Blog Assignment # 5

1. Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please?, by Scott Mcleod is full of sarcasm and I loved it! In the post he talks about all of the negative things that go along with using technology. For example, he says "don't you know how much junk is out there? haven't you ever heard of sexting? of cyberbullying?" and "you know they're just going to look at porn and hook up with predators, we can't trust them." 
I actually had to read it a couple of times to fully understand what was going on, but after reaching the last sentence he says "don't do any of it, please, really, 'cause I'm doing all of it with my kids, can't wait to see who has a leg up in a decade or two can you?", which I think is his main point. Teaching our children to use technology is extremely important and it will definitely give them a "leg up" in the future! 
Dr. Mcleod is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Kentucky. He is also the founding director of CASTLE, which is the nation's only academic center devoted to technology needs of school administrators and he was aslo the co-creator of, in my opinion, the most interesting video on YouTube, "Did You Know".


2 . The iSchool Initiative, by Travis Allen. In this video a seventeen year old, Georgia student, argues that he has found a way to cut down the costs for our students, parents, and schools, and becoming "Green" in the process. 
Allen explains how iPod Touches by Apple could replace meny thing that we use today in the classroom, including paper, pencils, pens, graphing calculators, textbooks, etc. He shows many educational apps that can be used to help in this process. For example, there are apps to learn about the presidents and space, apps to read textbooks and books, apps to take notes, for homework help, email, and many, many more.
I completely agree with his argument and I think that it is an amazing idea! There are so many different types of technology out in the world today and a lot of it can and should be used to help out in the student's education process!


3. Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir is an absolutely amazing video! After watching it I was in shock that it was even possible! He used 185 voices, 243 tracks, and all of the participants were from twelve different countries. Wow, this is an amazing use of technology!

Project # 9a: Personal Timeline

Blog Assignment # 4

1.       The Eagle Nest Radio & Class Blog  

     After listening to the Eagles' Nest Radio Episode #3: Roamin' with the Ancient Romans, I learned so much about Ancient Rome. They were so organized with their information. The enthusiasm and excitement in all of their voices made me want to listen to more of their episodes. Using the students to record the podcast, I'm sure makes learning about the different topics so much more interesting than just reading a book. The music that accompanied their voices made it to where there were no dull moments throughout the entire podcast. I will definitely keep that in mind while doing my podcast!

2.      The Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom by Joe Dale

     This shows how podcasting and vodcasting in the classroom can further enhance the students' learning experience. There are many benefits that come along with podcasting in the classroom. For example, a podcast could be used as a review for an upcoming test, especially if a student were to miss class before the test they would have the opportunity to listen to the podcast which would help them to better understand the information that they had missed. I really liked how the social studies teacher in the video used his podcast by incorporating other teachers and students to be the characters which made the lessons much more interesting.

     Podcasting in the classroom is such a great idea and I will definitely incorporate this into my future classes. I think that if my past teachers used podcasts it would have made learning so much more engaging and fun!

3.     Langwitches

     

     In 1st Graders Create Their Own Read-Along Audiobook, it shows how a podcast can be accompanied by a audiobook, this allows for the student to read as well as listen to the information given or in this case the book that they were reading. I found this to be very informative and helpful. When I was in elementary and middle school, comprehension was a big problem for me, but when we had the audio to go along with the readings I always did so much better on the activities or quizes that followed. When doing my group podcast, I will definitely keep this in mind and try and incorporate it into our project.

Project # 6

Blog Assignment # 3

"It's Not About the Technology"

          In Kelly Hine's post entitled "It's Not About the Technology", she gives her opinion on how teachers should use the technology that is becoming more and more available to them and that the teachers who are given the opportunity to have something like a Smartboard, for example, they should learn how to properly use it in a way that will help the students learn. 

          I completely agree with her 100 percent! The teachers who went through the schooling process and didn't have the opportunities to learn how to use the technology that we have today have indeed learned how to use other tools that were available to them at the time and they have become exceptionally good at what they do. So as the teachers of the future, we should become just as good, but with the technology and tools that we have accessible to us. Learning how to use these thing will in the end benefit our students and help them to better understand what exactly we are teaching them.

 Karl Fisch: Is It Okay to Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?

          In Karl Fisch's award winning post, he asks "Is It Okay to Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?", well I for one completely agree with him that no it is definitely not okay. As teachers we must be willing to learn these new technologies that are becoming available to us. If we are willing to learn how to use them, then it shows our students that they should also be willing to learn it to. He uses a great example of when he was a math teacher and he would have parent-teacher conferences with the parents of the students who were struggling, most of the time a parent would say "Well I was never any good at math either.", but the parents would say it in a way that they seemed almost proud of that statement. It's okay to not understand computers, but we all must be willing to learn how to use them and one day we will understand them!

 Gary Hayes Social Media Count

         Watching the numbers grow on Gary Hayes Social Media Count is amazing to me! Nowadays everyone and there mother has a Facebook and a Twitter account, but I remember when none of this social media stuff even existed. I wasn't even allowed to have a Facebook until about a year ago. Everyone has a cellphone these days, even my ten year old brother. I didn't have one until I was about 15 and that was only because my parents were divorced so I was going back and forth between their houses and having a cell phone made it easier for us to talk to each other.

          This social media count shows us that technology is growing at a very fast rate and as up-and-coming teachers we need to know and understand how to use everything that is available to us that can better help us teach our students. This is so exciting to me! Ever since my father gave me my first computer I have tried to learn as much as possible about how to use it. I am so fortunate to be in EDM310 and be able to actually learn how to properly make a blog, use twitter in an affective way, use Google Docs (which, by the way, is amazing), and there is so much more to come! 

A Vision of Students Today

         This video, A Vision of Students Today, shows that students today use technology in a way that is not very helpful. Facebooking in class doesn't help us to learn. If teachers would integrate the use of technology in their classrooms, I believe that it would make the students want to do the work assigned to them. 

          Technology can either hurt or help us! I plan on finding better ways to use all of these new technologies to help me teach. When I graduate and have a classroom of my own, I would really love to incorporate using computers and other technology that can work in my favor and create a better learning environment for my students.

Project # 5

Blog Assignment # 2

Did You Know?

After watching the video, Did You Know 3.0, by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod I was in awe! It is crazy to see how much our world has progressed over the past 20 years or so. The fact that I found most interesting was that we are preparing students for jobs that don't even exist yet, this just shows how much Another interesting fact is that in the year 2049 they predict that there will be a $1000 computer that will exceed the computational capabilities of the entire human species, which is just completely mind-boggling to me!
I really enjoyed this video and I have learned a great deal from it. Eventually technology will be used for everything. This video has shown me that becoming technologically literate is becoming more and more important every day!

Mr. Winkle Wakes

When Mr. Winkle wakes up after 100 years he learns that just about everything has changed. From the tall buildings, offices with all sort of new technology, and the hospitals with machines that can keep people alive. He began to feel overwhelmed by all of the new innovations that had taken place throughout those past 100 years. That was until he walked into one of the schools... To Mr. Winkle the schools had barely changed at all! The children still took handwritten notes while listening to the teachers lecture. There was no interaction from the outside world except for a computer that was in the back of the room.

Mathew Needleman's video, Mr. Winkle Wakes, shows us that our world has changed in so many amazing ways over the past 100 years, but that schools have yet to become advanced in such a way that the children use technology, such as computers and the Internet ,in more of an everyday routine to help them learn.

Sir Ken Robinson: The Importance of Creativity

In this video, The Importance of Creativity, Mr. Ken Robinson talks about how children have an extraordinary capacity for innovation and how we, as adults, don't try and develop these abilities. Some of the educators today have a way of teaching that shows the children that being wrong is never a good thing, in my opinion we learn by making mistakes. We have to allow our children to be themselves and not what we want them to be, we have to allow them to be creative so that they can learn how to come up with thing on their own. Mr. Robinson says "If you're not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original!"

 Cecelia Gault (Young Student in Finland) Interviews Sir Ken Robinson

In my opinion Cecilia Gault's Interview with Sir Ken Robinson was a very interesting video. I completely agree with Sir Robinson in everything that he said in this video. For one, changing the curriculum to better include the use of the new technologies that we have readily available today. The older teachers of today learned in a different way that we do now. They didn't have access to all of the technologies we have today, but now the teachers of today should know how to use these technologies and better integrate the use of them in their classrooms.

A way for me to make sure that the "Cecelia Gaults" in my classroom receive as good of an education as the Cecilia Gault in the video would be to better integrate the arts and technologies that I have learned during my education. To me art was always my favorite class and I always enjoyed doing art projects because it doesn't matter what you do or how you do it, everyone has their own way of creating art. So far this EDM310 class has taught me some very interesting ways to use computers that I have never once thought of doing. I would like to teach my future students some of the things that I have learned in this class.

 Vicki Davis: Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts
This video, Harness Your Sudents' Digital Smarts is very eye opening! It is amazing what can be done with computers in the classroom. In my future classroom I would like to try and integrate as many of the things that Ms. Vicki Davis utilizes in her classroom. For her being in such a small town, she has really been able to show her students so many amazing skills.
 Her students are even communicating and blogging with children all over the world. To me this is incredible! Learning about other cultures is, in my mind, very important.
In today's society, knowing how to use all of this technology is extremely important and the things that Ms. Vicki Davis is teaching can open many doors for her students.