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.