MY EDM 310 BLOG IS NOW COMPLETE!

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EDM 310

I learned many new things in this class! I learned many useful tools that google has to offer that I can use for school and for teaching. I learned how to use spreadsheets. How to do payout tables. I really enjoyed this class and appreciate the patience for error. It was nice to have some room to practice and understand how to do things and not be preasured to do it perfect the first time.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is definetly not a reliable source to use for anything. Even if I had not read the stories before if you even look at the pages information and compare it to others, the majority of the time it is different. Plus if you look, many things have misspelled words and other errors.

Fixed vs. Growing Minds

I personally believe the average functioning person has a growing mind. The idea of a fixed mind is that we are only born with a certain capacity of knowledge and cannot retain anything more than that. We obviously have the "use it or lose it" mechanism, which is if we do not use information we have learned we forget it but I truely beleive we can learn and keep learning. There is no limit.

More I-Tunes

I watched the clouds video in the k-5 section. The video was pretty simple and it provided an Educators guide which I thought would be pretty useful. The guide provided a summary, questions, and other helpful information.
I Think this is an extremely useful tool in the classroom. I think it would interest students and it is easy to access which makes life easier for everyone.

I-tunes University

I tunes University is an amazing tool. Teachers could use it for homework assignments or to help with classroom assignments. Teachers or educators may also use it to get information for their classroom. They may even incorporate videos and music into their curriculum.
Students have a great oppurtunity with the i-tunes university. I could picture myself running at the gym or riding in the car and listening to lectures or educational content of somekind from my classes. I think it is a great resource that everyone should utilize.
http://images.apple.com/support/itunes_u/docs/iTunes_Create_U_Guide.pdf

I-pods and instruction

I thought that Duke University took a great chance in incorporating i-pods in in their instruction. I think it is an interesting idea and I believe it could work very well eventually. I think as long as the professors will use the i-pods in their own instruction then students should receive them. I do think that they can also be a major distraction though as well. Why pay attention when you can watch a show in class or listen to music. The schools that use them will of course have to work out all the bugs. The website I found this info was: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0419/p11s01-legn.html
Also a website a really like because it gave me a better idea of what the i-pod can actually do in the class room was:http://www.schoolcio.com/showArticle.php?articleID=196604276 I thought it gave a lot of good insight to the subject.

Where are the Students? Fischbowl 2007 June Post

I completely agree that students should be involved with deciding "what is best for them." Another problem (besides money and liability reasons) is that the school would have to make sure that they picked the right students to go. Some students would just go, to go and not do any justice to the other students.
I think it is a wonderful idea to try and get students involved with student curriculum. Although, educators to a great job trying to decide what should be involved. Hopefully all the bugs will get worked out and the idea will work

"Best? of the Fischbowl 2007

The fischbowl blog that was posted for Sept. made me do some major thinking. Today, in class I was learning new computer skills and having some trouble. I remember saying outloud "I'm just not good with computers." After reading the blog, I felt ashamed. I felt ashamed because what was said was exactly right. I also have said "I'm just not very good in Math." Although I wished I were better it still made me think.

I do believe that teachers, administrators, and so forth should have atleast a basic knowledge of computers and technology. At the same time if the people in those positions have been doing their job without any problems then one might ask why do they need it anyway? It's hard to say what is right and what is not. But again, I think if they do need the technology and they are willing to learn, then there are no problems.

As far as the the comment made that: If a teacher today is not technologically literate - and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more - it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write.
I'm not sure if I would go that far. Technology is important and a way to captivate students to learn; however there are other means of learning espeacially if you are talking about elementary students. Obviously, if the person is educated to teach then they should know how to do so. I believe that there would definatly be problems with not being willing to learn for other reasons but I dont think it would be extreme to be compare being illiterate in technology to not being able to read or write.

Post 5 International Blogging

Wow! This wibsite was amazing. A school from Scottland and a school from Holland are "conducting a small experiment in the use of weblog between two primary schools." The site has many pictures of the children in the classroom. They look like they are doing podcasts between one another and even visiting each others school in person as well. The blog contains pictures of the students conducting science experiments and they describe the experiment, they have poems from the students, art projects, and other classroom activities as well. The students could go on and blog as individuals or as a whole class. I thought it was an awesome website! Take a look here:http://www.sandaigprimary.co.uk/pivot/index.php

The second website I found was not near as interesting. A teacher in Japan uses a blog to describe his experiences in Japan. He really does not have that many pictures and his website is pretty random but all and all he has a lot of information about his lessons. You can check out his website at:http://discussenglish.blogspot.com/search/label/Japanese%20English%20Teachers

Post 4 Blogs and the Classroom

As I searched for examples of teachers using blogs in the United States, I stumbles upon many blogs from other countries but found difficulty in finding ones from the U.S. Finally I found a whole school that used blogs. Every grade, every teacher, and even other faculty members had their own blogs.
One of the first blogs I looked at the tacher just guided and updated what the children were doing in class. It containted other links to "help" pages. Pages where students could go to get help with any subject they needed. She also put a calander and marked important school events.
Another page I looked at divided all subjects they were studing and had the next days assignments as well as the homework they were responsible for that night. The page also included links for parent tips and a newsletter.
Personally, I would like to use this in my class. I think it is an excellent way to keep parents involved and it gives children more oppurtunities for help and gives them a way to check themselves and stay on track.
The website you can find this at is: http://www.cobbk12.org/schools/es/schlewis/teacher_blogs.htm

ACCESS

ACCESS is a plan to provide advanced course opportunities to all Alabama high school students. They set goals like: providing foreign language courses, advanced placement or dual credit courses, and to provide suplemental resources.
They also provide teaachers with other tools to enhance teaching instruction.The plan is to serve every high school student in Alabama with the oppurtunity to take at least one distance course.
Access will provide support and oversight through the State Department of Education and support centers.The plan is also to develop appropriate professional development for those individuals involved in ACCESS Distance Learning.

ALEX in the classroom

I could use ALEX for many different things in the classroom. ALEX would be helpful with checking that I am teaching to the correct standards as well as giving me ideas to use in the classroom. I could research different techniques in teaching the subjects and use the ones I think would work best.
I would also use ALEX to incorperate other subjects that may not be required but that I think would be helpful or fun for my students. For instance, I plan on teaching the younger grade levels of Elementary school. I would love to incorperate learning another language in my daily classroom. I can look up lesson plans to incorperate in my classroom that are grade and age appropiate.

Alabama Learning Exchange.

Alex is a a source for teachers that has standards of different courses of study. For each course of study it explains what the students are supposed to learn and they even have lesson plans you can use to cover certain standards. You can also create your own lesson plan in "Personal Workspace."IT has a search engine for related education cites, and other helpful web links too.
Alex is helpful for grades k-12 plus other professional studies. Alex includes almost any subject you can think of, including standards and lesson plans for foreign language and driver's ed. All together it seems like a very helpful sourse.

The FISCH BOWL

Wow, pretty amazing where technology is leading us. I can not imagine what we will be doing in the technology field ten or even five years from now. I know computers are something that will be in our lives forever and we must all learn how to use it to the best of out ability. It is a wonderful way to learn about things as well as a way to teach.
Also, I thought the facts they provided were intriguing. In fact, most of the things on there I did not know or really even think about. The few facts that stand out the most to me were the ones about the mass numbers of messaging a day, and that the country of China may speak more English than the U.S. Weird.

DAY TWO POST

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