Project # 8 Podcast

C4K #1

1. My first C4K comment was on Hunter's blog from Mrs. Huebner's class. The blog post I commented on was his biopoem. There were many great ambitions. likes, and dreams expressed throughout his poem. In my comment I said "I like how you aspire to do so many great things in your life? I love ice cream and dogs too. Keep up the good work in school and keep reaching for your dreams!"

2. For my second C4K I commented on Allison's blog who is a 4th grade student in Mrs. Kilgo's class. She had written a blog post talking about some characteristics of raccoons. In her post she said that raccoons were nocturnal. I said that I though raccoons were neat animals with cute faces and I liked how she describes the stripes on the raccoons tail. I also posed the question of what she thought it would be like if we were nocturnal.

3. This weeks C4K comment was on a book interview that three students from Martha Yim's class produced. The students were Elise, Cade and Danielle. The students had to get into groups, and pick what book they wanted to use for their interview. Then they were shown how to use the notepad app on their iPads where they created their interview questions. Elise, Cade and Danielle decided to do their book interview on Satchel Page. In my comment I said "Hey Elise,Cade and Danielle! I am a student at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. I think your book interview video was awesome. Good job on using the iPad to write your interview questions on. Keep up the good learning!" They spoke loudly and asked interesting questions that made the interview come alive. They did a great job especially since they did not rehearse the interviews first.

4. For my C4K comment #4 I got to comment on Mary's blog, a student who lives in Moscow, Russia. Her blog post was about Where she would love to visit and why. Mary said that she would like to visit England because she had been studying English and would like to put it into practice. She would also like to see London and other places that she has read about. In my comment to her I said, "I am a college student at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. I think it would be great if you could go visit England! I would love to visit Italy because I love Italian food and would love to see all the beautiful sights and museums. Keep practicing your English and I hope you get to go visit London, England one day." I think it is great how we are able to connect with students from around the world!

C4T #2

I was assigned to read Beth Knittle's blog "Beth's Thoughts on Technology In The Classroom." The first post I commented on was titled "Where is Learning?" The post was about a tweet she saw come through on her twitter account. The tweet read, "Tedxx Philadelphi talk should be required viewing in every teaching 101 course. All our classrooms would be such better places." From this it made her think about learning and how this tweet made it look like just because our students watch something they will learn it. Ms. Knittle did not agree with this she said we cannot just expose students to the material and expect the to know it. Learning is interactive and learners need to do something with the material they are learning. She also said that sometimes we need to take a deep breath and rethink the fundamentals. She was asked by a college of hers to help post videos on her wiki containing the information she didn't have time to teach. She thought that if the kids came and looked at it she could count it as covered material. I agree with Ms. Knittle about how learning is interactive and it needs to be so learners can be creative with learning. I think that videos are good but you need to do something with the video other than just watch it. I commented on her blog saying that I agreed with her on how teachers seem to rush through material just so they can cover it because it is on the syllabus. They just expose us to material and expect us to soak it up like a sponge. That is not enough tell us how to interact and learn from the material. Her response to me was,"Learning is a participatory activity – all a teacher can really do is provide learners an opportunity to interactive with what we learn. Video does have its place if it is part of an active learning environment. But a teacher cannot make us learn, interact or engage, that is ultimately up to the learner.
I wish you success in your course."

This week I read a post from Ms. Knittle that was titled "Wistful Reflection" in which she reflected back on her years of teaching. She said she taught middle school math and science and in 15 years she taught at 4 different schools on 3 continents. For science she had the same Prentice-Hall book edition that she would change and adapt to the local environment. She would do this by adding new tools, strategies and resources which allowed her to focus on practical effective change with her students. She is now a tech integration specialist where tools, software and hardware are rapidly changing. "Flying by the seat of my pants" is how she feels sometimes with all the changes in technology that occur. She said that she feels like she is being more reactive than reflective and wonders if she is being effective. I commented on her post by saying this : I also feel like technology is changing rapidly from year to year. It is hard to keep up with it all! I like how you said you wondered if you were being effective anymore. I think that anytime you can learn something new about technology you are becoming more effective learner and then you can pass on what you learn to help effect the rest of your learning community. Just like you do through your blog. I think that being effective is important and we all need to think about if we are being effective learners and teachers.

Blog Assignment 5

Don't teach your kids this stuff! Please?

Dr. Scott McLeod is the founding director of UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE). CASTLE is the nations only academic center dedicated to the technology needs of schools. He is also an associate professor of education leadership at the University of Kentucky and has been named a "Leader in Learning" by the cable industry. He also wrote this post on his blog about what not to teach your students. When I first began reading I though he really was being negative about technology and was expressing his dislike for it. His sarcastic style of writing really allowed him get his point across. My position on his argument is that I think technology is very important in the classroom and should be implemented in every classroom. I do also think that using paper and pencil is still necessary in some situations. However technology allows students to be even more creative and innovative thinkers as they can share their knowledge and ideas with others around the world. Technology can help to facilitate learning and those who use it now will have advantages in the long run overs those who don't.

The iSchool Initiative
and ZeitgeistYoungMind's Entry

In this video Travis Allen is proposing an alternative more technology based way of school. He has proposed this due to numerous budget cuts and growing classroom sizes. He bases his idea off of the iTouch and all the educational applications it has to offer. In the iSchool initiative plan each student would have and iTouch modified for school and there would no longer be a need for paper or pens.Some of the applications that would be used on the iTouch are email, chemical touch,US constitution, USA Presidents, star walk, formulae, recorder, calculator, graphing calculator, notes and much more. The most interesting app to me is the classics app which has textbooks, workbooks and all other kinds of books on it that are accessible to read on the iTouch for each student.
I think he has a neat and innovative idea about how to put iTouch technology into the classroom. There seem to be an endless amount of educational apps that can be very valuable to aiding in each student's education. However I do think that there will still be a need for paper and pen because not everything can be done on the iTouch and students still need to apply what they learn. Another thing is what happens if the iTouch crashes with all your school work on it, id there any kind of backup for it? I think he has a great idea and I am going to look into it some more to see just exactly how it has been put into action and how well it is doing.

Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir

I thought it was amazing how all those people could sing the same song together and never have rehearsed it together in person before. It sounded amazing and just like they had been practicing for weeks. This use of the internet is very neat because it show cases talents from around the world and puts them all together. It is just another example of how technology can create amazing things and open doors to endless possibilities. Technology in the classroom can allow us to explore places and talk to people without even having to travel there. This is just another great example of how technology can enhance learning, even in music.

Teaching in the 21st Century

This video really had some great points about how to gear teaching towards the 21st century. Robert's thinks that teaching in the 21st century is not just giving facts, dates, and formulas because kids can find information anywhere, anytime. Do they know how to use different sources to find information? This is where we as teachers come into play by showing kids how to use different internet sources like google and twitter to their advantage. Robert's feels that we need to challenge and ask questions like: use any resource to answer questions such as how many grains of sand are in a square mile on the beach, or why does the sky appear blue? Answer those questions and use data to back them up, this is teaching in the 21st century by using technology to our advantage and not working against it. I think her position in the video is a valid one because information is everywhere and accessible to everyone. Further more we do not need to just spit our facts and content we need to challenge students to discover knowledge on their own. She also believes in engaging students in work rather than just entertaining them. Learning that is engaging is more active and will stick with them long term.
This will affect me as an educator because I will need to be creative with how I challenge students to think and answer questions. I need to teach them that there are many sources of information in the world. They need to be taught what valid information is and how to use it to their advantage in learning. Teaching will become more interactive and the knowledge base that students will be exposed to is tremendous. Teachers need to be there to guide and facilitate learning through technology in the 21st century.

Project 9a- Timetoast Timeline

Blog Assignment 4

Langwitches
This first blog post I read was about podcasting with first graders. They created their own read along audiobook for a Magic Tree House book "Dinosaurs in the Dark." As the teacher read the book to them another teacher was having students record from a script that followed the book. I listened to some of the 15 minute audio and though it was very well done. The students were talking in an interview format and used neat sound effects to go along with the story. Another podcast produced by second graders was also highlighted on this blog. The second graders were recording a story "Purim" and they were talking in Hebrew for some of the story. The blog post said that in order to internalize a new vocabulary word you have to hear and comprehend it at least 70 plus times. Through creating the podcast and editing it this helped the students to better understand the language. From the little bit of the podcast that I listened to the 7 and 8 year old students were speaking very clear and well pronounced Hebrew. I think they made podcasting very effective in the classroom and helped to keep the students engaged in the learning.

The Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom
I didn't know a whole lot about podcasting and had never listened to a podcast until this assignment. When I watched this video it really taught me a lot about podcasting and its benefits. Most students in todays world fall under the generation know as millenial, which is anyone born after 1980. This term just simply means that everyone in this age has never had to live without technology. Podcasting allows for differentiation in the classroom and project based learning. It also focuses on Bloom's higher taxonomic level of thinking. If a student is home sick and is missing important classwork like review for a big test then they could go online and listen to the teachers podcast of the classroom review. I think that is a really great thing about using the podcasting because then students wouldn't fall behind. When they were going over what students thought of podcasts one of them said they make stories come alive. The first grade students did this with the Magic Tree House book they recorded. Another great thing about podcast is that parents can see what is going on in the classroom and help their child with learning and understanding material that may be difficult for them. Podcast is still somewhat foreign to me but the more I learn about them the more interesting and exciting they sound.


Judy Scharf Podcast Collection
I leaned the definition of podcast and where the name podcast came from when I visited this blog. Podcast is a cross between the terms "broadcast" and "iPod" and it means a radio-style talk show. I found this very interesting how the name podcast came about. Ms. Scharf was showing how easy it is to implement the use of podcasts in the classroom and broke it down step-by-step. Some of her tips to success were to get comfortable with the podcast software you are using and to also have a exemplary podcast to listen to as an example. She also included example topics and what kind of questions to ask for different topics. I think that podcasting is something that can easily enhance the learning in any classroom.

Project 6 My Sentence Movie

Blog Assignment 3

"It's Not About the Technology" by Kelly Hines
I found this to be a very interesting title when I fist looked at it. This whole class is about technology and now were are reading something that is saying it's not about technology? After reading I understand the point Ms. Hines was making. Technology is not all that needs to go into teaching. It is an important component however if we do not posses certain skills as a teacher then we cannot fully use technology as a learning tool. These 4 skills are: Teachers must be learners, Learning and teaching are not the same thing, Technology is useless without good teaching, and be a 21st century teacher without the technology. Teachers must be learners and not just through required workshops and readings we must emerse ourselves in learning. I completely agree with this because how can we expect our students to learn and expand upon it if we are only spitting out information that we learned and could be outdated. Learning is a continuous process and the effort must be put in to be good learning role models if we want your students to be learners as well. Learning and teaching are not the same thing is equivalent to a physics problem that if an object does not move, no matter how much force has been applied, no work has been done. In order to learn we must use good teaching practice to help students meet goals for learning. Each person will have different goals for learning and that is ok. Learning need to be specific to each individual. We all learn at different rates and I agree that we need to set goals for our learning. Technology is useless without good teaching because a teacher can allow a student to use technology but if they are not innovative and proactive with technology then money is wasted. This is so true for example most of us thought twitter was for people to tell about what they ate and what they were doing, but because of good teaching we found out how it can be a valuable educational resource. Teachers need to lead their students in the correct direction with technology and show them how it can be used as a valuable resource. Be a 21st century teacher without the technology is saying that we as teachers need to challenge our students to be innovative and creative thinkers even without technology. Take what you the students are learning and have them apply it to their own life. I think that it is imperative to teach students how to be creative without the use of technology. When you take a teacher who embodies all of these skills and then add technology into the mix the possibilities are endless.


Is It Ok To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher? by Karl Fisch
Karl Fisch is making a stance that all teachers need to be technologically literate. I think that he has made a very strong argument in favor of having teachers understand technology. How can we expect our student's to be technologically literate if we as teachers are not? When he says that if a school turns out students who are technologically illiterate they should have the right to their license and funding questioned. I think this statement should be changed to say that we need to help these schools have the means to turn out technologically literate students. I do see the point Fisch is making about how important it is to be technologically literate. He also goes on to make the statement that being a teacher in todays world who is technologically illiterate is like being a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read or write. He says it might be a somewhat harsh point he is making but when you really think about it, it does make sense. When new things are introduced into the realm of learning that are valuable we need to embrace them and understand how they work in order to implement them into the classroom. I think it's awesome how this post won most influential blog for 2007. I really see how it could make a lot of teachers question how technologically literate they really were and if they even implemented it into their classroom.

Gary's Social Media Count
When I clicked on the link and it opened the page I was amazed by what I saw. The numbers were changing so fast I couldn't believe it. It really makes you see how much the internet, technology and social media are used and it's broken down to the second. The numbers keep going up by the thousands every second it seems. This is evidence of how popular technology is in todays society.
This means that as a teacher we need to understand how social media networks work and how to properly use technology. This social media count means that our professional careers as teachers need to involve technology. People are using technology in their daily lives and if correctly used in the classroom it can open doors to all kinda of learning possibilities.

A Vision of Student's Today
This video was kind of similar to the "Did You Know" video we watched last week. It was definitely attention grabbing material. I thought that this video had a lot of truth in it how it depicted the life of a student. A teachers point of view on this video would vary from the student in several ways. The teachers cannot put themselves into the students shoes and really figure out how each individual student learns. Everyone learns in a different way and a teacher may look at this video and say how can technology be the answer if some people don't like technology? Teachers need to use both technology and other resources in the classroom and teach students the benefits of both. The class material needs to better relate to daily lives of students or things they may encounter later on in the future.
I didn't really understand how the video said that a lot of people feel that technology was the answer and then it showed the students who brought lap tops to class but stayed on facebook or other things not related to class. I think if a teacher implements technology into the classroom and creates a more engaging learning environment. Technology, However, is not the full answer if you look back to Kelly Hines post "It's Not About the Technology." We need to examine all avenues of how to incorporate technology into learning in a way that both students and teacher can benefit from it. This video brings up so many questions and to every person who watches it will have a different opinion about it. I read some of the comment on the video and one person said the best student is one who THINKS, another person said that every generation of college aged students are trying to make a change for something. I see this video as a way of students thinking about how to change learning and make it more interactive and relevant to life.

C4T#1

Motivating For Testing
In this blog post she talks about her visit to Robert F. Kennedy Community school in Los Angeles. During her tour of the New Open World(NOW)Academy she went into Mrs. Willard's 2nd grade classroom. Mrs. Willard's classroom was filled with cheer but one thing that stood out on the wall was a large paper tree filled with red paper apples. Mrs. Willard told them that each student had an apple for dedications. Mrs.Carrillo stated that the best thing about the apples was that Mrs. Willard had each student dedicate their work for the standardized test to them. They were also acknowledging the ones who loved and cared for them with the apples. They were committing to do their best for them and it helped to bring family and community into the school. Mrs. Carrillo had stated in an earlier blog how the flaw with standardized testing was that students needed to be motivated to do their best. With what Mrs. Willard did with her students and the dedication apples has created them to be motivated to do their best for those that love and care for them. Having them posted on the wall makes it a constant reminder for the students to do their best everyday. I posted a comment to Mrs. Carrillo and thanked her for sharing the idea of the dedication tree. I also asked her what kinds of techniques she used in her classroom to help keep kids motivated. I included my email in the post so hopefully I will hear back from her.

One Project, Nine Ways
When I went to Mrs. Carrillo's blog this week I was excited to see that she had commented me back and that she had also written a blog post in response to my question on what kind of techniques she used to keep kids motivated. In her comment back to me she said that she uses candy as motivation, for example she said she introduced test day lollipops in her classroom. She also said that she gives students the freedom to pick how they would like to complete their assignment. She goes on to further explain her method in her blog post "One Project, Nine Ways.
She tries to avoid boring assignments so this is one of the solutions she came up with. She gives the students nine different choices of how they want to complete the assignment she gives them. They have to meet to requirements for the information that she wants but other than that they can add their own creative flair. She does make then pick 3 different ways to complete the assignments so that they are not alway doing their favorite and it helps them to become more well rounded. She calls it tic-tac-toe She also covers how to grade nine different types of projects fairly. She uses the rubric to ask for exactly what you want. Then all students are beings assessed for the same thing and it doesn't matter what approach they took to answer the question, as long as they answered it. I think that what she does with allowing the students to complete the project nine different ways allows kids to be more creative in their assignments. I commented on her new blog post and thanked her for answering my question and sharing her motivational techniques. I also said that I bet it makes grading somewhat fun when you get to see your students' personality shine through their work. I really enjoyed visiting Mrs. Carrillo's blog History, Education Technology and Beyond and will continue to visit and read more of her post in the future.

Project # 5 - Google Presentation

Blog Assignment 2

Did you Know 3.0

This video presents its viewer with statements and facts about technology, population, and certain statistics. One of the statements was that China will soon become the number one English speaking country in the world. How is this possible when it's not even the primary language of their country? Are they that much more advanced than us at preparing their kids for the future? The video also stated that the top 10 jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004 and that we are preparing kids for jobs that have not even been created yet. It also states that if Myspace were a country it would be the 5th largest. All these facts show how technology is being implemented in the world at a rapid speed and how it affects students in school.
This means that educators need to be aware of technology advances and implement them in the classroom. In order to prepare students for the future we need to supply students with the knowledge to become constant, adaptive learners. Technology primarily runs our lives and since it is constantly changing then we too must be able to change with it. One of the video facts said that by 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computational capabilities of the human brain. We need to keep adapting and learning so that we can keep up with technology.

Mr. Winkle Wakes

This video was rather interesting. It was about a man named Mr. Winkle who had been in a slumber for 100 years. When he awoke he discover many changes had occurred in the world. There were computers and people talking to others halfway around the world that they could see on a small screen. He then went to the hospital feeling sick and he saw all these machines breathing for people and x-rays that took pictures of people's insides. He left the hospital and stumbled upon a school which he then entered. He felt right at home with the teachers lecturing for hours and the students taking notes. He did see one of those computers at the back of the room, however, it was dusty and unused.
This video is saying, wake up to our school system! Technology has been implemented in the workplace to improve communication and in the hospital to aid in treatments and saving lives but not in our schools. Our schools should be one of the most important places to implement technology because the students in schools are the ones who go out and get jobs in hospitals and businesses which use technology. School systems need to challenge students more and keep them up to date on technological advances. Technology is important for the development of our future.

The Importance of Creativity

This video is of Sir Ken Robinson talking about how schools are killing creativity. He says that education runs deep with everyone because it is what will take us into the future. Children have all kinds of tremendous talents and creativity is just as important in education as literacy. Education systems are running with the belief that a mistake is the worst thing that can happen. The result is that we are educating children out of their creative capacity. Education systems all around the world all have the same system with math as the most important and the arts at the bottom. He told a story about Gillian Lynne a choreographer and about how she came to be one. When she was younger and in school her teachers thought she had a learning disibility. Her parents took her to a doctor and the doctor said that she was a dancer and their was nothing wrong with her. She now is a famous broadway musical choreographer. It just goes to show that the way out is not to medicate children and tell them they have to sit still and be like everyone else.
In school we are steered away from things that will not get us to the top like the arts. Intelligence is diverse and dynamic it is not just numbers and memorization. Robinson's closing remarkes were that we have to see our children for the hope that they are and we need to educate their whole being. I thinks that what Robinson has said here is really important. Creativity is what drives people in all different capacities and when we take that away we are taking away the drive to be something more. We are just causing students to feel inadequate when they do not understand something like math, and that is what will continue to happen if we do not nurture creativity.


Cecelia Gault Interviews Sir Ken Robinson

I think that Cecelia posed some very good questions in her interview. How can education change to meet the needs of the 21st century? Robinson said that the curriculum needed better balance between science and the arts, better use of technology and a stronger link between the school and community. I think that by more effectively emphasizing technology in the classroom it can bring together school and community and allow studetns to be more creative. She also asked him about the three myths of creativity and here they are: Only certain people are creative, only creative about certain things, and that there is nothin we can do about it. I agree with him that these are very valid myths of creativity. He is also asked to define intelligence and he defines it as a way of making sense of the world around us.
I think that by implementing better use of creativiy in all subject it will help to keep students engaged in the learning process. I also think that technology will allow students the ability to explore all the different avenues of learning that are constantly changing in the 21st century. I believe that these simple things will help students to have a better and more creative filled education.

Harness Your Students Digital Smarts

At a small school in rural south Georgia a teacher and IT specalists Vicki Davis is challenging students to learn by using technology. They use twitter and blogs to connect to the world around them. The students are learning how to learn and they are becoming very comfortable with technology. Ms. Davis has also started the flat classroom project in which students study technology trends around the world. They also write about them and make videos to share the information with others.Digiteen is also another program in which students study digital citizenship by researching, writing and posting their findings to digital sources.
Through using technology in her classroom Ms. Davis is empowering students to share with one another. I think that what she is doing is an excelent way to get students using their creativity. Technology is opening the doors for students to interact with one another from around the world.