Blog Post #5

I first listened to Eagle's Nest Radio and i thought that these students did a great job creating their class podcasts. I listened to the one about sharks and they provided me with facts and information about sharks that i have never known.
Next I read Langwitches blog and it explained how the teacher put together some podcasts for her students and how these podcasts actually were a benefit for her students with improving things such as listening, speaking, and presenting skills.
I listened to The Benefits of Podcasting and it is obviously about what the title claims. It tells of many ways that podcasting can benefit students. Like an example being, what does a teacher do when he/she has a student that is absent for a long period of time. Their answer was that you can upload podcasts and the student from home can get the materials and classwork for the day.
By doing all this, I learned that you are able to put different segments of people speaking into one continuous podcast by pausing and inserting other peoples podcasts. Also i learned that you can add music to the background of your podcasts. These assignments helped me learn a list of ways that podcasting can benefit students by things such as outside the classroom interaction and also that podcasting opens students to creativity and a new way of learning.

Blog Post #4

Dont Teach Your Kids This Stuff
Scott McLeod is a professor at Iowa State University. He is obviously incredibly technologically savvy and he heads many programs that are designed to prepare technological school leaders. He wrote the poem Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please? and i agree with his view points totally. I like when he says that he teaches his children to use technology and that if you dont we will see who has the leg up in a decade or two. Its true that if you dont use it your going to be behind. I think he is so satirical because most people dont take learning about technology as seriously as they should.

The iSchool Initiative
This presentation banks on the idea of using ipod touches asa schools primary resource of not only technology but also everything else. He suggests taking out books, paper, copiers, and pencils out of schools and replacing them all with a simple little machine. He says we will use the applications of the itouch to learn in school and also showed many apps i have never heard of.
While there are many great apps available for this itouch, I dont think that one little piece of technology could replace the schools "essentials." I also dont think that it is feasable, at least in the near future, to think that schools can provide everyone with a $200 dollar itouch. I mean some places these days now dont even have computers. And what happens if one gets broken? Or they begin to come up missing? I do however think that it is a great idea and a very well thought out way to incorporate technology into schools.

The Lost Generation
That was an awesome video and its techniwues of saying something forward and then using those same words/sentences and reading backwards really caught my attention. I believe that it did its job in getting its point across that we make our own future and we must decide that we are going to do what is right and change the world for the better.

Eric Whitacres Virtual Choir
To me this is a most amazing feat in the field of technology. It is incredible that it was put together through the internet, the people have never met nor performed together, and it sounds absolutely amazing! It is just incredible what technology in the right hands is capable of.

Additional Assignment #1

After watching this video i was informed of even more search engines at our disposal that i had no clue existed. They were google squared and wolframalpha. I believe that both provide excellent educational implications. Google squared provides tables of information on almost anything you need and its as easy as typing some words and clicking the mouse. Wolframalpha is the other search engine and just for population searches it gives you the flag, geographical location, square miles, and other important information all at your disposal again by simply typing and clicking in the search box.
My comments about the Did You Know video didnt change, this basically reenforced my views about it and the populations of the world and how much bigger china is compared to the other countries of the world.
This exercise helped me to understand and organize statistics much better than i would have been able to do before. The two new search engines give you easy to understand tables and charts on all the statistics you need and make things much more organized.
  The reading about the stable boy and the ipad was very interesting. It is amazing that illiterate children of a country where they have probably never seen or heard of most of the technology in our country can pick up our technology and use it because sometimes to me it seems that i dont even know how to use most of the technology our country possesses.

Project #5

C4T #1 summary

I was asked to comment on Jabiz Raisdana's blogs.
  The first blog i found and read posed the question "Could you evaluate a school's committment to and success with technology by the number of teachers they have on twitter?" He found that "Most people responded that they did not feel that the number of Tweeting teachers had any correlation to a schools commitment to technology, because many people simply use Twitter to waste time." But i personally think that he has a bigger point than it just being twitter. Its more about using twitter as a reference to teachers using technology and all sorts of online work and social networks. I commented that i liked the idea of teachers implementing more technology and using more social networks in their lives as teachers. I told him how at school here these days if you look on most teachers syllabus it says contact me and by that it says by phone, by email, and by twitter and facebook too! I think that it is a good thing that teachers are using these networks because i look at it as a way for teachers to stay connected to their students even after class time is over.

  The second blog was called "School should not be considered work." In this he took a students blog and pulled out some of her comments from the blog and explained how she was trying to make school into work when it should be more like a place where you come to find out what you love to learn. I agree with this and as his post went on her comments slowly began to come around to more of an open mind to looking at school a completely different way. I commented on how it is necessary for us students sometimes to hear such honesty so that we may expand our minds to thinking other ways and not just have a closed mind or biased opinion on something. In his post he really showed that he cared by trying to open his students minds to critically thinking at an early age in an effort to help them to succeed in education.

Blog Post #3

Vision Of Students Today
I believe that this video captures 75% of college students lives perfectly. If you observe a classroom today, many students bring a laptop and many are on something other than class work. As they state in the video, students pay for classes yet never show up. Also, and this is my favorite one because I can relate, most students buy hundred dollar text books and never even open them. It has happened to me many times and is very frustrating when you don’t use it and can only sell it back for half price.
I think a little more information about or examples of technology should have been implemented into this video. They could have actually shown students working with technology and teachers actually using technology as a way to help in the classroom, but overall it was a great presentation.

Its Not About Technology
I agree whole heartedly with Mrs. Hines. It seems that basically the world wants technology to take over. And maybe in 20 year, or maybe less, it will happen and we won’t have teachers in front of the classroom anymore. School will be a link on a web page that you can access from your bed at home that will take you to several podcasts of material you must learn for the day.
I personally disagree with even the possibility of that happening. I am very partial to the traditional ways of teaching where you lecture in front of the class on a chalk board and students take notes as she vaguely hints to in her paragraph about “Being a teacher without technology.” I couldn’t agree more with her paragraph about “Technology is useless without good teaching.” If you don’t know how to use it, then it really doesn’t matter how much technology you have.

Is It Okay To Be Technologically Illiterate?
I agree with his points about technology and it is true that all positions held in education, whether it is principal, inspector, or teacher, should all be held accountable for at least being able to understand some forms of technology.
I also understand where he comes from when he talks about some people being proud that they are technologically literate. People should want to learn more about technology not flaunt illiteracy. To me ignorance isn’t an excuse!
I do think the times are becoming more technologically demanding but I don’t think that it is yet to the point of where if you don’t know technology then you can’t survive in the world.

Social Media Count
The social media counter Mr. Gary Hayes has is an amazing piece of technology. It is incredible to see how active the board is and how quickly the numbers increase within a matter of seconds. This shows that for us as teachers, it is obvious that we will need some sort of technological background in the job world today. However, I still stick with my statement that we aren’t to the point yet where if we don’t know technology then we can’t function in the world; but we definitely must be aware that the times are changing.

wordle post #1