My EDM 310 Blog Assignments are Now Complete, really this time!

Good bye and good luck!! Bon Chance!!!!

My Friend Dawson...

Chris Dawson is a friend of mine from high school. He attended South Alabama for a few years and was offered an amazing opportunity. He left a few weeks ago to go to South Korea to be an elementary teacher. He has told me that South Korea is a very technologically advanced country. Every classroom in the school has two large-screen LCD projectors to be used for school announcements, and anything else the teacher chooses to do with them. He loves it over there and is excited to see what other technological advancements they will be implementing in the near future.

Access Lab

I went to the ACCESS lab at Satsuma High School. The teacher was very kind and the students were welcoming. they did not mind me walking around and looking over their shoulders and asking questions. Each student is loaned a lap top computer so that they may take it home to do their studies. Some of the students were taking courses such as German, Latin, Creative Writing, and Calculus II. I was impressed at the work loads they had and were able to keep up with in spite of all of the other classes and activities they had.

My EDM 310 Blog Assignments are Now Complete

Farewell my friends, may you have the best of luck in whatever walk of life you pursue. But always remember "...a WISE man learns from the mistakes of others as well as his own," and "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

At last...the end is in sight

In this class I learned more than I could ever put into words. But in short, I learned that I have a great opportunity that many others do not. I can now do some html code, calculate how long it will take me to pay off a loan, and many fun facts about the other people in the class. I cannot think of a single thing that I would have liked to learn in this class that was not taught. Dr. Strange is an amazing teacher.

Technology Talk: "Strange" Conversations With Future Teachers

Katheryn Bently, Kerrie Owens, and Hanna Nolan: Good job ladies! The subject matter was informative and interesting. A few suggetions though. Katheryn, your voice was monotone throughout the entire thing. Try to be a little more animated, especially when you are talking about something that is interesting or important to you, or when it is something that you are trying to interest other people in. Hanna, try not to use so many fillers. I know that this was an informal discussion, however, there were quite a few pauses where it seemed like you had just had a train wreck inside your head. Try to avoid things such as: ummm, uhhh, aannnddd...etc. Kerrie, slow down a little, think more carefully before you speak to avoid awkward stumbles and stutters.
Patricia Robbins, Megan St. Amant, and Courtney Morris: Well done ladies! But try not to end what you have to say with an indirect "what do you think?" Other than that, everyone had good examples for the subject. Patricia told us about a project that her son did, Courtney and Megan both talked about a fun game they played in school to help them remember things such as vocabulary words and how it motivated them to get together with the other students and study so that their team would win.
Lisa Burke, Many Sullivan, and myself: I think we did very well! When picking up or interupting one another, it got kind of confusing as to who was saying what. Mandy, have more confidence when you are speaking about yourself. Lisa, very informative and interesting. And as for myself, well...next time I'll try not to have bronchitis and cough into the microphone so much.

Stanford Challange

This was a very brain teasing podcast. I never really thought about inteligence much, especially my own. I'm a natural blond so therefore people tend to assume that I am a ditzy airhead, but I know I'm not and that was alwaysthe end of it. But children, however, tink of things differently. Either they believe that they have only a certain amount of intelligence and will never have any more, or they believe that they can "get smarter." Some children are so afraid to do things because they wonder if they will look smart or look stupid. Stanford did a study in which they have an eight session workshop in which half of the children are given study skills classes and are taught the Growth Mindset. The other half is nly taught study skills.
The first half learned that their brains are like muscles, and that with exercise (learnig), they will grow and become more intelligent. They did better in their classes and were more motivated. The second group was not motivated and their grades did not rise, and some children's grades even dropped as a result. Even though the teachers were not told about the difference in the two groups, they were able to sense it. After reading Carol Dweck's book, a driving coach remarked that he noticed a connection between Growth Mindset and optimal drivers. The difference between a winning driver and a losing driver is what they did with the mistakes they made. A winning driver looked back, reflected and adapted to do better, a losing driver tried to forget the mistakes instead of learning form them.
As a future teacher, I must always remember that some students have a growth mindset and others have a fixed mindset. I will strive to teach all of my students that it is okay to make mistakes as long as you learn from them, and that there is no such thing as a stupid question. It is better to look a little foolish infront of one's peers by asking a question, than to look foolish on a test because you did not want to ask for help on a subject matter. I will always remember something Mrs. Burt from Satsuma High School told me, "A foolish man ignores his mistakes, a smart man learns from his own, but a WISE man learns from the mistakes of others in addition to his own."

Podcasts

I have had an iPod for a few years now, but the only thing I ever put on it was music and somtimes a research paper. I had never paid much attention to the podcasts on the Apple website. But upon entering Dr. Strange's class last fall I was informed that I would be doing a podcast. I was absolutely terrified. Then, just my luck, on my day to record, I had bronchitis and was practically holding my breath to keep from coughing into the microphone.
I listened to the smart board podcast and was interested to learn that the speakers were from the smartboard lesson is to inform the students, teachers, and parents of the events and expectations for the upcoming academic year.
Next, I listened to a podcast called a Kidcast. This is an educational website for children to learn how to do their own podcasts. It gives easy instructions and allows children to share their thoughts and ideas with people around the world. The kids are not limited to what they can talk about. They can speak on anything from academic subjects to hobbies and health.
The EdTech Talk was interesting as well. It featured four speakers each from a different location (Ohio, Prince Edward Island, New Jersey and New Hampshire). They spoke of tools and hints available on their websites which will be useful fo rany future educator. They spoke as though they were sitting around in a livingroom, having a cup of coffee and just talking casually. I'm glad they did not present it as four people making planned speeches one after the other. I do not like listening to lectures, so this was easy for me to listen to.
I was not fond of MacBreak Weekly or This Week In Photography because I felt like I was watching television. I do not think it is necessary or pleasant to have commercials in a podcast. I hate commercials on television because they interupt what I am watching and I would not be watching television if it was not something i was interested in seeing.

Randy Pauch's Last Lecture

Pauch was diagnosed with multiple tumors on his liver and given only a few months to live. His lecture was titled "Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" and was a great success. He begins by telling his listeners what some of his childhood dreams were, suh as a Disne World Imagineer, Captain Kirk, and even playing sports. The amazing thing is that even though these dreams sound a little outrageous, he did accomplish them (somewhat). He was an Imagineer, and he got to meet the real Captain Kirk from Star Trek.
He gave his students some pretty out there assignments. In one assignment he gave his students a project to create their own virtual gaming world. Though he set a due date, he allowed the students to continue to work on the projects through the end of the semester. On the day of the presentations, his classroom was packed with people whom he did not even recognize. The project was a great success and was a wonderful opportunity for the students to showcase their brilliance and work together.

iPods in Education

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/ipods-as-study-aids-496199.html

Duke University is absolutely brilliant!! I with that South Alabama had thought of the same idea. Duke University gave their freshmen a 20 gig. iPod. The students immediately started downloading music, but soon they started using their gifts for school. They used a microphone attachment to record lectures, used it as a portable hard drive, and stored text files on them.
I think that the school took real initiative to motivate and help the students to get an education. It appears to me that Duke is truly trying to motivate the students to keep at their studies by giving them something that will help them with their classes and can also be fun.

Alice Christie: Online Researching Resources

I think that students should begin using the internet at an early age. I started playing on computers in fiver-year-old kindergarten. We only played simple games, and for the next few years became used to turning them on, finding the game we wanted, opening it, and then shutting down the computer. As we progressed in age, we began to learn typing, spreadsheets, and eventually web surfing. We were given topics to look for and were instructed to gather as much information as we could. By the time I reached college, I was fluent in research.
Because I will be teaching high school, hopefully I will not have to teach the students how to use search engines, but can simply give them a literature topic or a project and they will be able to find multiple credible sources online. This way, they can e-mail the links to themselves instead of going to the library and making endless copies. Because with a book, the smallest part you can print is a page, but with the Print>Selection command, students can only print the parts that they need to turn in for sources.

Wiki Editors

I have never seen Wikipedia as a reliable sourse for information. Anyone who uses wikipedia as a sourse for a debate, writing assignment, or for general information needs to rethink his or her actions. Any person of any age can edit the articles, and while what the editor may say sounds plausable, it can be completely false. Giving false information not only makes some one look foolish, but it makes them look gullable as well because they will obviously believe anything they are told.

The Fischbowl: Why Wireless?

I don't see why people are causing such a fuss about the school using wireless and making it available to the students. It gives them more access to information that will help them in class. What would be the sense in a teacher printing out an article and making hundreds of copies to pass out all of his/her classes, when it is so much better to allow the students to access it over the internet themselves? It's not like the teacher would just leave the room and let the students do whatever they want. It also teaches the students to have responsibility and be more mature. If they have to keep themselves on task then they are more likely to do well in the future.
If teachers continue to teach students and prepare them for what life was like when the teacher was their age, then no progress will be made. As the author notes, teachers should be teaching and preparing students for what life will be like in the future.

Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Ignorant Teacher?

No it is not. I feel that in today's world technology is a necessity, not a commodity. It is so easy to say, "oh I'm not very good at computers," but when it comes to education not being good at computers like trying to do a book report when you don't know how to read. There are so many things that teachers can use in their classrooms to motivate students and sometimes, trick them into learning. At Satsuma, we had smart boards. It was hooked up to a lap top and instead of using the lap top and the picture appearing on the smart board, you could actually touch the screen of the board just like it was a touch screen computer. We worked math problems, diagrammed sentences, and all sorts of fun things that helped us learn better rather than just watching the teacher write on the chalk board.
Teachers today need to learn the new and emerging technology so that they can use it in the classrooms without having to call the media specialist every five minutes when something goes wrong. personally got tired of running down the hall to the library to get Mrs. Lowe or the Mr. Laird's classroom to ask them to come fix our stuff. It took them away from their jobs, overseeing the library (and the mischievous library aids), and teaching, to come down and fix our mistakes. There are some students in schools today that are more technologically advanced than their teachers, and so the teacher becomes the student.

Did You Know?

No, I did not! Those facts and figures are very nearly mind boggling. It is astounding to think that 100% of college graduates in a country halfway around the world, whose national language is not English all speak fluent English by the time they graduate. I took French in high school, but if I was to go to France, I would be competely lost because the only thing I can say in French is "Hello, my name is Scarlett, I am from Mobile, Alabama. What time is it?" And when it gave the facts about the "richest in the world, largest military, center of world business and finance, strongest education system, currnecy the world standard of value, and highest standard of living," I thought it was the United States. I was shocked to find out that is is Great Britain.
We grow up thinking that America is the most powerful and opportunistic country in the world, only to get to college and find out how far behind we really are compared to the rest of the world. When I think about how easy it was for me to get an education, with at least one school in every city, I had the option of attending four different high schools, four middle schools and four elementary schools, I realize how truly blessed I am. There are children in other countries that never went farther that the fifth grade, and some children who never go to school at all because they have to get jobs to earn a living. When I was complaining that my folders were "so last week," and my hair scrunchie was "unacceptable by my grades social standards and totally un-cool," there were children my age around the world with fulltime jobs and families to support. This video was a real eye opener that I think more people need to see. For anyone who is interested the website is http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2007/06/did-you-know-20.html.

ACCESS website

When I was in high school, I never really appreciated the higher level classes that I was required to take. I took all advanced classes because I was signed up for the Advanced with Honors diploma. I was angry at my mother because my teachers expected much more of my classmates and I as opposed to the Regular students. We had more assignments that were of greater length and much more indepth. Our tests were harder and more tricky, and also graded more severly. There was no grading curve for us; the grade I got was the grade I got. Homework and projects took up almost all of my time that was not spent playing sports, sleeping, or going to church. But now, after reviewing this site, I appreciate my education so much more. I realize that I had an opportunity that not all American students have. I was able to take college prep courses and even earn college credits in high school. And the work load, while difficult at the time, prepared me for what I was to encounter here at South.
With ACCESS, not only do the students have to be motivated to learn, the teachers must also log major man-hours to learn the technology and be able to present the information to the students and be able to work through any difficulties and answer students' questions. With the Blended Learnig, students can work at their own pace and still be in the classroom to ask for help when they need it. With Videoconferencing, the subject matter is taught by a professional with expirience in that field and enables students to take courses that are not offered at their school. All in all, ACCESS is a great way for teachers to help further students' educations and for students to have better opportunities later in life.