My EDM 310 Blog Assignments are Now Complete

I just wanted to thank my classmates for a fun and interesting semester. It was fun learning with you guys! Thanks Dr. Strange for teaching us so much!

What I Learned

I learned so much in this class. I had experience using spreadsheets, however I did not know you could do so many things with a spreadsheet. I also learned that you do not need a book to learn. The internet is full of good information and technology is such a helpful tool in the classroom. I cannot think of anything else I could have learned. I entered the class with a negative opinion and thinking I would learn nothing without a book, however I learned a lot.

The Blog Experience

Before this class I did not know what a blog was. I learned what they were and how they can be affective in a classroom setting as well as in everyday life. They offer information to everyone seeking it through technology.

Although I have learned a lot by using blogs in the classroom, I cannot say I would use them in my classroom. I do not have much time to do blogs and they do not interest me very much. I do not really like to write so I did not really enjoy doing my blogs. However, the subjects we blogged on were interesting to me. Also, blogging provided an inexpensive communication tool and a way to share information.

I read Kathy Bentley’s blog and I found it to be interesting. Although she did well on her blog and packed it full of information, she did not seem to enjoy making the posts from the sound of her entries. Her photos were good and her blog was up to date. Although she did not enjoy it she did well.

Although blogs were used in some classrooms, I did not find them used in all. How could podcasts be used in a PE class? There are still many questions I have about uses for podcast in certain classrooms.

Project Hope

Nilaya began the podcast with, “It happens simultaneously, losing your keys, getting papers, instant loss of self esteem.” She said that you feel hopeless and invisible the day u become homeless. You feel as if you are no longer in the rest of the population and you do not have a place to start. You do not know where to start, and you say where do I go today or where do I start today, and begin to feel subhuman.

Nilaya, became homeless when she ended an abusive relationship. She now lived on one income instead of 2, so she sought a roommate which worked out well until they were laid off. She then said to herself maybe I can get two jobs. Can I pay 1200 and utilities? It was impossible and out of the question. No possibilities with her, especially with a small child, it is hard to ask for help from friends.

Where did I fail she asked herself. It is the matter of one paycheck. Unable to pay her rent and not wanting to ask friends for help, she looked for shelters to go to. She was denied emergency bed because she was not evicted; she left willingly because she did not want to ruin the good relationship she had with her landlord. She said it made it harder because she was lying on a community bed which was scarce and full.

She then ended up at project hope. In a bad situation it was the best thing that happened to her. They helped her in many ways. In that moment Project Hope was good for her but she wondered because she was still on a waiting list. Homes for Families help homeless families find places to call home. She listened to the meetings because they brought food. She started to see changes in things they were working on, and it then clicked for her because she saw results. It took her another year to find a home in Massachusetts, which happens far too many times. She met with groups of parents that claimed they were glad it happened to them because they view homeless people as bad when in fact they were homeless. Being in Project Hope changed their viewpoints on people. It was not instant gratification but it was important to understand the bigger picture and important to understand the impact we can have on the community as a whole.

Electronic Contact

My contacts name is Ashley Abrams. She teaches at Anacortes High School in Anacortes, Washington. She teaches PE, grades 9-12, and loves every minute of it.

She is also the volleyball, basketball and tennis coach there. She played all three in high school and finished her eligibility in college playing volleyball and tennis. She loves to be active, so being a coach and PE teacher is just the thing for her.

Before she taught in Washington, she taught in Augusta, Georgia at Augusta Christian. She was also an assistant volleyball and basketball coach there and PE teacher as well. She has been a teacher for four years now and she is going back to school to get her masters.

She does not use blogs for PE but she said other teachers in her school do. However, she does use the internet. She post her grades and attendance on the internet. I also tried to get a picture with her and her class but she said she does not take pictures in class.

EDM 310 Podcasts

For podcast one I chose Randy Pausch’s Last lecture by Christina, Sandy, Brian and Ginny. They did really well and did not read from a paper. The only thing I saw wrong was that they all did not interact in the conversation. They took turns talking but never really discussed passionately. They were asked the questions by one person like it was staged. Although they answered well, they should have been more eager and less staged.

For podcast two I chose how technology is used in the classrooms at South by Scarlett, Lisa and Mandy. I liked learning about e books and other possible learning tools South uses. Although it was interesting to learn that technology was used interactively throughout the university, no one jumped in and added their opinion and rarely asked questions. They did not read from a paper and they picked up the conversation later in the podcast. They were afraid at first it seemed but did well in the end.

For podcast three I chose Burp Back Education by Ashley, Sandy and Robyn. They sounded like they read from a paper. They had really good information and ideas; however they needed to interact with each other instead of just presenting their information. There were some awkward silences during their conversation, but overall they did pretty well.

For the fourth and final podcast, I listened to ACCESS by me, Allison and Kellie. Our podcast sounded like it was read from a paper. We should have been more prepared. We had a lot of good information but we did not interact with each other well and it seemed like it was scripted. It was really boring to be honest.

Mathematics with Technology

As a mathematician at Maine, Judy Chandler is urging teachers to incorporate technology into their classroom. Many teachers find the technology just creates more work and do not want to incorporate it in their classrooms. Judy Chandler found that the technology helps the students communicate with their teacher as well as increase critical thinking. She believes anyone can benefit and learn from technology.

Thinking mathematically is hard to do. How do teachers go about asking questions that challenge their students? The second podcast talked about how accomplish that task. If a student is challenged then they will be more prepared for life.

I agree that technology is a useful teaching tool. I also agree that students can be challenged in a good way. Through technology and classroom learning students can learn so much and can also teach the teacher things. Technology offers a wide variety of learning for the wide variety of learning types.

I came into this class blind and thought a lot of technology was a crock. I now realize that technology is very useful although it can be difficult at times. I will definitely use technology in my classroom and I will encourage my students to use iTunes for research and to help them learn.

"Growth" vs. "Fixed" Mindset

Many students go into a classroom with their mindsets being fixed on am I going to look smart or not. They base their activities on what they think their intelligence is instead of what it actually is. Other students think their intelligence is something they can develop their whole life through education. If we teach students the growth mindset then good results are evident.

An eight session workshop was created where half of the students got the 8 session workshop on study skills and a growth mindset, and the other half just got study skills. Researchers thought study skills were great and motivating, but they did no good whatsoever for the students because they did not have motivation. For the most part, those students’ grades continued to decline.

For the students who got the growth mindset lesson, they received information telling the students things like their brain is a muscle and it gets stronger with use. These students were told they can increase their intellectual skills. They were also told no one laughs at babies and tells them how dumb they are, they just have not learn yet. At the end of the semester these students had shown a significant rebound in their grades. The teachers could tell which kids were in the study skills and mindset kids and they didn’t even know there were two workshops.

Ross Bently, a world renowned racecar driver coach, saw the connection between a growth mindset and optimal performance. Top races last for hours and in the course of the race mistakes are inevitable, and the difference between a winning driver and a losing driver is how you handle those mistakes. Drivers were tested on if they could stay in the zone. It is important in the business world, at all levels, for people to believe in growth of skills and to admit mistakes and overcome them. If you cannot keep up with the changing world, then you cannot learn and grow.

9-12

I chose to watch energy flow in the coral reef ecosystem. The coral reef, found in tropical waters houses itself near the surface of the water because it needs sunlight for photosynthesis to survive. The reef is surrounded by plants, algae, and animals which help the food chain repeat again and again.

The reef could not exist without coral which is made up of many organisms. The fish eat the polyps in the coral reef by extracting them with their powerful jaws and teeth. Parrot fish create a lot of the sand at the bottom of the reef and sea cucumbers eat the sand and collect debris and algae from it keeping the ocean bottom clean.

These podcast were helpful because they were relevant to the grade levels that I want to teach. They gave so much information and they were videos so they showed examples. The videos are a good alternative to reading at a book and kids love to watch videos. They learn things from videos and do not even realize it.

The videos were also a good teaching tool for me to apply in my classroom because I am going to be a science teacher, and they all applied to science. There were so many interesting videos from NASA and NOVA. They were all very colorful and sparked my imagination, so the videos would be a great teaching tool I would consider using in my classroom.

Edible Schoolyard/A Night in the Global Village

The Edible Schoolyard at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School offers edible organic delights from their schoolyard. There is a garden and adjacent kitchen which help students learn in many ways. They learn subjects such as math, history, science, and about life. The garden is a center for literacy for teachers and through the amount of preparation needed to plant the garden, students learn a lot.

The garden is the center of attention and the students learn about things like photosynthesis, ecosystems, how to cooperate with each other, and how to work on projects together. A child who is brilliant in one area may not be brilliant in another and the garden gives them opportunity to do hands on learning. The garden is a way to improve school and make kids want to learn. The kids do not think about school as school, but it really is, they are learning lessons that are important for life.



Heifer Ranch is a nonprofit organization that helps the less fortunate families all over the world. While kids and teachers visit the ranch they stay in shacks that represent housing of families that live in poverty. The places represent Guatemala, Thailand, Zambia as well as generic urban slums like Appalachia. There is one group that is in a refugee camp, this group is not allowed to communicate in English, and they do not have a fire or food. Kids are separated into groups or “families” and placed in each country to live their lesson.
The kids of all groups have to learn how to bargain for items they need to survive.

With one member pregnant and one who loses use of a hand, the “family” is at even more of a loss. They all have to work together to communicate to cook their food and ,make a fire. Adults can take the role of elder or of a two year old. If the adult picks the role of a child then another member of the group has to step up and be the leader. Alliances were forms as negotiations continued well into the night. Kids learned how to be independent, how to work out their problems, and they had to wrestle with choice. Most kids found that they need to take imitative in their own community and they lived the lesson.

Both the garden and ranch help the kids to learn valuable lessons and they have hands on learning. They were both very interesting.

Podcast

The podcast started out with music which made it inviting to listen to and entertaining. The people seemed to enjoy doing podcast and were enthusiastic about the subjects they were speaking about. They did not just read from a piece of paper but actively held a conversation with each other. In some of the podcast people collaborated from different states.

KidCast and MacBreak Weekly gave feedback on student’s podcast. They encouraged kids to do podcast and said they should be taught how to do them. Also, they told them a little about what to put into their podcast and presentations. Academic information is the message. They think that kids doing the podcast and being able to say they did them is not enough. We as educators need to take it farther and let kids have an extended conversation where they take an idea they are interested in and do research, record their information and share it with a group of people.

ConnectLearning withDavid Warlick was a conversation with librarians about podcast in the library. They agreed that collaboration with teachers helps enable the student and the teacher. Podcast can be done it in the classroom and at home as well. Students can connect with the community as well. Work can be done nationally by doing discussions and class debates, and students can keep track of notes and can go back to the podcast from class to help them study or write their papers.

These were just two of the six examples. They were all helped me understand the use of podcast in the classroom. Although I used to think podcast were pointless and useless I learned they can be very useful and interesting. They not only informed me but gave me ideas to use in my classroom.

ACCESS Visit

I chose to visit one of the first ACCESS labs in Mobile, Alma Bryant High School. The teacher for this course is Samantha Smith. She is over the English department as well as the collaborator for Spanish at Bryant.
The lab is small, however significant. Mrs. Smith informed me that although the lab looks advanced, it indeed has become outdated. She hopes the grant will continue to be provided.

She reconnected with the school she collaborates with, Chilton County, to show me how it worked. She has interacted with up to three schools within one semester. I was a little sad to not get to see interaction with the students. I went during lunch time. However, Mrs. Smith did get to sit down with me and log onto her computer.

It was amazing what kids can do with ACCESS. Teachers post assignments, much like a syllabus, and kids have to complete the assignments on the computer. There is NO PAPERWORK, which is amazing. The kids also take quizzes and test online. This makes it easy and convenient for a teacher to grade assignments and not get the excuse, “you lost my paper, I turned it in.”

Another neat thing she showed me is that the teacher can, through her account, imitate one of her students. This allows her to log into email and see if the students have been sending notes in class. She can even see if they erase the email. She can also see when assignments are submitted.

This is a really good program. Not only is it easy for teachers, but it gives students more than one perspective on learning. It also gets students involved and begins to prepare them for college. I really enjoyed my trip to the ACCESS lab.

Randy Pausch Last Lecture

Before Randy gave his last lecture he told everyone he had ten tumors in his liver and that he only had a little while left to live. He was in high spirits and in good health. His lecture was about three things, how to achieve your childhood dreams, how to enable the dreams of others, and how lessons learned help you along the way.

The first dream Randy had was being in zero gravity. He worked hard and used his resources to do this and was included in an experiment with one of his students. His second dream was to be in the NFL. He told a story about a coach he once had who did not bring footballs to practice. The coach said only one person at a time touches the football so we are going to work on what the other twenty-one player do on the field. The point of this was to work on fundamentals. Fundamentals are the building blocks. The coach was riding him one day about the fundamentals, and he was told that when someone cares and wants you to do better they will ride you to make you better. It is only when they do not say anything that they do not care. What he got out of that was, "experience is what you get when you didn't get what you want". He did not get what he wanted but he learned a valuable lesson from that childhood experience. A third dream was to meet Captain Kirk, since he could not be him. He realized that he wanted to be a leader like Captain Kirk. Well not only did he get to meet his boyhood idol, but Captain Kirk came to Randy to experience what he was experimenting with in his lab. The last major dream Randy had was to be an Imagineer at Walt Disney. He wanted to make theme park rides like one he had experienced as a boy. After he got his PHD from Carnegie Mellon, he applied for positions with Disney and they told him they did not have any positions available for his area of expertise. This was a brick wall, and Randy said that he realized that brick walls were there for a reason, that they let us prove how badly we want things and how hard we are willing to work to get them. So, he eventually worked hard enough to be able to do a sabbatical with Jon Snoddy at Disney, and work on a virtual reality Aladdin ride with the Imagineering team at Disney. He said this experience forever changed him. He was asked to stay on as a staff member and he turned them down. He had bigger dreams in mind.

Randy wanted to make a difference in the lives of others. He wanted to enable their childhood dreams and the way that he could do that was by becoming a professor. His first experience with making a childhood dream come true was by helping a student named Tommy work on a Star Wars movie. This was not good enough for him, he wanted to reach out to many more students than that, so he created a course where students created virtual worlds. Every two weeks the students had a project, which equaled five projects, and they had three members to a team. He then realized that he wanted to make an even bigger difference so he handed this class over to a former student and he sought a new way to help others. Randy then succeeded in creating the Entertainment Technology Center with Don Marinelli at Carnegie Mellon. This is a two year masters degree program where artist and technologists work together. There was no book just a series of projects the students had to finish before they graduated. The courses were project based and fun, and they had field trips and no dean to report to. This program was so successful that companies submitted written agreements for these graduate students guaranteeing they would be hired. There are now three additional Technology Centers, one in Australia, one in Korea and one in Singapore. One important program Randy also worked on was Alice. It was a computer programing game designed to help kids make movies and games. He said the point of Alice was for million of kids to have fun while learning something hard. He wanted to reach out to millions.

He learned some hard lessons along the way but not without help and support. He had amazing, supportive parents, teachers and bosses. Andy van Dam was one main contributor who urged him to go to graduate school and helped him to get into Carnegie Mellon. Randy also said you learn from your students. Caitlin, one of his former students, had the idea to make Alice a storyteller program, and she helped make it successful. He learned many things along the way. He learned that loyalty is a two-way street, and to never give up. Once again, brick walls help show ones dedication. He also said, "Don't bail; the best gold is at the bottom of a barrel of crap." Get a feedback loop and listen to it and show gratitude. He said to never complain, to just work harder and be good at it, it makes you valuable. Find the best in everyone and be prepared.

In conclusion, he more than exceeded his childhood dreams and those of others. He helped to enable the dreams of others and learned some valuable lessons along the way. It is about how you lead your life. Karma will show itself in the end.

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iPods for Education

The use of iPods has proven to be very useful inside and outside of classrooms. They can keep out the distractions, hold lectures for convenient listening, store information and even look up information with the proper USB connections. Universities such as Brown, Stanford, the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Missouri School of Journalism participated in a program with Apple called iTunes U which use iPods for differentiating instruction. Apple recently offered to provide the service to all universities due to its popularity. The program offers such tools as lectures you can download and recruiting tools. K-12 schools are also using iPods for math, science, reading, history and most of all foreign language. Schools partner up and the use of iPods helps classrooms share their work with their partner classroom.

However, Duke University students and faculty noted a number of complaints. These included short battery life, problems with the shuffle component, copyright issues, ear buds hurting the ears and students not having the skills to utilize the tool. Also, professors think the iPod information should supplement the work in the classroom, not replace it. So the argument remains, is the iPod a useful tool, should it replace classroom time? I say they should not replace classroom time but they can be a very useful tool in the classroom.

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My Presentation!!

Educational Technology Guide

Dr. Christie's website has made it evident that as a teacher I am not only going to have to produce information and lead my classroom, but I am going to have to help build my community, collaborate and facilitate information and work well with my co-workers or team members. I like the idea of having junior interns in the classroom. You can learn so much from kids, they are creative and they like to explore.

The site provides multiple resources for a teacher to use in their classroom. It provides GPS coaching, website coaching, and web design resources. She also provides multiple opportunities to attend her indispensable workshops. This website would be very useful in a classroom with all of the great resources on technology that it provides.

Wikipedia

I am not really surprised about the articles I read on Wikipedia about NPR and Wired. I have always heard Wikipedia was a site that anyone could post or edit information on. Well, there is a tracking system which was put in place by Virgil Griffith, and apparently previous systems were set in place before this one. So someone says, who knows if that is the truth!! This device can track who submits or edits information and from where. This could be useful, however, someone could just go to a friends house and submit information if it was important enough to keep the source a secret.

Of course Wal-Mart and companies of that sort are entering information to make themselves look good. It is easy to do and a lot of people believe whatever they read on the Internet. At the present time Wikipedia can not be trusted and will not be able to be trusted until it is further tested and filtered.

Why Wireless?

Arapahoe High School recently began to offer wireless Internet access to students who owned their own wireless devices. This decision was being questioned so Karl Fisch was asked to write response in the schools newsletter. He said the Internet offers the students a chance to look at their grades, teacher web pages and electronic databases or reference tools.

The Internet offers a wealth of information. Learning occurs outside the classroom, if it did not then what would be the point of homework?! We live in a technology-driven world that is constantly changing so we have to learn to change with it. Our world is constantly connected thanks to the Internet. Fisch said, "Technology is not the goal, but rather it is the enabler that allows us to achieve our goals." The Internet allows the students to be creative, collaborative and connected.

Fischbowl

The Internet is a very useful tool for teachers and students. I personally agree with with the statement "In order to teach it, we have to do it". This is so true. As teachers, we cannot teach students something if we do not learn to do it ourselves. We are always growing with our students, and in order for our students to grow, they have to learn. Computer technology is like history...things in the past reflect the future. The Internet is constantly changing and teaching us new things so we should change and grow with it.

However, I do not think teachers who are not willing to learn should be questioned. I believe teachers, as a whole, have good intentions for their students. Some teachers are just not susceptible to change.

International Classroom Blogs'

The first blog I found was by a second and third grade class at Nelson Central School in New Zealand. The kids work is posted on the site and also pictures of their activities. The blog tells about what they did for the week, and you can also email the teacher and the students. This class blog was very colorful and inviting.

Click here to check it out.



The second class blog I found is a second grade class from Meadowbank School in Auckland, New Zealand, they are a buddy class to the one mentioned above. This classroom has a writing blog along with a class blog, links to other sites, pictures of trips and activities and more. You can also view the children's work and email the teacher. This site was also very inviting.

Click here to check it out.

Class Blogs'

One blog I found was by a teacher named Mrs. Wells who teaches at a school named Cambridge Elementary in Texas. Her students have a place on the class blog where they can tell about themselves and comment about certain things that go on in class. In her blog she talks about what they have done at school and what is coming up. She mentions a podcast about a musical and book float parade that they had at their school.

She also held one really cool experiment during a whole day of class labeled "I have a Dream". She labeled half of the class with red dots. These students could not eat at the same tables, play on the same equipment during play time or join in during other activities. She then asked them to post on the class blog about their experience. The kids were "shocked" and did not like to be the non red dots. The kids who were the red dots said they liked it because they got to sit on the "good side" of the cafeteria but they disliked not being able to play with their friends who were the red dots.

Click here to check out this blog



The second blog I found was for two fifth grade classes in Detroit. the site had games to play, pictures, a calendar and podcasts. The blog also had old tests for students to print out and practice. The site had a place for parents to look so they could help their children at home. This site was so much better than the first one. It had much more information and many educational links for both student and parent.

Click here to check out this blog

Did You Know?

Every day the world is getting smaller and smaller. Everyone in the world is getting closer to being able to access the world with just a few clicks of a button. More people all over the world are becoming educated, educated for things which are yet to become a reality.

The Internet is becoming part of our everyday lives. People are meeting on the Internet and getting married, they are earning college diplomas online, and everyone is communicating through the Internet. Everyday technology is taking over and the Internet is close to being able to out compute the brain.

The U.S. is becoming less dominant very quickly. Other countries are surpassing us in education, technology and population, yet those countries are striving to understand our language and culture. Although we as Americans feel worlds apart from other countries we are just one click away.

ACCESS

ACCESS is a website that provides all students with the opportunity of high quality instruction courses. The mission of ACCESS is "to provide an infrastructure that delivers quality learning opportunities for all citizens." The goal is "to provide additional educational offerings for all Alabama public school students."

ACCESS was created because it was apparent that students at low income schools did not have a wide range of classes offered to them. ACCESS wanted to provide all public high school students with the opportunity to earn advanced diplomas, take AP classes, or just enroll in higher level classes.

Through ACCESS distance learning becomes available to Alabama students through the Internet, videoconferencing or both. Like all types of teaching, videoconferencing has its benefits and challenges, but the benefits outweigh the challenges by far.

ACCESS is a great asset to the state of Alabama. It is also a great opportunity for Alabama high school students.

ALEX

The Alabama Learning Exchange or ALEX website is a very useful website for teachers, administrators and students. It allows you to access courses of study by grade level or keywords. The website gives Alabama Content Standards for each subject and gives the appropriate grade level for each field of study. It offers grant opportunities, professional development, training and tips and tricks for teachers. Distance learning or web based courses with audio and visual content is also a great opportunity on this website.

One of the greatest aspects of this website is that it allows you to review and research other teachers' lesson plans to help you in creating your own lesson plans. It also gives you ideas about possible activities and study guides to use in your classroom.

The ALEX website is very helpful to new and old teachers alike. It is a great resource for new teachers because it gives ideas on how to teach your students. It can even be useful to veteran teachers because it can give them new, contemporary ideas to try. I will definitely use this website when I begin my teaching career.

About Me!!

Hello Again,

Well, obviously my name is Brooke. I am 23 years old and I am from Mobile. I went to high school at Faith Academy. From there I received a volleyball scholarship to Augusta State University in Augusta, Georgia. I played volleyball for four years and finished my eligibility. I was then offered and accepted the assistant coach position for ASU, where I coached for a year.

In December of 2007 I found out my father was diagnosed with cancer. It is gone by the way! I then made the decision to leave Augusta and move home to be with my family, which leads me to being in school at USA! My passion is coaching and I ABSOLUTELY love kids. I am here for a reason, and though I do not quite know what that reason is, i am SO excited to be here!

Brooke

WELCOME!!

Hey Guys,

Welcome to my blog!! Feel free to take a look!!

Brooke Elder