Comment For Kids (Part 3)

For this weeks assignment, I commented on Taelor's Blog. Her blog was about High School Chemistry Lab. She stated in her post that she did an experiement using colors and how she had a partner named chase and her leaders were Olea and Andrea. This is what she wrote about her experiment: "Our process was, we got filter paper and cut a hole in it. We drew a circle around it with washable markers. The colors we used were black, green, blue, red, and mixed colors. We had to fold a piece of thick paper into a triangular shape and stick that piece of paper into the hole in the filter paper. Then we stuck the filter paper and the triangular piece of paper into a glass of water. Pretty soon the colors started to separate. For the green, the yellow molecule is lighter than the blue molecule so they separated. For the red, the white molecule was lighter than the pink molecule so they separated. For blue, the white molecule was lighter than the light blue so they separated. The black was the coolest because it has every color in it so it was like all the colors mixed together to make one really cool science experiment." I commented on her blog and told her that the experiment sounded really fun and that she needed to keep up the good work she is doing, That I really enjoyed reading her post.

ACCESS

Alabama Connecting Classroom Educators, and Students Statewide, Also known as ACCESS, is a program that was launched November 1, 2004 and their mission is to provide and infrastructure that delivers equitable, quality learning opportunities for all citizens. This program is available to all Alabama public high school students. The goal of the distance learning program is to create equity through additional educational offering to high school students. It's providing classroom courses and teachers via technology. This program has have a lot of great and positive feedback so far!

I believe ACCESS is a wonderful program. They have different online courses that have e-teachers, and video conferences that allow students to really have education at their fingertips. So far there have been alot of great and positive feedback so far. I think that ACCESS is very beneficial to Alabama students, and Hopefully will make it to all the school statewide.

ALEX

The Alabama Learning Exchange, which is also known as Alex, is something I never heard of until this assignment was given. Alex, although a work in progress, already has so many different and helpful resources that meet the needs of teachers, administrators, parents and students. Some examples of the helpful resources are: Lesson plans, links to websites, access podcast,a personal work space for teachers and etc. Also about Alex, that is very interesting, is that it is a collaborative project, teachers are sharing information through this website and helping it grow.


Overall, I think that Alex is really helpful to students and teachers. It gives you great resources that I hopefully will soon use. This assignment opened my eyes to a wonderful website that will soon be of great use for me.

Comment For Kids (part 2)

I visited Marks blog and left a comment on his blog post about his group assignment of building a Lego Robotics. Mark stated in his blog that he was very upset because he did all the work while his partners in his group "screwed around". He said that it sucks to have a group that didn't help with anything. Mark says that next time if he has to work in groups he will pick better partners. I told him that I think everyone will experience this in their life at some point, that it goes on here at South Alabama, that some students just don't help in projects like they should. I also told Mark that if he does what he is suppose to that it will all pay off in the end, and that he did an great job on his Lego Robotics that he should be really proud of himself. Also, to always do his best,even when others aren't and to keep up the good work! :-D

Comment For Kids (part 1)

I visited Mr. Georend's Class Blog and I left comments on Chandler, Maddie, Dmitriy, Jacob and Shelby. Their post were so intresting and fun to read. They all had very diffrent post, well written and very very creative, they made me laugh!

Chandler was the first child's post that I read. He wrote about Running The Mile, which is at his P.E class they have to run a mile around the football field. He dreaded running this mile. He said in his post that it felt like he was running forever and that his legs felt like jello, and his stomach would get queesy! But when he was finally done he went to go get his grade, and was a little disappointed because he didn't do as well as he did the years before. He said that he would of liked to improve his grades. I commented on his post and said that it was great that he finished the mile, and that I knew exactly what he meant by saying his legs felt like Jello.

Maddie's post was about Dress Like a Penguin Day. She said that the reason she tought of this day was becuase one of her friends fell down at school one day and when she got up, she was walking funny; and to immiate her she walked like a penguin. She stated in her post that she would like everyone to dress up like a penguin by wearing flippers and a stubby beak and to eat fished shaped cookies all day. Also they would go ice-skating untill they ache. She would like her Dress Like a Penguin Day be a National Holiday in January.

Dmitriy's was the third child that I posted a comment on. He wrote about his dog Madi, and how he let her out and she saw a squirl and began to chase it. While his dad was telling Madi to come back the dog just kept chasing after the squirl. Also that the squirl ran really fast and ran up a tree. Then he let his dog back in and he sayed that Madi was really thirsty from all the running.

Jacob's post was really funny. He wrote about Dance like a Hippi Day. He wanted his holiday to be on January 3rd. He said it all began when he drove by a man with BIG puffy hair and was doing a weird dance. Then he said in his story that he then went home and done the dance, and improved it. Then went to school and showed all his friends how to do the weird funny dance. That's how he came up with Dance Like a Hippi Day.

Shelby wrote about a Horse Camp that she had visited. And at this camp she met two horses, Sue and Smokey. She explained how she rode the horse named Sue for three hours bare back. She also played a game with the horses, where she acted like she was in a horse show, she sayed "I acted like a snotty rich girl showing my horse". Too funny! Then after they rode horses her grandpa came to the stables and they all went and ate Marshmellos. She said she misses the farm and wants to go back.

Reading these post from Jacob, Dmitriy, Maddie, Shelby, and Chandler really brought back memories from when I was in School and that young (I miss those days). I really reading all their post,they were very creative and told great stories. This assignment was really cool.

KAIA

Well first off, What a wonderful assignment!

This was a great assignment! watching Kaia and her Father was amazing. They turned everyday living into something so precious and unique. Dr. Chamberlain's voice thread really added a special/personal touch for Kaia and her Father. Mr. Chamberlain and his class uses video/audio in their post, since little Kaia can't ready very well yet.I really admire the fact that Kaia's father was so willing to learn how to use technology so that Kaia could take pictures. Kaia took beautiful pictures which allowed them to openly communicate and interact with Dr. Chamberlain's class.

Her Father is so inspiring.

Kaia's Father wanted her to explore the world around her, and Kaia took pictures and found beauty in everything she took pictures of, she didn't care of what. This post was really heart felt and touched me! I take for granted all the little things such as a camera. This assignment really made me think about the power of technology and how it really can turn something so small so BIG. And not to take things that we have for granted. This post has encouraged me to do this in my own classroom, it would be a great learning experience for all of my students. But Kaia's Father was right, that learning does extend outside of the classroom walls and technology does make this possible!!!

Personal Learning Network (PLN)

A personal learning network is where you ask a question of interest to you and seek out people, places, organizations and activities which will enable you to learn about it. I asked five different people how they used technology in their classroom and how effective it was for the students and parents.
The first person that I came into contact with was, Ginny Haskins, I asked her what technology she used and how it was helpful to her students and parents. She responded to me and said she was a big fan of facebook. She would give a parent letter to all the parents at the beginning of the school year and have them add her as a friend. This way she could talk to the parents, about student progress and about upcoming events for her class. She stated "It's a great way to communicate and its easy".

The second person that I contacted for my PLN was Jessica Normand she teaches 8th graders. I asked her the same question, how is technology used in your classroom and is it effective for your students and parents? She commented back that her use of technology was using web cam to post assignments and homework for her students. She also stated that her students and parents love it because students who have missed her class can look and find out what they need to make up for the following class day, where those students who missed wont fall behind. She said it's been successful thus far.

The third person I contacted was Michael Stewart, he teachers Literature and had some helpful tips for me of using technology in the classroom. He stated that for his Literature assignments he allowed students to use podcast to do their poetry assignments. This is so that they can express them selves. Parents and students love it. Parents get to watch their children's podcast and see how they did, and students love it cause it's like their on TV. Mr. Stewart also stated that he has received great comments from other teachers that also would like to do the same for their classrooms as well.

The fourth individual I was pleased to contact and ask her the same question was Mrs. Beth Baldree, she told me that she incorporated technology in her classroom by having students do research on different individuals that she assigns. She gives them a list of names and they have to find that particular person and find all the information on them, and when the project is due she sets up a web cam and has that student give all a presentation to the person they were assigned to. She said that the students love it and the parents love it as well, cause they learn so much from doing this assignment because its much more involved.

The fifth person I interviewed was Sharron Hetzel. She stated that she uses technology for the entire class. She commented that she loves to set up video conferences with persons that have are of educational use. For instance she told me one Video Conference was with the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. She also stated that it is hard to get them set up but well worth it;My students love it, it really involves them, they get to ask questions and its as if they were in the classroom with them.

During this PLN, I have learned that technology can be of great use all around the world. These five people have really given me some great ideas to use for my own classroom. I really enjoyed talking with the five individuals and think they were of great help.

New Literacies Project

Project New Media Literacies (NML) began as a research based program,in 2006, to explore how they might best equip students with the social skills and cultural competencies required to become involved int he media. It raises public understanding about what it is to be literate in a globally interconnected multicultural world.

New Media Leteracies are set of skills that everyone needs to deal with our cultural today. These skills are vital in students success. The New Media Leteracies Project hopes to solve some problems such as the participation gap and the transparency problem. They need to be taught how to participate in New Media Literacy skills. Having learning these skills will help in a students day to day life.
Some of these skills are judgement, negotiation, appropriation, play, transmedia navigation, simulation, collective intelligence, performance, distributed cognition, visualization, multitasking. If you would like to see more about this project you may visit this website, New Media Literacies Project.

New Media Literacies

The New Media Literacies video, by the NML staff, had talked about skills of New Media, some of which I have never heard of. These skills I think are good to have if you are living in the 21st century.
The skills this video talks about are;
Judgement
negotiation
appropriation
play
transmedia navigation
simulation
collective intelligence
performance
distributed cognition
visualization
multitasking

I can say that some of these skills I have encountered and already do well, for example multitasking. This skill, I believe, is a crucial part of living, you need to know how to do more than one thing at a time. It keeps the brain working and always thinking, I think.

I think these skills are necessary and can be very beneficial both as a teacher and a student. I can't say that I have all these skills, I definitely need to work on most of them, so I can teach it to my future students.

Networked Student

Wendy Drexler's video, The Networked Student, was interesting to me. Mrs. Drexler makes a wonderful point that students need to become connected with the rest of the world. I think that it is important that students are able to express themselves and share it with other students, they learn better, I think, by doing this. But then again I don't really like the idea of students learning solely from the Internet, but do think they should have the know how, if that makes sense.
This video was easy to understand, it gets straight to the point and has lots of valuable information. It really gives you an insight on how students today are using the technology as a learning tool. To have these technologies at your finger tips can be a really useful tool in learning, such as iTunesU, you can get lectures from other schools, how cool is that.
This video asks us a question "Why does the networked student even need a teacher?" Well this question is simple to answer, No matter how much technology this world has or comes to there will always be the need for teachers. You need a teacher for their guidance and help along the way of learning all the new things.

"This is How we Dream"

After watching Richard Miller's videos, This is How We Dream, I didn't really follow him at first. His videos were really interesting though. As a future teacher I do believe that I will be prepared to hope that my students will be able to also. Computers and technology is a big part of the world and we all need to keep up with it.
Have you actually took a step back and realized how much your life is based on technology? How often you use it? Some of the videos Richard Miller shows was how often we use technology. But should we take away the basic writing and reading of the students? This is essential for learning; However we should teach our students to be multimedia familiar.
So I believe we should be prepared to use multimedia and teach our students, but we shouldn't loose sight of teaching our students the essentials of reading and writing. Richard Miller has a goal of teaching students to compose digitally no by using word processors. What is your goal?

IPdos in Instruction

While researching the use of Ipods I came across a website on Duke Universtiy on how they incorporated Ipods in their education curriclum. They gave out gree ipods to all entering freshmen that professors were using them in their classes. They have so many different ways of using them one example is that they can use them for quiz's using IQuiz. Also, some great features is to have flashcards or they can have a 2 way chat on their Ipod. The professors could also use them to comment on the students progress in that particular class room.
Ipod to me is downloading music, I had NO clue that Ipods had all these different uses to them. They can be use so many ways and to your advantage. I'm not a techincal person and don't really own anything like this so, learning a finding out what an Ipod all can be used for was really helpful and gives you great opprotunities. This website gives you a clear understanding on how to use an Ipod and all the ways.

Itunes

I have never heard of Itunes University, so when I went to Itunes University's Website, I found that it's a wonderful tool that students and teachers could use. As a student you could look up things such as presentations or videos on subjects that you may need help in, for example the Science link I went to would be very helpful. You could download anything to help other and etc. I found that it can be helpful to us students and not only now but also when we become teachers.
Itunes University would also benefit teacher as well. A teacher could download their lesson or lecture and have their students listen to it right from home. How cool would that be? Me as a teacher cold post class notes or have helpful hints for test and my students can have it for extra help. It's also a great tool when your on the go. Itunes University is a Great tool to have as a student and a teacher and by the way it's FREE!!!!
And if you know nothing about Itunes University you can go to this website for the introduction: http://is.gd/2c3RH

Alice Christie's Google Earth

Alice Christie's Website was all very interesting. Google Earth is one of the things I looked at on her website. Google Earth is a free program that helps students and teachers. It provides useful tools such as visual tours and maps. I think Google Earth will be a very helpful and useful website to use as a teacher especially in Science. You can have Google Earth and it can be a telescope, to look at all the stars and constellations,that's only one cool feature that Google Earth has.
Mrs. Christie talks about why Google Earth should be used in the classroom and, I agree with her it really puts hands on experience for the students so they can be excited about school work and still learn from it. Google Earth allows students to know what is going on it the world, since most students now days don't have a clue. I learned alot about Google Earth that i didn't know before. I think I will use this site when I become a teacher so my students can enjoy it like I did.