Blog Assignment #8

This Is How We Dream
These two videos are are form Richard Miller of Rutgers University. The videos are about how technology should change how we think about the future, about teaching, and about learning. The first part of the videos is about writing and how it has changed in our culture. Everything regarding writing has changed. How we write, where we write, and where we publish is all different than how it use to be. These are electronic now and available at the touch of a button. This video points out that the days of having to go to the library to research something is a memory of the past. If you have access to a computer, you can find pretty much anything you need. This goes along with how much we have learned in this class about the classroom and the importance of technology. The computer and internet makes anything possible when it comes to learning and teaching. In the videos, Miller talks about two different types of changes; fundamental and incremental. Incremental changes are such as articles always being on the web even if you delete it, it is still available. Another incremental change mentioned is that of sharing collaboratively. This is something that we get to experiment in EDM 310 with our next and final projects. Some fundamental changes are the internet downloads of lessons. We did a form of change when we made our podcast for a project. Miller also wants to see a new type of processing to be used by students when they compose their work. It was hard for me to really understand the message of this video. I had to watch it several times before I even could come up with my own opinion. I think I was too busy trying to pay attention to all of the different things on that screen that I was missing what he was saying. At the end, I can tell that he is trying to make a bigger and better future for the reading/writing aspect of learning. As of right now, I am not sure that I am prepared to write with multimedia. This video confused me on the subject more than anything. I hope to improve in that area so that I can teach my students to be efficient in this area when it is necessary.

Blog Post #12
I can only wish that I will be as creative and goal driven as Carly Pugh one day. She seems to have exactly everything planned out that she wants to project to her future students. She appears to be extremely organized and knows exactly what she wants with her career. Her blog post about the YouTube assignment sounds like a great idea. I actually want to do this to have for myself. I have never been addicted to watching YouTube videos but I feel like I may now. With Carly's post, I can understand Miller's writing with multimedia a little better. With Carly's assignment, you can put a story of your teaching philosophy together without really writing anything. Videos can come across better depicted that paper and pen can. Carly makes me want to strive to be a better student in college and a better teacher for the future!

EDM310 is Different
The Chipper Series is a great video about not procrastinating. I feel like I was a Chipper my first year at college. I did not want to do my work on time, I wanted the teachers to just tell me what I needed to do. In the end, that did not really work out to my advantage. Now I see things differently and I am doing much better at school. I think it is important for people to see this message so that they see the importance of learning for yourself. Students need to see where this can take them whether it is upwards to their masters or downwards to the garbage collector.
EDM for Dummies sums up the emotions you go through once you enroll in EDM310. I definitely wanted to throw my computer around the first couple of weeks. All of the information is so overwhelming! But once you learn how to work the programs that we use in the class, everything became so much clearer and I got to focus on the actual material instead of the programs being used. If I was to make a video to help other students in this class, I would want it to be about adding creativity. I would want to show some difference between a student's work who clearly adds no effort and show a student's who went above and beyond. I think it is important for us to remember that we are leaving a trail that any potential employer could look at. If we were to hire someone based off their blog, would you pick the Plain Jane? I bet we would all prefer the student who really got into the assigned project or post. Learn to Change, Change to Learn "We have to accept, as educators, that technology is not really a choice." This is a great statement that came from this video about technology in the classrooms. The more videos I see about this topic, the more I get excited about having my own classroom one day that is full of technology! An eye opener topic to why technology is important is the talk about what children do outside of the classroom. If what they take part in once they leave school is so much more advanced than what they do at school, which one do you think they will remember more? The children are all about texting, emailing, and Facebook. These are all highly advanced technological things. Why should we forbid these types of things at school. We need to incorporate such things in the children's learning. "It's the death of education but the dawn of learning." These is a bold and powerful statement. Teachers teaching is not the focus of the classrooms anymore. The focus is about the students learning and them learning in the most effective way.

 Scavenger Hunt 2.0
 1. Edmodo is a great site! It is a mix between Twitter and Facebook. Sign up as either a teacher or student and check out all the neat things you can do. In my future classroom, I would love to use this site. I can communicate with the students and their parents. I can also link up with other teachers to see what they are doing in their classroom. This site allows you to create groups, manage your calendar, and even keep up with grades. Students and their parents can log in to see missing assignments or notes from me! Another really cool feature from Edmodo is the quiz aspect. If I have a classroom of older students I would love to try this out. You can create, submit, and grade quizzes all in one spot. This is a wonderful site. I am so glad I found it on this scavenger hunt!
4. Photo Peach is a place where you can create and share slideshows. Music, captions, and comments can also be added to your slideshow. There is even a Photo Peach for educators where you can create an account and have a place for each student to create their own slideshow. You can choose to share their work with their parents and the community and keep it private from the public. Different versions of this site does cost per month and per number of students.
5.Poll Everywhere is a neat site. For small polls, it's free!

Create interactive meetings at Poll Everywhere