Week 7

This is How We Dream Part One and Two

Part one talks about the fact that the children of today will probably never set foot in a library. It is quite possible that children will not know what a library is. The reason for this is that children are far more technologically advanced than previous generations. Rather than using black and white plain printed text, students are using audio and video from online documents. What kind of effect will this have on our future generations? Only time will tell, but it can be expected that in the future, libraries might almost be extinct. It is even possible to write reports without setting foot in a library because online sources have the exact same amount of valuable information.

In part two, Richard Miller says that we are missing the technology in schools that is needed to help our students thrive. Students have the amazing ability to have information at their fingertips that is updated immediately. Educational sites on the web are thriving these days, and it is extremely important to let our students have access to this information they provide. If we do not allow our students to have this information, we are holding them back both technologically and academically.

It is crazy to think that students might never know what a library is. Even the fact that they will possibly never set foot in a library is extreme to me. My mom took us to the library all the time when I was growing up. My sisters and I would spend hours looking at children’s books while my mom searched for her books. When I had a project for school, I went to the library to research it and had to use the old card catalog until the catalog was able to be accessed by computer. Of course now I hardly ever use the library, but I still believe it is important for children to have a hard copy of a book to look at. I guess you can say I’m a little old fashioned.

The Networked Student by Wendy Drexler

A networked student shares his information with others so that they can expand their knowledge together. When the student finds information that might be useful, he posts them to his social network or blog so that it is available to others, and they can form their own opinions. This student blogs so that other students all over the world can communicate with him. The networked student also makes usage of research sites such as iTunesU because it can contain valuable information.

Teachers can help these networked students by allowing them access to each other and leading them in this journey. Teachers will show these students how to build their networks and offer them guidance along the way to ensure that their networks are top-notch! Students will know that they can ask their teachers for help so that they will recognize the “good” information from the “bad” information along the way. Most importantly these teachers will help their students organize the information they find so that it is easily located and accessed by themselves and other students as well.

I believe Dr. Strange’s class is definitely preparing me for these networked students. Before this class, I never blogged or listened to podcasts, much less made a podcast. I have used many important tools so far such as audacity, iTunesU, and Google Docs that I did not know much about before this class. I feel that each day I am becoming better educated for my students of tomorrow, and this experience is invaluable to me as a teacher. I cannot wait to share my experience with my classes!

Toward A New Future of Whatever - Michael Wesch

Mr. Wesch begins his video by talking about media ecology. This is the belief that the media shapes most of our views and how we think. Whether we realize it or not, they do. The media practically brainwashes us every day, and most people do not even think twice about it. It is amazing how easily people can be fooled, yet it is happening each and every moment. I believe the media controls everything we know and learn by the news and tabloids.

The video speaks of different generations such as the American Idol generation and the MTV generation. He talks about the fact that people these days believe they are THE American Idol, and when they are rejected, they are completely baffled. The MTV generation is thought to be materialistic with short attention spans. Stereotypes—they are everywhere, and that is exactly what each generation is. Every generation has a label slapped on them, and I can definitely say that I hate being labeled as the “Me” generation because I am not a self-centered person.

The youtube video with the hands was awesome. This video could really send a message to the world, and it is a wonder that it is not played as a commercial on TV. Videos like this give me hope that maybe one day the world will change for the better rather than taking a sharp turn for the worst. It sometimes scares me to think of raising a child in the world we live in today knowing that it is probably only going to get worse.

My PLN

Before this semester, I never knew what on earth a personal learning network is. At first, I did not necessarily see the point in this, but now I am glad to say that I do! As a future teacher, I have many questions concerning different areas from discipline to conduct. It is important for me to have fellow professionals to relate to. PLNs are wonderful because I can associate with teachers of different experience levels. So far I have expanded my PLN to include my social network Facebook and a few teacher sites including: teachers.net, teacherspodcast.org, 4teachers.org, and pbs.org. Most of these sites are for teachers only, but pbs.org includes a section for parents to interact. I believe it is wonderful for parents to interact with their children’s teachers, and I am proud to have them as a part of my PLN.

Week 6

Dr. Alice Christie
Dr. Alice Christie is an inspiring individual and should be an inspiration to all teachers. She has been teaching for almost forty years now, ranging from kindergarten to college level. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Technology in 1995 and has been exposing others to her field ever since. She now gives special workshops on using technology in classrooms and travels nationally to do so. Dr. Christie is one dedicated individual who is destined for greatness! And the most awesome part about her character is that she is sharing her ideas and opinions with educators all over the nation!

On Dr. Christie's site, she gives many ideas to educators about how to incorporate technology inside their classroom. I loved the section of her site dedicated to portfolios for students. She tells why standardized tests are simply not enough to measure how well a student is learning or progressing inside the classroom. Standardized tests do not measure their writing skills and capabilities. However, if students have these portfolios, each year their new teacher can review them to see what a students' needs and weaknesses are so that they might help the student improve in this area. I think she is one hundred percent correct that standardized tests do not measure how well a student is progressing because some students simply are not good test takers! This is a tool that new teachers and administrators should look into.

iTunes University
Teachers of today have it easy--meaning we have the "world" at our fingertips. We have technnology in our grasp, and just about any tool imaginable is just a click away. ITunes University is an awesome source for students and teachers. It allows professors to record videocasts or podcasts and upload them onto their university's link so that students who miss lectures may listen to/view them online and be ready for the next lecture. This has its pros and cons, of course, as most things in life do. The pros are that students can listen to/view the lecture themselves and not have to rely on someone else's notes that they might have a hard time deciphering. The cons are that many students are too in love with technology and skip lectures because they know they can listen to/view it online later when it is more convenient.

I believe students should use this as a tool to help them when they cannot come to class or when they had a difficult time understanding the professor's lecture the first time. Teacher-student interaction is crucial to learning, and who knows this better than individuals in the field of education?! Students should also use this tool when they have a hard time understanding their own professor because sometimes humans just need a second opinion or to be shown a different way of doing something.

This past semester I had a class called Linear Algebra in which I had a professor who was highly intelligent, and it almost seemed as if he was too intelligent for our class. Many students sat in his class completely confused and aggravated at themselves for not understanding his lectures. Everyone started finding his/her own way to understand by using outside resources. One day before class, everyone started asking how each other was doing in the class and began talking about other useful resources they had found. Almost every student who had went looking for outside help first accessed iTunes University and found Dr. Strange's MIT videos. He broke each topic down to the point where it seemed as if he was teaching us elementary math. The help we received as a class from iTunes University was invaluable, and I will definitely use iTunes University again if I ever have another difficult class like that one!

Could iPods Be Coming to a Classroom Near You--Or Possibly Yours?
During most of these assignments, I have to admit that I have felt most forms of technology simply do not target mathematics. Obviously someone can use podcasts and such to lecture on history, english, literature, and even science--but math? Mathematics would definitely be the most challenging in my opinion because you would definitely have to work to keep your audience interested unless you are using a video, which would make sense most of the time in a math-cast. However, my opinion is definitely shifting after researching how iPods are being used in classrooms.

Eden Prairie High School's students were not showing proficiency in their math skills. The school board was becoming quite concerned with their students' test scores but more importantly how this would impact their futures. Math teacher, Sarah Youngberg astounded board members when she passed out iTouches to show them a video that she made of her solving math problems. She said the vidoes helped her students' test scores by 9.5 percent when she compared them to the scores of tests where she did not show them videos. Sarah made a great point by saying, "This is their technology. They know how to use this stuff." The assistant principal, Jane Stevenson, says they are now implementing more technology into their classrooms by the use of SMARTBoards and eventually these iPods, which most students already own. This article finally gave me hope that it is very possible to help students in a math classroom by the use of technology.

Duke University was among one of the first colleges to implement the use of iPods in the classroom. In August 2004, Duke University gave 20GB iPods to over 1600 students so that they could listen to important information regarding their subjects. The results were unanimous that technology is becoming a huge part of people's lives and therefore, students' lives. The results of Duke's experience can be found here.

Comment4Kids
As I have been commenting on the blogs of kids, I have not been reporting back on my blog to share what I have read and commented. These are my Comment4Kids:

Week 4:
I read Dawson's post from Avoca School District. In his post he wrote: "We took pictures and transformed them in photoshop. I used the tool bloat. pucker, swirl, and brush tool. It is amazing what you can do to photos." I think it is awesome that students are learning to transform these photos because I still do not know how to work most of these programs. I replied, "I am in college at the University of South Alabama in Dr. Strange’s class. I think it is also great what we can do with photos! It is even neat that some people can edit photos on their phones! I love taking photos and changing them! I’m glad you do, too!" I wish he would have posted one of his edited photos, or maybe a before and after of one.

Week 5:
This week I read Charlie and Josh's story of a spider who bit the narrator. It was a cute story with many catching adjectives and phrases, but it was definitely a cliff hanger. I told them they did a great job with the usage of the adjectives, but I did wish they would finish the story.

Week 6:
I watched Tracey's video, which was very short at only 14 seconds. In those 14 seconds, I learned that she had 2 goals for 2010: to be a good role model and to improve her writing. I replied to her post, " Tracey, I can tell you from experience that to be a good role model, just listen to your heart. You will do many great things and help many people! And I must agree with Mrs. Burt that your writing will improve the more you blog and the more you write. After all, practice makes perfect! :) Good luck!" I believe it is important to encourage children who want to better themeselves and others because it helps build their self-confidence, which is essential to their growth and development as individuals.

Three Minutes in the Life of Angela Greene

Week 5

My Thoughts on Wikipedia

When I was in high school, my English teacher forbade us to use Wikipedia as a citation for our research papers. We definitely complained and did not completely understand why until one day a boy in our class opened our eyes. He called the teacher over to his computer to show her an article that he supposedly found on Wikipedia. It was about a young fisherman who caught a record-breaking fish in the Gulf of Mexico that year. The article starred my very own classmate himself! He had logged into Wikipedia and completely changed an article he found simply because he thought it was funny. Our teacher was quite aggravated as she explained to us that what he did was a prime example of why Wikipedia is not a reliable source. I have to mention, however, that Wikipedia did in fact change the article back the next day.

I understand that Wikipedia is an open encyclopedia so that viewers can contribute to its articles. However, the world will always have those immature people who like to ruin the best of things for the rest of us! After seeing firsthand what someone can do to an article, I am highly disappointed in Wikipedia. If I were going to be an English teacher rather than a math teacher, I would definitely disapprove of my students using Wikipedia. Our students need facts not false pieces of information typed in by someone as a joke or by someone who has no experience in what they are writing about. The sad part is that the people who are doing those things to Wikipedia would probably be extremely mad if they were handed false information that was presented to be true. It honestly makes me sick.

Mr. McClung’s Blog

Mr. McClung’s blog is extremely heartfelt and touching. He honestly cares about his students and how well they are doing in his class. He knows that not every student learns the same way, and not every student is going to succeed at something the first time they do it. This is why it is our job to “pick them up and dust them off” so that they can try again. I love how he states that “No lesson is ever perfect. The lesson you teach and the one you plan are always different.” This is a great tip for me because I am truly a perfectionist, and I need to be prepared for the fact that not everything will always go as planned inside a classroom.

I also believe that it is extremely important for teachers to truly listen to their students. If our students are not learning, we obviously are not doing our job! I remember what it felt like to help a fellow classmate understand a topic and to see their “lightbulb.” I cannot wait until I get to see all those “lightbulbs” lighting up one by one in my class. It is important to know your students so that you can read their expressions and know when their “lightbulb” is on or off. Mr. McClung is extremely insightful, and I feel his tips will be invaluable to me as a teacher.

Week 4

My Views on Podcasts

Podcasts are honestly not my favorite topic because I have yet to see how they can truly help me in a math class. I can be completely wrong though, so if you have any suggestions, please let me know! Even so, I do see where podcasts are becoming increasingly popular amongst elementary classrooms, literature classes, and history classes. Therefore, I do believe they are important to the education of our future students. And even though I might not use podcasts in my classroom, it might be interesting to listen to podcasts of my students in other classrooms. By listening to their podcasts, I can learn more about them such as their personalities and opinions on certain topics.

I have realized that it is extremely important to plan out your podcasts unless you are good at improvization, which I am not. The key to a successful podcast is definitely being prepared and ready. If you are doing a videocast, you should definitely be dressed presentable! If you are doing an audiocast, your listeners cannot see you, but you should definitely be prepared by rehearsing your podcast! If you want people to take you serious, you must be serious. This is definitely the case with students! If you are not serious, your students will never be serious about their podcasts because they will think it is a joke or an easy grade. Therefore, if your podcast is meant to be professional, be professional; if it is meant to be comedic, be a comedian. Overall, just fit the part! :)