My Personal Learning Network

As of now, my personal learning networks include facebook and twitter. I make use of them right now by following certain teachers and any announcements they have made that I might need to know for class. I currently follow Dr. Strange on Twitter, and Dr. Juarez on facebook.

I acquired twitter from this very class because it was a requirement. I acquired facebook about four years ago because it was a good way to get in touch with old friends. I use both every day, multiple times a day.

I plan on using it in the future by adding my future students. I will obviously have to delete many things that are on my profile now, and share it with the principal so that he/she knows I am using it in a good way so that my students and I have a way of communicating at all times.

Goodbye Dr. Strange and fellow classmates (for now).

I had a great time in the class. Although I probably didn't talk to half the class individually, I felt like I got to know everyone pretty good because of our presentations and such. I am sure I will have some more classes with a few you before I graduate.

Dr. Strange, thank you so much for everything you have provided for us this semester. You run a very fun, relaxed, and challenging class. You have undoubtedly prepared me to become a better teacher one day, which is all I can ask from my professors.

See all of you soon I'm sure!

EDM 310 reflection

1. Think about the many things we covered in class: blogs, wikis, presentations, Google Docs, Google spreadsheets, Picasa, podcasts, videocasts, YouTube, posts you read, PLNs, Twitter, other teachers and students outside of our region, comments4kids, iTunes, iTunesU, accessibility issues and the use of html tag modifiers to address some of those issues, who you are as a professional, Google forms, data bases, Google Earth, Delicious, ACCESS, ALEX, Foliotek,
technological literacy, the future of schools, your "intellectual trail". Did I miss anything? Take each of these and consider what you learned and how or if it may or will be useful to you as a teacher. and as an individual in this "modern age." List what you learned and comment about it if appropriate. List as many things as you can think of. If you did not learn anything from this class, say so. I hope, however, that was not the case.

I learned more in this class about technology than I have in any of my other classes combined. Before this class, I visited probably two websites on a daily basis. Now I know about blogs, wikis, presentations, Google docs, Google spreadsheets, Picasa, podcasts, videocasts, YouTube, posts you read, PLNs, Twitter, other teachers and students outside of our region, comments4kids, iTunes, iTunesU etc. I am no doubt better prepared not only as a student and future teacher, but also as a regular citizen when it comes to using technology.

2. Are there things you would like to have learned in this class but did not?

One thing I would have liked to have learned in this class was more about photoshop.

3. Are there things you learned in this class but wish you had not (and you will try and forget them or not use them as soon as possible)?

I honestly can't think of a single thing that I learned in this class that I wish I hadn't. Everything we learned will benefit me.

4. Did this class excite you in any way? I mean excite, as opposed to "was useful" or "was interesting" or "I did it"? If No, say that. If Yes, tell me what excited you, why, and how.

The project that excited me the most was project 11. I have always wanted to make a presentation using my own music, videos, and voice. That was a great project.

5. Did you find anything in this class to be particularly "intellectually challenging"? If so, what? Why do you think it was "intellectually challenging"?

Everything was intellectually challenging because everything required you to put sincere thought into it. This wasn't a class of right or wrong answers. You couldn't just make a guess at something and hope it was right. You have to put the work in, and your effort shows.

6. Were you bored by this class at any time? If so, what bored you and how might that be corrected?

Never bored.

7. Would you change this course in any way (add things/delete things or anything else)? If so, give me your suggestions. Since I am always changing this course I could use your input!

As stated earlier, photoshop would have been fun. Not sure how useful that could be in education, but it has always interested me and I have never done it.

8. Are you Technologically Literate at the moment? To what extent? Low Some Medium Good Great

I think I am medium when it comes to technologically literate. This class has taught me a ton, but I am still not close to where Dr. Strange is at.

9. How will you maintain or improve your technological literacy between now and the time you graduate? … the time you start teaching?

I will improve my technology by continuing to improve in everything we learned in this class. I know the basics now to many things I never had a clue on. Now it is time to master it.

Comment 4 kids

The comment 4 kids assignments were amazing to me for the simple fact that I could never imagine doing this type of thing when I was younger. These kids get to show their work for the whole world to see, and get feedback from all types of people from around the globe. Among the things I commented on were Mr. Lamshed's class talking about bullying, Motorua's blog showing students on a river bug, Mr. Deyenberg's class and their technology, and Mr. Brown's history class.

The most interesting thing when commenting on these kids blogs was how smart they are and how open they are to accepting constructive feedback. I use to get upset when my teacher made me write my definitions over when I was in elementary school. These students are getting critiqued not only from their teachers, but complete strangers.

Comment 4 kids is a great teaching tool for any teacher. No longer are the students getting taught by just their teacher's perspective, but many teacher's and student's perspectives.

Here are some of the blogs I commented on.


Mr. Lamshed's Class
River Bugs
Mr. Deyenberg
Mr. Brown's history class

My Presentation

Project 11 Incorporating text, video and audio into a presentation about Virtual Fieldtrips

Seven mistakes, seven brilliant things, and rules by education innovation.

The first statement I took from Seven Stupid Teachers Make with Technology is teachers using their class computers like they do their home computers. The reason this is a mistake is teachers spend more time looking and sending jokes rather than use it to enhance classroom lessons. Nothing of educational importance comes with this, and it should be left at the house. The other statement I thought was important was teachers thinking technology will go away. Not only will technology not go away, but it will continue to play a much larger role in schools as each year passes.

The first important concept I got from Seven Brilliant Things Teachers do With Technology is creatively finding and using resources. Teachers are continuing and need to continue to find ways to bring technology in the classroom. Whether it be through their own finances or grants, it is important to keep our students ahead of the curve. Sometimes a teacher has to sacrifice more than they bargained for. The other concept I took was learning to be a co-learner. This is very important to me because students do not respond well to being lectured all class. It is much better for the students to be a part of the teaching process. We should be teaching them while they should also be teaching us.

In New Classroom rules, the first rule I thought was important was completing all assignments neatly and on time and submit on line or post to your blog or wiki, and share it with your followers on Twitter. The first reason this is a great rule because completing your work on time would be much better than spending hours catching up on your blogs like I have done. The other reason it is important is sharing your work on Twitter and posting blogs will allow others to see your work and comment on it. They can learn from your work and you can learn from them. The other rule was know what you are supposed to be learning, why, and what you will do with the knowledge. This is obviously important because without knowing what you are suppose to be learning on why you are suppose to be learning, then what can you actually learn?

At the Teacher's Desk

At the Teacher's Desk is a great page that consists of numerous blogs. For example, the teacher makes a blog about a project to raise awareness to lead-contaminated soil in major U.S. cities. The blog leads to several other schools participating in the event. Blogs such as this can be very helpful because it can cause a movement between many schools. This movement would not have been possible without blogging.

Another great thing about the blog is that they gave you many links in each one. The very first blog talks about one of William Kist's book, The Socially Networked Classroom. They give you a link to find other William Kist books and they also give you a link to where you can buy the book they are talking about.

They also used the blog to discuss and show a Skype session between an ESOL class and a Spanish class went, and improvements they could make the next time they Skype each other. In this case, blogging was beneficial because they could see their Skype session and learn ways to improve it. They could also post the session for all the classes to see.

At the Teacher's Desk was an extremely well put-together blog. It had everything you could want in a professional blog. Lins, pictures, and well-informed blogs. It is obvious by this blog, that great interaction comes with it.

Michael Wesch video

Michael Wesch's video made some great points. At the front of the video he showed the picture of his classroom and how disengaged and bored they seemed. Then he showed the picture of the American Idol auditions and how excited everyone seemed to be. This is a problem many teachers face it seems. Classrooms full of students who are not really that interested in participating in class, just there to get a passing grade. He also spoke of how people seem to feel insignificant in most places. In a big city people feel disconnected because there are so many people. In the suburbs people feel disconnected because they are away from everything and can only feel connected through television. This, he explains, is why people are so excited to be at American Idol. They have a chance to be on television for the world to see. There's not that feeling of being lost. They feel this is their chance to shine.

Teachers can take note of this in their classrooms. Classes should be less about the teacher standing up lecturing the entire time, and more about students and what they can do to make the classroom more fulfilling. This is why blogging and commenting is so crucial. With blogs, students can communicate with other students and teachers from around the world. Many classes have an isolation feel to them. It's just you, your classmates, and a teacher. Blogging takes this element out.

Wesch also spoke of the new generation and how "whatever" has translated over time. Today, the term "whatever" is an expression of each individual being the most important person on the planet. They don't do what's best for the class or society. They do what they think is best for them. As a future teacher, this will affect the classroom. Teachers should be able to adapt and design lesson plans that fit each student, not the entire classroom.

Later in the video, Michael Wesch talks about the comments people make on YouTube, and how obscene they are. He explains that anonymity, physical distance, and rare and ephemeral dialogue creates hatred as public performance. He also explains that people do this online because they don't have to worry about the fear of social anxiety. This could also be a problem for teachers because it almost seems as if all the social networking is causing students to be loss open in public. People have no problems at all expressing themselves online, yet are amazingly shy once they are in public. This is also a reason why blogging and online networking can benefit the classroom. Students can express themselves much more.

You can watch the video here

Students posting their work to blogs.

It is very beneficial for students to post their work to blogs for several reasons. One reason is because it is simply fun to see the work that you do on a video like the students of the PS22 chorus.

It is also beneficial because you get to let people from all over the country see the results of the hard work you are putting into your classroom like these students did. You get to receive encouraging comments from people are over the World which can provide great motivation for wanting to do well in the classroom.

Posting videos can also help teachers like this one because it can give a teacher a good feel for how her class is going and who might be having behavior problems and what can be done to make the class run more smoothly.

The most beneficial way for students to post their work to blogs is because it gives the ability for many people to comment and give feedback to your work. Some of it may be all positive, and some will still be positive but also critical in a way that can help the students improve on what they are doing. This class is a great example.

Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators & Students Statewide (ACCESS)

Along with ALEX, ACCESS is a great tool that can be used for future and current teachers. ACCESS's main goal is to create equity through additional educational offerings for all Alabama public high school students. ACCESS is great to use for students to prep for a major test. You can use ACCESS to get ready for a graduation exam for example. ACCESS can be used as an actual class participation so long as you have a computer.

There are plenty of resources available on ACCESS, such as the Alabama Virtual Library, ALEX, chemlab, and more. A good feature in ACCESS is Connecting Access Staff and Teachers (CAST). Some things that come from this feature are; open source technology information, supplemental reading and interesting links for distance learning tips, helps for ongoing changes in the Desire2Learn Learning Environment, chat room for teachers and staff only, discussion boards and content specific blogs, and content specific group collaborative tools.

Click hereto see the ACCESS website.

Alabama Learning Exchange (ALEX)

ALEX is a great website for teachers to use, regardless of subject you may teach. ALEX provides you with a ton of different things such as, exercises for each subject, lesson plans, websites, and much more. It covers basically every subject from English, to Math, to Driver's Ed, to Technology Education. A future or current teacher could use this website to help them form their own guidelines for how their class is run, how they can set up their tests and so on.

One of the things I like most about ALEX is the podcast treasury. In this, you can listen to many different podcasts from any subject. For History class you can listen to a podcast of Jim Crow and the Civil Rights. You can listen to interviews from professionals in each field. Not only will the podcast help the students in the subject you are teaching, but it will also help them get familiar with technology and ways they can use it.

Click hereto view the ALEX website

Dear Kaia

The videos of Kaia blew me away for the simple fact that it amazes how young a person can be and still share her life with others around the world. Originally, her father helped set it up for her just for her family to see how Kaia's life was progressing. It is now used for Kaia to interact with people around the world. I can barely remember being three years old and having about ten people that I interacted with a daily basis. Kaia is interacting with millions.

Many people might think this is a very bad and dangerous idea. Putting their three year old daughter on the internet for millions to see can seem like a pretty dangerous move, but I think as long as the Dad is relatively smart, which he certainly seems, he can supervise this project and make sure no harm could come of this. I think this is a great idea and expect many others to follow this lead.

Click hereto see Kaia's page

New Media Literacy

The New Media Literacy project is a great idea put forth by a very bright group of people. The project is preparing young people with the social skills and cultural competencies required to become full participants in an emergent media landscape and raise public understanding about what it means to be literate in a globally interconnected, multicultural world. This is a great idea, because many students who graduate college graduate with classmates who are the same race as them.

Some of the techniques included in the project is including other literacy works from other cultures into our English classes. Methods like this can help teachers and students be more equipped to handle life outside the classroom, especially with the growing number of minorities in America.

Click hereto see the new media literacies website.

NML Staff

The new media skills covered in the video are definitely skills that people must possess to be effective citizens in the near future. I think I have a few of the skills listed. Some ones I definitely can work on are negotiation, visualization, and distributed cognition. The only way to acquire these skills are to get as much real-life practice in them as I can.

Click hereto see the NML video.

The Networked Student

Wendy Drexler's video of the networked student was an excellent one. I think it is a great idea to use this method of teaching students in many cases. For one, when you have a class where the teacher lectures 95% of the class, it is almost impossible for students to pay attention to what they are saying. Learning is done best through experience. Using the method explained in the video, that is what this whole class is based on. Students experiencing things for themselves, making mistakes, and learning from those mistakes.

These types of classes offer many advantages. The teacher is still a part of the course because they still set guidelines and are there if the student needs help. The good thing about networking is you can compare your work and have it evaluated from many people around the world, not just your teacher. You can also download podcasts of similar classes taught by other professors. The students can use skype to interact with their classmates, teacher, and other students and teachers around the world, giving them a much better learning experience.

Overall, I think this is a great idea to use for classrooms. I know in some classes, math for example, you probably could not use this method as effectively. However, any class that can be taught best with interaction should definitely look into using networking. Whenever a student is finished with the class, their work will still be saved and other students can pick up right where that student left off.

Click hereto see "The Networked Student" video

This is How we Dream.

The "This is how we dream" video was pretty impressive in how it demonstrated the way our society is becoming when it comes to writing. We are relying less on word processing and more on multimedia videos to express how we feel. To me, there are several positives and negatives that come with this. The positives are it is much more motivating to be able to express your opinions and views through multimedia because it is not nearly as boring as just plain writing. With multimedia, you can literally show an audience what you feel with actual video and audio footage.

Some negatives about writing in multimedia is students might lack writing skills by using it too much. It takes a lot of practice to be able to learn proper writing structure. I know I have been practicing it for years and I am still not where I should probably be. I think a good mix of word processing and writing in multimedia would best benefit students.

The question of whether or not I am prepared to write in multimedia can be answered two different ways. I am definitely prepared to learn to write in multimedia because that's the way our World is headed. I am not prepared quite yet in the sense that I still have plenty of practice to do before I am comfortable with it. Any teacher that is not willing to adapt to this method will probably have a difficult time holding a teaching job.

Click here to see the "This is how we dream" video.

Duke University and iPods

Duke University is starting an amazing trend with the use of iPods in the classroom. According to http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2005/12/ipodupdate.html, Duke University expected 1,200 students to use iPods to enhance classroom material by the Spring of 2006. One professor, Mark Williams, used a photo iPod this fall in his “Functional Anatomy of the Human Brain” course to house a visual glossary of 500 human neuro-anatomical structures and terms comprising text descriptions, images and corresponding audio pronunciations.

Duke is doing a smart thing by incorporating iPods in their classes. Instead of fighting a no-win battle of not allowing iPods in the classroom, they are not only allowing them, but using them as part of lessons. It can make classroom interaction much better. Of course, there will be some teachers that will be skeptical of such an idea. However, as Duke’s vice president for Information Technology and CIO Tracey Fruthy puts it, "there is always a risk associated with introducing a program nobody had ever tried before. The increased use we’ve seen has been a direct result of faculty and student innovation. We expected we’d have this kind of interest, and it’s exactly the success we thought, but couldn’t be certain, it would be.”

Click here to learn more about Duke University's use of iPods.

iTunes U

There are many things a future teacher can take from iTunes Uiversity that can make them a much better teacher. You can learn about podcasts, videocasts etc. If you would like to know who all is using iTunes U, then schools like Cambridge, Oxford, and Yale may ring a bell. Teachers can use itunes for public lectures. That way, if a student is out sick, they can simply go to iTunes and it would be like they were still there.

Another good thing about iTunes U is the fact that students can to it from their cel phones, and thier iPods. Teachers should take full advantage of anything that can be used in an educational sense, that students can get access to on the things they spend the most time with.

Click here to see itunes U website.

Dr. Christie's website

Dr. Alice Christie's website on technology had a ton of different things to offer on ways of becoming a better teacher. I think an important thing all teachers should know when bringing technology into the classroom is to be safe when letting students use it. Dr. Christie has a great slide show on things every teacher and student should know before using the internet to get information. It also answers the question many have on if technology is good for students. Christie points out that 70% of parents who now have internet report that their children have the same grades now that they did before they had internet. 26% report that their children have higher grades now.

Even though the internet can be very useful for students schooling, it can be very hectic for their life at home. 71% of messages that students get from facebook, myspace etc., are from people they don't know. Also, bullying can now take affect not only on campus, but in the student's own home via internet. There are many pitfalls that can come with the internet that every teacher should be aware of so that they can help their students deal with these issues.

Click here to visit Dr. Alice Christie's website.