February 28 Homework

This is How We Dream Parts 1 & 2




After watching the movies This is How We Dream Part 1 and 2, I think that children and young adults are already producing multimedia. It may not be necessarily what we want them to produce, but it will be easier to transition them to producing multimedia for academic purposes than trying to get my generation to transition. My generation is the in-between generation. When I was young, we did not have the same technological opportunities that the next generation has had. People of my generation are, for the most part, unwilling or have no desire to learn about all the technology available to us. I think as the next generation grows up, goes to college, and enters the job force, this will not be a conversation we will be having. Instead, it will be about a new technology that their children will have grown up with that they do not have now. To answer your question about whether or not I am ready to write with multimedia, at this point I would have to say I am not comfortable with it, but I am willing to try. I have stepped so far out of my comfort zone so far in this class, what's one more step.


The Networked Student



I liked how this video was done. Very simple but very effective. To teach a networked student, you must be a networked teacher. You can not expect the student to learn what you can not teach them. In the video, the speaker says that the teacher is the one who teaches him to take advantage of learning opportunities. For that to happen, the teacher has to take advantage of teaching opportunities. I hope to be that teacher. To answer the question "Am I Ready" to teach a networked student, I don't know if you can ever be ready. It will always be a work in progress.


Michael Wesch



I really enjoyed watching this video. I loved the history of whatever. I thought it was funny how even the Defense Department found the need to brief the soldiers returning home on its meaning. I liked what he had to say about YouTube. I have personally never put any video of myself on YouTube. For me, I think it is fear of seeing myself as others see me. I have a picture in my mind of how I appear to others and I don't want that image changed. I think it is also an issue of self confidence. I have seen some of those ugly comments, and I do not want those comments made to or about me for me to have to see. Some people are fine with posting videos online. My 9 year old daughter is one of them. I think it does give some people self satisfaction and makes them feel famous because people could potentially see them online. I am not saying I will never post a video of myself on the internet, because 6 months ago I would have said I would never write a blog. Stay tuned. We will see.


Comments4Kids

For my Comments4Kids assignment this week, I post on Ethan's blog post. He made some great arguments for every student to have a laptop, even mentioning how much paper that could save.

Comments for Teachers

The blog I have been reading and commenting on over the past few weeks is Adventures in Pencil Integration. The blog is written by John Spencer as Tom Johnson. The premise of the website is that Tom Johnson works for a small school district in the year 1897. He is writing about his journey to move into the twentieth century with pencil and paper integration initiatives. I found the blog as I was searching for sites to add to my PLN. The blog is a very entertaining read. It has made me take a look at some of my fears of using or trying new technology in a different light.

Here are the comments I made on Mr. Johnson's blog post:

I found your blog as I was searching for sites to add to my PLN as part of an assignment for my EDM310 class at the University of South Alabama. I shared this site with my professor , Dr. Strange and he gave me this site to follow as an assignment for the next few weeks. Please feel free to check out my personal blog and my EDM310 class blog.
Your blog post was very interesting. I like the word mentor instead of friend. As a future teacher, I hope to be a mentor to many students, but am not necessarily interested in being their friend. I like the idea of including the parents in the process of mentoring. I think the parents should be there anyway.

It is so interesting you wrote about PLNs in this post. We are working on those as an ongoing project in my EDM310 class at the University of South Alabama. I had no idea what a PLN was, where to go to begin to build one and how it could be useful to me. The more I research, learn and build my PLN, the more I am beginning to see how useful it can be. I see now that this will not be a project that will ever be 'finished', but instead will evolve throughout my teaching career.

I shared this post with Dr. John Strange, my EDM310 professor at the University of South Alabama. He only eats macintosh apples.

February 21 Homework

Dr. Alice Christie's website is a great resource. She is obviously very knowledgeable and excited about technology in the classroom. I have already bookmarked her page Search Engines and Subject Directories for Kids not only to help me find kid friendly search engines for my students, but for my own children at home as well. The research sites she list will be great and helpful resources. I love the virtual field trip idea. Field trips are very expensive these days. My daughter's 3rd grade class is going to the New Orleans Zoo and it is costing $35 per person. The cost can prohibit so many people from going on a field trip. Time and distance is also a factor. With the virtual field trip, you can go anywhere and never leave the classroom. I also enjoyed looking at her photography. What she did with the daisy picture in Photoshop CS2 as far as color goes was beautiful. I loved how she was able to manipulate the contrast to create new, colorful pictures.

I think iTunesU is a great way to continue learning once you leave the college classroom. You will have access to knowledgeable teachers and you can listen or view only what you need at the moment and in your own time. As teachers, we will have to be constantly learning and adapting to new technology as it becomes available. I think itunesU could become a very useful tool to us as teachers.

I googled iPods in instruction to see if I could find any information. I found a great research brief titled Using iPods for instruction. It listed several ways to use the iPod in several different class setting from music appreciation to art history. IPods can be used by all students from K-12 including Special Education students. The website also listed several online resources.

This week on my Comment4Kids post, I commented on the blog titled Endless Ocean . They are using the game Endless Ocean for the Nintendo Wii as a tool for their learning topic. The students were very excited to find a sea lion and seals on there boat after having been away for a bit.

Project 2: Google Presentation

February 14 Homework

I was really surprised to see how many companies have changed or embellished information on Wikipedia. I use Wikipedia often and, for the most part, was trusting of the site. I don't know how trusted a source it can be with the current policy of letting anyone update or change information. Of course, you will have people like myself who will trust the site completely because they do not know people or businesses are changing information for there own self promoting reasons. I will still use Wikipedia(it is very convenient), but will verify information, especially if it is for something I will be putting my name on.
Mr. McClung's post was very insightful. What a great first year to have learned so many career lessons. I think as education students, we all have certain ideas of what we expect our future classroom or school to be like. I think it would be interesting to revisit those ideas after actually being in our own classroom for a year or two. It is always easier to say what one would or wouldn't do before they have had to deal with that situation.
This week, I commented on Payton's blog for our Comment4Kids assignment. He likes baseball and I related him to my son who also loves baseball.

February 7 Homework

I can't believe how fast this semester is going and how much I am learning in EDM310. I few weeks ago, I was unsure what a podcast was or why I would even need one, much less even think about doing one myself. Now, here I am preparing to do a podcast with a fellow classmate. I posted on a previous blog entry that podcast would be a great tool in the classroom if a teacher was ever out. I have since learned that there is so much more a podcast can be used for. Teachers can interact with other teachers from all over the world and teach students from all over the world. I could use a podcast from a teacher in Japan to teach about culture or other topics my students may be learning. I could teach students in Germany about hurricanes. The teacher of the future will be a teacher of all and not only of his/her classroom.
I also commented on Sidney's blog from Mrs. Deyenberg's class. The class is also reading AR books and must accumulate points just like my daughter's class. Sidney is doing very well with AR points. It is nice to know that other children are required to read AR books and that it has as much emphasis place on it as my daughter' class.