Blog Assignment 5

Dr. Scott McLeod

When I began reading Dr. McLeod's post, Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff, Please?, I began to think he was a very closed minded type of guy. I knew I would be in complete disagreement with him. Luckily, at the end he had me on his side. There was a slight moment I was in agreement with the sexting and predators online. With that being said, I never once had the thought of a complete lock out from kids using computers or cell phones. The only thought to cross my head was to simply monitor what your kids did online and how they text people.He is completely right about the the students using new technology having a leg up on the ones that are kept away from such technologies. I back him one hundred percent on that stand.

Travis Allen

Travis made a video, The iSchool Initiative, that describes how he feels the school system can benefit from using digital teaching. He argument is to eliminate books, paper, pens, pencils and all of the ordinary teaching utensils. Everything would in the palm of a student's and teacher's hand. He feels this could eliminate many costs to the school by getting rid of the books, copy machines, and other costly equipment. He made a follow up video, called ZeitgeistYoungMind's Entry, which shows the support he has received for this idea.

As much as I would love to believe this could happen, I never see us in a world, at least in my lifetime, where there is a completely digital classroom. The idea sounds marvelous on paper, but I think you just more problems to education. I am completely supportive of integrating technology into the classroom, but only integrating, too much of anything is a bad thing. If you were to have a student read from a computer screen all day everyday, they would just want to read it from a book. I feel a good balance between the two will provide for the best success.

Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir

Simply amazing would be my only description of this video. If your have not seen this Virtual Choir please go view it right away. This only shows how far the would has truly come. People are more connected now than ever. I am afraid I must also feed my skepticism, unfortunately. Now by no means am I calling this video fake, in fact, I am quite sure it is not, but it does open up a thought to how someone can trick you over the Internet. just think a second on how equally easy it would have been to get a bunch of people to lip sync the song and edit a recording of a group singing it into the videos. Just some food for thought and to make people aware of that not everything on the web is truthful or accurate.

Kevin Roberts

In the video Teaching in the 21st Century, Roberts explains how technology has changed the thinking on learning. Teachers are no longer primary sources of information. Information is everywhere and can be obtained from many mediums. Teachers must now help filter what is good and bad information getting to students. If students are going to use these sources for information they must know how to decide what is good information and what someone is lying about. Before teachers can do that, they must first no how to do so themselves. I find inevitable that I must learn these things as an educator because students are going to use these mediums, whether the educator likes it or not.

Reading Rockets

I found that the ABCs of Teaching Reading section from the Reading Rockets website will help me in the future with children that struggle. It opened my eyes to just how far children can fall behind their peers in reading ability. It shows me that even in high school students can be far behind their expected reading level due to malteaching or the student may have hid their inability to read or read well. It lets me know as an instructor what signs to look for and how to cope with a student who cannot read to their expected level

There is also a very useful "how to" section. This can lend assists in many things. It helps teachers find low-cost books, perform an effective read aloud, and even set an in classroom library, just to name a few. This seems to be a great tool to any teacher that may feel stuck or confused about a problem.

TimeToast Time Line

Blog Assignment 4

Langwitches: First Graders Create Own Read Along Book

In First Graders Create Own Read Along Book, I see that the more involved the students were, the more eager they were to learn. When they were involved in the reading that got excited and wanted to know more. It is one thing to get kids to read out loud in class, but when they can interact with what they are saying it opens so much more options for them. This technique not only got the students to read, but got them to read the story over and over again, which might be difficult to do. Once a student feels he or she is done reading, they do not need to pick that book up again.

Langwitches- Podcasting with First Grade

Podcasting With First Graders shows us how a little encouragement can really effect how a student thinks. It is one thing to have your teacher tell you how well you are doing or your parents at home, but when people around the world like what you are doing, it is a whole other feeling. This can make students feel better about what it is they are doing, which in turn makes them want to participate more. This method also gets them into the story by them pretending they are actually interviewing the two main characters.

Langwitches: Listening-Comprehension-Podcasting

Listening-Comprehension-Podcasting shows how podcasts can also help with learning other languages. Along with saying the word, students can also hear themselves saying things. The number of steps it takes to create a podcast also makes students practice the language over and over again. By making a podcast, the students have repeated practice, without repeating the same steps over and the work getting boring.

Project #5

C4T Summary #1

My Mind Gap

C4T#1 Comment 1

This first blog post was Mrs. Rand's stand of helping Wikipedia. She feels that Wikipedia is a great resource for students and people around the world. It would be a great loss if Wikipedia could not distribute information around the world. It actually is another great social media.

C4T#1 Comment 2

Mrs. Rand took a class to create a online class. She created a class called Digital Intellect 101. Even though she said after a few peer reviews, she said she might have to bump it up a 202 class. She said she had a great time in the class and learned a lot. The web class took a long time to create, but was fun.

Blog Assignment 3

Technology in Special Education

Seeing these students' faces brighten up at the thought that the world can be much easier thanks to technology reminds me why I want to become a teacher. I got the chance to watch Technology in Special Education, where Ms. Cook displays how technology has greatly enhanced the ability of learning for her her students.

All of her students seemed more excited about learning then ever before. I do believe this can be attributed to the fact that technology makes learning easier for them. They all had the will to learn, it was just so difficult for them. The increased difficulty discouraged them. Now with technology they can do assignments quicker, read and write much easily, and have more time for more learning.

Apple Education App.

I searched through several applications in the education category of the app store, and I found one that really caught my eye. It is an app called Word Bingo. This app includes four different games for the learning of words. I think that creating games for learning is a great tool because every kid loves to play game and most love to be competitive.

This app keeps a log of each participants scores, so the students could challenge each other to do better each time. As I mentioned before, this app offers four different games. This will help keep the students attention, instead of it being the same old game every time. It comes with a speech function so the student will also have to say the word along with identifying it.

Gary Hayes Social Media Count

Looking at this Social Media Counter really can help to open your eyes to how much the world now relies on the Internet to get information from one person to another. It makes you think as an educator if my students go home every day and use the social media mediums on the Internet. How am I going to keep their attention with just lecturing and paperwork?

There is no question I am going to have to incorporate social medias and online activities into my lesson plans. Students' minds are so in tuned to computers and technology that it only makes sense to teach them through the mediums they are accustomed to.

Michael Wesch: A Vision of Students Today

I see the message in this video A Vision of Students Today saying that there are too many distractions in today's life to want to apply yourself to old and basic classroom techniques.Every student is more worried about his or her cell phone, or more concerned with getting on Facebook then sitting down and reading a book. Many students think why should they care about class if the instructor does not care about them.

Technology helps associate the student with what they do on a daily basis. Its kind of like the app I mentioned earlier in this post. Students love using newer and cooler technology just like kids love games. So anytime you can combine something someone loves into with something they are not very fond of, it makes for an easier time.

Blog Assignment 2

The Strange Version of "Did You Know?"

Did You Know 3.0 A John Strange 2012 Version shows where the rest of the world sits compared to the United States along with how far technology has come. This video really did not open my eyes up to much I did not already know. The exact numbers and percentages alarmed me some, but since I was in high school I knew the United States was behind most of the world in education. I feel most of the blame falls on the parents. As educators we can only do so much. Even with the most valiant of efforts, only so much can be achieved in the classroom. This is just a theory, but I'm sure if you ask any of the students in that 25% from India if their parents helped or taught them at home, you would get a absolute yes.

For years now, I have been scared of the future. Not because where I may end up or what the future has in store for me, that I can all control. What terrifies me the most is what knew technological advancement will take place. I do not want flying cars, I'm happy with mine staying safely on the ground. It also scares me as an educator. I remember in high school always having that little smirk on my face when my teacher, who had been teaching for 25 years, could not figure out how to get the projector connected to the computer, or in some cases not even able to find the PowerPoint on the computer. I do not want to be that teacher that 25 years from now, I am in the classroom and I am holding up the class 15 minutes and looking like a fool because I can not figure out the new equipment the school had just purchased.

Mr. Winkle Wakes

In the video Mr. Winkle Wakes by Matthew Needleman,  we follow a short story of Rip Van Winkle awaking after his 100 year slumber. Mr Winkle finds that everything around him has changed. The workplace now contains computers and the ability to talk to people around the word in the blink of an eye. This is all a shock to him and suddenly does not feel well, so he finds his way to a hospital where to his surprise is the same as the office. He leaves after feeling even worse where he finds himself wondering into a school, and to his pleasure the school has not changed since the day he began his sleep. One hundred years later the school is ran and maintained the exact way he remembers, which makes Mr. Winkle feel better.

This story rises the very important question, "If the world out side of school is changing, why is the school still the same?" Now this may seem to completely contradict my previous statement on how I am scared the technology of the future, but that does not mean I do not believe it should be in our schools. My fear is just not knowing how to deal or work the new technology. This video can be evidence of why some students has a complete panic attack coming into college or going into the workforce. They are presented things they never worked with before. They may have all the knowledge they need for the job, but cannot work the tools necessary to do that job.

Sir Ken Robinson: The Importance of Creativity

Creativity is something that can never be taught. It's something that you are naturally born with and make stronger over time. Sir Ken Robinson discusses in The Importance of Creativity how schools are not only stopping the growth of creativity in a child, but also destroying it. All education systems through the world put the arts at the bottom of the curriculum. The basis being you will never need those things in a real job. Math, language, humanities, and science are all what is important in life. They tell kids that they are not going to become artists and dancers.

I completely see what Sir Ken is speaking of based on evidence of my own life. The fifth grade would be the last time I remember ever having an art class and even then it was only on Fridays. Once I became a college student art classes were optional and the required once were just an appreciation class, no hands on activities.

A Vision for 21st Century Learning

A Vision for 21st Century Learning is to bring to attention to people that the world is more than just listening and repeating, which is what our classrooms instill into students today. It is making the same argument that Dr. Strange makes about his EDM310 course. Classes should not be based on a "burp-back" system. I feel this has become a huge problem in today's education and I for one want to become an educator that changes this for a future youth.

Vicki Davis: Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts

In the video, Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts, we hear the story about a teach from rural Georgia who brings technology to her students. Not only is technology prevalent in her classroom, Vicki Davis also connects her students to others around the world. She taps into her students minds by making them think and even going as far as making them teach to the rest of the class. She even was taught by her students. She did not know how to Terraform before her students showed her how.