Blog Post #8

This Is How We Dream

This video is created by Doctor Robert Miller. It shows video and pictures in the background with text in a movie format. This video described how writing has changed. It has went from paper/pencil and going to libraries to using your laptop for everything.  He says how he created some projects without ever stepping foot in a library. He describes how an article goes on in print but once online it lives on forever. Unlike in the library once you check it out to read there is still copies available for the next person to read.

Ideas are there and they do not belong to us individually. Ideas belong to us in a culture. As teachers our job is to share ideas freely with everyone. One thing we must do is provide this information in a captivitng way. A way that grabs our attention and we learn without realizing w
e are learning. He goes to say that. "restrictions are largely ones that we out on ourselves."  He tells us that in a print model something such as the ideas in this video would have taken years to reach as many people as this video did being uploaded to the Internet in just the months.

This video at first was hard to grasp what he was saying. I had to watch it two more times to fully grasp it. I believe that the end idea here is to provide information that we are teaching as interesting as possible. Its' idea is that everything is out there but it is up to us to make it interesting and able to grasp the minds of who we are teaching. I believe the way he presented his information is an amazing idea. To create videos that teach the lesson with fun pictures or videos and then adding text so you know the key points is a wonderful tool. The students can go back in this information time and time again. I believe in my classroom I will spend time to create these videos but upload them to a class website. I feel like I might use them from time to time in the classroom but overall I use these as a form of review. I am very strict on allowing my daughter to watch television. I have relaxed some but my main beliefs stay the same.  I feel like the best way to teach is hands on first and then do other forms. I feel like if I help them create something will teaching something it will stick more and they will not even realize they are learning something they will later be tested on.

Blog Post 12 Carly Pugh

This blog post is by a fellow student at South named Carly Pugh. In this blog she describes an assignment given to her by Dr. Strange. She is to creat a playlist of YouTube videos that lists all of these characteristics given to her by Dr. Strange. In this blog post are several videos that you must click on to understand what she is talking about. My favorite is the one about creativity. I feel as a teacher it is our job to nurture creativity and make it flourish in our students. I feel that the children that harvest this trait that still hold this true when they become adults go farther in life then those that did not. I think it is so beneficial and can help you in so many ways throughout life. She points out how important it is to get these kids to think. I think that most of these kids nowadays do not have to think. They are told what to write and what to do. When they are given something where they are free to create they are lost. I feel that she made many interesting points. She did upload one video directly so that you didn't have to click a link. It is six questions that shows what little I got from Dr. Miller. It shows a video that has pictures with a dialog. This is the only point that I got from "This Is How We Dream" videos is that things we need to say need to come in a brilliant way that gets the audience's attention and keeps it. I think this little video is fabulous and does exactly what Dr. Miller would want.  

I really liked her blog post. I feel like we agree on so many levels. I feel like it takes so much to captivite the minds of young ones. I want to allow the kids to do so much creatively. I want pictures to be drawn as well as words to be written. I want them to do projects mainly with paper and cardboard but I am opening up to the idea of doing things online. The only issue I still run across is how are these kids going to be able to do it? I did my field experience at Fonde Elementary and there was only four computers in the classroom. Also with low income families I am sure I am going to run across one or two students that will have no way to get to the Internet at all. I love the idea of allowing them to do some of these projects but expenses stand in our way.

The Chipper Series and EDM310 For Dummies

These are two videos created by students in EDM310. This is the class that I am currently in and the whole reason behind me doing a blog. The first video is about a girl named Chipper. She is on a quest basically to get by in life doing the bare minimum. It is about a girl that goes to her professor Dr. Strange and tells him in updates about what is going on in her life. She starts out by saying she got an email saying she hasn't done her work. She says that since in the future she sees her work done and since the future is the present then her work is done. Dr. Strange sticks by his thoughts that her work is not done. She leaves and comes back and says she going to redefine procrastination to "work can be turned in late". Dr. Strange does not agree with this but she leaves and comes back on a different day. She comes back and tells Dr. Strange that he is not doing his job. He is not "teaching" her. She says her parents spend thousands of dollars in tuition and he should do his job. She wants to be taught so she doesn't have to learn. She says if he doesn't change his ways she is going to drop out and she does. She then decides she is going to make her own pilot school where they can come to stimulation and class when ever they chose and for however long they chose. They then get their degree. Well the FAA shuts her down since they never set foot in an airplane. So she decided she going to go teach and Dr. Strange helps her get a job. Well she gets fired since she didn't step foot inside the classroom since she just had too much going on in life. She then decides to be a waitress, then a nanny, and a garbage collector. She gets fired from the first job, didn't get hired in the second job, and in the third she had a coming of heart. She decides to change her ways and go back to school. The second video is a short commercial demonstrating what you need to pass EDM310. It asks you questions like "Does EDM310 have you down? Are you going crazy?". It then offers the solution to your problems EDM310 for dummies.

I enjoyed seeing what other students have created in EDM310. I really don't have many creative ideas when it comes to technology. The only thing video wise that I see myself creating is video of me teaching or going over a lesson so that my students can have it when they are sick. I just do not know if once I am in the classroom I will be able to do all that I want in my spare time. I have a daughter who is 20 months old and she comes number one in my life. I do not want her to suffer just because I am spending so much of my free time doing extra activities for my classroom. She has a speech delay and there are certain things that we need to do with her all the time. It is already hard enough doing the things she needs with a full course load and all things I need to do at home. I am going to be stretched even more thin when I start teaching.

Learn To Change, Change To learn

This is a video about how education should change as the environment it is in has changed.  One point is that children are having a more stimulating environment at home rather then at school. Kids are communicating through social networking, SMS, email, and many other technological devices and all of these devices are are banned in schools. "Every turned off device is potentially a turned off child." School is not the only place where these children are learning. They are emerged in education at home, the library, museums, and online. Schools major function should now be for social networking, joint projects, and a guide for learning. Right now it is a solo experience where as this could be turned into a community. We need the best quality teachers regardless of where the student is. The student can collect data wandering around the city using his or her cell phone regardless of being in a classroom. It is about opening doors for these students. They can see what NASA is doing and experience what people are doing in the labs at MIT. It is connecting them to opportunities that will change their education experiences and shape them for college and life itself.  All of this needs to start with the teacher. They need a place to swap ideas and a place that allows them to grow. One person spoke about standardize testing. He says that it is foolish to do have this type of testing. These children are not going to have jobs in the future that needs a vending machine answer.  Another person says that when no child left behind fades away that creativity will take its' place. These students will have work that is artistic, created of teamwork, applications, and needs them to be multicultural and multilingual. They need to be able to know how to find information and prove that it is correct. They need to be able to problem solve. The last speaker gives the quote "Death of education, dawn of learning".

I feel like everything in this video is correct. Education as a whole needs an uplift. Everything that is in the classroom is either outdated or the wrong method. I strongly dislike standardize testing maybe because I am an awful test taker. I was in honors chemistry in high school. I knew all of the material. I stayed before and after school tutoring other students but every time I took a test I would fail it. When it comes to most testing there is only one way to do something. If you don't do it exactly right you fail. My teacher knew I knew the material and I passed the class with an A mainly because she gave me bonus points for tutoring. It was just the way the tests were written. I feel like there is so much more then that one way of testing. I don't see why a project can not be considered a test. It meets multiple objectives and they experience real life situations. Yet for some reason we still go back to multiple choice questions. Even jobs give you questionnaires to fill out. I highly doubt that if you were in a real situation you would chose only one of four choices. No you would not because there are hundreds of factors that go into one situation.  Education needs to get with the times and throw out standardize testing. There are hundreds of different way you can measure a schools progress. Why do we stick with something that not everyone can excel at. My daughter has a delay and it worries me nonstop about whether or not she is still going to have by the time she starts public school. The fact that (what I've heard from another mother with a student in MCPSS) kindergarteners have to take E.Q.T.s is absurd. I heard that for them they are oral. Which frightens me because Leyna has a speech delay but she is smart in everything else. I don't feel like this is fair but is something I will deal with when the time comes. To get to the point I don't feel as though standardize testing is good for our students. Just because a piece of paper tells you that 85% of the kids passed doesn't mean anything. They all could of been really lucky and guessed right. They could memorize the answer but not be able to apply it. I will get off my soapbox now and go on to the next part of my blog.

scavenger hunt 2.0 Using Web 20.12

1.) Find a video tool.
  
 I chose PhotoPreach.com. It is a place were you can create slide shows with polls or quizzes added in. You can share, create, and embed your slideshows. They have it available for anyone but they also have it special for educators. In the educators premium you have many things that make it worthwhile. It is all ad free. As an educator you can create and manage the students access. The students do not need an email to sign up. you. Can download unlimited shows in burn able DVDs and mpeg for showing online. You have adjustable controls for privacy and the site helps protect against the students seeing improper images. You can organize projects with tags. Can publish publicly. You can add your own MP3s to personalize your slide shows. You have unlimited space for albums and photos. You can customize transitions between slides. For this program its cost is for one educator and fifty students is nine dollars a month and for one educator and around one hundred and fifty students it is twenty-five dollars a month.

2.) Find a community tool 


edmodo.com

This is a social networking device similar to Facebook. I only gather some bits and pieces of information from it since I don't want to fully set it up until I have my own classroom. In it you can post to your feed similar to Facebook except you click how you want it to read. Your choices are: note, alert, poll, quiz, or assignment. I feel like I can use this in my classroom to submit assignments online as well as in class take home folders. With it being online as well students that have missed class have a chance to see what it going on and can catch up before they come back. It makes it easier to keep due dates all the same. It will help me with organization as well and proof of what I have assigned where as a folder then can lose it. They cannot lose the Internet. I can see me using the poll feature to ask questions to see if everyone is understanding a lesson or to see if we need to go back over things. You can also add to something called the library. It has a place for google docs, files, and links. This is a great tool to keep interesting websites together to where the students can always look back and find them. From what I can tell the students can write posts to you. I think this would be great in keeping in touch with students after they leave my class and if they ever need help in the future they have a way to ask.

3. Create a poll.

Create interactive meetings at Poll Everywhere