Thing 16 - Teach Digital

These were great videos that you had us watch. The college students in the first video were correct. We are teaching these students in outdated ways and trying to prepare them for jobs that don't even exist. Obviously the education system and the ways in which we teach must change. It will be difficult, but it can be done. Many schools lack funding for updating technology and if they do have the technology in buildings, it is under utilized. In the economy that we are in, it will be hard for school systems to institute the technology that these kids need for future jobs, let alone meet all the criteria for NCLB. Kids need to be able to express their individuality and be creative. I love it when students in my class choose to come up with an alternative to the assignments I give, as long as they are covering the information that is being taught. The one true lesson that we should be teaching students is how to be a problem solver. If student can learn to think things through and know how to access and apply information, then there is no stopping them in the future. This one lesson opens up endless possibilities for students. This is my major goal in my tech classes. Robinson was correct, we too often cut creativity out of the education process. I agree. Let them explore and find their niche.

Thing 15- Using Podcasts

I think that podcasts could be very useful in the classroom. I know that we have a science teacher in our building that uses them in his 7th and 8th grade classes. He was telling me that he used one this year when they where talking about volcanoes in one of his classes. I plan on using them during my enrichment class like I mentioned in the my previous blog entry. I like the www.podcastalley.com I was able to pick up some podcasts that I can possibly use in class and used juice as my podcatcher. It's nice to have a location to find useful podcasts. As far as whether or not I would get any pushback from my building administrator, I don't think so. He is pretty open as long as it is educational and is meeting the students needs and requirements. He really likes to see technology being used in the classroom and seeing the students engaged. The only thing I could see him being concerned with would be how the students access the podcast. The phones and mp3 players would be out, but the computer would be find. I will have to check at school to see if I can acess the feeds. Our district has pretty good filters and blocks many sites. I can't blog from school without jumping through hoops and getting my user account unblocked for specific sites. I'll check this week on the availability of using podcasts with the IT department. I really would like to use them. It would also be cool for my tech student to create a blog about the lego robotics projects that they do in class.

Thing 14- Podcasts

I took a look at several podcasts. I thought the teacher and student podcasts were cool. I enjoyed the podcast called "Our City" http://www.learninginhand.com/OurCity/index.html this was created by students for students. I clicked on Fantastic Vancouver, British Columbia. The students describesd their city and gave history. This would be cool to have my students do about their city.
The next podcast that really struck my interest was the podcasts from National Geographic. www.nationalgeographic.com/podcasts/ Ever since I was little, I have enjoyed reading and watching National Geographic. Animals have always fascinated me, so the animal podcasts that they have are right up my alley. The other reason this one attracted me is because second semester I start teaching an enrichment class on outdoor studies. I always have the students create a powerpoint presentation on an animal that is native to Michigan, so this is another area for information. Who knows, maybe if I learn more about how to create my own podcasts I can have the students create podcasts rather than powerpoints. Now that would be cool. Well that's it for now.

Thing 13

Web 2.0 tools are great. I can see myself using them to make videos for demonstrations for my classes and even presentations that I am giving in class. Students are much more entertained by the glitter of technology in a presentation than me just getting up and lecturing. These tools also make it easy to share info and access it from virtually anywhere. It is also nice because then I don't have to lug around equipment when I go places. This is definitely the wave of the future and it's time for me to jump aboard. I'm glad I am taking this class. As far as personal life, I love the slide show maker. I am planning on making a collection of photos and copying it to a DVD for each of my kids. What a great way to store memories. I also like that you can put songs and themes in the slide show. Great stuff!!

slideshow for thing 13

Thing 12 - Review of Knowtes and 30 Boxes

Well, I took a look at the list of Web 2.0 Productivity tools you had listed and I chose two that appealed to me based on your mini description. The first that I looked at was the http://30boxes.com/welcome.php site. This was very user friendly and reminded me of MS Outlook. It was easy to schedule things on the calendar and check email. You could even create to do lists. The other nice feature that I liked was the reminder capabilities. You could have it remind you in a matter of minutes of something or in a numbers of days weeks or even months of an activity. That was cool. The only thing that didn't work well was that you had to import an avatar rather than creating one from that site. The last nice feature was that you could post this to a blog or share through email your schedule. I could use this for students to record homework assignments and post when tests or quizzes will be. Parents and students then would be informed.

The other web tool I looked at was Knowtes . I thought this would be a cool way for students to study. I could create flashcards or they could and then they can use them to study for quizzes and tests. What a nice tool. I didn't create any flashcards of my own but it I looked at an animal fact set and scored a 63%. It nice to be able to quiz yourself. Students can see how they are doing by taking a quiz and monitor their own progress. Students love to see how they are doing, so this is great. The Web is awesome.

Thing 11 - Google Docs

Google docs is awesome. You never have to carry around disk of a flob to work on materials, as long as you have a computer with an Internet connection. I loaded some of my school files from my school file and was able to work on them from home without having to use my flob. Awesome!! I do have to say that Microsoft probably should be feeling a little bit nervous about its future. But with all companies, I sure they will find a new niche in the computer world. I agree with Mike Kaechele about people being stuck in their ways and it will take a while for people to change over. This type of technology is the wave of the future and it will replace MS Office. This is great for students to be able to access there work from the web, no matter where they are as long as they have Internet access. This also gets ride of the dog ate my homework or I left my paper at home excuse. If it's online they can pull it up at school and print a new copy. We could also go green by not having students print out there papers, but putting them in a google doc that we can access with reader rights. Cool!