Blog Post #5

Well first of all, WOW! Eagle's Nest Radio was great! All of their podcasts were really good and interesting too. Langwitches made me want to switch from using audacity to garbageband. If they can use if quickly in a classroom then I would like to try it. I also did not know that there were so different things available for your ipod towards learning. I will be looking more into these options since I own an iPhone. If I ever do a podcast again I will put music in the background. This way background noise is eliminated and the music could go along with the topic. I listened to the Eagle's Nest Radio podcast on Rome and learned a lot. It was interesting, and I was glad to hear that the students recorded themselves. Technology was being used and the students were still leaning. I will try podcasts in my classroom as well.

Blog Post #4

1) "Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please?" by Scott McLeod. According to his biography, he is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Police Studies at Iowa State University. He is also the Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education. I agree with his post, but at first I did not quite understand it. Reading the comments helped me understand it a lot though. One person commented that kids know more than adults about technology, and this is so true! Children are being taught about technology in schools, and the parents are out working not learning about the newest technology. The only thing parents can really do today about their children using technology is to talk to them about the basics of internet safety.

2) The iSchool Initiative is a great idea!! Grades will go up because teacher/student communication will be more sufficient. Parents will be able to access student grades and notes without any trouble which will help increase parent involvement. Helping our environment is also a big plus! Not having to kill trees to buy textbooks will leave more money to pay teachers, and that means less unemployment.
My question about this is: How much memory does this iSchool hold? Books may take up a lot of space, and all the applications may as well. I like that a seventeen year old student took the time to start a program like this. I think that it will be the next generation of schools, and that it will be successful. I enjoyed this video, and wish that my high-school would have done this.
3) When I watched "The Lost Generation," at first it kind of scared me. To think that most of it is how many people view their lives was a bit scary. When the video was reversed, it made me smile. It also made me think that we can change our world, we just have to try. We have to teach our students about hope, and why having hope is important. We also have to teach them how believing in their dreams is just as important as conquering those dreams.
4) WOW! Watching the Virtual Choir was very soothing, and something I needed to hear after looking at a computer screen for so long. It was amazing how it was put together, and they still sound great. I think it is really cool that people could use their musical talents online instead of just in person. I really enjoyed this video and will probably start showing it to other people right away.

Additional Assignment #1

Google Squared helps educationally because it gives a nice, easy to read chart which makes things easier to compare. By allowing you to add anything to the search chart, it broadens your availability. This way you don't have to constantly go back and forth to different websites for statistics. It also gives you the source of which it received its information which makes references easy to find. WolframAlpha is a little more specific with its searches. Instead of giving a wide variety, it gives a few at a time. WolframAlpha was easier to read for me, and I did prefer it over Google Squared because it seemed more organized. Both of these search engines help educationally because provide charts, sources, and specific information instead of just websites. 

I have never heard of either of these search engines until this assignment; however, I will be using them more often now. I would not change my comment on "Did You Know? 3.0" because although the video gave a lot of statistics, they were very specific ones. I will change the way I view and react to statistics. I knew China had a bigger population than the United Stated, but I wasn't aware of just how big the gap was. I will use Google Squared and WolframAlpha to compare what I hear, and maybe even compare what I see from their results.

Blog Post #3

1) The video "A Vision of Students Today" by Michael Wesch was the perfect video to describe my life in college so far. Only about 3 or 4 of my professors actually knew my name while I was in their class, but almost all of them probably do not know it now. This semester only one of my professors uses the chalk board, the rest use a smart board or will never see me at all because it is an online class.
My favorite point in this was that the chalkboard encourages the teacher to move. If teachers were more active I think the students would be more involved in the learning process. One girl pointed out that the person she sat beside paid but never comes to class. Maybe this is because the teachers are not being creative. They let technology teach the students and just push a few buttons. I like the smart boards, but I also think you can use them and still be involved instead of just pushing the "next" button.
2)"It's Not about the Technology" was a great post! I loved that Ms. Hines put teaching AND learning back into the hands of the teacher instead of the technology. Today, so many teachers are not creative because they rely too much on technology. Technology can be a pro and a con in classrooms.
Although technology is very useful to the teaching experience, I think it is less useful in the learning experience if it is not used right. Smart Boards provide games while incorporating learning, which I completely agree with. Learning should be a fun experience, rather than just sitting in a desk watching the power point screen.
3)In Mr. Ficshbowl's "Is it okay to technology Illiterate?" he points out that it is NOT! When I read the statement: “If a teacher today is not technologically literate - and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more - it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write.” I couldn't have agreed more. In today's society technology is advancing everyday, and like he said, teachers already have a lot on their plate.
Students and teachers could learn some technology skills together, this way it gives teachers a chance to learn with their students which will help the students learning process. The teachers could get more creative with technology if they knew more about it. Since teachers are preparing students for jobs that are not even created yet, they NEED to know the advancing technologies and how to help the students learn by using them.
4)Watching the social media change every second is a little scary. It reminds me of the video "Did you Know? 3.0" If the US box office can make $11.03, then why are schools struggling for money? It amazes me! People spend so much money on technology and yet not spend any money in our schools to better the education of the generation who will be taking care of them.
Already $27 billion spent on new TV sets this year. If our schools received this, we would be able to provide our students with much more than we do now. Hopefully when I get a job I can teach my students that although having the newest things in technology at home may be cool, that also having them in schools to help them learn and get better jobs would be even better.

A short presentation about my journey through Life

From start to beginning...

View more presentations from kaylalynette.

Summary #1

My first teacher blog was about trackpads. I wasn't sure what a trackpad was but she explained it in her blog. She also pointed out that using a trackpad allowed the teachers to be more involved in the classroom. The students could also use the trackpad and the teacher was able to walk around the room instead of standing at the front the whole time. I commented that I had never seen a trackpad, but would be interested in using them in my classroom. I also stated that the trackpad was a useful tool for teachers because students did need to be more involved.
The second blog my assigned teacher wrote about was an earthquake in a place close to her heart. She used this experience to explain the advance in information technology. She told the story of how she found out about it through Twitter and Facebook rather than just the news. I commented on this blog stating that I was sorry to hear about the earthquake but I was glad she could use the experience to explain the advance in technology. In her blog she said that she didn't think paid professionals could have produced a page as fast as the ordinary people on Wikipedia did. I agreed with her on this because, like I said in my comment, my teachers never let us use Wikipedia because ordinary people could edit pages. In both of my comments I left a link to my blog so that hopefully she could look at it.

Blog Post #2

1)I really enjoyed the video "Did You Know? 3.0" by Karl Fisch! It gave a lot facts that kept my interest, and honestly scared me a little. I knew technology was advancing, but I did not know it was advancing as fast as the video showed. Another thing that shocked me was that 1 our 8 married couples met online. Technology is taking away the personal aspects of life. We no longer have to communicate face to face, therefore no one has to really see our emotions.
The question asking about who we asked things before google make me think! Today people are so dependent upon technology that we lack communication skills. According to this video, the amount of time it takes to reach a market audience of 50 million is increasing by a significant amount! I am sure very few on Earth can remember a day without technology. Once again, I am glad I watched this video, it gave me a new outlook on just how fast technology is emerging.

2) Mr. Winkle Wakes was an interesting video on how much the world has changed. I liked how it showed the fact that schools have not really changed. Especially with the reality of how much the world has changed. Sometimes I personally feel like Mr. Winkle because it seems like everyone is more technologically advanced than me.
Although schools are changing, they are not changing nearly as fast as the rest of the world which is why school is still comforting to some. I think schools should always have just about the same environment to them, no school should get too technologically advanced because our students still need the basics. Mr. Winkle will have to adapt the "new" world he awoke to, just as we have to adapt to all the changes most of the world is making in technology.

3)Ken Robinson's "The Importance of Creativity" video was great! It kept my attention from start to finish because he made really good points. His points were valid and made me think of how I want to teach my class. I completely agree with him about creativity being just as important as literacy. If our students aren't given the opportunity to be creative, then their imaginations leave them and if the teachers are not creative, we can't expect our students to be.
Another thing that I am glad he pointed out was that although math was important, dance was as well. Math, history, language arts, reading, and science are all important but so is art! When a school has to make cuts the first to go is art and music, which I completely disagree with. By taking art and music out of schools, this is exactly how we are killing creativity. He says that his definition of creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value. The students in our classrooms can't be original if we are taking away the freedom to use their creativity. Although I do not think going to school should be just about using your imagination, I do think more teachers should allow creativity in the classrooms. I would recommend this video to all schools!

4)Vicki Davis in the video "Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts" is the kind of teacher I aspire to be like! This school is lucky to have such an involved teacher. She doesn't stay at the front teaching, she learns as well. This proves that teachers can be involved with their class in a positive way, along with letting the students be creative. This video ties a long with what Ken Robinson was saying about letting the class be creative. Vicki Davis was allowing her to class to creative and, from what the video showed, they were enjoying it.
If I were going to teach secondary education I would do what she is doing and allow my students to teach their own peers for one class. Clearly she is learning with her class, and I think the students will remember her class for a very long time because of her method of teaching. Her class seemed enjoyable, and she seemed to really enjoy her job.