My EDM 310 Blog Assignments are Now Complete

I am a major procrastinator, but I finally finished this blog. I think I learned some useful info. I enjoyed sharing the class with all of you and want to wish you luck in your future educating careers! As for me, I'll still a little terrified, but I'm excited too. Hope to see yall around the Commons!

Ending Thoughts about EDM 310

My job title for the last three years has actually been a "Word Processing Specialist" (even though I do a lot more than that) so I guess you could say that I wasn't too enthused about having to take a class about word processing. I wasn't sure that I would learn anything at all that I didn't already know. Although there were some things that I already knew well, I did learn a lot of technology resources that I hope to use once I become a teacher. Below are those things:

BLOGS:

Although I had dabbled in making a blog in the past, I never thought to use a blog as an educator in a classroom with students. I really like the idea of having a class blog and allowing students to post assignments there. I also really like the idea of having a central place to posts things that I want parents to know. With mostly everyone having a computer with internet access these days, I really think having a place like that will help keep parents involved with their kids in their classroom.

GOOGLE DOCS:

Although I don't believe I'll use Google Docs for every thing that I would need such a program for, I do see advantages in using website that can hold documents that I can have access to over the internet. Some information I can store on Google Docs that I might need to be able to easily pull up on a public computer or even my smartphone that has internet access. One such thing would be a book list that I could pull up on my phone while walking around a bookstore. These could help in not having to rely soley on such things as flash drives for everything.

PODCASTS:

I really like the idea of podcasts. I'm not sure how I'll be able to use them in an early elementary school class. I'm not sure if the equipment that would be needed will be available. But if the resources are available, I really like the idea of a podcast, especially doing them WITH the students.

ALEX:

I didn't knew that ALEX even existed before this class. I really do believe that I will absolutely use this website. A place to find the specific Alabama initiatives and a place to find approved lesson plans really helps take a little bit of the stress of first going into a classroom.

What I would have liked to learn/What I wish I hadn't learned:

I'm not sure of what else I would have liked to learn from this class because I have basic skills and a little more complex skills already. Not that much more complex, but I do feel like what I learned from this class was just good technology programs and concepts to use in my classroom. As for what I would have not liked to learn, the only thing I can think of is Delicious. I see the idea of being able to collect important links, but I don't know that I will ever use that. I know the point it is be able to share link with others, but I just don't see much use for that personally. I can keep my links/bookmarks on my own personal computer.

I-Pods in the Classroom

In this post I was asked to find some ways that I-Pods can be used in instruction. Here is an article which can be found here, with an educational technology coordinator for the Orange County Department of Education in California, Robert Craven. He gives quite a few examples of how Ipods are being used in the classrooms in his district.

In first grade, students are listening to their reading at their own pace then retelling the story using the voice recorder. Or the same young students do their 60-second timed reading, then the teacher creates a CD record for parents. Also in upper levels, students are using Ipods to interview community members and create oral histories, including images. Others are making PSAs for small-form video delivery. Students are also beginning to produce weekly podcast reviews of the content they studied during the week, which are then being used for review throughout the year.

Duke University started a project of using Ipods in their classrooms back in 2005 and has increased their usage more and more as the years have passed. The were originally just used by students mainly to record lectures and to records musical performance. They started out giving them out to select faculty and very specifically picked students. By Fall 2008, they were being used in over 100 courses with at least 139 instructors and over 600 students. Students used the video option:

to create videos for final course projects,
to capture video of themselves speaking for a language course,
to record in‐class theater and musical performances,
to record interviews, and
to support documentary film projects.

You can find information on Duke's Digital Initiative by clicking here.

Dr. Alice Christie

Dr. Alice Christie is a retired educator, first from 25 years in K-12 classrooms, and then as a college professor. You can find her website by clicking here. She has a lot of useful information on her site, but I have chosen to do this particular post on site called Website Evaluation Resources. You can find it by clicking here.

I will find the information Dr. Christie has presented her of great use once I become an educator. I know that I will have computers in my class, but I will be responsible for what my students view on these computers. Although I know that most schools have a type of filtering program that prevents certain types of websites to be viewed in classrooms, I also want to be able to do a thorough screening of the websites I will allow my students to view. Not only do I want to make sure, of course, that my students do not look at anything inappropriate, I also want to make sure they are getting the best and most accurate information possible. I will use Dr. Christie's tools found at the website above to help me find screen and pick the best educational websites for my students.

NPR report on Google's upcoming new Operating System

I was asked to comment on a report done by the National Public Radio (NPR) about a new operation system that Google will soon be coming out with next year. Google is trying to compete with Microsoft. If you click here and then click Listen Now, you will be able to listen to the NPR report, which was part of its All Things Considered series.

Honestly, I think it's awesome that Google is coming up with a new operating system. The US's economy is based on competition, and when companies compete for the consumer, the consumer is the one who gets the benefit. Competition means innovation. With the fact that the technology of the world is growing so fast, I, as a consumer, want options for the different types of technology that I choose to use. I do believe that it will be hard, as the report says, to break Window's winning streak, to compete. But with the challenge, comes more innovation.

The only thing that I can think of in regards to the impact this may have on education in the future is compatibility. I have had issues with this in past. You want to be able to interchange between operating systems. For example, you want to be able to send an assignment to a student, or an assignment back to the teacher and both be able to open up the file, and read it, or watch it, or whatever you need to do with it. If there is no compatibility, this could cause problems in continuity in your classroom.

Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture"

Randy Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He was asked to do be a part of a series of lectures called the Last Lectures. They were not meant to be a lecture series for those at the end of life, but unfortunately that is what became the case with Mr. Pausch. Just a short time before he was to do his Last Lecture, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer with no more than 6 months to live.

A website dedicated to Randy's Last Lecture can be found by clicking here.
You can view a video of Randy's Last Lecture on YouTube by clicking here.

I encourage anyone reading this post to watch the video. It is over an hour long it is very well worth it. Hopefully you will be positively effected by as I was. His lecture was titled "Achieving your Childhood Dreams." One of the things that he spoke of that I really loved was such a simple concept. He used a metaphor using well known Disney characters. He said that you can choose to live your life as a Tigger or an Eeyore. How simple is that, but it is true! You can not change the cards that you are dealt in life, but you CAN choose how you respond or react to what you are given. Randy Pausch certainly did that, and I think that's something that everyone can strive to do also.

Another thing that I liked thinking of my future as a teacher. He ran into a problem with his students when they completely exceeded his expectations on the very 1st assignment of the class. He said that what the students produced for the 1st assignment he would have accepted as a final assignment, something that they would have worked all semester on and they would have gotten an A. He didn't know what to do. Seeking advice, he was told - "you obviously don't know where the bar should be and you are only going to do them a disservice by putting it anywhere." I love that for a teaching strategy. That's exactly what I want to be able to do for my future students. I want to allow them to reach far beyond what they think they can do.

I also did a podcast with Martha Miles and Blake Middleton in my EDM 310 class about Randy Pausch's Last Lecture. You can find that podcast by going to this website. Click here.

Shift Happens

This post is a response to the video called "Did you Know? 2.0" You can find it by clicking here. It is an update to an earlier video titled "Shift Happens" by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod.

This video gives me perspective. Perspective on how fast the world is moving these days and what I will need to think about when I become a teacher. The video says that we are living in exponential times. To say this statement sums the whole video would take away from everything else in the video, but I do think it helps to sum it up a bit. (I think you should watch the video anyway!) It's a little scary, but I do understand that the things I learn today while in college will not be same things that students will be learning in 5 years. There will be new things, and very quickly will there be new things.

I believe that to be a good teacher in today's world, you have to be adaptable. You have to be willing to learn. You MUST be able to think outside of yourself and think about the future for you students. You have to be able to use the current technology that is available, and that means keeping up with the most current technology on a very regular basis. Because like said before, we are living in exponential times. It is your responsibility as a teacher to the adults our of future world to give them the all the tools they will need to succeed. And technology is a HUGE part of that.

I-Tunes University

Wow, I never knew this existed! Apple via I-tunes has a portal called I-Tunes U, or I-Tunes University. You can find some information regarding I-Tunes U by going to this website. CLICK HERE. Universities or schools can set up a site through Itunes U as a place to put up information for current students and also information for the general public. They can do an internal site, that only registered, current students can login and an external site for the public.

I absolutely think that this could be very beneficial for a teacher/educator. I can have a place to put up informational podcasts, videos, etc. I could see this as a wonderful place for a school to stay connected with each other and a great way of advertising also. This could be used a secure place to put up podcasts or multimedia information that I may require my students to use for assignments, and not worry that others will have access, which is what happens when you do a blog. Blogs get posted on the internet for anyone to see. The security issue makes it very appealing to me for when I become an educator.

Fischbowl: It is Okay to be Technologically Illiterate?

Karl Fisch, a teacher and technology education specialist at Arapahoe High school in Littleton, Colorado wrote a blog post on his blog, The Fischbowl, titled Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher? You can find it by clicking here. I quite enjoyed the post because I completely understand the frustration. I know that I'm fortunate enough to live in a time when I started using computers in middle school, so I have had many years of practice at being "technologically literate." But I completely agree with Mr. Fisch. All teachers should be held accountable for how well they can use technology. Working towards my teaching degree, I work for a university in the support staff, and I hear all the time what he talks about. College professors, with doctorate degrees, speaking of how they are very computer literate. And when he or she says it, it is thought, by the person speaking, that it is completely acceptable to be this way. Also, because I have always been able to figure things out on a computer just be dawdling with it and trying different things out until I figure out the solution, sometimes I become a "go-to" girl for random questions about something on the computer.

As a teacher, you have the responsibility to your students. If you are not as technology savvy as your students, you will be left behind. I am a very firm believer in modeling for children, especially students. Mr. Fisch spoke about this in his blog also. If you can not learn new things, and be able to do all of things that your students are expected to do, how can you expect your students to??

Improvements to My Podcast

I think there there are several things you can learn from previous students' podcasts. I listened to the following podcasts: "Using Wikis as Educational Tools" by Tyler Smith, Whitney Jackson, James Dumas, and Rennard Lambert and "Examining Dr. Strange's Thesis that Students Now are Listener/Watchers and not Reader/Writers" by Brooke Williams and Melissa Zebracki.

An important thing to remember is not to read a script. I felt that much of both podcasts were read from script. This tented to make some of the information very boring. I also felt that some people where way to fast in their speaking, making it hard for me to understand and comprehend what was being said. There needs to be inflection in speaking like you are caring on a regular conversation with someone. I also liked the organization of the podcast on Dr. Strange's thesis, much better than the one on Wiki. I felt the one on Wiki was way too disjointed and all over the place. They even said "in conclusion" when there was still lots of information left to say. I did like how the Wiki podcast ended. I also think it's important to make sure you are using the correct volume when you speak on a podcast. There were times wen I could hear one student very clearly, and couldn't hear the next student very well at all. I hope to keep these things in mind when doing my podcast.

International K-12 Classrooms using Blogs

Ms. Kathy Cassidy's 1st Grade class in Moose Jaw, Canada. You can go to their class blog by clicking here.

Ms. Cassidy's website is very similar to the previous ones that I've looked at. She has a main blog where she posts class information and what the students are currently learning. Each student then has his or her own blog where they can make posts. It looks like some of them even post over the summer break. Most of the posts are assignments. I found one particular post from the main class blog page very interesting. When the students where learning about rocks, they did an interview via Skype, which is a video conferencing over the web program, with a real geologist. The students where able to ask directions directly to the scientist. I love the concept!



Ms. Jody Hayes Year Five and Six (9 through 11 years old) classroom blog in New Zealand. Unfortunately, she does not give the city where the class is located. You can click here to find the classroom blog.

Again, it seems that this one is also very similar to the ones I've mentioned earlier. It seems that this website, classblogmeister.com, must give a shell that teachers can use. It is something that I will look into in the future for a blog that I may have with my class when I become a teacher. There is posts by the teacher in the middle, which seem to me to be directed towards her student's parents. I think that's a wonderful idea to have a place where parents can regularly check in on what their child is doing in class from day to day. Every student also has an individual blog where they can post assignments.

I-Tunes Podcasts

In this assignment I was to listen to various Podcasts about education on I-tunes. I listened to different podcasts from SmartBoard Lessons, KidCast, ConnectLearning, EdTechtalk, MacBreak Weekly, and This Week in Photography. I was to listen in order to see the different ways that podcasts can be done.

I first listened to the Smartboard Lesson titled "Smartboard Lessons 150: Finally the Future" by Ben Hazzard and Joan Badger. They spoke about this being their last podcast under the title Smartboard Lesssons. This podcast was very conversational between two people. This podcast has a phone number where listeners can call in and they also have a website where they posts all of the websites that they speak of on the podcast. They don't actually give their website, which would be great for someone like me who listened to this podcast for the first time. They used music to separate segments, which I thought was a great idea. They also said that they sometimes have guests.

KidCast: Learning and Teaching with Podcasting was the next podcast that I listened to. The show was called "Some thoughts on Video Podcasting" by Dan Schmit. This podcast is just Mr. Schmit talking about different issues in education, this one was about Video vs. Podcasting. This podcast uses music just as the Smartboard lessons do. He refers to listener's emails in his podcasts, so I assume he uses those to help him shape the content of his podcasts With video versus podcasting he said that one doesn't necessarily lead to another and its all about what you want, what you are looking for. Video podcasting has a lot more to deal with production wise: lighting, video editing, multiple takes. I thought that Mr. Schmit's podcast was very well understood; he was very articulate.

I then listened to David Warlick's Connect Learning podcast. The particular episode that I listened to was titled: "A Conversation about Podcasting with Media Coordinators." The format of this one was different than the previous two. Mr. Warlick was in a room with a lot of Library Media Specialists from across North Carolina. There were questions, answers, and comments back and forth between the host and the media specialists around the room. I enjoyed how informal this podcast was, with different people speaking up when they had something to add to the discussion. I also liked the fact the host makes sure that the participants in the discussion do not say their names, so that anonymity was kept.

I also listened to several podcasts by EdTechTalk. Teachers teaching Teachers #157 had many guests and was about the New York Metro Museum of Art Webinars for teachers. This podcast was a lot like talk radio. It was much more formal, whereas EdTechHangout was very informal and very conversational. EdTechWeekly was a face paced roundup of news and resources of the world of education and technology. It was a little hard to keep up with this one because it moved so fast.

The last two I listened to were MacBreak Weekly and This week in Photography. MacBreak Weekly was a roundtable discussions with several top journalists talking about the latest Mac and/or Apple news. This Week in Photography discusses camera techniques, technology, and news. It has many guest interviews. I didn't like this one as much as others because they was much more small talk than there was talk about anything to do with photography.

Blogs being using in K-12 classrooms

Mr. Mark Ahlness's 3rd grade class at Arbor Heights Elementary School in Seattle, Washington. You can find Mr. A's 3rd grade class blog by clicking here.

"Mr. A's" (as the website calls him) or Mr. Mark Ahlness's 3rd grade class's blog is titled "Mighty Writers: A writing forum for the third graders in Room 12." I find his website fascinating because I have never seen blogs being used in elementary school classrooms before. As the title shows, Mr. Ahlness uses the blog as a writing forum for his students. He put assignments up, and his students post writing responses as a blog. After reading some of the posts by the students, I can see how much the students enjoy the writing assignments on the blog. It's also obvious by the responses at the end of the school year how much the students enjoy Mr. A's class and how much they will miss it. That is a true testament to the teacher's affect on the students, and it seems in part due to this blog.

Mr. Jay Monson's 5th grade class at Nettleton Science, Technology, and Reading Magnet School in Duluth, Minnesota. You can find Mr. Monson's 5th grade class blog by clicking here.

Mr. Monson's class blog is titled "Write On!" and is very informational. I especially like the fact that he makes announcements for the class every week, letting the students and their parents know what is happening in the class. He also post important dates/information and events, which includes the students' birthdays. You can also find links to the school, the school system, the city they live in, and other important websites. You will also find personal blogs for each student in the class where he or she writes and posts assignments. I think a website/blog such as this would be a great way to keep parents involved in their child's classroom.