Final Blog Reflection

Here is the link to the blog Also here is the link to my lesson plan on the wiki.

Now for my final blog reflection. I have narrowed it down to the two most useful technologies that I will plan on using in my classroom. The first is the class website. I have been thinking about how I could create a mini-Blackboard in my own classroom: a place where I can upload assignment sheets and links. Though I would never place grades on my class website, it is a useful source for my students to have access to outside of school. I don't know how many times I forgot an assignment sheet in my locker--or even my book at school, and this website will help students be able to access any document and helpful links from their homes.

The second technology I really enjoyed was the Wiki, which I chose to explore for my Personal Technology Project. I know when I do group projects here at college, my inbox is flooded with random emails from all group members or the conversation links fill the entire page and I can't find the information or link I need. The Wiki solves all of those problems. It's efficient and easy to re-examine previously discussed topics, as well as easy for me as a teacher to see which students are participating and who is doing most of the work. And for educaitonal purposes the Wiki is free.

I would just like to end by saying that I really enjoyed this class. I learned so much about how to use technology effectively in the classroom--not just throwing in technology for the sake of having technology in the classroom. Also, it opened my eyes up to so many FREE resources we have access to as teachers. I will definitely use the things I have learned in this class in my own classroom. Thank you so much for a wonderful and educational semester!

Week 15

On my google reader I found this blog post about a technology called Tagxedo. Basically it creates takes a letter, speech or just a paragraph of written words and transforms them into a visual picture. For instance, you could take The Gettysburg address and turn it into a picture of Abraham Lincoln. This could be a fun idea to help decorate your classroom--like and English teacher could have a group of action verb create picture of a person moving/running. Or, you could take student writing--such as a poem, or essay or list of words they choose to describe a book and create a picture for them to have in their portfolio. I thought it was a pretty cool idea.



picture from tagxedo.com

Week 14: Informing Another

So I have a little brother who is seventeen years old and I decided he would be perfect for this kind of thing. First I asked him what kind of personal information he puts on the internet and then we discussed the risks of each item he listed. I talked to him about what I had learned about being able to get a one-time-use credit card number or email account. I also shared with him about the importance of not becoming consumed in cyberspace and shared with him a couple of quotes from Elder Bednar's talk. I also cautioned about identity theft and the importance of keeping parents informed of what they are doing on the internet. It was really easy because my little brother is an intelligent person and really paranoid. He already untags himself in pictures online, ignores friend requests from people he doesn't know and an email account he only gives out when websites ask him for an email address. However, he was interested in the fake email website which would be safer than a single email account that he always gives out. So overall, I felt like he learned some new things and I was able to learn a lot to prepare my little lesson to give to him.

Week 14: Becoming Informed

I was really fascinated by all of the sources I read and watched about internet safety. It really helped me reinforce the importance of teaching children internet safety as we teach them to look both ways before they cross the street. This is something that needs to be taught from a young age. I decided to post my top three favorite sources I viewed to kind of give an idea of what I learned.


Here is the link to the PBS/FRONTLINE documentary on the problems with not monitoring children and their use of the internet. I remember being in high school and junior high and finding freedom in MSN chat and myspace and other social websites, but I can see that the generation coming after me is consumed by it. It is no longer adding additional benefit to their lives--it is their lives. I hope that since I grew up with technology I will be able to monitor it a little better because I have a better understanding of technology than my parents had. The very last clip of this shows a boy who figured out the parental filters and was able to manipulate them to his advantage. I think that is a very important thing to remember--technology is not reliable and there are ways around filters. I think as a parent I will never have a computer in child's room and I will never allow my children under the age of 16 (and maybe not even until they graduate) have a smartphone with access to the internet. Also, time limits for personal computer, and monitoring of children when they are writing papers. I don't intend to sit right next to them the entire time they write their essay, but walking in and out on a consistent basis to make sure that they are writin their paper and not just surfing the internet.

http://www.ikeepsafe.org/assets/videos/?vid=fauxpaw_video

Here is a clip made by BYU to help kids understand the dangers of the internet--specifically chat rooms. I think this would be a useful video to show as a teacher--probably only to grades 8 or under because it is a little childish, but it is useful to show kids that the internet is a place where crime takes place.


Last here is a link to a talk given by Elder Bednar in a CES fireside last year. I had not heard this talk before, and was quite surprised at the bold statements Elder Bednar declares about the evils of letting technology take over our lives. I had never associated that wasting my life on line in a cyber world and not using my actual body would be offensive to the Lord. Neither had I known about the idea of living in another reality such as Second Life and creating an avatar or pseudonym that I am denying myself who I truly am and to be able to devlop. I think this is an article I would share with my children if I felt that they were wasting their life away obsessing on the internet. It is a powerful talk. Also, it discusses the benefits of the internet which is a nice way of showing our children that there are many wonderful blessings of living in an age of technology.

Week 13

I attended the presentations for the IIC competition this afternoon. First of all, I should have watched their videos before I went because many groups just assumed that they were presenting to an audience who had already viewed their projects. So, it's hard to say if my feelings from their presentations were accurate since I'm not exactly sure what some projects were about.
I felt like most of the projects were strong--so I am going to pick my top three (in no particular order) and discuss briefly why I liked each of them.

Group 4:
Mainly I liked this project because this couple put in A LOT of work into their entry. Their website seemed functional, eye-appealing and fresh. I loved how the man said they did not use technology for just bells and whistles--they wanted to make common websites like Facebook and YouTube useful. I also felt like it was a solid base to an entire idea for a classroom. Everything is in one place and the website could be very expansive. I liked this project because it was expansive. It didn't just pick one or two technologies, but many and showed how to harmonize different technologies for a single project. It's a very forward thinking into future teaching in schools. I don't feel like its completely feasible right now, but give in ten years and maybe every classroom will have a website similar to this one.

Group 5:
I liked this idea because the pair implemented the idea in an actual classroom and it worked. A lot of the entries appeared to be too forward thinking to be applied on a global level immediately. It would take a lot of learning, money or technology in the schools to make their ideas work beyond a single classroom. The other thing aspect of this project I thought was strong was its appeal to a global classroom. In my major, we discuss writing in context. Students put more effort into polishing their papers if they feel like someone other than the teacher is going to read them. The beauty of the interet is allowing students' work to be shared with a real life audience--producing a real life context. This is brilliant. It gets kids talking--even kids who don't normally participate. It gets kids thinking, and if teachers can find other teachers across the the country to be their sister classroom for the year--I think it would be a wonderful opportunity for students to see new cultures, ideas and places without leaving their own classroom. Wow, even though they didn't have a PowerPoint--I really liked this idea.

Group 7:
If the bugs can get all worked out--which I trust Apple to fix---iPads are the new computers that will be put into classrooms. Instead of rotating laptop computer labs, there will be rotating iPad labs. However, this will take along time before class sets of iPads are a standard classroom tool like the computer is now. First of all, the first model always has problems--and the first model has not even been officially released!!!! Second, education is getting budget cuts all over the place right now--few school districts will be able to afford iPads. Third, I'm pretty sure kindergartens will be one of the last grades to get iPads. All of this, of course, is just my personal opinion. However, their ideas is wonderful. Sounds, picture, touch and words all in one lesson. It's just plain brilliant. Also, its exciting and interactive. Five-year olds would be all over this idea. And applications for teacher lessons would be all over the internet and easy to find within just a few years of becoming regularly used in classrooms. Teachers could develop their own applications for a personal lesson, or borrow from other teachers. It is just a good idea. Simple as that.

Week 12

For this project I chose to make a book trailor for the YA novel The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I would probably use this to replace a book report--paired with a question and answer period and a single paragraph explaining their favorite scene in the novel and why. This could easily be done individually as well in groups. It would help showcase the student's ability to pick out important themes, ideas and scenes from a book they have read; at the same time, it would also give the opportunity to showcase thirty books (if I chose to have them do it individually) to my class in a quick, effective way. It might help my students find other books they would be interested in reading and maybe pick up a book without me making them for a grade.
I could also use this as an introduction for a new book we are reading. It would help the kids get excited about the new novel we are reading--maybe I could even make Romeo and Juliet or Huck Finn appear interesting to my students. It could help motivate them to read the book to learn what happens in the story.

I made this movie with Windows Movie Maker.

Week 11

So for this blog post I am going to insert a little tip that I learned while using movie maker. If you are having issues adding music add it into your Windows Music Player Library. I know, with iTunes, who uses WMP??? But, for some reason iTunes cannot change it into the right format. Sometimes it won't even accept mp3s. It has to be in a format that Windows Media Player can read or it won't work. The second thing--which I'm not sure why it took me so long to realize this. Instead of editing the time of the clip by going to Edit: Clip: Time -- just change yourself from storyboard to timeline and you can change the timing of each invidiual clip by just clicking on it and adjusting it with your mouse (you can do the same thing with the music clips as well). It's super easy to make some clips longer than others without the hassle of going through four different tool bars. Also, while storyboard is good for adding effects and transitions--the timeline is the best way to view and work with your movie anyways.