Week 11 Blog : Due April 4, 2010

Dear Kaia

I read Kaia's blog first, and I was completely amazed at what she had created. Her photograph video was beautiful. It looks like she really enjoys photography, and she also seems to appreciate the small things in life. What her daddy told her was very true, sometimes "garbage" can be beautiful when seen from another perspective. I'm not advocating littering. Don't get me wrong! Kaia showed us in one of her pictures that garbage was not always ugly, though. The picture of the can in the sand on the desert was not ugly. She showed us a beautiful side to the garbage someone else had left. Her dad seems very supportive of her use of technology. I think this will be very beneficial to her in the future, as well as today.

Singing Hearts

This blog was written by Kaia's father. It was very inspiring as a future educator and future parent. I love what he is doing with Kaia. It is a wonderful way to document her life. He has valid concerns about making his daughter so open to the public, but there are always privacy settings he can create if he gets too worried. It would be nice if we could all feel comfortable on the internet, but it is not always the safest place to be. I would like to start a blog for my children when I have them. I have family that does not live close enough to come visit often so a blog for my child would be a unique way for them to stay up to date.

Mr. Chamberlain

The voicethreads that Mr. Chamberlain's class made for Kaia were very cool. It amazes me how much we can do with technology today. I'm sure Kaia really appreciated them taking the time to read her blog, comment and create that voicethread. She's becoming quite popular from what I understand. This is going to have a really interesting affect on her as she matures.

Comments4Teachers Week 10-12

For this assignment, I am reading Tom Johnson's Adventures in Pencil Integration. The first post I read was entitled, "A Party for Pencils." In this post, Mr. Johnson describes how sometimes as human beings, we find ourselves focused on things that don't really matter in the long run. Technology is important, and it's very useful and innovative; however, we still need to focus on the projects being completed with this technology. Students may write a paper and include some really amazing technological stationary and photos, but the content of the paper should still be the main focus. Don't let your own focus be swayed!

This week I read another post by Tom Johnson. It was called "pencils and pointless prep." It gave an example of a student known as "cynical gifted boy." He asked the question, "why do we use pencils?" The response given was "It's a learning tool. Why do you learn?" The response the student gave was all about preparing for the future. He learns to prepare for tests, middle school, high school, college, work, and retirement. Mr. Johnson makes the wonderful point that we need to learn for the now, not the future. The future is important, and you do have to prepare for it in certain ways, but it's not against the rules to learn in the now.

Week 10 Blog : Due March 28, 2010

An Open Letter to Educators

The video by Dan Brown was very interesting to me. I had many of these same thoughts, but I was never really able to organize them into a decent argument. I think he did a fine job presenting his points. Universities seem to be behind the time in most areas. It is very frustrating to find yourself in a class when you seem to ask yourself daily, "How is this benefiting me?" It's even more frustrating when you can't think of a decent answer. Most classes are only beneficial for credits to graduate. This should not be the case. Universities are a place to learn! We are supposed to be preparing ourselves for a career, not trying to pass classes by doing pointless assignments. In days like these, I believe students are more accustomed to hands-on learning. This is very true in elementary grades, but college is becoming similar. I plan to be an elementary school teacher, and in this age level, I need to be innovative and fun. Students should enjoy learning. From the previous video we watched, students should be learning without even realizing it when possible. Lectures are a thing of the past. Today, technology is the way to go!

Comments4Kids

This week, I was assigned to Mrs. Goerend's Class Blog. The post I was assigned to was written by Kasey C. It was called "The US Shouldn't Be in War." I thought it was a very well-written post, and it stated Kasey's opinion very clearly!

Technology of Today

TimeToast

I used Timetoast to create a timeline of the life of Disney's Mickey Mouse. I'm a huge Disney fan so I thought this would be an interesting topic for experimenting with Timetoast. It's such as easy website to use, and it helps you get organized. You could create a timeline for any subject. These could be used in presentations or to study for a test. You may view my timeline below.



Skype
I use Skype quite often to talk to high school friends who moved away for college. It's a great and easy way to keep it touch, and it's much more personal than texting or a phone call. I had to buy a separate camera because my laptop is older and did not come with one. My camera works very well, and it has a microphone so everything I need is all together. I enjoy using Skype. It's communication for the future. For this assignment, I skyped with my friend who is attending the University of Miami. It was a great way to catch up with each other rather than just calling or Facebook chatting. It was much more personal.

Vocaroo
Vocaroo is a voice recording system that allows you to record something and post it to the internet or send it in an email. It's a cool idea because a person can listen to you instead of reading an email. It's similar to an answering machine on a telephone in that it's a voice recording that can be listened to at the convenience of the person receiving it. They can save it and listen to it repeatedly if necessary.

Try it out on your own!!


Powered by Vocaroo

Google Survey

My Google survey was about cell phones. I created a survey using Google forms, and I was able to send it to all of my classmates through email. It was a very easy process! I asked the following questions in my survey:

• How old were you when you got your first cell phone?
• Which cell phone provider do you use?
• Do you have internet access on your phone?
• Do you use the texting feature on your phone?
• How often do you use your cell phone during class?
• Do you prefer texting or calling?

I received the following responses from 28 of my classmates:

• The majority of students were 13-15 years old when they got their first cell phone.
  
• 50% of students use At&t as their cell phone provider. 5 students use Verizon, and 5 students use T-Mobile. 2 responded saying they use Cellular South, and only 1 uses Alltel.
  
• 14 students have internet access on their phones. 6 have internet access, but they don't use it. 8 students do not have internet access on their phones.
  
• 27 students responded that they do use the texting feature on their phone. Only 1 student does not.
• 6 students use their cell phone often during class. 7 students use it occasionally during class. 11 students rarely use it during class, and 4 students never use it in class.
  
• 13 students prefer texting, and 4 students prefer calling. 11 students could not decide, and responded that they liked both texting and calling.
  

Week 9 Blog : Due March 14, 2010

ALEX

Alex, also known as Alabama Learning Exchange, is a tool used by teachers to share information. On the homepage, there are 8 different sections to choose from including Course of Study, Web Links, Lesson Plans, Search, Personal Workspace, Professional Learning, Podcast Treasury and Help. Each of these sections prove very useful to an educator. There is so much that this website has to offer.
The Course of Study section breaks each section down into Alabama state standards. You can click on a general subject and it will break it down by grade level or a more specific subject. If you click on the subject or grade level of your choice, you can view the standards for the state of Alabama and some ways to complete these standards. The Web Links sections contains websites for teachers, administrators, and students. The links are organized by specific categories. You can choose the one that's most closely fits your needs and there will be a list of helpful websites for you. The lesson plan section allows you to search for lesson plans by subject or grade level. Once you click on a subject or grade level, there are specific lesson plans from which to choose. Each lesson plan includes the activity, which standards it fulfills and so much more. The search section is pretty self-explanatory. It allows you to search the entire ALEX database for whatever it is you may need. ALEX also allows you to create your own personal workspace through the personal workspace section. You can create an account and make personal lesson plans, etc. The professional learning section provides a place to view professional development opportunities, the latest news about the teaching profession, teaching and learning tools, and the best practices used by those in the field. The podcast treasury is similar to iTunesU. It offers podcasts on many different subject areas. Last, but not least, the Help section provides answers to those frequently asked questions.
I find ALEX to be a very useful sight because it has many tools located in the same place. Instead of having to search for everything you need separately, you can just go on ALEX and find it all in one area. This is convenient for the teacher who finds himself or herself without adequate time for researching. Not only does ALEX provide tools for teachers, but there are also tools for administrators and students. It's a very versatile website that I believe many educators will find useful.

ACCESS

ACCESS is short for Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators and Students Statewide. This website is for Alabama public high school students. It was built to provide equal learning opportunities for everyone. It allows students to complete online courses during semesters similar to those in college. They aim to improve students' achievements through this method of distance learning.
There are four sections of this website that are of particular interest to educators today. The first section is entitles Courses. Here you will find courses offered, test preparations, exam exemption forms, course catalogs and FAQs. Courses offered are those offered in all high schools throughout the state of Alabama. There are advance placement courses for those who would like a challenge. There are also test prep sections to help high school students prepare for graduation exams and AP exams. The next section of interest is entitled Educators. Here, you will find tools for administrators, teachers and counselors. There is a website to connect teachers so they are able to easily share information. There is also a place to apply for a teaching position with ACCESS. There are policy manuals as well as information for on-site classroom facilitators. The third section of interest in entitled Resources. This section is useful to both educators and students because it offers a menagerie of resources. These resources include, but are not limited to, AP test prep, Alabama Virtual Library, ALEX, Curriculum Pathways, Elluminate, Graphmatica, HippoCampus and MathType. An educator should explore each of these resources to see what they have to offer. The final section of interest is entitled Students. This section obviously focuses on the students and what they need to know about ACCESS. Here, you will find testimonials from students who have used ACCESS, information for parents, and overview of ACCESS and technical support.
I though ACCESS was a great idea. As an educator, I would probably use ALEX more because it offers more in a well-organized manner. I found ACCESS to be more beneficial to students because of the help if offered them in classes and test preparation. I would probably suggest this website to my students if I felt they would benefit from it.

Comments4Kids
This week, I visited Mrs. Yollis's class blog. I commented on a post about Groundhog's Day. The students observed that the groundhog saw his shadow. According to tradition, this means there will be 6 more weeks of winter. This class is located in Southern California so hopefully their winter wasn't too cold!

Comments4Teachers
My comments for teachers post is located a few posts down. It is just before the Week 7 blog post.

Week 8 Blog : Due March 7, 2010

Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Randy Pausch begins his last lecture by introducing himself. He has liver cancer and has been told he will only live a few more months. Because of this, he decided to give a "last lecture." In this lecture, he not only gives advice, but, more importantly, he gives inspiration. At the beginning of the lecture, he gives a list of quite a few of his childhood dreams. Throughout the first half of the lecture, he gives examples of how he accomplished each of these dreams. This man is still very young, yet he has managed to accomplish so much of what he wanted to in life because he was persistent. One of my favorite things said in this lecture is that brick walls are there to show us how much we want something. I've never thought of this before, but it's very true. A roadblock, in any situation, is there to weed out those people who don't really want it. If you truly want something, go after it. Don't let a minor roadblock keep you from achieving your dreams. I think this is something we can all learn from in life. Everyone experiences brick walls, but there is always a way around them if you try hard enough and remain persistent and dedicated.
One section of the lecture was about teaching people how to make people excited and happy. This is a great thing to learn because, as teachers, our goal should be to help others achieve their dreams. Another great piece of advice for a future teacher is that when you're trying something new, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. This should alleviate any thoughts that it only happens to you. Don't be afraid to try new methods. Things will not go perfectly the first time. Deal with what you've got, and improve on it next time. As a teacher, we should teach students to be self-reflective. This comes with many benefits. A student needs to learn to focus on something. Why not put this focus on themselves? I don't mean in a selfish way at all. We should teach people to focus on aspects of themselves that that like. Then focus on how they could use these talents to help others. We should also focus on what they would like to improve about themselves. Don't dwell on the negative, but focus on what could come from improvement. I truly liked the "head fake" method as well. This works for students of all age groups, elementary to graduate school students. If people believe they are learning something else, other lessons will come from it. If you don't want to teach a particular thing, or you think the students won't be receptive of the way you teach it, throw it in with an activity that focuses on something else. The students may enjoy it more, and the lesson will still be learned. "Have fun while learning something hard."
There are many things that affect a child's behavior, attitude, learning and life. Parents and mentors are probably at the top of the list because the children spend the most time with these people when they are developing. Children have it all right. We, as adults, need to continue to have fun. We need to continue to portray that "child-like wonder." Children are so open to new ideas, and they are always wanting to learn something new. Don't let these characteristics fade as you grow older. Dr. Pausch also focuses on helping others. Show gratitude when gratitude is deserved. We should always try to find the best in everyone. This may not be apparent for years and years, but everyone has a good side. Patience will allow you to find this with everyone. You have to be persistent and dedicated if you really want to achieve your dreams. If you live your life the right way, it will seem as though your dreams are just falling into place, but remember what you had to do to get there. Don't complain about the situation. Just work harder to fix it. The advice given in this lecture will be some that I will remember, and hopefully utilize, for the rest of my life. Thank you Dr. Pausch.

Comments4Kids

This week, I commented on Michala's blog. Her blog post included a cinquain about Friendship. She had a very well written cinquain, and she seemed to truly value who friendship.