Blog Post #8

This is How We Dream

Dr. Richard Miller shares a presentation on YouTube.  As I watched, I thought it was a bit redundant regarding the perspective this class is trying to teach us.  Upon further reflection, I realize this was done in 2008, 5 years ago.  Instead of thinking, "Okay, I get it,"  it is interesting to examine how what Dr. Miller says has actually occurred.

Dr. Miller talks about how information has moved from being published in books to being documented on the Internet.  Research has been sought and compiled online with images, film, sound, and anything archived on the web.  People collaborate to produce print, sound, and visual documents.

Dr. Miller mentioned an example of instantaneous voting results during the 2008 election.  He also mentioned the value of iTunesU for academic lectures and info.  He said, "Ideas don't belong to us individually.  They belong to us as a culture."  Ideas can be shared freely.  The challenge comes in how to put all this together.  Computer literacy is the new "reading and writing skill".  Writing with multimedia takes time to learn, but it will be so worth it.

Carly Pugh's Blog Post #12

I think Carly is very thorough in her post.  I think her idea goes beyond what Dr. Miller describes.  As stated above, Dr. Miller's presentation was done in 2008.  Carly's post was from April 2011.  I like that Carly did not reinvent the wheel.  She evaluated what is important and searched out resources that reflect that.  By creating a YouTube play list, she literally has saved the resources at her fingertips.  As a future English teacher and literature lover, she wants to present her students with this classic subject matter with the use of modern technology.  Again, she is not reinventing the wheel.  She is just changing gears.

"Movies"

The types of videos I would like to participate in making must be fun and not boring.  In another class I was Diane Sawyer of 20/20 conducting an interview about No Child Left Behind.  It was so fun to be someone else.  It is so fun to break out do the unexpected.  I also like the chance to try to be funny though it may come off as really stupid.  Before that video assignment and the Rafe Esquith video for this class, I had not done any videos.  As far as in the future, I don't know what the subject matters would be but I am definitely up for it.

The primary message of the EDM 310 for Dummies and The Chipper Series are about getting the work done for this class.  Students in this class can feel crazy, frustrated, clueless, paralyzed with procrastination, or they can choose to dive in, read the directions, put forth the effort, develop some work habits, and succeed.

Learn to Change, Change to Learn

This video covers the opinions of several people regarding education.  Education that will really work involves communication, relationships, connectivity, and access to information.  The jobs of the future will not be obtained by people who are right answer vending machines that have been churned out by the philosophy of No Child Left Behind.  Future employees will need to know how to find, validate, and synthesize information versus memorize facts.  This starts with the teachers changing how they lead and teach students.

The video ends with the statement, "It's the death of education, but it's the dawn of learning."  I agree with this.  Last night I saw some of a series, "Blackboard Wars."  It is a low income, minority school full of behavior problems.  The show focused on some first year teachers who are very excited to teach and think they are making a difference, yet so frustrated by the issues of this school.  I wonder how exposing these students to this teaching style in this video would engage and change their perspectives of attending school every day.  Low income schools tend to lack resources of middle class schools, however use of technology may be on of the very things that helps improve behavior, not just learning.

Scavenger Hunt

1.  The first thing I chose to do is create an account with Edmodo.  It has the look of Facebook.  Users familiar with Facebook would probably like it.  I signed in as a teacher, though I am not one yet.  The page can be customized many ways.  This site could be used to communicate with the classroom as well as network with other teachers.

2.  The  nice deal Prezi makes for students and teachers:  for free Prezi offers private presentations, the use of your own logo, and 500MB storage space.  For $4.92 per month, Prezi offers private presentations, the use of your own logo, the ability to work offline securely, premium support, and    2 GB storage space.

3.  A video tool I have never heard of is Animoto.com/education.  "Educators can apply for a free Animoto Plus account for use in the classroom.  Animoto automatically analyzes music, photos and video clips, and orchestrates a custom video, leaving you free to focus on the content and narrative of your videos."  Sounds good to me!