I watched all the videos on pod- casting. All of them were helpful to me, in trying to understand what exactly a podcast was. The Eagle Nest Radio & Class Blog was very good, it gave me some ideas about when I have my own classroom, about how my class could get in groups and do pod-casts for projects. I also liked the Practical Principals podcasts. My group , August, decided to do a audio pod-casts, which is what the Practical Principals was. These did help me and my group learn more about pod-casting.
The educational implications that I believe Google Squared provides, is that you can type in anything in another column and find that information. That is very useful in education, especially on research projects. The educational implications of WolframAlpha or that when you type in country populations for example it gives you a map and what the highest population and the lowest population is. Also when you type in colors it will give a picture of the swatches of the color and what other colors are mixed in to form it. It is just very detailed and also good for research. I did not know about Google Squared or WolframAlpha before doing this assignment. Dr. Strange your comments did change everything that I commented on , on the Did You Know video. I totally thought that we were soo far behind, when really it all depends on the actual population. This information will help me out so much later on for other videos I watch or comments I read. Really now I realize America probably isn’t that far behind, we are only a quarter of the population of India and China, now wonder their statistics were much higher, there is so much more people there. I have definitely learned to do more research on statistics on sites such as Google Squared and WolframAlpha, so I can better understand what the results are actually saying.
I liked how Mr. Mcleod wrote this blog. It was in a sarcastic manner. At first when I was reading it I was thinking oh my gosh, this man is crazy! But as I continued to the end I saw that he was just being sarcastic. He really knows how to get someone’s attention. I agreed with what he said. Students need technology to succeed in today’s world. By having more outlets and resources for learning students tend to learn more. They can have hands-on experience learning things. But, I do think that there needs to be some limitations to what students can be allowed to do on the internet, simply because there are some dangers on the internet. A lot of parent’s are letting their kids have computers and giving them no restrictions and kids are meeting people on the internet and are in danger. Dr. Mcleod is an Associate Professor in Educational Administration program. He is the director of UCEA, this is the only center in the nation solely dedicated to the technology needs of school administrators.
The iSchool Initiative
Wow! For a high school senior, this video was well done. I was surprised at how good it was. This is a good idea. I think it would be a great thing to help the ecosystem and our carbon footprints. Having this technology to hold in the palm of our hands would be amazing. No more paper, books, and pencils would be a relief. Having information at one click of a button in the ischool apps. I really liked how he showed the apps that the iphone already has was neat, I personally don’t own an iphone so I did not know what all it has to offer in the apps.
Though I thought this video gave a good idea for the future of education, I also had a few disagreements. I worry that if we did have ischool, would there even really be a need for teachers, everything could be done at home by themselves. The students would lack some social contact. Being in a school environment enables kids to development social skills that will help them for the rest of their lives. Even though this is an amazing concept, ischool could also have some negative effects.
Lost Generation
This video was very interesting to me. People are saying that in the future people will be more lazy and uncaring, everything will be worse. The more and more people say these things the more people except as a fact and go along with it. We need to stop excepting this and make changes in our society. We need to be environmentally conscience and stop destroying our Earth. We need to learn how to stay in our relationships with loved ones, stop the increasing divorce rate. I really liked how this video was put together, how the sentences that were so negative could be read bottom up and become positive sentences. I struggle to understand how they though to do that , it was really cool.
Eric Whitaker’s Virtual Choir
All I can think to say is WOW!! That was one of the coolest things I have ever seen! I was in band in high school and we played some of Eric Whitaker’s pieces. His music was always interesting. I have never seen anything like this; I think it’s extraordinary that the internet could be used like this. I think this is a great thing to do, all these people from around the world can sing together and make such beautiful music.
A vision of Students Today: Michael Wesch This video totally caputures my personal college experience. So many ofmy classes require me to buy over-priced textbooks and then we would open them maybe 3 times the whole semester. Some classes even said the book was required for us to buy but to not bring it to class! I do spend a lot of time on the internet and I thik online learning someitimes is more beneficial . The multiple choice tests are not helping me to learn. I might add to the movie abouthow much paper is wasted when it is much simpler to use computers and laptops, it saves trees.
It's not about Technology by Kelly Hines Basically what I got from this post is that Kelly is saying that we do not need to just give the latest technology to all classroom teachers. We need to have teachers that already know how to use the products, such as the smart board, in the right manner. Not teachers who are going to use it like a game and word processor. Teachers need to also be learning, learning about what is the latest in technology. It's not about having the technology, you can teach students what is important that they need to know without technology. We just need teachers who try to learn new things for themselves and stay ahead of the game. Karl Fisch: Is it okay to be a technologically illeterate teacher No!!! It is not okay to be technologically illeterate according to Fisch. He states that being technologically illeterate today, is like 30 yrs ago, not knowing how to read and write. That would be a horrible teacher. Fisch says that teachers that do not know anything about what is new in technology and are not up to date should be questioned about their capabilities on being a good educator. Fisch also said that the schools and staff that hire such teachers should be questioned about their liscenses and credibility as educators. In order to be a good and effective teacher today, a teacher must be technologically literate. Gary Hayes: Social Media Count I thought this was amazing . This thing can detect all of that information. Every second something is changing on the count. This could be useful to me as a teacher because it brings to life the facts about teachers needing to be technologically literate. Things are changing fast and more and more people are joining in on new things and teachers should be aware of what is out there and investigate these things, try to learn them for themselves. In the long run this will help them become a better educator for their students.
My C4T assignment was "The Tempered Radical", the author's name is Bill Ferriter. On the first blog post I commented on , Bill was talking about how digital tools help in politics. There was a video that you could watch talking about this. Bill said that by having digital tools , like the computer, social networks, webcams, email, im, and etc all of us United States citizens can communicate together in a much faster way. People can actually talk to one another about things such as politics. You can get the message out much quicker about your views on a certain politician , and then other people can see that and respond in their own ways. I commented that I totally agree that digital tools is necessary. Yes they can be used for political reasons but they are also necessary for the classroom. Children can communicate with other children their age all across the world, and get to see how they are taught and what their point of views are.
The second post I commented on was about Teacher leaders, which is what Bill is a part of, and how they are not given opportunities in their schools to lead and do what they were trained to do. He actually did a survey , I believe he said on about 140 teachers asking if they felt like their schools gave them the opputunity to lead, and if they felt like their administrators cared about the teacher leaders. About 50% said no to both. He also had comments from several teacher leaders, giving their points of view on the matter. Most of them said they felt unappreciated for the time they put in to be a leader,and that they were not being properly compensated. I commented saying that I agree that they should be given the opportunity to lead, especially when they put in the extra time to be called one. The principals should recognize their accomplishments and they should at least be praised for it, and should be properly compensated for their hard work and dedication to the schools.
Did You Know 3.0 This video was very interesting. No, I did not know any of those facts. All of those statistics and numbers I had no idea! Especially the one about how China is soon to be the country with the most people speaking English. That is amazing! I really did not know how quickly computer technology is progressing.
I think this video is trying to tell us that we need to know what's going on in the world. America needs to step up in the technology world, we are behind. I believe it was in this video that it said the Bermuda was the country whom used the Internet the most, and America was I think #19! I had no idea that we were far behind in progression of technology. This video showed me how I need to start paying attention to what's out there for me in technology and how I need to catch up with the world.
Mr. Winkle Wakes
The Mr. Winkle video was very different. Mr. Winkle has woken up to a whole new world. He had been asleep for 100 years. Of course there has been many changes in 100 years. Mr. Winkle felt very uncomfortable because he found when he awakened that there was many things making noises and things were different. He went to different places when he woke up, he went to a office where he saw web cam, laptops, and etc. then he went to the hospital where machines are life to people, then he went to a school. The school had not changed at all , Mr. Winkle felt comfortable and wanted to stay there.
This video was giving the message that schools are behind in the technology world. By having access to computers in schools, kids have a way to learn differently and in a more entertaining way. Most of the jobs in today's world require computer skills. Having more technology in schools is way for kids to have extra was of learning and they could possibly learn better than by just sitting in a classroom listening to lectures all day.
The Importance of Creativity
This video was long but worth watching. The speaker was entertaining , he made a few jokes. He talked about how today , schools are taking creativity away from students. Subjects such as Math, Science, History, and English are being put on a pedal stool because of a stigmatic view placed on them. On the other hand subjects like dance, and theater are not taught.
Like the speaker said some kids are given the diagnosis that they have ADHD, when it could be that the kids just are meant to be dancers. Schools are teaching kids to be afraid of making mistakes, so their creativity is stifled because they are afraid of being wrong. We learn from making mistakes and being creative. We need more creativity in schools and more technology incorporated in the classroom.
Having Your Student's Digital Smarts
I really liked this video. The teacher was very creative in her classroom. She used the computer to teach her class. Her students learned to teach themselves about the computer and how to teach their classmates. This teacher was one of the first to do this. The students had blogs to talk to other children in the world and interact with them by posting videos and using web cams. They also had an interesting program with some kind of The Sims game where they learned how to do different things.
I really thought it was amazing how this rural school in Georgia has such an advanced classroom. It reminded me of this class EDM 310. This class sounded similar but was for high school students. I also remember how the teacher said that most educators believe that they have to know everything for their class before teaching it, she said that wasn't true, that most of the things in her class she had no idea how to do, but she had to learn by doing. She even said how the day they were videoing the students taught her how to do something she had no idea how to do. I think it is a great idea to have classes like this one across the world. Students will learn so much more and can be better prepared for life after school.
