My farewell

Well Dr. Strange and everyone else, it has been a great semester and it is very hard to believe that this is coming to a close. I have been truly blessed by being in this class and been able to learn everything I did. This blog will remain active and I will continue to write in it as well as my professional blog. Follow me if you want to keep up to date on this. I hope everyone has had a great semester and a safe and Merry Christmas!!!

EDM 310 reflection

1. Throughout this class we have learned about many things such as blogs, presentations, google, podcasts, videocasts, and many other things. Each of these things has a special place in our heads as we will take bits and pieces and put them to use in our teaching. I learned a whole lot of new things and relearned and got new information on some things I already knew about. I came into this class with a pre-hatred for google with really no reason and I now love google and all of its uses. iTunesU I found to be very useful. Everything we covered in class with the exception of Twitter, I have found to be very useful in my life, not only in my becoming a teacher but in my daily life as well and I hope to continue my education on each of these things.
2. In this class, I would have liked to learn more about Google Earth and all that google has to offer, even though I know it is a lot.
3. There really is nothing in this class that I learned that I wish I had not learned. Everything I learned was and is beneficial to my becoming a teacher.
4. This class really did excite me for many reasons but one main reason was that I learned so many new things that I might not have ever learned elsewhere. I learned the importance of blogging and the usefulness of it. There were the low points in the class but as a whole, it was exciting.
5. There really wasn’t anything in this class that was “intellectually challenging.” I understood or caught on to everything we did in the class.
6. There were times that I was bored but in all honesty, it was because I did not have the motivation to do some things. If I had the motivation, then I would not have been bored at all. I just lacked the motivation at times to do the work.
7. The thing I would change about this class is something that you discussed at the beginning and that was making it into a lab class and coming to the classroom only when needed, there were numerous times where I felt like if I missed class then it would not be a big deal because there would be instructions on the class blog on how to do it. I really do feel like this should be like a lab course.
8. I do believe I am Technologically Literate at the moment. I would love to someday be greatly literate but for right now I think I am in the medium category, all thanks to this class!
9. I will improve my technological literacy by continuing my education in technology. I will continue researching and following some of the blogs that we learned about in the class. I will not only research and follow but I will continue to learn and practice.

Project 11

Podcast

Our podcast for a comparison on "smart" cell phones. click here to view our podcast.

My PLN

At the beginning of the semester when we went over a PLN (Personal Learning Network) I was very confused and thought to myself, that I'll never ever use this and just wrote it off completely. I was later thinking about it and decided to give it some more thought. Now my PLN is no where near the length of Dr. Stranges' but he has been doing this a lot longer than I have. I do not have a twitter account and honestly do not want one, but maybe one day I will. Right now, the basis of my PLN is my facebook. On my list of friends is family, classmates, old friends, coworkers. As my career grows, I will add to my PLN and make it more beneficial to me but as of right now, I'll stick using my facebook list of friends as my PLN.

comments4kids

I really enjoyed comments4kids. It was always so interesting and fun to see what other students are learning around the world. It also made me realize how many teachers are actually using the web and technology to teach their students. Reading other students blogs from across the world was really inspiring and I have gotten great ideas from these teachers and hope to use them in my classroom when I become a teacher. I think that Kaia was my favorite as I’m sure she was a favorite of most. All in all, comments4kids was one of the greatest things we did in this class and I’m so happy that we were all a part of other students blogs.

New Classroom Rules

New Classroom Rules:
The Education Innovation website has offered some new rules to apply in the classroom. Here are my two favorites on the list.

1. "Leave your seat only when necessary, which should be often to go collaborate with others or demonstrate something to the class." -Education Innovation
I like this rule because it's important for students to work with each other. I remember being in school and not being able to get out of our seats at all unless it was to ask the teacher something at the desk and I have always thought that it is important for students to work together and share ideas with each other. Not only does this help students to learn the material, but it also helps develop social skills.

2. "Know what you're supposed to be learning, why, and what you will do with the knowledge." -Education Innovation
Students have a tendency to just study the material for a test, and then completely forget all the information after the course is over. I know this firsthand, especially when the information is not really interesting; students just memorize it for a test and then forget about it right after the test. I try not to do this because then I can’t recall the information when needed. I try really hard now to figure out what I’m going to do with this knowledge and then I try to use it.

To view other classroom rules, click here.

Seven Brilliant Things/Stupid mistakes

Seven Stupid Mistakes/Seven Brilliant Things
Mr. Johnson wrote a list of seven stupid mistakes, and seven brilliant things that are used in the classroom. Many of his points are legitimate, and very true. I picked two of what I thought to be the most important from each of the lists.
Here are two from the seven stupid mistakes:
1."Not supervising computer-using students." I picked this one as my number 1 choice as the most important mistake. I picked this because it is necessary for teachers to monitor what students are doing online and especially in the classroom. When I was in high school, if any student was caught on any website that was not on the list of “appropriate” websites, we got a zero for that class, not just for the day. When I was in high school, facebook and myspace were not really heard of but now that those are very popular I think it is very important for teachers to supervise the computers because a child who is not allowed a myspace at home may create one at school and something bad could happen to the child such as going to meet someone they met online and then they get killed or something else and I think that would be on the teacher and the school for not properly supervising what is going on.
2. "Thinking technology in schools will go away." Technology is here to stay, go get over it! There is no way a person can get through without some knowledge of the technology used today. Students today know more about technology and some teachers may not know about technology, therefore they do not use it or try to just use a little of it and that is only hurting the students. Technology is here to stay and you can’t change that. Click here to view the rest of the Stupid Mistakes.

Seven Brilliant Things:

1. "Accept the role of a co-learner." I think this is very brilliant. It is very important for teachers to have an open mind at all times and always be willing to learn new things about teaching. A teacher that is closed minded and thinks they know everything is only damaging the students. I fully believe that a person, teacher or not, never stops learning.
2. "Empower kids with technology." Teach your students how to use technology and learn with them, if you don’t know how to do something, learn with the students. Just like the above statement, be a co-learner. If you don’t teach your students, then who is going to? I know you will want your students to succeed in life so give them the tools to succeed! Click here to view the rest of the Brilliant things.

At the Teachers Desk/Collaborative Blogging

This website is a very interesting and helpful one. It’s a collaborative blog put on my teachers where they all share ideas about their own classrooms. You can login and post your own ideas from the things you have done in your classroom and share your own projects with others.
This blog is something I could really see myself using when I become a teacher and even before then to get ideas. It is really a good thing when you can find things on the internet that lets other teachers help each other out. All of the posts were kept up to date and something new was always posted. I really enjoyed reading all of the posts and thought it was really cool when the teacher posted for help and got so many responses from teachers all around the world. This is just another great example of the great use of technology and always makes me think that I’m sure like 10 years ago, no one would have thought this kind of technology would exist.

A Big Whatever:

Mr. Weschs’ comments about the youth today are completely and unbelievably true. My generation is very much “me, me, me. I thought it was interesting how he talked about the different definitions of "whatever." Most of my teenage life I used the term “whatever” and never really realized it and how many times I said it.
One point he made was that people feel that the only way they can have a voice is through the media. The way the media has controlled everyone’s mind makes everyone’s mind believe the media is the only way to get their voice heard. Click Here to watch this video!

Why Student's Should post work to their blogs?

I think it is important to post assignments to blogs. Doing this allows the student and others to review their work and make improvements to it. Posting work to blogs and allowing comments allows for constructive criticism and positive reinforcement. The assignment that we are doing, Comments4Kids, is a great example of this. We, as students are posting positive words to these students about their work they have done and in turn make them feel good about what they are doing.
Posting works to blogs is also good because it allows the parents to be involved with their child’s work and progress in the classroom. This also gives good example to allow the parent, child and teacher to be collaborative in improvements with the student.
Watch this blog to know more about blogging.

ACCESS

The Alabama State funded program is called Alabama Connecting Classroom Educators and Students Statewide or ACCESS program. ACCESS gives the teachers the tools that they need by giving them the opportunity to participate in online workshops which connects with staff from ACCESS for support and advice. This program began in 2004 and was started by our Governor Bob Riley to give all students higher than middle school an equal learning environment.
ACCESS stands for Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators, and Students Statewide. This program allows students in public schooling to take classes online. This is a great idea for those students in the public schools that may not have access to certain classes or access in the school to the resources. The only holdback is that this is only open to high school students but with that comes with that it is open to any and all high school student in public schools, no matter where you are in the state of Alabama.

Alex

Alex is a website designed for parents, teachers, and really anyone who needs to teach the subject at hand. It has wonderful resources all for free. They have lesson plans, teaching materials, ideas for teachers and parents and so many other things to look at and use. They are all free and that is a plus for teachers and parents to have free materials and tools at their hands.
I think it is very interesting and really neat that it is available to parents as well so that they can help the student as needed and have their own materials for at home use. This website is a must have on every teacher and parents bookmarks and favorites.

Dear Kaia

Mr. Chamberlain’s class was commenting on Kaia's Blog. One day, her dad noticed the comments and got in contact with Mr. Chamberlain and they began skyping. Since Kaia could not read at the time, Mr. Chamberlain’s class made a voice thread so she could hear what the class was saying about her blogs.
Over time, her father became a little worried and concerned about Kaia’s pictures and everything being all over the internet which is completely understandable but the pro’s vastly outweighed the con’s about sharing his daughter with the world.
I think it is amazing that we are able to contact people across the world and all because of a blog that was found and comments started going on it. It proves that people can see everything you do online and someone in a different country can see your blog but they may not comment on it, but they are reading it and I think it is amazing.

Wendy Drexler: The Networked Student

This video showed a really great and cool technique. I honestly never really realized how important networking is until this class. My mom is a realtor and everyone in her office is constantly networking and they use facebook to get out to the public about their listings which is interesting since in this class we have talked several times about people not reading newspapers anymore, anything and everything can be found online. It almost makes me feel weird because for the first time, my mom’s peers knew more about networking and other tech tools that I did not know even existed. This video has done a great job of showing just far someone can get with the right information and resources.
I am really looking forward to expanding my network. This class has done a wonderful job of preparing me for what is to come later in my career.

New Media Literacies

The New Media Literacy is a project started by MIT. They focus on ways to prepare students for 21st century technology. This program wants to educate people on technology and provide information on how to participate with the media.

In this video, the people in this project talk about how you need these certain skills to be able to successfully use technology. I fully agree with them because these skills are necessary to be fully capable of using this technology and technology is advancing every single day and without these skills, you may fall behind. Some of the skills that were discussed are judgment, multitasking, and negotiation. Here is a youtube video of the NML.

Richard Miller: This is How we Dream

I agree with Richard Miller. We are definitely pushing ourselves to the limit with gaining more knowledge. We used to think that the teacher in the classroom was the only source of learning what we needed to but we are learning more and more everyday that this is not true. The use of computers, the technology becoming readily available is helping make it possible to have other sources of learning other than what is in the classroom. In our own classroom, we have skyped with several people who are half way across the world many hours ahead of us and it was free to talk to them and we can learn a lot about another culture by doing this. This is not to say that the old techniques of pencil and paper are being ruled out completely but that we are coming up with new ways of learning and new ways are coming at us faster than I can keep up. This technology that the students use will make them prepared for the real world. I have a cousin that is 12 years old and knows a lot more about some of this stuff and it is shocking because I thought I was fairly knowledgeable in this area and that was a little scary.

Ipods in Instruction

Duke University in North Carolina was the first college to give students the use of the Ipods in the classroom. Ever since, there have been more schools followed this trend set by Duke. I personally feel that this is a great idea but there are some I’m sure that disagree with this idea as some students cannot afford them and some see these as a distraction and that everyone should stick to the textbook learning idea. Using Ipods in instruction means that students no longer have to stress about absolutely having to be in the classroom in case they are sick are have an emergency. I really feel like a big weight would be lifted from the students by using the Ipods. I know I stress out big time if I have an illness but still need to go to class but just do not have that energy or if I have an emergency come up and can’t attend class, I always stress about notes and everything else that happened in class.

Itunes U

ITunes University would be a very useful tool to have in the classrooms. Not just in the classrooms, but since it is on ITunes, it can be accessed outside the school. This is another example from earlier in the semester that schools are slightly becoming very dependent on technology and that it is becoming that the computers are teaching the kids, but with this in a way it’s a little bit of that but not. Students and teachers can access this, it’s a free service. Teachers can upload their lecture podcasts on here and a student can access it at any time if they missed a class or needs to go and fill in their notes.
All in all, this is a really good tool to have in the classrooms and after exploring ITunes U, it is already being used by many universities and other schools. Click Here for information about Stanford University using ITunes U.

Dr. Alice Christie

I viewed the Google earth portion of this website by Dr. Alice Christie. I found this section to be very informative as I could see myself using this tool in the classrooms. I have already had experience playing around with Google earth as my mom is a realtor and they use this tool a lot. I showed my dad this section of the website since he is always asking me “How do I do this?” and other questions about Google earth and he has not stopped thanking me for that and he has stopped with the questions for the most part. To use this in the classroom I found it really cool that she put up the teacher and student friendly search engines.

Mr. McClung: "What I've Learned This Year"

I really enjoyed reading Mr. McClung's article. He told how we as future teachers should first, stay positive, and don't focus so much on the lesson that you don't see it when the students are not understanding the material. One of the greatest things that I agree with him on is that when some don't succeed, we should encourage them to try again and never scold them because when students hear that they are a failure then they will have that in their heads for forever.
Teachers should also be life long learners and not afraid of technology. I really enjoyed reading this article as I prepare to go out in the teaching world.

Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture

I first want to say that I have listened to Randy Pausch before and I have always thought he was an amazing man and a very determined man.

I thought Mr. Randy Pausch was very much into what he was talking about. He let everyone know that his cancer was not going to stop him from doing his job. This was a very brave statement. He stressed the fact that anything is possible.

Mr. Pausch then talked about his football dream. What stood out to me was the quote, “Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted”. This quote is really true and a good quote to always think about when you don't get what you wanted. One of his dreams that he was able to achieve was that he was an author in the World Book Encyclopedia.

The main teaching technique that I really enjoyed was his idea of having fun. He stated how you can get students interested and learn the "hard stuff" if you give them a fun way to learn it. Basically, make it relevant. He used the example of middle school girls writing computer programs. He said they were able to learn it when he asked them to write stories. The head fake was that they were learning how to write computer programs.

Mr. Pausch's Last Lecture has always been interesting to me. This man touched many lives and I'm very glad this was one of our blog assignments.

Karl Fisch: Is It Okay to Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?

I liked his blog. I like that he is so set on the fact that the higher advance in the use of technology in the classroom could very well benefit the students and teachers learning. I believe that with using technology there are so many more options of creative learning for the students.

I remember things from random classes and the main things I remember are when the teacher made a fun game out of learning things, for example my french teacher in high school always had the weirdest ways of remembering our vocabulary and it always worked because I never got any of them wrong on the tests. All teachers are always looking for new ways to make their job fun and ways for children to understand. I do believe that using more and more technology in the classroom would be a success.

Wikipedia

I was not surprised by most of this information, but I was surprised to know that companies went as far as they did to edit the information. I think that is great that the people who edit the information can be tracked down. I do think it is funny how some people go over the edge to make their company look good.

As far as Wikipedia being a trusted source, I would not rely on it completely. I would probably use it to get the basics of certain information, but I would probably start going to another reliable website to get my information, especially if it's for research.

Kelly Hines: It's not about the technology

Kelly Hines wrote a blog called It's Not About the Technology. She says that classrooms of the 21st century do not need the high tech gadgets but innovative teacher. I really liked her blog. I agree that it is not the equipment we use but how we use it. Yeah, using a smart board helps and allows you to do more, but if there isn't one then there are still other ways. Preparing students to be creative and innovative is the best thing a teacher could probably do for them. They could be put in a situation they know nothing about, but as long as they have that innovation they can at least come up with something. This gives these students at least a chance even though they didn't have the advantages of learning with all the high tech. learning aids.

Using all the technology will better, yes, but Kelly is right on with that it's the teachers job to use it efficiently and use it to better the classroom. It really is not about the technology, it's about the teachers using the tools they already have and using the technology to further advance the students learning, but always remember it's not the end of the world if teachers do not have smart boards or other forms of technology.

Michael Wesch: A version of Student's Today

This video is about what students today are dealing with. In the video Michael shows a class room of students that tell what one of their issues are. I think we all can relate with most, if not all of them. Books are so expensive now that I have to make decisions on which books I feel like I will use the most during the semester and then hope for the best in the other classes or buddy up with someone with a book. I've done work that will never help me in real life. I will be in debt when I graduate. We are always saying "I just need a few more hours in the day to do what I need to do" and it is very true. As college students we are faced with many things to do in one day that it seems like teachers think that class is the only one we are taking and most of us are trying to get a schedule to work around our work schedule or vice versa.
As soon as I get caught up on something, it seems like all of a sudden I'm right behind again, it's a constant struggle that by the time I graduate I'll have it down right. The main thing is time management but it almost seems like there are too many things to do to even manage on when to do things.

Maggie Through the years... Bad Hair and All

The Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom

After viewing this blog and videocast, I have figured that it will be very beneficial to use podcasting in my classroom. It will be a great tool to have, for students that are absent, they can learn what was done in the classroom. For example, I missed a day in this class due to being sick and I did not understand how to do something and I went and watched the video on it.

Using podcasts in the classroom though makes me think that eventually we will just not have classrooms anymore and even elementary school will be done through the computer, and that is honestly crazy to just think that.

Past Podcasts

I listened to a couple of podcast from past students. I think the ones that I listened to did very well. It was like listening to a radio show almost but did seem to be almost scripted like they did not want to mess up at all and I would change that because that made it a little boring; I know it won't be perfect because they are students and not professionals yet, but it almost was like they were trying to be too perfect, but other than that, they were really good.

The Wonderful World of Podcasting

I thought the podcasts were informative but I did find some of them boring at times that I felt like I was going to fall asleep. I listened to Ed Tech Talk. This episode was about “Teachers Teaching Teachers” and they were sharing their knowledge about Google Docs. They explained how to upload templates and share them in the class. Everything that they covered in this podcast is something that I will more than likely use in my classroom.

Overall the Kidcast podcast was alright. This one was very informative to me as he listed the pros and cons of videocasting and he even gave his own advice on audio podcasting and video podcasting. The next podcast I listened to was MacBreak Weekly. I did not get anything out of the MacBreak Weekly and it did not really spark my interest.

The last podcast I listened to was This Week in Photography. This is the one that captured my attention the most, it was very interesting and very informative to me as it discussed using photography and photography is one of my passions.

Podcasts as a whole is a very useful tool, it lets you connect to anyone in the world and you can listen to anything you want that is on itunes. I honestly don't think that about 15 or even 10 years ago that we would have these things called pod casts and people would be using them so much.

Sir Ken Robinson: The Importance of Creativity

I definitely agree with Sir Ken Robinson about how important it is to allow children to be creative growing up. The way school systems are structured, does not allow children to be able to express their creativity or imagination. Most of us in this class are going to be teachers and this should be alarming to us because it is to me. Yes, teachers should be concerned with academics but this is not the only issue in schools. We sometimes forget to let the kids express themselves in their own creativity and want everything done a certain way.

A lot of times teachers are busy slamming the kids heads with facts, and academics wanting good test grades but while this is going on, programs like art are being cut at an alarming rate and we are not letting our kids be creative. We forget that these kids need to be creative or they will get bored with their academics. I do believe that sometimes we just need to put down the books and just let the kids be creative and do what they do.

Vicki Davis: Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts

Vicki Davis is doing a great job with her students and doing a wonderful job with her job. This teacher is keeping things very interesting with her students. You could see that the students had interest in what they were doing and were eager to learn. This is what teachers need to do, come in the classroom with something new and just like Vicki said, the teacher does not have to know everything about something coming into the classroom, you are there to learn too. It is all a learning process because there are new things coming everyday and there is no way to be a "know it all" in the classroom, even for the teacher.

Mrs. Davis knew how to keep her students attention and students do want to learn new things but will not be interested in it if they do not have the tools they are used to using. As she said, "students that only use paper, only pen, only pencil, then not all students will succeed." We are in a technology age where it is everywhere and should be in the classroom as well and not just as a piece of resource, but as a tool for learning; learning new things to do on the computer, learning all the things that can be done and used further in their life and career.

Mr. Winkle Wakes

This video was very interesting to say the least. I'm not shocked at all by this video though. Mr. Winkle got a lot of surprises when he woke up and went around town and saw all of the new advancements in technology in the last 100 years. To say the least, he was not happy about any of this and was a little afraid of being in this "new" world. Mr. Winkle seemed to be lost and then he went to the school and was relieved that nothing had changed with the teaching.

When I said this video did not shock, I meant it because the schools really have not changed much in their teaching. Yes there are computers in the classrooms and there is some new technology but all in all the teaching methods have not changed and that is something that needs to change. The teaching methods need to be updated with the technology or else our students will get lost because outside of the classroom they are using all of this technology.

Did you Know? 3.0

This video was very interesting to me. Even being a young person and having all of those things like myspace and facebook at my disposal, it is still surprising to know all of those facts. Technology really has advanced in the last several years and it continues to advance daily to vast amounts. In my opinion, eventually we will not be able to keep up with the speed of the advances that are happening. In the video it said that eventually there will a computer with the capacity of a human brain and that really is awesome and mind boggling to know. I only thought America had the greatest advancements and was the smartest but in the video when it said that India has more Honors students than America has kids, my jaw dropped. I had no idea of this as I'm sure not very many people do. Technology has advanced in so many ways it is unbelievable.

Everyday new things are developing and when I am a grandparent, my grandkids will have way more advancement in technology than we have now and even now it is hard to believe that there could be anything else, but I'm sure this is what everyone was saying 10 years ago. This video was all around amazing and really good information to have and will be interesting to see the next version to see how the numbers have changed.

About Me!

My name is Margaret Horst but I usually just go by Maggie. I'm a Junior here at the University of South Alabama studying Elementary Education. I'm originally from Mobile and attended the University of Alabama and moved back home this past January to continue school here and be closer to my family. I have a dog that is 18 years old and lives with my mom. I love to go to the beach, go swimming, and bowling, and fishing.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! I hope that each person that reads this blog will enjoy it just as much as I enjoy posting here!