Mr. McClung

Mr. McClung shared many important things he learned about his first year of teaching on his blog. He had many great points about what a teacher should be. The idea I like the most was that everything should be student centered, it is not about the teacher. The students and their learning are the main priority. Another great thing to keep in mind is that not everything in your class will go as planned, things will go wrong. It is how you handle these situations that is important. I also agree with him that teacher need to be reasonable when setting standards for students. I like what he said about teachers are the ones that pick them up, dust them off and encourage them to go again.

He also had some idea about how to be a better teacher. Such as communicating not just with students but with other teachers as well. Another one of my favorites was for teachers to incorporate technology. I liked when he said don't expect to be an expert, just try. The comment that really got me thinking was the one about teacher working in a learning environment so why don't they continue to learn. That one really stunned me, I just had never thought about. But may teachers think they have the perfect way of teaching and refuse to learn, what kind of message is that sending to students? Read more at

Mr. McClung's blog.

Wikipedia

Wired had an article about who was editing Wikipedia. Since Wikipedia has come out students have been told not to use it as a research source. This is due to the fact that anyone can edit the Wikipedia posts. I like Wikipedia and use it often for small bits of information but when doing research. I look up a topic on Wikipedia and then when I find something interesting I see if I can find that information at a more credible source.
But Wired has shown that Wikipedia's credible is changing. Due to Virgil Griffith there is now a way to track the IP address of anonymous editors. The program he is using ha traced edit back to companies and individuals like senators. The edit made on the post remove anything to blemish the company or individual's reputation. These removals can be very misleading and it why is hard to trust Wikipedia. But if Wikipedia starts putting Griffith's program to use they may one day become a very credible source. Check out the article at Wired.

Practice

Here is a picture os Samford Hall at Auburn University


This picture of me was drawn by Tina. If was for one of her art classes at Auburn University .

Randy Paush

Randy Paush's Last Lecture was very inspirational. I thought growing up that you had to achieve your childhood dreams quickly and then get new "adult" dreams. But Randy showed that you can be any age and achieve your childhood dreams. I like the fact that he shared one of his dreams that did not come true, playing in the NFL. But he right in that sometimes the dreams you don' get teach you more than the one that you do get. I love the quote he gave, " experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."

Randy also had many great points about how to reach your teaches and how to enable others to do the same. He said that you have to bring something to the table, you can't just sit there and let others do the work or hope it happens. One of my favorite concepts was " head fake." I knew of the concept but now it has a name. Get people to learn something hard by doing something fun. I also realized that it is true when he said that people need permission to dream. Many times in school we taught to follow certain rules even for creative projects to to completely free to dream can be a foreign idea.

While teaching Paush set up several different programs to help others reach their dreams. The first was simply a coarse offered called Building Virtual Worlds. It enabled students to have almost complete freedom when creating their worlds (no shooting violence or pornography). I loved when he was told by his mentor not to set a bar for the students and that we actually inhibit them by setting a standard. We should also be pushing students to have better ideas. Another project was ETC that was a masters degree that based on virtual reality projects, but it pushed students and made them better. They made lots of Edutainment videos that taught concepts while having fun. The program was such a success that companies were promising the students jobs before they were even done. His last project is ALICE that enables young students to learn computer programming though making videos.

Paush said that an important thing is that students need to be taught what it is like to help others achieve their dreams. It can be a greater reward than achieving your own. He also made a point that people have to help you, you can't do it on your own. My favorite thing and to me the most encouraging is to never lose the child-like wonder in life.

Did You Know 4.0

So, I really like these Did You Know videos. They have some really interesting facts. I never imagined how many websites are out there! But the top fact was the 2,000,000 tvs are in the bathroom! I just had to laugh out loud on that one. I knew from this class that social networks are becoming important but I did not fully realize just how important. They play a major role in society now, I mean Obama used them, and I need to catch up!

Phones are no longer just for talking. I text a good bit but I am below that average young person with 2,272 text messages a month. Phones have now become music players, cameras, and now computers. A new fact I learned was that phones will be the primary connection tool by 2020. Guess I need to upgrade my phone.

Comment for Kids Week 3

This week I went and explored Mr. Toft's class blog. Mr. Toft and his class are located in an elementary school in Ottawa, Canada. The blog is kept as a way to for his students to journal about what is happening in class. Not only does the class post on the blog they also follow other blogs around the world like the one by Miss Wyatt in Tasmania. The students are also taught to comment on blogs and to be respectful and positive.

I read and commented on Emily's post. She wrote about some of her favorite things. Her favorite colors are orange and blue, which I love too because of Auburn. She also loves to play hockey. Which I have respect for anyone who can do all that on stuff on ice.

Mark Wesch

I really liked Mr. Wesch video and idea of asking students about their lives and the way they use technology. I can relate to most of the statics they shows in the video. I graduated from Auburn University where up to my senior year my smallest class was 150 and teachers rarely knew or cared who you were. I bought lots of books I never used and read hundreds of things that were not relevant to my life. I am definitely a multitasker now and I am not sure that is a good thing.

It is so true that most students that have laptops in class are not using them for class related things. In this way technology can be a hinderance. The ability to just hop online distracts students from lectures. Which most classes are lectures and not really teaching. I can not think of anything to add to this video because it sums up my college experience.

Kelly Hines and Technology

Kelly Hines brings up a great point in her blog that it is not all about technology. So many talk about making changes but what will really start the changes? I agree with Hines that it is the mind set of teachers and school faculty. Everyone needs to want to make the changes. Hines states that to do this teachers need to be learners. I completely agree and feel like so many teachers forget this!

She also makes a point that teaching and learning are not the same. Teachers need to learn to teach in a way that students can learn. Then comes in the technology because like Hines said technology is of no use without good teaching. So just supplying schools with technology does no get the job done, teacher's methods also need to be up to standard.

Mr. Fisch and Technologically Illiterate Teachers

Mr. Fisch wrote a great post about technologically illiterate teachers. He poses a challenge to all teachers to learn more technology and to share it with their students. I agree with him that a teacher not being able to use technology today would be like a teacher not being able to read and write 30 years ago. This statement really made me realize just how important technology is today. Like Dr. Strange said it is SO much more than just word, powerpoint, and excel. It is blogging, podcasting, posting videos and using all of these in the classroom.

I also agree with Mr. Fisch that teachers and school staff need to be held responsible for their technology skills. Those who are lacking skills should have to take a workshop to learn them. Like he said on his blog we can not afford to be nice any more. Teachers are no longer just affecting themselves but their students, which will one day affect their future. As teachers we no longer have excuses not be technologically literate. I recommend you read his post at http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2007/09/is-it-okay-to-be-technologically.html.

Langwitches

I went to the Langwitches blog to learn more about podcasts. This blog has some wonderful information about conducting podcasts.  There is a step-by-step process of how to prepare and plan out a podcast. This will be helpful for those like me who like to have everything laid out before starting on a project.  There are tips for recording audio as well, which will be extremely useful since I have no clue how to do this. The post about producing a podcast is essentially podcasts for dummies!           

The post about reflections was very insightful about what she think makes podcasts a success in classes. The post lists some benefits of the podcasts and what the students learned but also some tips for teachers.  I think this blog is great and will be very helpful in the future when it comes to making podcasts. I am most certainly going to be following this blog!

Learning from Last Semester

I watched last semester's podcast on technologically literate teachers. There were some things that I would like to do in my podcast and then there some that I would not like to do.  I really liked how the ladies used personal examples to explain themselves. It made their ideas seem more relatable to me.  I also liked how two of the women were lively, it helped keep my interest.

On the other hand, I did not like how two of the ladies just sat there. They seemed stiff and bored. I realize that the podcast was a discussion but I think I would like to already have an outline of the questions and my answers. This way there is not a lot of silence during the discussion.  Also, I would not one person to dominate the discussion. But this podcast was helpful in determining what I would want in a podcast.