February 21, 2010

Dr. Alice Christie

Dr. Christie's website is a website designed to help teachers succeed. I have explored this site a little and I have found Webinars, educational technology, and how to design your own web site. It even has a search engine designed just for teachers! I think that this website could be very useful!

This website, if used properly, can be very useful for teachers as it has links to other websites with educational tools, and lesson plans. The Webinars also seem very useful. Dr. Christie also has links to her classes that I assume, for a fee, you can sign up for.



iTunes U is a very useful tool. Imagine as a student you have missed class because you had to go to the other side of the country to a wedding your family would not let you out of to save your life. Now imagine knowing that everything you miss will be on the test that will happen when you get back and your teacher won't let you make it up. Before you start having a panic attack you remember your teacher downloads her lectures onto iTunes U so you can get the notes you need even though you missed a week's worth of classes!

As a teacher this tool will be useful because your class can be more engaged during class time and not have to worry about if they missed something important because the class lecture is online when they get home. This tool can also be useful as a teacher if you were sick and had to miss a day. Now you don't have to give your students busy work the substitute can just pull up iTunes U and play the lecture for the class and your class can take notes from it! How amazing is it that technology has come so far!

February 14, 2010

Wikipedia

I think it is amazing that someone thought of this! Unfortunately, I believe this just proves that Wikipedia cannot be a trusted website for any academic research. All this scanner does is show teachers how fallible Wikipedia is. This website is great for initial research, but it falls horrifically short of being a trustworthy academic site for students.

At the Teacher's Desk

I loved Mr. Mclung's entry on his first year of teaching. His advice was very much like the advice my mother has been giving me for years. Read your audience don't worry about what your superiors say to much because all that matters is that your students understand your lessons. Do not flip your lid when your lessons don't go your way. Sometimes your lessons will go in a completely different direction than you intended but don't freak, as long as the learn something that's all that matters. COMMUNICATE and LISTEN! Your students will respond better to you and you will make a more profound impact on their lives if you COMMUNICATE with them. I think this is the most important piece of information he could have given us. Being reasonable is not an option. We all remember that one teacher who refused to understand that we had a death in the family and refused to give us an extension on that really big assignment that we had all year to work on. So what this same grandparent dies every semester!? We still deserved that extension. Now this is over exaggeration, obviously, but seriously, we all had that teacher who wouldn't budge on an assignment no matter the reasonable circumstances. None of us want to be that teacher. Use technology in the classroom. Don't be afraid to help your student with the use of technology. Don't give up if you don't get it the first time. Keep trying! His last piece of advice was to continue to learn. We as educators cannot expect our students to learn if we are not willing to continue ourselves.

My Presentation

February 7, 2010

How many times have we been talking to a non-education major friend about something that we are so interested in with education and their eyes just glaze over? If we can not get our friends excited about what we are learning how can we get our future students' parents excited? I believe that Langwitches confronts this very well. Though I know he or she did not address how to get them excited she did discuss how to keep them informed and to show them how having technology in the classroom will help.
Langwitches addresses a very serious problem but does not answer it. How are we to keep our future parents interested in how technology really helps their child? I shudder at the idea of my first confrontation with the parent who believes technology can do nothing but harm to their child. I hope maybe someone can answer this very pressing question for me.

January 31, 2010

SmartBoard Lessons Podcast
OK, first things first. Why in the world is he doing a podcast while he is ordering coffee? I feel this is extremely unprofessional, you would not take a conference call while you were in line to get coffee much less talk about your coffee and soup. Well, if you did you probably wouldn't keep your job for much longer. Now on to the important stuff. I found Mr. Hazzard's information interesting, though I did not get a whole lot of it because I was just so distracted about his coffee and soup. [By the way I love how it was 4.16. Maybe we should all go to Ontario for coffee and soup:)]

Kid Cast Episode 62
I think the speaker on this podcast is extremely correct! So many teachers have tried to incorporate videos they have made in their classrooms and it just completely fails. I love that the speaker goes step by step into how to do a video podcast and an audio podcast. This podcast was very helpful and I feel like when I become a teacher I will use this for my classrooms.

Racism in Photography
So I can only listen to a few minutes past 25 minutes. I completely agree that a photographer has the right to refuse a job. Who is anyone to say that even though this is against your beliefs and you aren't going to do a good job with it you have to do it. Though I do believe in accepting everyone for who they are, I believe that the people who the photographer refuses to take pictures of should be understanding of the photographer's either ignorance or beliefs and not fight it with more ignorance.

Episode 96
I absolutely LOVED this podcast! I think that incorporating the computer and the internet in classroom is a wonderful idea! Students now days identify with the internet more than with just pencil and paper. Students generally do get more excited when they get to create things and other people outside of their school get to see it. I have the opportunity to observe classes at a local middle school sporadically and I have seen students' faces light up when they get to do projects with the computer. I firmly believe that incorporating the internet into the classroom would be the best thing for students now days.

January 17, 2010

Did you know? and Mr. Winkle Wakes
It amazes me that people never think it is important to know random facts about the world around them! For instance the radio took 38 years to reach 50 million people while the T.V. took 13 years, the internet took 4 years, the iPod took 3 years and Facebook only took 2 years! How amazing is that? Or is it really amazing? Is it amazing that people have become such sheep they will do whatever the more successful person shows them? What truly amazes me though is that half of the information I learned is outdated. The only information that I know is outdated is the way students cite works on their works cited pages.
Mr. Winkle wakes disturbs me because it strikes such a close cord. How can we expect our students to be prepared to go out into the working world without the skills to succeed? I know that when I first came into this class I was intimidated, and on some level I still am, because I have never had to blog or do anything extensive on the computer. Fortunately, my teachers have helped me and this class doesn't seem as daunting.

The Importance of Creativity
Sir Ken Robinson wasn't far off the mark when he stated that children grow out of creativity. How many times have we seen the child in the back of the room who loves to draw or read made fun of by the other kids because he or she is different from the "norm?" These students are called out by the teacher (unintentionally) to pay attention and to get out of their dream world so that the teacher can teach them something the student may or may not use the rest of their life.
I believe that Sir Ken has captured educational system perfectly. How many times have we just written a student off as oh they just have ADD or ADHD and told their parents that they have to put their child on medication or they will never learn. We have allowed ourselves to be brainwashed into thinking that people that suffer from these disorders can not function without medication when in fact 50 years ago the people with this disorder functioned perfectly! I believe that we need to find a better way to teach students with ADD and ADHD than to drug them and conform them to us. Yes, this makes our job easier as teachers but does it really help these students?

Harness your students' digital smarts
How amazing is it that rural students from Georgia, who would more than likely be ignorant of the world around them, get to experience the world in ways most students could never imagine? I love how the teacher is so optimistic about life and her students' ability to learn! She has truly inspired me to continue to learn how to use the internet and computer systems in my future classrooms. I cannot wait to become a teacher!