to get on and do stuff.There is a puzzle maker students can play with and also a reading club on their. This is also good for parents because they can do this with their children and also seem what their kids are doing while they are at school. This blog looks like alot of fun and i wish this was around when i was younger.

http://teachers.emints.org/FY06/elliottl/

The World is Changing!

I watched the video "Did you Know" by Fischbowl and was very shocked by the statistics they showed. I always thought that the U.S. was the best country and we were so much better than every other country. I always thought that the U.S. was the smartest nation and we dominated over all other countries. This video i thought made the U.S. look somewhat ignorant. Our college rate was lower and most people that live in the U.S. are not fluent in another language. I think that is because we think we are so superior to other countries and think everyone should speak English. i also did not know how strong Great Britain was or how educated India and China are.Knowing that just blows my mind.

I didn't realize that people skipped around from different jobs and careers as much as they do. Once i get my degree in Elementary Education I plan on finding a good school and staying employed at that school until i retire. I like the comfort of having one job and staying their and not having to start over at multiple schools. I can't understand why people change jobs so much.

Technology has grown so much over such a short period of time. The statistics that i read from the video i thought were outrageous. Technology is really taking over the world. Before too long we will use technology for everything. I am a big fan of technology and take full advantage of it, but i really fill like maybe people would not know what to do without their cell phones, tv, and computers. The one thing that scares me is what if something major happens and it shuts down all of our electronics and things powered by satellites? I think the world would go into a state of chaos. The world is a changing place and technology has really taken over and affected everything and changed how we do things.

Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators and Students Statewide program (ACCESS)

ACCESS is a step in the right direction for Alabama schools. Alabama is a very poor state when it comes to education. The answer to this problem is ACCESS. ACCESS will offer advanced diploma courses, additional courses that alot of schools do not offer, advanced placement and dual enrollment courses, remediation courses, and help upgrade existing courses.
ACCESS will help teachers evolve education into the new technology era through the classroom. There will be technology provided to the teacher for a new way of teaching, which will open up new possibilities for the classroom. This program will provide schools with more teachers and introduce something called distance learning. Distance learning is where instructors and students can be in two different places at two different times and communicate through technology like the internet and multimedia.
ACCESS sounds like a very good idea, and the answer to alot of existing problems in Alabama public high schools. This program was designed to add technology to the classroom and open many doors to learning. By adding this program students who are in low income schools will get the same education and opportunities as a top private school. Now all of these schools will have classes they never thought they had the funding to offer, students will be better prepared for college, many can do dual enrollment and already have college credits when they graduate. ACCESS seems like it is a step in the right direction for Alabama public schools. I will probably never use ACCESS because i am going to be a kindergarten teacher, but nonetheless, my students who i teach will grow up and one day get to use ACCESS, which will better prepare them for their future.

Alabama Learning Exchange(ALEX)

When i started this semester i did not know what ALEX or ACCESS was or anything about the programs that teachers use. After browsing through the site and all the links provided i now know what it is and how to use it. ALEX, Alabama Learning Exchange, is a fully equipped guide to show teachers how to teach and show new and old teachers new tricks to teaching and helps teachers get ideas for lesson plans. The ALEX site has many different things linked to it. It has a link where you can choose the course of study, put in your grade to be taught, and then browse through many different lesson plan ideas, and then it gives complete directions as to how to go about teaching the lesson plan. This looked very useful to me. I went through this and found many lesson plans, which i might use one day when i start teaching kindergarten. There is also a web link page, which you can click on and pick different teacher links, which will take you to many links that looked very useful. I went into this web links page and clicked on counseling and guidance and read about how to understand death and grief. I thought this was good for a teacher to read just in case a student or a family member of a student dies during the school year. Death is a very touchy subject and it is good to know how to go about talking about it. There is a link where you search for many things, a teacher workplace, and professional learning. Some of these sites were not up yet and some needed passwords to look in them and i do not have an account so i was not able to browse around these too much. I also looked around ACCESS a little bit, which looks more geared toward high schools more so than elementary schools, which i would be teaching in. Basically ALEX is a site where teachers can go to find lesson plans, find ideas for the classroom, look up how to handle certain situations which may occur, and find information for almost anything they could need to answer their questions as teachers or questions parents and students may ask.
ALEX looks very useful i thought from looking through it. I think when i become a kindergarten teacher i will probably use ALEX alot. I will probably get most of my lesson plans from the sites. They had some very good ideas. The site also showed me what i will need to achieve in teaching them each year. I actually learned alot of what i will be teaching just from looking at the site. This site also looks like it will be a great help in learning how to deal with situations, which might be very delicate. I also went into a site which showed activities kids would enjoy that are still teaching them. I saw some links that showed how it was very important to get parents involved with the kids and their school work and it had ideas and lesson plans for that. That looked like a very good idea. I think ALEX is the answer to all teachers prayers. I feel like i have learned alot about teaching just from going through the site.

I have been thinking about what to do for my week 5 presentation

Hello again, its Noelle just checking in before the deadline. I have spent the weekend pondering on what to do this presentation on, trying to come up with a storyboard. The presentation has to be on some aspect of my life. My family is very small and i like to keep that aspect of my life private. I do not have a job as of right now because i have overwhelmed myself with too many classes. My life is pretty boring so i don't think i have any adventures to take note of being that i have only been alive for 20 years. I thought about it and i don't really have any hobbies and i am not a track star, or have anything i have a passion for to write about right now. Then i started thinking what do i do in my spare time? I am a very social person and i spend my free time surrounded by my friends. I have a group of friends that i am very close to and that i see everyday. Then i started thinking what do we do when we are together? We go to the beach on a regular basis, we like to travel, but not too far, and we go to alot of shows and concerts. We love concerts and music. Concerts are the reason i have no money, but it is definitely worth it to me. So as of right now i am going to do my presentation on my adventures on going to concerts and shows. I am not sure if this is going to stick with me so this may change in the next couple of days, but these are my thoughts so far.

........I thought about this for along time some more and then i decided what would be even more fun would be to do my presentation on my 12 best friends. These are the people who i am always around and make all the concerts and adventures fun. These people are like my family and i want to talk about them!

Noelle's Introduction

Hello classmates, my name is Jessica Noelle Shipman. I answer to Noelle, which is my middle name. I am an Elementary Education major and hope to become a kindergarten teacher.I am an only child and i come from a very small family, which is spread out all over the country. I am from Deatsville,AL, which is a very small town also referred to as Slapout.The entire town is based around Lake Jordan, which was really fun to live on.I love the water, going out on the boat, and water sports. I came to South Alabama originally to become an Occupational Therapist because they have a very good master's program for O.T. majors. I figured out that the medical field was not for me and took an interests test, which lead me to Education and here i am.

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