Sunday, February 21, 2010

February 21st Assignment

Dr. Alice Christie's website shows that she is a woman who is fully equipped with technology literacy. There is a tab that shows her workshops and encourages you to 'plan yours now'! I visited the classes tab where it shows the different classes that she teaches at the university. Just scanning the page at first, it shows the many classes that she teaches and obviously how she is the woman to go to to learn about certain areas of technology. I clicked on a few other tabs on the classes page to check out the individual classes. One was a Technology Integration Methods class and the other was an Internet and Communication Technology class.
Each class has different pages to view the information of the class (syllabus, course schedule, class resources, ect). I checked out the Course Schedule page of the Technology Integration Methods class and found a detailed list of what she had planned for that course at the time. She has many demonstration lessons for a lot of the programs on computers like Powerpoint, Word, and Publisher. It would be nice to learn some of the programs (if I needed to) that I don't know how to work, but it would be a really boring presentation if she went over how to use Word. I checked out the syllabus page on the Internet and Communication Technology tab. It gave her contact info, the description of the course, her objectives for the course along with other facts about the class.


For the iTunes University section of my post, the site listed on the assignment page directed me to a page that was deleted or no longer exists.


http://www.principalspartnership.com/iPods.pdf
I visited the site just above and found out some interesting facts about iPods in recent research at universities. It asks the question 'What does research say about using iPods for instruction?'. It states that iPods are deconstructing the border between education and entertainment. I believe that to be true, since many people own an iPod. Even those who don't own an iPod, like myself, still own some type of mP3 player that can play video or even record sound. IPods are definitely useful and used in the classroom, if the teachers know it or now, and are getting more and more advanced with each passing year.
Another part about this site talks about the actual research done on iPods at certain universities. Some universities that were mentioned are Brown, Standford, and University of Michigan. It talks about how an increasing number of professors are experimenting with their lectures and study materials using iPods. They use them by having their lectures and study materials available to the students through iPods of other mP3 players. This is so that if a student misses a lecture or doesn't understand a certain part of the lecture, they can fast forward or rewind to better understand the material. I like the idea of being able to listen to lectures on my mP3 player when I wasn't able to attend class, or study with the live version of lecture playing, but it seems like it would take up a lot of space on my mP3 player.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

February 14th Assignment

Throughout my school career, I have been informed NOT to use Wikipedia for a source with any of my research. There was no choice to if I would want to use the site or not. It was against the rules of research for papers and projects in my classrooms. I still do not use Wikipedia just because I was taught to find other sources to contribute to any paper I was writing or project I was researching for. Although the scanner is an amazing discovery of Mr. Griffith, I still will not use it even if it is getting better. It's just a risk that I am not willing to take when it comes to the validity of my school work. I don't think that anytime is a good time to use Wikipedia, even though the scanner is helping the site.


"What I've Learned This Year" by Mr. McClung was a really great read for beginner elementary school teachers. I wont be teaching for another couple of years and I still find it enlightening. He writes about 'How to read a crowd' and that being flexible is important. The quote, "When things go wrong, simply work with it and try to better the situation"is a positive line for beginner teachers. Communication and being reasonable are also two important factors of teaching, according to Mr. McClung. He says that the best way to resolve any work place issue is through communication. Also he says that we can forget that we are dealing with children and that we should encourage them to try again when they don't meet our expectations. I find that to be an amazing tip considering that we can get so frustrated with children. He writes that we shouldn't be afraid of technology. I know that I am not, but I still find his section on that helpful. The 'Listen to your Students' section talks about taking interest in the lives of your students because it means so much to them. And finally, Mr. McClung tells us to never stop learning. I totally agree with this piece of advice because I believe that we never do stop learning our entire lives.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Comments4Kids Week 4 and 5

Comments4Kids Blog Post for Week 4:

I commented on a younger boy's blog and his name on his blog is Ethan B. I could tell that he was younger because of the way that he wrote and by the short blog post. His post was named 'Blurb by Ethan' and he wrote about a book that he read. The book is called "Al Capone Shines my Shoes" by Gennifer Choldenko. He described the book very well and recommends it for a good ready to anyone. I commented on his blog last week but I just looked to see what I said and it wasn't there. I did comment though about how I thought he did a great job on describing the book and letting people know about it.

Comments4Kids Blog Post for Week 5:

I commented on a blog post of what seems to me to be of two girls. Their names are Ashleigh and Lauryn and their post is named 'Bitten!". They seem a bit older than the last kid's blog I looked at because they wrote a lot more and had great description. They described a scene of being at a science fair and getting bitten by a bright red spider. They put a lot of detail into it and made it easy to imagine in my head. I commented on the post and told them how they did a great job with the detail and that it made me feel like I was there. It sounded like a scene straight from Spiderman!

'My Favorite Moments in College' Presentation

Sunday, February 7, 2010

February 7th Assignment

I chose to go to the website, http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Coll_jpsrolls/PodcastCollection, which is the Judy Scharf Podcast Collection. This website had many different sections on ways and tips to create a podcast. I watched the tutorial on how to use Audacity, just so that I could be better informed from what I am now about the program. It shows you the step by step process on how to use Audacity and other parts of it that I was unaware that we might need. The tutorial mentioned that I should download the MP3 encoder so that I can save my podcasts as Mp3s to my computer so I did download it. It also shows you how to use the Mp3 encoder so it doesn't just leave you without information about the other program it wants you to download.

I also looked at the document that is called 'Benefits of Podcasting in Education'. It is a document that gives you facts and pointers on why podcasting in education is very useful in today's world. One fact that I enjoyed is the one that says, 'Students can make up missed work'. Now what college student does not like the sound of that? Some other pointers about podcasting in education that this document mentioned are: it is portable learning, parents can download their students' work, and it is available 24/7. Some other parts of this website includes a sections for time scheduling for your podcasts and even some suggestions for podcast subject matter! I find that this website is VERY useful and will recommend this website to my group when we get together this Wednesday night.