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.

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