Skype

Before EDM 310 I really did not know what skype was. I knew a little about it but not enough to know to use it! But now that I have been in EDM 310 I know what skype is and I know how to use it! Skype is a free way to communicate with people, even if the person is across the World! You can talk to someone and see them! It is so neat! The first time I used skype was with Heather Ludwig and Pam Overstreet. We interviewed Heathers father in law! Skype is a great way to do business and also to talk to the ones you love! Now that I know how to use skype I will use it more in my everyday life, and I am thankful to have this class because without this class I probably would have never used it!! My username is lnreeves.

PS22 Video

"Why is it important for students to post their work to blogs (or in other ways)?"

I do think it is important for students to post their work on blogs. It gives them many opportunities to do different things it also gives other people opportunities to learn! These students were just singing in at their school and then next thing you know they were offered to sing with Fleetwood Mac! It just shows you having a blog can be a great thing! Three examples are:


1. Mr. C’s class blog- Mr. C's class saw Kaia blog and then in return after skyping with her father they made a voice thread for her to listen to their comments.
2. Mr. McClung- He blogged about everything he had learned in his first year of teaching. This really helped me know what to expect for my first year teaching!
3. Dan Brown- I could really relate to what he was saying.

Week 13 Blog

Dr Seuss's video The Zax, is about a North and South Zax going their own ways. They run into each other and refuse to move out of each other's way. Even though they did not move the world continued as normal. They can stand there as long as they would like but the world will change either way!

This video just shows you how stubborn some people can be. Some people are just stuck in their own ways and refuse to change for anyone or anything! It just shows you that people should just accept change! For example some people do not want to accept that technology is changing everyday! Some teachers are set in their own ways and I am going to make sure I venture out!

Blog 12

I loved looking at these blogs!! Kaia's father thought a great way to share his daughter’s childhood with not only his family members but also, the whole family was to create a blog for each of them. This was a great idea in my opinion! Kaia loves taking pictures with the help of her father. She has many pictures that she took on her blog. Kaia is using technology at a young age which is great and with help from her father she is able to share it with the world!

The voice threads in the blog that Mr. C's class had created was great and well put together. The class did a great job communicating with Kaia. As a future teacher I would love to do something like that in the future! I think it is wonderful that Mr. C is and also Kaia's father is helping her use technology at a young age!

My Timetoast Timeline!

I did my timeline on the University of Alabama's National Championships! I found timetoast to be very easy and helpful!

Comments4kids 12!

I read Izac blog about going to the beach! The student did a great picture for their blog!I like how the student did a picture to go along with their blog, but I wish the student would of wrote a little more about going to the beach!

Week 10!

I read a post by Morgan Bayda called an Open Letter to Educators; I also watched a video by Dan Brown. They expressed their views about University teaching. They talked about having a professor standing up at the front of the classroom lecturing facts and then giving two test, midterm and finals which is the wrong way to approach teaching.
I went to the University of Alabama my freshman year and I know most of my classes were like that. There were over a hundred students in the class and no roll being called. The teacher would just lecture and that is where the test would come from, I would never open my book which would upset me because I spent so much money on them. Dan dropped out of college, because he was failing. He believes that his "schooling interfered with his learning." They both mentioned how several times they had bought books for classes and never even opened them. I can relate to that!
I think teachers should not just lecture but me more hands on. When I become an elementary teacher my goal is to be a hands on teacher and use as much technology as I can! It is very important and changing our lives every day!

Comment4kids 10

The blog that I read was about making rice Krispie treats! Hannah did not write much about making them just that she was the mixer and her mother did the rest!She had a picture of her making them which was a cute idea!

Comment4kids 9

I read a blog about St. Patrick's Day! It was a cute blog with lots of pictures! I really enjoyed reading it. The student put lots of information about st. Patrick day and all the fun things that go with it! I would love to read more blogs like this one!

Comment4kids 8 Cold War Kids

I read a blog about the Cold War Kids! It was very informative. Cold War Kids are an American indie rock band from Long Beach, California. The post was well written and I enjoyed reading it!

Comment4kids 7

I read Janet's blog! She wrote about her class and did a wonderful job! She said the most important thing about her classmates are that they are all different from each other. She wrote about what they do daily in her class and how she enjoyed it!

Comment4kids 5!

I read Ben's post Bitten! He did a great job, and used great words. His story was short and sweet! He said "Peter's jelly legs stumbled and fell" which was well written! I really enjoyed reading his post and would love to read more!!

Google Form Project

For my Google Form project I did a survey on Your Health. There were twenty-one questions in the forms of text, multiply choice, check the box, and selecting one of the following, and rating. I had a total of twenty- one responses.
The responses show that 24% where males and 76% where females answering this survey. This means there were 5 males and 16 females who answered my survey. Only 2% of people do not exercise at all, 38% exercise one or two days a week, 33% exercise three or four days a week, 19% exercise five to six days a week, and 0% exercise seven days a week! More people exercise one or two days a week. I asked the question how many times a week do you eat out including fast food and the answers were never and there were only 10% which is 2 people who never eat out. 71% eat out one to four times a week and 19% eat out five to nine times a week. No one ate out ten plus times a week. How many calories do you consume in a day? The answers were 1400, 2000, two people 1500, 1200, 2500 plus, and the rest said they did not know. I asked the question how many meals do you eat in a day, and the responses were 12 people said 3 meals a day, 5 people said 2 meals a day, 2 people said 4, and 2 people said they ate 5 meals a day. 15 people would rather have fruit for a snack then anything else, 3 people would pick a bag of chips, 1 person would pick a hot pocket, and 2 people would pick a candy bar. I asked the question what do you eat the most of. The answers were 10% eat more fats, 38% eat proteins, and 52% eat more carbohydrates. Eight people would prefer to drink water, five people would pick soda, three people would pick juice, and five people would pick tea. Which means more people would pick water! I did a poll on do you eat vegetables on a regular basis and 86% of people said yes and 14% said no. I asked do you consider obesity in the United States a problem and everyone said yes. 43% of people are not on a diet and 57% are. Only three people do not enjoy working out which means eighteen people do. 52% of people are not members of a gym and 48% of people are. The gyms that they are members of are 4 people are at the YMCA, 2 people are at Planet fitness, 2 people are at Anytime fitness, 1 person is at Atmore, 1 person is at cottage hill Baptist church, 1 person is at Springhill athletic club. 71% of people have not taken a supplement and 29% have. 62% of people do not take vitamins on a daily basis and 38% do. 100% of people who did this survey do not smoke! 81% rated that they did not know their body fat and 19% does. I asked about how many times a year do you get sick and the answers were between 1 to 6 times a year. 76% of people do not get an annual physical and 24% of people do. The last question the students had to rate themselves 1-10 on how healthy they think they are 19% said 6, 38% said 7, 29% said 8, 10% said 9, and 5% said 10.

Week 9

ALEX

From just looking at the web site it seems very easy and organized. The home page has 8 links that can guide teachers to the course of study, web links, lesson plans, search, personal workplace, professional learning, podcast treasury, and help. When you use the Courses of Study link it takes you to a list of courses that you can pick from. After you choose a course that you would like to look up then you pick the grade that you would like to view, it will then take you to a list of lesson plans for that subject and grade. Web links can be helpful for teachers; it gives many links for teacher, students, and administrators.
ALEX can be very helpful to any teacher. It can be a very useful tool. It provides a way for teachers in Alabama to share their lesson plans and many more things, which can really help you as a new teacher and give you ideas. When I become a teacher I will use this site to help me with my lesson plans. I would encourage all teachers to visit this website.


ACCESS

When I was looking throughout the ACCESS web site and many more websites about ACCESS I found many links to the main site . Many people were talking highly about the program and how it helped students. The Alabama ACCESS Distance Learning Initiative was launched on November 1, 2004, with funding of $10.3 million starting October 1, 2005. The distance education program was the result of research and planning by Governor Bob Riley’s Task Force on Distance Learning. It Provide access to advanced diploma courses targeting foreign languages, access to additional course offerings, access to Advanced Placement or dual credit courses, access to remediation and supplemental resources, Leverage existing resources and distance learning offerings, Provide teachers with additional multimedia and technology tools to enhance instruction, and it Utilize outside evaluation to periodically assess weaknesses and strengths of the program in order to make appropriate adjustments to the implementation of Year Two through Year Five objectives. ACCESS provides many more things to students.
This program can help many students! I hope in the future more teacher’s use this site to help their students who do not have the programs available at their school. But the problem that some schools are going to have is that they do not have enough computers for all of their students or computers that work so that could be a problem. But if I had the opportunity to use this program I would!

Week 8

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

I really enjoyed this video; it was very inspirational to me! Randy Pausch had 10 tumors in his liver and is still very positive, which I look up to him for that. One thing that inspires me is that he does not let anything stop him from achieving his dreams. He made all of his childhood dreams come true through his virtual reality worlds. He talked about: lessons about childhood dreams, enabling dreams’ of others and lessons learned and how you can achieve your dreams or enable the dreams of others.
One of his childhood dreams was to be in the NFL, which he proceeded to talk about his time playing football and he made a comment saying "When you're screwing up and nobody is saying anything to you any longer, that means that they gave up on you." Which is true in my opinion, when I become a teacher I will always give feed back and try to motivate my students to do better and give them advice and the guidance they need to become successful.
In his lecture he talked a lot about the program he started at Carnegie Mellon University, called Building Virtual Worlds. He taught his program for many years, and inspired many students. He was blown away with how good his students were doing and said he did not set the bar high enough for them, so after talking with his mentor he decided not to set a bar. This made the students work harder and opened many more doors for them.

Overall I think of Randy Pausch as an inspiring person. He said “It is not about achieving your dreams; it is about how to live your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself and the dream will come to you.” That statement is very true and one that was memorable to me.

Week 7!

Richard Miller videos part 1 & 2


When I was younger I always went to the library to look for research for projects. Now days I seem to just find all of my research or information that I would like to learn online. I have always been the type of person who would enjoy reading a book but I just don't seem to find the time; it is just much easier to look up the information online and you are able to find just about everything you need online!
From watching these videos of Mr. Miller, writing with multimedia, it has many benefits, Such as you can make study guides, lectures, videos, and even bring up different things at a time. It may take a teacher some time to learn how to use multimedia but the benefits are well worth it, now day’s teachers have to be updated on their technology and should be, that is why I am thankful to have this class so I can be updated! As far as if my students will be able to write with multimedia, I believe they will be able to. If elementary students today are blogging and doing what I am doing now then I’m pretty sure they will be able to write with multimedia.


Wendy Drexler' s : The Networked Student

This video was very easy to follow and straight to the point which I really liked! I can relate to this video since I have been in EDM 310. This video can give us a lot of help in the learning process that we live in. One of the comments in the video about teacher’s that I liked is that their here to guide you and help you throughout the process which is very true. That is why we as teacher's need to be able to use and teach technology to our students, we do not want out students teaching us!
After watching this video I asked myself am I ready to be a teacher with networked students? My answer to that question as of right now is no. Before this class I would have said yes because I was not aware of all the different networks and technology used today. I am hoping after this class I will be ready to teach networked students! As a teacher my job is to be updated with all the different learning tools and different networks.


Michael Wesch's Whatever video

I really enjoyed this video even thought it was long. Mr. Wesch made some very good points. He said Earlier in time Media was on T.V. that is where the conversations were, now the conversations and media is online such as facebook, youtube, myspace , blogs, twitter, and many more. He made a statement saying we no our self’s through our relations with others, new media create new ways of relating to others, new media create new way of knowing ourselves. This is very true and got me thinking. Such as the web cam there can be many different versions of our self’s and many different takes.
Mr. Wesch talked a lot about youtube, according to him over 99.9% of youtubes are irrelevant to you, and he is right! But youtube can be a helpful tool. You can learn many of different things from youtube and watch different videos such as this one. Youtube can be helpful for teacher and I will be using youtube to show my class different things. He said 20 hours of videos are updated every minute on youtube, WOW! That means there is a lot of information on youtube, it can be informative or irrelevant but there is a lot. From watching this video it made me think about all the information online and there is a lot.

PLN

I have contacted a few teachers in the education department and plan on asking many more. These teachers that I have emailed are elementary education teachers! I emailed these teachers about giving me advice on teaching ideas and assignments. The teachers that I have emailed are Tommie Autrey and Carolyn Burmeister.They teach at Daphne East Elementary School. I also made a Twitter account (Lnr903) and plan on following a few teachers.

Week 5

Wikipedia Scanner

The program that Virgil Griffith made for scanning Wikipedia to see who edits something can be a useful tool. Wikipedia has never been a trusted site to me, and most of the teachers I have had in the past. As a student I was never allowed to use Wikipedia as a source for a research paper. It is just too easy for anyone to go on there and edit things. With this new scanning program I think it might help a little. People will still be able to edit things; they will just be caught sooner.

Wikipedia Scanner is a really great idea but, I would still prefer to not use Wikipedia as a reference. However, it is appealing to see all the companies in Wikipedia using it and editing their own information. It makes you think about why they are changing their information. Wikipedia Scanner is a great update to Wikipedia but I do not think I would trust it 100 percent.



"What I've Learned this Year"


The post by Mr. McClung of "What I've Learned this Year" was Fantastic and interesting. He went through what he thought his first year as a teacher was going to be like and what it ended up being like. He said he thought it was going to be all about him and how he taught. He was in a fantasy word which means, he would go by his lesson plan, everyone would understand everything, but he soon found out it is not always like that. It is all about your students and its ok to get off course you just need to pick the students up and stay positive.

His thoughts of what he went thought at the beginning is what most new teachers go through. I am taking classroom management this semester and it really has helped, it teaches us the things Mr. McClung was talking about. He says being flexible and communicate are very important, so as a first year teacher you need to know these things that Mr. McClung is talking about and I thank him for sharing this with us!

My Life After High School!!

Blog 4

Comments4kids
I read Anna H. post about being safe on the Internet. She made great points! Reading a student's blog is a lot of fun and interesting. I think it is a great idea for students to write blogs, it really seems to help with the student's ability to write and think. I really enjoyed reading Anna’s post and look forward to reading other student blogs.





Benefits to Pod-Casting in the Classroom
Pod casting is a rapid growing new way of teaching. There are many benefits to pod castings like it can be used to access learning materials anywhere and anytime. Pod casting is manly used by “millennials”; which refers to people born after 1980, and has always had a life with access to personal computers. Pod casting is a creative and innovational way of learning using differentiation; which is more student centered.
Pod casting is a new and relevant way to learn and has been shown to excite students. It allows students to demonstrate higher learning experiences. One great thing about pod casting is it allows students out sick to still receive study materials to help them study. Pod casting provides relevant information on the go and the info easily uploads to web sites. Parents can easily get involved and make sure their children are keeping up with their assignments.