WEEK 14 ASSIGNMENT

PLE

Wow this PLE is amazing! She has so many more sites than what I do. She has her own personal things that she keeps up with, and she has her edu blog that she has to keep up with. I can't believe that she finds enough time in the day to do all these blogs!! More credit to her!! She is driving me to be more dedicated to my blogging!

TWO QUESTIONS THAT CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE

The first question that was asked is, "What's my sentence?". Personally, I have no clue what my sentence is. I know that I would like to be remembered as someone who was always there for you and was helpful.

The second question that was asked is, "Was I better today than yesterday?". This is an amazing question in that it challenges you to do better everyday, and achieve more than you did the day before. This question can also be applied to your teaching, in that "did you help every student you could to the fullest extent today??", if not do so tomorrow!!! I love the question and I think that I will use it as a motivation in teaching!

MY SUURVEY: "YOUR LIFE"

This is a survey I did asking my fellow classmates general questions about their life! Here are the results:
1. What is your favorite college sports team?
ALABAMA (5), LSU (1), AUBURN (3), SOUTH (1), DON'T CARE (4), DUKE (1), KENTUCKY (1).

2. Do you like going to South Alabama?
YES (9), NO (3), IT'S ALRIGHT (5)

3. What is your favorite movie?
TOO MANY TO COUNT (), DON'T HAVE ONE (), ALADDIN (2), AVATAR (1), TWILIGHT (1), PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (1), SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1),
BRAVE HEART(1), CLUE (1), HARRY POTTER (1), 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU (1)
SOUND OF MUSIC (2)

4. Cats or dogs?
CATS (2), DOGS (12), BOTH (3), NEITHER (2)

5. What is your favorite book?
DON'T HAVE ONE (3), JANE AYRE (1), REDEEMING LOVE (1), TWILIGHT SAGA (2), HARRY POTTER (1), ANGLE OF HOPE (1), THE SHACK (1), OLD MAN WAR (1), INTO THE WILD (1), BEAUTIFUL CHILD (1), NICOLAS SPARKS (2)

6. What subject are you planning to teach?
SCIENCE (3), MATH (1), HISTORY (2), ENGLISH (1), PE (1), SPECIAL ED (2), ALL (7)

7.What is your favorite color?
RED(3), ORANGE(2), BLUE(4), PINK(4), PURPLE(2), GREEN(1), YELLOW (1)

8. What is your favorite number?
1(1), 2(1), 4(3), 6(2), 7(1), 8(2), 11(4), 13(2), 15(1), 17(2).

9. What kind of vehicle do you drive?
HONDA(3), TOYOTA(3), FORD(1), CHEVY(4), NISSAN(1), KIA(1), MAZDA (1), VW (1)

10. Is teaching your dream job?
YES (9), NO (4), NOT REALLY (6).

FINAL POST

1. What i have learned from using these following tools:

• blogs- At first I was really skeptical about blogging, because the only way I heard it being used before is by celebrities and I did NOT want to do it! But over the weeks in the course I have come to know that you can learn form blogs, and teach through them. Which I think is pretty cool.
• wikis- The only wiki I know about (that everyone else does too)is WIKIPEDIA! Which I think is horrible! The little upside to wiki's is that everyone can see them, the downside is that everyone can change them! So no matter what you put out there, it can always be changed! I do not like wiki's all too much.
  
• presentations- I liked them a lot especially using Google Docs, it is so much easier than Power Point.I will probably have my students use these because not only are they easy to use, but they are free!!
  
• Google Docs- A great way to share documents with your class and make presentations.
• Google spreadsheets- These are a pretty good tool to use in making questionnaire, but I prefer to use Microsoft Excel.
• Picasa- I like how it recognizes faces and immediately organizes people by who they were.I am still not that familiar with it though.
  
• Podcast- These are a great way to give your students your lectures or your general thoughts about a subject. They can be very useful in studying for tests! And they were very fun to make.
• Videocast- Are basically a podcast with video. I do not know which one i like better. It just depends on if the person in the video is doing anything interesting, if not I would rather just do a podcast!
• YouTube- I've used you tube in the past to watch funny videos/music videos. It's a great tool for that but it is even better when used for educational purposes, or to learn something! Seeing what your learning helps a lot, therefore you tube can be very helpful.
  
• Movie Making- I did not make a movie.
• Posts you read- I loved the Last Lecture by Andy Pausch!!! And reading the kid's blogs from around the world was an amazing experience.
• PLN's- Are very useful because they show you everything you are "following" on the internet. Mine is not that well-developed but I expect that to change over time.
• Twitter- I personally do not like Twitter. It has become an over-glorified status update!! I do not plan on using Twitter anymore!
• Other teachers and students outside our region- The teachers gave me a lot of insight into some of the struggles and some of the reasons why I want to teach.The kids were amazing and most found a way to touch my heart.
  
• Comments 4 Kids- Probably the best thing we ever blogged on in this class. I think it is amazing the things that they are learning at such a young age. Keep this around, because it brightens those kids day up when they see that they got a comment on their poem or project!
• Comments 4 Classmates- Was pretty much a waste of time. I see the benefits it could have, but most of the time people are just being nice and agreeing with the other person regardless of how they really feel.If people could be real when they commented it could get very interesting and worth having to do.
  
• Comments 4 Teachers- This was actually a good thing, I wished we would have done this the whole year. Teachers give amazing insight to the world of teaching in their blogs! It's a great way for us teachers in training to learn a thing or two!
• iTunes- Great way for downloading music. But it still has a long way to go on the educational side of things!! Still a great tool for music!
  
• iTunesU- This is the educational side of iTunes i was talking about! It has started to be a pretty useful tool. But it just hasn't reached its full potential yet, when it does it will be amazing!
• Accessibility issues and the use of html tag modifiers to address some of those issues- ???????
• Who you are as a professional- Right now, I am not very far along. I believe that professional maturity, like anything else, comes with time! So get back to me after I graduate and start teaching for a couple years!
  
• Google Forms- Like I mentioned earlier I love Google tools! They are so easy use and FREE!
• Data Bases- ???
• Google Earth- A very useful tool, and could be a good tool for me being a science teacher in showing volcanoes, oceans, wetlands, and the different climates throughout the world!
• Delicious- I do not really remember using this.
• ACCESS- Our group did our podcast on this. It is a great system that is being used the public school system. This program has the potential to be great for our students in Alabama! Hopefully it will become a great way for our students to learn more!
• ALEX- I liked the website because it gives fun activities to use as learning aides! I think its better suited for elementary classes than on the high school level.
• Technological literacy- I knew that when I started this class I was no where near technologically literate, and for good reason too: I'm horrible with computers! Now I feel as though I might have some things under my belt that will help me be a little more technologically plugged in! Thank you for that!
  
• The future of schools- Schools need to implement technology in every classroom, not just one typing class!! This way our students are better prepared for life and jobs!! If they don't the future will be a very sad place to be!

• My "intellectual trail"- I do not know how to rate my intellectual trail as of right now. But I can say that it is not at the bottom of the barrel and I will be improving it everyday from here on out.

2. You have actually taught me more than I would have asked to have been taught! I do know that I would have liked to have learned a little more about Smart boards, other than the one video we got to watch on it.

3. There are things that I dislike that I have learned about such as Twitter, that I will not use. But I am glad that I did get to dabble in it because it showed me that it's not for me!

4. Doing my own podcast did excite me, because I had a lot of fun doing it! I also got excited doing the comments for kids, just because I knew that it would excite them knowing that I took the time to read their posts!

5. Nothing was super intellectually challenging! Not that there weren't a few things I had to get extra help on, but that is expected when you are learning something new an out of your comfort zone!

6.Personally doing the blogs every week had me bored, like the comments 4 classmates and the regular blog! (Not the comments 4 kids or the comments for teachers!!) These things I found to be repetitive and had me making myself to do them by week 5.

7. The only thing I would really change about this course is the in class time. Some may not see like me, but I like being showed how to do things in person, and being able to be corrected then and there when I do something wrong. Therefore more class time and teacher-student communication!!

8. I would say that I am in the low-medium range of being tech-literate! Just because there is always more things to learn and room to grow. I have just begun to scratch the surface!

9. I plan on growing in my tech-literacy by exploring what new tools come out, and keeping up with my blogging. That way I can stay in touch with the "tech world", and see the different ways I can use these tools in my classroom!

FAREWELL TO EDM310

TO MY FELLOW TEACHERS IN TRAINING:
It's been fun exploring the new world of technology with all of you! I hope to have some of you as my co-workers in the future, and I know that y'all will all make great teachers! Remember to include the technology you have learned this semester into your classrooms.

SO LONG MR. TASHBIN:
Mr. Tashbin, you have been a great teacher throughout this semester! You made learning about technology actually fun! I was nervous coming into this class and trying to learn things that I could implement into the classroom, but you made it easy! Thanks for always helping and giving positive feedback! I am definitely going to recommend people to take this class with you in the future!

AUF WIEDERSEHEN DR. STRANGE

Even though I did not get to have you in my class room everyday, I learned a lot from you! Maybe one day I could be as good with technology as you are! You've instilled in me the importance of using technology in the classroom, and because of this class I will use it in my class!

TEACHING YOU HOW TO USE AUDACITY

WEEK 12 ASSIGNMENT

DR. SEUSS "THE ZAX"

What can i say, this shows how typical some teachers can be in not wanting to implement technology into their classes. They need to realize that this is the direction in which education is moving...into the future!!! Some teachers just need to forget about what they know, and how they do things and maybe they might learn something that could benefit their students!

PS 22

These kids are really good singers!! More important than their singing though is the message in the song itself. Kids need teachers who want to include technology in their classrooms! Not only will their kids learn more, but it makes things easier on the teachers having kids use the computer/internet to upload their homework. Again, awesome singing by these students!!!

GOOGLE EARTH TOUR PROJECT

Here is a tour I created on Google earth, that shows some of the really cool softball fields I have been able to play on in the past.

MY TEACHER INTERVIEW

INTERVIEWING MR. AGNEW!!

For my interviewing project I interviewed my high school Calculus teacher, and how incorporated technology into his classroom. Some of the examples he gave of technology were his smart board and his labtop that has a screen that you can write on. Most of his classes cosist of doing problems on the board and reviewing over homeowrk in the traditional way; but now that he has these tools he can mix things up a bit. Instead of just using the white board and working a problem he can use his computer as a tool to see how students are doing the problems and actually show the other students common mistakes that are made. He also uses his smart board as a way to display harder problems, that would take forever to write, and breaks each step down in a faster way that helps his students out better than just using a whiteboard.

COMMENTS FOR TEACHERS WEEKS 13/14

KIM COFINO'S ALWAYS LEARNING BLOG

In Kim's first blog that I commented on I got to read about an International online school that offers online classes for the k-12 age groups. I thought it was real interesting how this site even offered classes for kinders!! That must be a real interesting thing to see! Kim made a really good point in that these kind of programs need to have a system of checks that can make sure students are not sharing logins, so others can take their tests, or just cheating in general. I think that this is one of the real big problems in online courses, and is one of the only drawbacks! The honor system doesn't always work!

In Kim's second blog that I got to post on she described a workshop that she gets to put on all across Asia, where she teaches a small interactive group of teachers technology and how they can use it in their classrooms in the best ways. She really stresses being able to use the technology and working in groups that way you are collaborating and learning from each other. I think that this sounds like a great way to learn new technologies, and that these workshops she gives are the way to go!!

TIMETOAST TIMELINE

My timeline includes some of my most recent favorite books and their original release dates.

COMMENTS FOR TEACHERS WEEKS 10/12

GOAL: PLANT A SEED
In this post by Mrs. Shelley, she describes the goal that every teacher should have faith in their students that they will succeed. Quoting the bible in that having a mustard seed of faith can move mountains! I totally belive this and it is one of the main reasons why I am going to be a teacher: I want to make a difference in akids life, and having faith in these kids will help do that. She also made a great point when she mentioned the worst behaved kid is probably the one that needs your faith the most!! Hopefully I will keep this in mind when I start to teach!

GOAL: CONQUER A FEAR
In this post Mrs. Shelley describes conquering your fears in life and then she applys that to her fears now in the teaching world, integrating technology into the classrooms. She is a pioneer in her area and is one of the first to try and integrate technology in here sytem. This is exactly the kinds of lessons we are learning in EDM310, and hopefully our efforts won't be for not!

COMMENTS 4 KIDS WEEK 14

I loved this post! Selena did a great job on being informative about volcanoes. One of the more interesting facts is that the biggest volcanoe in the universe is actually located on Mars! Being a science major, it is always nice to see girls being interested in science!! There aren't many of us out there.

COMMENTS FOR KIDS WEEK 13

For this week I gat to read a post done by Isara, who described a break that their class got to take outside. For only being in 4th grade Isara painted a beautiful picture of the grass, clouds, and her general surroundings. It was an amazing post!

COMMENTS FOR KIDS WEEK 12

In this post I got to see Kyan's first recording in his Room 7 class. He talked about his holiday and how he got to jump on his trampoline. I think it is awesome that kids are getting to record things like this at such ayoung age.

COMMENTS FOR KIDS WEEK 10

I commented on Cole's opinion essay, from Mrs. G's 6th grade class. He did his on who he would draft for the Broncos quarterback posistion. Not only did he do a good job on the paper but he did a good job on his analysis of who they should take. Even though he did leave out one of the top runners..Jimmy Clausen from Notre Dame.

Skype

So my first expeirence with Skyping went good! I needed to talk to Blaine about our podcast one day while I was at work, and since Im not alllowed to use my phone we used the computer instead! It was much easier and it provided video to go along with just being able to hear someone.

WEEK 9 ASSIGNMENT

ACCESS DISTANT LEARNING

In the ACCESS program, students will be able to take extra classes online to go along with their current courses taken in high school. This program offers the honor/A.P. students a chance to also earn some college credits while still in high school. This program has the potential to be really great for those students being able to use it. In that they will be able to take more classes in high school that they would not have taken without this program.

Even though the students will be using this program at home, they will still have help from advisors via the internet. There are support systems in place from the University of Alabama, Troy University, and various school sytems around the state. One of the state board of education's goals fr this program was to have it in place by 2010. This has not happened and they are only at 174 schools out of the 300 some odd high schools in the state of Alabama, with only one of those schools being in the Mobile area region. This is something the school boards need to work hard on beacuse this is a great program and all students deserve to use it.

COMMENTS FOR KIDS WEEK 9

This week I got to comment on Mrs. Yollis's class blog about circles! They looked like they had alot of fun learning how to dram them outside. These were third graders learning the geometry side about circles, not just the simple: circlesd are round and have no corners. They were learning about radius, diameter, cocentric circles, I mean come on I learned most of that stuff in Middle school not third grade!! It continues to amaze me that students start to learn things earlier and earlier in school these days.

WEEK 8 ASSIGNMENTS

ANDY PAUSCH'S LAST LECTURE

This was amazing!! What else is there to say? This last lecture touched on alot of important things that everyone should know! One of my favorite topics he Dr. Pausch talked about was the headfake! I am preparing not only to be a teacher now, but to also be a coach. One of the things that has always been apart of my goals while I am coaching was to not only instill great athletics lessons, but to mainly instill great life lessons. I know that it works too, because the headfake method worked on me! Dr. Pausch had some pretty cool chilhood dreams, and the fact that he accomplished all of them but one is incredible. I hope to make all of my goals come true too, but i think my playing for an Olympic gold medal is out of the question these days. I really liked the part where Andy compared teaching to being a salesman of education. I never thought to look at teaching this way! In a way it is totally true because, we will try day in and day out for these kids to buy into our lessons and methods that it will help them in the future! So now I am going to add to my list that I will be a great saleswoman of education!

COMMENTS FOR KIDS WEEK 8

This past week I read a poem by Michala. She did a poem about friends friends where it said that you should always be able to depend on your friends! Such amazing insight in a middle school-er!! wow!

WEEK 7 ASSIGNMENTS

RICHARD MILLER HOW WE DREAM PARTS 1 AND 2

As part one of the two part video ended I found myself thinking okay that was all nice and good but what was he talking about? I understand that he is using this multimedia program to compile all of his information; including sound bites, videos, pictures, links, etc.. But I really did not follow if he was trying to tell me how to use it. He was more of boasting about everything he got to work on and what they got to incorporate, not really how to use it.

At the end of part 2 of the video I thought that everything Mr. Miller talked about was very cool. The part where he showed a document that was not made out of the alphabet but the web was very interesting. That it could do searches on its own and update itself and show you things like where the happiest city on the planet is just by searching blogs was awesome. I have no clue how I would integrate this into my classroom because a. I have no clue how to do that kind of creation and b. I wouldn't know where to learn that program , assuming we do not have it yet.

Being able to make documents out of video, links, pictures, and the web purely is an awesome thing to do. Mr. Miller was right in saying that the 'document' he ublished online that got 9,000 hits within a month would not have gotten nearly that many having it in print. I know that I prefer the video version he did!! It was intriguing seeing everything you could do and it not having do be just print. Another cool thing about his video was the virtual green building he created using that software!! Amazing! I hope that I get to learn some of these things before I graduate!

MRS. DREXLER'S NETWORKED STUDENT

WOW! We need to start seeing more classes like this throughout our schools (especially in our college)! Being a networkes student would provide you with not only the tools you would need to basically teach yourself the subject but it would also help people like me (wanting to become techers) to prepare to teach thir students like this. I feel like we basically do the same thing in our class now, except that we do not go out and find our own videos or podcasts ourselves (Dr. strange already has ours provided for us).

The only downside I see in Mrs. Drexler's plan to integrate this into her middle school class is motivating middle schoolers to actually want to go and do these kind of things on their own. I know that kids of that age are very difficult to deal with and I think she might run into some obstacles if the students need to take their work home and do it after school is over, when they could be on their facebooks or twitters. other than that this would be a great idea to start integrating into our classrooms. AGAIN, I am kind of jealous that these kids are learning these kind of things whenthey are in middle school and I am just now learnig it in college!

COMMENTS FOR KIDS WEEK 7

This week I got to coment on a kid named Maddy and her essay on How To Plant An Awesome Seed. Maddy did a great job on the essay and made it very clear what steps you needed to take to keep your plant alive.

COMMENTS FOR TEACHERS

Here is the first post that I left for Tom Whitby on his blog: MY ISLAND VIEW; and my reflection on the last 2.

Tom,
My name is Meghan and I am a Junior at the University of South Alabama in Mobile. I am currently studying to be a high school science teacher, and in my Educational Media class I was assigned to follow your blog.
I liked how you compared public education to the industry business. They are very similar and probably did start out similarly to what you painted a picture of. I think that we could keep this idea of an ‘industry’ related education system if adopted to the new century like the industrial world has.
That would mean we need to adapt more technology into our classrooms, like today’s businesses have done.
Doing this would not only prepare our students for the outside world better, but it would also help them with the preparing for a job bit. Even though i would love for my students to just enjoy learning for learning sake, but the truth is most do not, and I plan to at least prepare the others as best I can.

Number 2: Lead Us Into Reform

At one point in this post about administration in the 34 years he had been teaching Mr. Whitby brought up this point:
That out of all the administrators he had worked under he had respect for: 2 out of the 8 Superintendents, 3 of the 9 promcipals, 2 of the 16 assistant principals, and 3 of the 10 Chairman members.
Wow, that seems to be a really bad statistic. He said the reason why he had respect for those he did, was because of their ability to understand and enable teachers on the staff to be successful. Maybe it was just the high school I went to, but from what I had heard from my teachers and from them since I have been studying to become one of them, all 4 Assistants and our principal were more than willing to help and encourage at any time. Maybe i have been delusional to think that all schools were one big happy family, and no matter where I went it would always be like that.
He also talked about the situation in Rhode Island where the faculty as a whole was fired due to not wanting to work longer hours and additional days without more pay. The reason for wanting this was because of the high dropout rate, and the superintendent thought that it would be a good idea if they were to just scrap them instead of trying to make things better with the faculty already in place. Mr. Whitby made an excellent point after this saying that why would the teaching methods work if they were to extend the hours and days if they hadn't been working in the first place?? Seems pretty obvious to me that they should have tried to improve the teaching methods first before chucking everyone.

ILLEGITIMI NON CARBORUNDUM

This latin phrase sounds pretty cool, no? Well at the end of this post I will tell you what it truly means and you will laugh your pants off!! But for now, you need to hear the reason behind throwing latin out randomly. A professor was at a workshop that promoted integrating technology in the classrooms. At the end of the workshop the speaker called for questions, and said professor took to the mic and said roughly: that if anyone needed to get information to him they need not twitter, email, text, or message him. They should simply talk to him. He then stated 'It was good enough for him, its good enough for them." And then went on to state that what was the need for this tech stuff anyways? The worst part is yet to come......The audience applauded him!! What crazoes!!! These people are, as he put it, Ten-Percenters ad do not reflect the majority of the whole. But still, it said to think that these higher educators are so in the caveman ages that they can't let go of their ways and adopt new and better ones.

So in closing I will let you ini on the Latin phrase, if you haven't already googled what it means... Don't let the bastards grind you down!!

WEEK 6 ASSIGNMENTS

DR. ALICE CHRISTIE'S WEBSITE

One of the helpful items that I saw on Dr. Christie's website are the workshops that she offers in Arizona and the one that she gives in Montgomery once a year. It is one thing to hear or read about tecgnology and integrating it into your classromms. Its an entirely fifferent story if someone is actually giving examples and showing you how to do it yourself in person. These workshops would be a pretty cool thing to go to when I start teaching.

Another thing I have found interesting is the GPS and Geocaching podcast. Being a science teacher in training I think it would be pretty cool to do a geocache hunt with one of my classes. That way they would be able not only to be able to use technology in the form of a gps reciever, but they would also be learning outside the the classrom in a hands on environment.

iTunesU

The iTunesU system could actually be helpful in everyone's classroom. One cool thing that I found was a digital Preservation of the Library of Congress!! Wow, did not know that was even out there! Instead of having kids using unhelpful sites like wikipedia for research, you can have them go into their itunes (which pretty much all of them have) and be able to download college level lectures or speeches on the subject they are researching.
As a student myself, it could give me different views on the subjects I am taking from a professor on the other side of the country! there are literally tons of useful information on the itunesU store! I am definently glad that I know about this now.

Comments 4 Kids

I have now left three different comments 4 kids comments. My most recent kid to comment for was James. He did a sort animation about making pancakes, with a voice layover for verbal instructions. It was so cool to see a little kid do these things as early as he is.
I have also commented on 2 other kids previously. One was on a class doinf research on recyling and pollution in the ocean, and the other was on guys doing the Mac vs PC debate with new twists on the views.

PRESENTATION

WEEK 5 ASSIGNMENTS

WIRED STORY

After reading all of this material about the Wikipedia tracer, I think that it is pretty cool that someone came up with this idea. I have never been a real big fan of Wikipedia ever since I found out that anyone and everyone could edit it if they wanted to. That alone, to me, made it an unreiabe resource to use. Now that I have read more into these tracer stories it lowers it on my list even more!! These companies and public figureheads going on the sight and changing things makes me mad. It defeats the purpose of having an online encyclopedia if someone can change waht it says about them if they don't like it. I would like to see if any scandals come out of this wikitracer though!! I love drama in the political and business worlds!

WHAT I'VE LEARNED THIS YEAR

Mr. McClung's essay on his expeirences during his first year really spoke to me. He is right when daying that we as teachers (or teachers to be) can forget who we are teaching to...KIDS! I hope that I can remeber that when I start teaching. I also like his point on not being afraid of technology, and that we aren't going to be perfect with it the first time we use it, but we have to keep on trying and hope that we get better at it.

I think that this is a big part of our class in EDM. I know that I personally neverthouht of using a lot of technology in my class because I myself had not had it in my classes. So i wasn't very familiar with the idea of branching out like that. I know I'm still not that comfortable with it now, but I am warming up to it the more practiced I get with my comuter and some of the programs we are now dealing with. Let's just see where I go from here...

WEEK 4 ASSIGNMENTS

THE EDUCATIONAL PODCASTING NETWORK

One of the biggest attributes to this podcast is that it isn't just one person posting podcasts on here, there are many peopple contributing. Not only is it good because it gives you more than one opinion on a subject, it can also give you a new or different way to showcase a subject to your students. They also have a list to the side of the screen that gives you differnt subjects to choose from, that way you can listen to those podcasts specific to your subject. Being a science teacher in the making I chose to go to the science section.

In this list I found a few casts that i particuarly enjoyed. "This Week in Science" happens to be a radio show that shows an interesting view on that week's hot spots in Science. Another one that I enjoyed was "Geek Counterpoint". This cast showed news in a humorous manner that basically translated "geek talk" into everyday english for those not learned in geek. I think these podcasts can help me alot in the future with getting my classes more iterested in my subject; and could be a different view, and hopefully, more interesting wayto keep them informed about the science world.

WEEK 3 ASSIGNMENTS

My i tunes happen to be messing up a lot right now so I have not been able to do my comments on the podcast. Hopefully, I will have everything fixed by tonight! Sorry for taking so long to get this up!!

MEDIA LITERACY IN FIRST GRADE

WOW!! I think that it is pretty amazing that these first graders are doing some of the same things that I am doing right now in college! They are a very lucky class because the most I was doing on a computer in the first grade was playing solitare or painting something in the Paint program. I can't wait to have these kids in my class because normally kids who are interested in computers tend to be drawn to science too!! They are also really lucky because each of these kids have their own laptops to use in class. When I was in the first grade we only had one computer to share between 30 kids. So if every school could get to this level of technology per classroom that would be great. The video of the one year old using the i phone is very interesting. I have seen kids use the i phone at an early age but never this early. It will be interesting to see how much these kids will be able to achieve when they get older.

WEEK 2 ASSIGNMENTS

A VISION OF STUDENTS TODAY

Mr. Wesch's video shows facts about the typical college students of today. Even though I consider myself the typical college student, most of my facts do not match the ones in this video. Unlike those in the video: I work an average of 6 hours each day; spend only 1 hour on the computer a day; get close to 6 hours of sleep each night; and before I came to the University of South Alabama ALL of my teachers knew me by name. This video does say alot about how much students struggle in today's college setting. I liked the general layout of the video, even though I would have liked to see images of these people other countries; or even of the students with their topic instead f it just written on a piece of paper.

Showing how much books, tuition, and computers cost compared to how much someone may make in a day and to how much a family may make in a year, really puts things in perspective for me. The average laptop cost more than that family makes in one year's wages. That is a very disturbing figure for me. I cannot believe that it is possible to live off that much less of money in a years time. I know that I would run through that money in at least a month, maybe two alone. That really concerns me on how we live in our country these days.

IT'S NOT ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY

I, for the most part, agree with Mrs. Hines. In the past 2 semesters of preparing to be a teacher most of what I have heard is about new software, better technology aids, and and all the programs I needed to be profficent in to become a good teacher, and frankly I felt overwhelmed. I always thought teaching with enthusiasm for my subject would be one of the best 'tools' I could bring to the table. I am NOT ,however, saying that technology is not an impotant part of teaching these days. I know that there are many programs out there to aid myself and my students in learning the subject best; just that sometimes it can get in the way if you do not utilize it correctly.

The part I find myself disagreeing with Mrs. Hines is her number 4 point. I am not blind to the world I live in, the world of technology. We as a society have come to a point where technology is everywhere, and we need to start utilizing it. I believe that we need to use technology as much as we can in the classroom so that we can get our lessons acroos better to our students. The trick to that is just to use the technology as a GUIDE for the information, NOT as the teacher! We as teachers have a duty to prepare our studentsfor the future, and if technology will help us do this the best I say we use it.

IS IT OKAY TO BE A TECHNOLOGICALLY ILLITERATE TEACHER

I agree with Mr. Fisch in that we should not flaunt that we are technologically illiterate, but be embarassed of it. However, I disagree with him that being tech-illiterate today is like not being able to read and write 30 years ago. I kjnow that technology is a huge part of the world today, but I believe that people in general can get by with the basics on a computer and that be enough. In the future I do expect everyone to be able to use a computer at their disposal for whatever they want, and be able to do it with profficency. I just believe that we are not at the point in our society where it is as devistating as not being able to read or write.

Reading and writing are probably the most important skills everyone needs to have, being technologically literate is moving up on the list but has yet to make it to the top for me. I think we will see it happen when students are made to take computer classes from an early age, not just in junior high and above. I also agree with Mr. Fisch in that a teacher should not be unwilling to learn more about technology. This goes back to teachers being continuous learners throughout their careers. We must strive to be the best that we can be for our students, and give them the tools that they will need for the future.

GARY'S SOCAIL MEDIA COUNTS

This is probably one of the coolest counter I have encoutnered on the web in a while. It basically shows us how much internet based we are as a society these days. In just under 2 minutes my counter showed that there had been over 3.5 million new searches on Google alone. Which makes me think back to our first assignment that asked who were these questions posted to before Google??

The reason I believe that this counter has some significance to me as a teacheer is that it show me how much is actually being done on the interent; and it was probably being done by someone I, or someone like me, will teach someday. We need to learn these new technologies so that we can better communicate with our students. We as teachers need to stay up to date on everything that our students may use to help them learn, so that we may also learn from it.

WEEK 1 ASSIGNMENTS

DID YOU KNOW?

This video showed a lot of facts that were real 'eye openers' for me. It seems unfathomable to me that by the year 2049 we could have invented a computer that not only is affordable, but will also be smarter than the entire population of the world combined. That we could have 5x as many words in the English language now as we did in Shakespeare's time is really cool to me. Just think of where that number will be in 50 years!
The way technology had grown just in the last 20 or so years is also extroidinary. That it can only take a few years for a company to reach its goal audianceand then by the time that they do that something better or more advanced has come along to rival it. We live in a world that is constantly growing in every aspect, and for one I am beginning to feel very small.

MR. WINKLE WAKES

Mr. Winkle seems to me a very lucky man, because he got to see the future! He also took in the changes that can come in 100 years in a very calm manner though. In a way I feel as if some peole have already been through this expeirence. My grandparents, and even my parents for that matter, have seen technology grow right in front of their eyes.
The fact that computers have almost become a mainstream, everday item would probably seem strange to someone 20 years ago. It is certainly true that technology has grown extremely in the past 50 years. BUT the cool thing to me is that we have only begun to scratch the surface of what could, and probably will be.

SCHOOLS KILL CREATIVITY

After seeing Ken's speech about how schools can kill creativity in students, I agree with him. Today's public education system is mainly focused on one thing and onething only: high test scores! This means that the main focus in schools today is getting the right answer. Kids are not asked to explore options or be creative, they are told what they should think and do. I have always been told to learn from your mistakes and that these mistakes would make me stronger. The system we have in placew today teaches kids that one way is right and to think outside the box is basically wrong.
Ken's example of the young girl with a "learning problem" is a great point. The teacher told her mother that she had a problem and needed to be tested for it. When really all she was doing is wanting to dance instead of sit still in class. Today we would tell the parents that the kid probably needed medication to calm her down. When really all we are doing is squandering a creative mind by trying to 'fix' the problem that may not exist.

HARNESSING YOUR STUDENT'S DIGITAL SMARTS

In this video I saw and heard some things that I have no clue how to do, or what they are. These are just kids in high schools around the world and they are having more options with computers than when I did in high school, which was just 3 years ago. I can admit that I have no clue what a teraform is and that I have never made an avatar for my self. I wouldn't know where to begin.
It is a great oppurtunity for those kids that are getting to learn about their "digital smarts". I wish that I had had a class like that. In which not only could I learn from the teacher but that they could learn from me too. Advancing kids with the newest technologies we have to offer is a very smart thing to do. Every school should have a program like these.