My EDM310 Blog Assignments Are Now Complete

It's been fun, but I'm glad that the semester is over. I hope that you all enjoy your Thanksgiving. Good luck with teaching!

What I have learned

Coming into this class I did not even know what a blog was. Reading the assignment that says "Create a Blog", I asked everyone around me, "What is a blog?" I soon became very familiar with it. I'm glad that we are required to take this course because it is not something that I would look at in the bulletin and decide to take just for fun. Having said that, this is my list of things I have learned in EDM310.
1. How to create and keep a blog
-adding pictures
-linking websites
-linking my email
2. How to use ITunes and all about ITunesU
3. How to use google's spreadsheat
4. How to use google's documents
5. What ACCESS and ALEX is
6. How important technology is as a resource in the classroom
7. What and how to create a podcast

I understand why we used google, but I would have like to have learned more about Microsoft Word and Excel. I know that they are very similar, but Word is just something I use in every class.

Pros and Cons of Blogging in the Classroom

After taking this class, I am convinced that teachers should use blogs in their classrooms. There are limitations to that statement though. A lot of students don't have regular access to the internet at their homes, so blogs should not be used as a primary way of giving information. They should act as a reinforcement for material covered in class. You could supply links to websites that might help the students figure out their homework. An idea that would appeal to parents is blog for the parents to read about what their children are doing in class and how they're doing.

Older students will enjoy participating in creating blogs. They can include their ideas on books, have a message board for peer help with homework or even display projects on a blog. There has to be a block on computers in the classroom in order for students to stay on track. If you allow them to freely surf the net, the blog will never have any attention paid to it. Some entries that I encountered this year are time consuming, so the teacher must keep that in mind when giving students a blog topic.

While reading Brian O'Gwynn's blog, I realized that he has just about the same point of view as I do on blogging in the classroom...it's a good idea. It allows you to express your opinion about different topics. It is interesting to read what others have to say about the same topics you wrote about.

Duke University

One of the podcasts that I chose to listen was "The South in Black and White." The South in Black and White is a course offered by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke. It is a course that emphasizes how we got to where we are now. The class has Gospel music every week. They invite different southern storytellers to tell their stories. The class is not taught at Duke University but rather at the Hayti Heritage Center which is a historic African American church in Durham, North Carolina. You don't have to be a student to come to class. It is open to the public, but everyone must register for the class prior to attending.



The Hayti Heritage Center
Source:http://www.hayti.org/wp/wp-content/themes/hayti_redux/images/hay_thumb.jpg

The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University gives students the opportunity to express themselves through different types of documentaries. They are encouraged to "experience" the different fields such as photography, film, audio and poetry. All of this hands on experiece is meant to enable the students to express modern life and culture. According to the Center for Documentary Studies website:

The CDS promotes documentary work that cultivates progressive change by amplifying voices, advancing human dignity, engendering respect among individuals, breaking down barriers to understanding, and illuminating social injustices.

I'm glad that classes like these are offered to not only students at universities but also the general public. It helps to better educate people who are simply interested in the subject.

ACCESS lab

I visited the ACCESS lab at Daphne High School. Mr. Roh is in charge of the lab at this school. ACCESS labs have two ways that lessons are taught. There is web-based and a video conference. Daphne High is currently using web-based only. It is set up to use video, but they need more people involved in order to utilize it.

It is a great program because students are able to take classes that they normally would not be able to take at there school because they are not offered. I would have taken advantage of this program in high school for two reasons. 1.) So that I could take a class that wasn't offered at my school and I was interested in and 2.) I enjoy taking web classes. It has more of a work at your own pace attitude.

Communication with Teacher

Jennifer Tate and I corresponded via email about the use of technology at her school. She teaches at Discovery Elementary School in Huntsville, AL. When selecting a teacher to correspond with, I thought that she was a great candidate being a gifted teacher. It is a small school with about 250 students and class sizes at about 30. This is also a low income school with very few resources.

The school tries to incorporate technology use in the classroom, but it is difficult because most of the students do not have computers at home. All teachers provide their students with their email address for communication purposes. Mrs. Tate has only had 3 students and 6 parents contact her this way. There are two computers in each classroom. One computer is for teacher use only and the other is for the students to work on accelerated reading and math programs. When asked about the computer lab at her school, Mrs. Tate wrote:

"The computer lab tech is just there to open the lab and help with computer issues in the school. She is not required to teach a class. It is up to the teacher. The classes go to the computer lab twice a week. (One time being reading, the other for math) Our school is a Title One school, and instructional time is carefully monitored. The teachers do not have the "freedom" to be able to participate in blogs and chat rooms because of the time constraints put on them from our principal/district. The students in the upper grades (3-5) might get some extra computer lab time for web based research if they have a project to complete."

The librarian at Providence is attempting to use blogs with the 4th and 5th graders. First, she has to teach the students about internet safety and then they will begin blogging. Since she is the librarian, the students will blog about anything they read. Their blog is located at
http://mustangreaders.21classes.com/.
There are no posts at this time. While in the library, the students will also be using Google Earth.

Mrs. Tate has used podcasts that she was shown at a workshop in her classroom. Because of the structure, that she mentioned above, being enforced at her school, she is not able to use that tool that often. When asked about using using technology to develop a lesson plan, she referred me to a site that she likes to use called Sites for Teachers.

EDM 310 Podcast

The four podcasts that I listened to were all different. That was definitely something I liked. I'm glad that there wasn't a specific set of guidelines given to us. It gave us the freedom to actually have a discussion. Some groups did sound like they were simply reading from a sheet of paper, but for the most part they sounded like an unrehearsed discussion. Sometimes groups sounded "stuck", and no one spoke for a moment. That broke up the discussion and made it seem like there was not a whole lot left to talk about.

I thought that my podcast went well. We all researched our information individually so we didn't come up with the same material to talk about. We did sound a bit rehearsed at first, but as we got more used to doing the podcast we sounded more fluid. There were moments of silence with my group, but I felt like we picked it up pretty quickly. We did leave out what YouTube actually is. We should have led off with that.

I would like to emphasize how good one podcast was in particular. "The Last Lecture" of Randy Pausch: Lessons Learned was the best podcast that I listened to. I was there in person when the recording took place, and I listened to it again for this assignment. I was very impressed with this group including Ginny Grant, Sandi Sadlock, Christina Ardoin and Brian O'Gwynn. They were very well prepared and passionate about what they were talking about. In class that night, they caught my attention more than any other group. As I said, they were well prepared but did not seem rehearsed.

Mathematics and Technology

In the first episode Judy Chandler touched on the thoughts of mathematics teachers incorporating technology into the classroom. Most teachers find it difficult to embrace technology. It is thought of as an "add on". A lot of teachers focus on simply getting to the end of the book. Technology provides students the opportunity to dive deeper into the subject area. There are many different resources that are available to help students better understand lessons. Technology supports greater understanding of what the students are learning.

In the second episode Judy Chandler talks about "thinking mathematically". Asking the students questions engage the students more than just in a lecture environment. It makes them pay more attention and directs their learning. Involving students in a discussion encourages them to question why things are this way and encourages them to develop an understanding through "thinking mathematically".

I agree with the concept of using technology in teaching mathematics. Immediate feedback lets the student know right away if they are working the problem correctly, and it shows them what they need to fix in order to get the correct answer. Normally, with homework, the students wouldn't know until the next day whether or not they worked those problems correctly. It is too late at that point. They already have a grade on that assignment. Giving the students more examples than just the one or two in the textbook could help them figure out how to work the more difficult problems.

Questioning students and involving them in a discussion is a great way to encourage their understanding of math and encourage students to listen to the teacher's lecture. From experience, when there is a chance that you're going to be called on in class you tend to listen to the teacher because you want to give the correct answer. That pressure is intense, but an understanding teacher wouldn't be intimidating to the student. It is a great idea for a teacher to give her students a chance to ask questions that they need answers to because someone may need help on a concept that the teacher did not focus on during lecture.

"Growth" vs. "Fixed" Mindsets in Learning

Two workshops were created that separated students. Both of the groups were included in an eight session study skills class, but only half was taught about the growth mindset. The half that was just taught study skills had declining grades while the other half prospered. Ultimately the just study skills half were taught about the growth mindset, and their grades showed remarkable improvement.

Having a growth mindset means that you believe intelligence is something that you can develop through education and hard work. It makes it easier for a person to make a mistake and learn from it. Having a fixed mindset means that you believe that your intelligence level is predetermined. It makes a person very concerned about how much intelligence they have.

A lot of parents believe in the fixed mindset. That is where you see a lot of emphasis on IQ scores. That score makes them treat their child different their whole life. It either makes a parent say, "Oh, he's so much smarter than that. I know he could do better. He just didn't apply himself." or you may hear "Well, I guess a "C" is just the best he could do."

It takes a lot of effort to learn something that doesn't come easy to you. That is why I think the growth mindset should be taught to students. Sometimes I don't understand things, and after studying and talking with my teachers and peers I finally get it. Students should be taught to keep on trying and to not settle on a grade just because you squeaked by. All teachers need to be educated on this subject as well. It is too easy to give up on a students just because he or she is not getting it as fast as the others. That student is the one that needs the most help. Setting that students up with a peer tutor during school hours is an excellent idea. Give a little extra time to the students who need it.

WGBH Podcast

Blood Vessels Help Tumors Grow

Angiogenesis is the formation of new blood vessels. Dr. Fulkman believed that there was a chemical in tumors that allowed blood vessels to grow. He devised an experiment to prove his theory. A tumor was inserted into the cornea of a rabbit. The cornea rarely contains blood vessels. After a while, blood vessels started growing in the cornea directed straight toward the tumor. In two weeks, the tumor grew 16,000 times its normal size. After the tumor was removed all the blood vessels disappeared.

It was discovered that tumors secrete heparin to attract blood vessels. Now that we know this, the fight against cancer has gotten a lot stronger. If we can find a molecule that stops blood vessels from growing, then the cancer can be defeated.

Showing more than one podcast related to a certain subject can help a student identify what he or she is most interested in. When choosing a podcast to write an entry about, I found myself listening to topics that interested me. There was a large selection of topics that had more than one podcast that was related to it. Although topics that I am interested in like environment and human anatomy and physiology did not have multiple podcasts listed.

A good idea in the classroom is to let children choose what they want to learn about. The teacher could give the class a list of topic and break the class up into groups according to which topic the students' chose. The assignment could be to write up a report on your topic or preform a presentation in front of the class. I would do this for middle school to high school aged students.

A Night in the Global Village
Heifer International is a wonderful organization that I am personally involved with. I purchase trees for eroded countrysides in underdeveloped countries whenever I can to help out villages in need. Global Gateway, which is a part of Heifer International puts "well off" children in the shoes of impoverished children. There are several village you get to live in for the night with different pros and cons relating to the village. It is a wonderful educational experience. They really get to experience what it would be like to live in an undesirable situation. The children (along with chaperons) must build fires, feed themselves and keep warm.

Students watching this video may realize how good they have it. Even children from low income families can benefit from watching this video and realize that they may not be that "bad off".

The Edible Schoolyard
A middle school in California participates in a taking care of a garden during their first period class. It is an organic garden, so it incorporates the health of yourself and your planet. They relate the garden with math, science and social studies skills in the adjacent building. Team work must also be used.

Learning about taking care of our planet is a very important issue that many people do not think about. People's minds are changing, but not enough. Too many people think that taking care of our planet is just for "hippies". I understand that eating organic food is good for myself and my environment. I understand that animals treated with growth hormones and antibiotics are not treated well, and everything that is put into their bodies is put into ours. This is a huge point of interest to me. I do everything that I can to help our planet stay healthy for the future of our children. I think that teaching this generation about conservation and healthy lifestyles will not only benefit them, but it will also benefit everyone else who shares the same Earth.

Podcast

After reviewing several podcasts on iTunes, I discovered that all podcasts have a few things in common yet are all different. They are all informative, organized and enthusiastic. I love how all podcasts bring something else to the table. The information provided on each one is unique to the podcast.

They are organized in sections, and they are easier to pay attention to because instead of listening to a straight lecture you get to listen to more of a conversation. These are great tools for the classroom because it will catch the students' attention.

The information provided is well thought out and researched. After all, these are used in classroom settings, and we want our students to learn the actual truth not just "hear say". A good podcast not only gives you an informative lesson, but it also gives the complete story. It will leave little room to question that you have been taught.

The enthusiasm that teachers and students bring to the table in podcasts creates a fun learning environment. the listener should be able to feel the passion that is felt by the speaker for different topics. That passion is contagious. It also makes it that much more interesting to listen to their views.

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

Randy's attitude towards life was wonderful. He had such a great outlook with the idea of enjoying everyday like it is your last. He was diagnosed with cancer. The way that he presented his lecture was strong and he seemed not at all scared about the grim fact that he was dying from those ten tumors.

As I was listening to him, I found myself wondering what it would be like to be in a room with a man like that. Those were lucky people who got to hear him lecture. I'm sure that his attitude towards life changed some of the minds in that room.

Randy had big dreams and big ideas. In talking about those dreams he was so descriptive and inspiring that it was like you were right there with him wanting those very same things.

The main point that I got from his lecture was that with all the things that life throws at you and takes away, you may not always get what you want, but everything happens for a reason.

iTunes University

iTunes U is a portion of Apple's itunes store that makes educational content available to anyone at anytime. You use it on your i Pod just like you would with buying and playing music. The difference is price. I browsed the iTunes U store and everything is free. I thought for sure that they would charge you because everything dealing with school is expensive.

As a student who has never used this store before, I can say that knowing about it now, I will. It could be a resource for information needed in a paper. I could even use it to better understand a topic. The convenience of taking it with you in your little i Pod is so much greater than a carrying around a heavy book.

As a teacher, I would integrate it in with my classroom. Of course, not not many students will have an i Pod. I could use it for myself as a learning tool, or I could play a topic in class on my i Pod to better express the lesson being taught.

i Pods and classrooms

Not surprisingly i pods are now being used for instructional use at universities. One example is Duke. They use them in conjunction with the DDI (Duke Digital Initiative). In using i Pods, students can store notes, pictures, audio and participate in podcasts with other students. The i Pod program has been scaled back from every freshman receiving a personal i Pod in its first year to all students currently enrolled in DDI courses receiving an i Pod.

An example of an elementary school using i Pods is Louisa-Muscatine Elementary School. The special education students use i Pods to take tests. They listen to the test questions as they see them on their i Pod and on actual test paper. It not only allows the students to work at their own pace, but also enables the special education students to work on their own and acquire independence. There are many examples of i Pod usage on this website:

http://t4.jordan.k12.ut.us/t4/content/view/212/37/

Dr. Alice Christie

I chose to write about the importance that web design will have in my classroom. The classrooms of the future are going to place a great emphasis on the Internet as technology becomes more affordable and accessible. She has a great resource on the dos and donts of web design. A good website for your classroom will catch the student's eye, and let them know that you care enough to take the time to create it for them.

The link to her website evaluation is very interesting. It shows the different levels that a site is "graded" on. There are two parts. In part one, they are scored on organization, information, presentation, technical aspects and mechanics. There are rated emerging (0 or 1), developing (2 or 3) or Exemplary (4 or 5). In part two, they are "graded" on philosophy/standards, school information, curriculum, audience, sensitivity and links. The points system is the same as in part one.

I feel that her site will help me to develop a website catering to my students' needs. It will give them an opportunity to get to know what is expected of them in class, and it will make learning fun. Adding a game onto my website will also encourage learning while having fun. A very important detail is that they will be able to get in contact with me when necessary.

Wikipedia

I was one of the last people around who had no idea about the reliability of Wikipedia. I feel that Wikipedia should never be trusted in research for papers. It seems to me to be purely entertainment.

The Wikipedia Scanner developed by Virgil Griffith is a valuable tool that enables users to view who has made changed on the different entries. Different companies and people are changing their own Wikipedia entries to a sound more favorable. They are taking out the bad stuff and adding a spin on words. The Wikipedia Scanner makes it so those people are held accountable for changing their entries. I know I wouldn't want to be connected to changing my own entry.

My Presentation

Why Wireless?

The post I chose to read was Fischbowl's best post of November 2007 "Why Wireless?". As Arapahoe High School was opening its wireless network for personal use (for students, teachers and parents), there were some concerns popping up in the community about this practice. No one wants students to get off track in class, and I know that it is easy to do when you have the whole internet in front of you. The great learning opportunities that the web brings outweighs those concerns. It also gives those students access to useful school sites like the Campus Portal (grades and assignments) and Teacher Web Pages (assignments, notes, handouts and presentations).

Students today need all the opportunities we can give them to learn. So much is expected from the youth today. I never had assignments in high school (or before) that required internet use. This generation relies on the internet for both school and personal use, so it is a great idea to open up the network to the students. The blog states, "We feel that to be successful in the 21st century, our students are going to need different skills, abilities, and habits of mind than we did in the last century." They need not only need those different skills, abilities and habits of mind, but they also need to be able to learn them at a rapid pace to keep up with the changing world around them.

Is it Okay to be a Technologically Illiterate Teacher?

I thought that when comparing people being technologically illiterate today with people in the 20th century not being able to read or write, he made a valid point. The world is growing more and more dependent on computers. Sure, you can still be successful today not knowing a lot about computers, but the class of 2020 will not have a successful future being computer illiterate. My dad is a deputy VP for a company, and he has no clue how to run searches on the web let alone type without "chicken pecking". A few years from now, that will not be an acceptable standard.

However, we should not judge teachers so harshly. Teachers do have a lot on their plates both at school and personally, but they should still do their job with the future in mind. We're supposed to prepare the children for that future, so teachers and principals need to advance themselves in order to advance the children.

International schools using blogs

Al Upton is a teacher in at Glenelg School in Adelaide, South Australia. His blog is used by his 3 and 4 year students. The students not only learn how to incorportate blogging use into their lives, but also have fun doing it. He does not post assignments like American sites I looked at at do, but he does have instructions on how to do different things on your blog. Alot of the students left comments at the end of the year about their experiences in learning how to blog. They listed making new friends as a "cool" thing that has come out of this class. They all said that they were going to keep up their blogging after leaving his class. His blog links up with his students' blogs as well.
http://alupton.wordpress.com/

Fearghal Kelly is a Biology teacher at Ross High School in Tranent, East Lothian (Scotland). His blog educates his students on his life and different projects that they can do. There is an entry with a video that praises his class for their involvement in a conservation project that they completed.

http://edubuzz.org/blogs/fkelly/

American classrooms using blogs

Mr. Eric Langhorst teaches 8th grade American History at South Valley Junior High in Missouri. He uses his blog as a syllabus, listing items each day. He writes what was done in class and the homework assignment for the day. He also added helpful links such as class handouts, online textbook and chapter notes. He even incorporates pod casts into his teaching.
http://blackboard.liberty.k12.mo.us/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_275_1

Mr. Roemer teaches the 5th grade in Florida. He uses his blog to communicate all the different aspects of his class with his students. He blogs about homework assignments, grading and his behavior policy in the classroom (his students make up this policy each year). His website is fun and geared towards those young 5th graders. His blog has a public and a private sector. It protects the students by allowing only registered users (parents and students) to view those private messages.
http://www.pb5th.com/index.shtml

Shift Happens

I enjoyed watching this video. It was interesting to see how our society has changed in just a few years. I did not realize the power that technology will have over our everyday lives in the near future. I am grateful that technology is being placed in the hands of the generation that will be leading us in the future like putting a laptop in the hands of every child. I do find it scary that computers are going to be "smarter" than humans, and I don't like that we are becoming increasingly dependent on computers, e-mailing and searching the web.

ACCESS

Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators and Students Statewide provides students with a chance to enroll in advanced classes during their high school career. A lot of high schools in Alabama are not able to provide courses needed for an advanced diploma or advanced placement courses. By linking up via the web, students are able to either have direct contact with a teacher like a real classroom (IVC synchronous courses) or the student receives prepackaged information from a qualified teacher (asynchronous courses). There are also courses that mesh the two types together.

I have not used ACCESS before, but I have taken distance courses in college. I feel like I did get the most out of those courses with the convenience of completing my work at my own leisure. Because the courses are directed to those who are seeking an advanced diploma or AP courses, I believe that ACCESS would benefit those high school students that are willing to work hard to go above and beyond what is expected. When I begin teaching, I will make my students aware of this program and encourage my students to take advantage of such a great opportunity. ACCESS would allow those ambitious students to remain engaged in school and not become bored in basic courses.

ALEX

The Alabama Learning Exchange is a free website that offers teachers an assortment of lesson plans and other important resources. The lesson plans supplied are designed to get the attention of students so that they will interact with the teacher and their classmates in order to learn the the different topics.

The ALEX website not only includes detailed lesson plans but also web links for teachers and students directed to many different areas of interest. The website caters to all grades K-12. The subjects include just about any taught in school from Mathematics to Driver Safety.

ALEX will be useful to me as a beginner teacher because it will give me creative ideas for my lesson plans so that I can engage my students with fun activities while they learn. The character education web link will help me teach my students the good attributes that a human being needs. As I grow as a teacher, ALEX will enable me to develop my own ideas further with the resources available.

A little about myself

Hey guys! I'm Heather Rodgers. I've been a student at USA for a few years now. I'm married to Derrick Rodgers who will be running for USA's track and field team this spring. We are also expecting a baby at that time. We both work at Panini Pete's which was just featured on Diners, Drive Inns and Dives here in Fairhope.