Blog Post #5

Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please? by Scott McLeod
When I first read Mr. McLeod's post I was a little confused I was thinking, we follow him on Twitter he doesn't think like this? I then saw he was being very sarcastic. I agree and disagree. I think that children should be taught technology and prepared for the future but I also think there is a breaking point. Children should be handed a book, and they do need to write with no short hand text. There is a time for children to go to the black/dry erase board and do problems or write the answer they got. I think that mentally and physically people need a break from technology. Kids eyes need a break I am sure hours looking at a computer screen can not be good every day. Mentally we need to escape the technology world. Do you not want to just turn your phone off every once in a while? But with that being said I know that technology is here to stay I know that we have to have it. I am just saying I do not believe that what we know should be left, we should just add more. Mr. McLeod's website is very impressive. I loved the setup and I hope to one day have the skills to have a website as impressive. I did not know that he was a professor at the University of Kentucky or the director of CASTLE. I am sure we will be hearing much more from him.

The iSchool Initiative  
I have to say I disagree with Travis. With his plan I think, maybe 15 years after the iSchool Initiative is worldwide we will not need teachers. I don't know about you but I need a job. I think its a great tool and a great add on. I do not think that it should be the only means of schoolwork. Children need physical interactions with teachers and other students. We need social skills and just human interaction it is embedded in our brains to be social beings. When a baby is born it is instinct to want to be held and loved. We need to talk to people and have human contact and I am really afraid if the world goes this route we will not have that. What is that going to do to our country? If we don't need to teachers in the classroom to teach, where else can we cut people out? Grocery stores, movie theaters, where else? It just scares me, I do not want people to be a minority in the world. But like I said I think his idea is a great add on and should be used responsibly in the classroom not as a replacement but an addition. I admire Travis Allen in the fact he has taken this initiative and gone so far. He will do great things.

Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir
There are no other words to describe that video but amazing! I did not even know something like that was even possible. I was very impressed. The whole choir did an amazing job and I know they are all very proud when they watch the video. Watching the video it takes me back to what I said before though. None of the singers every interacted with each other. I just can not help to see something wrong with that. People need people. All of those people were sitting in their own homes. If we can have an amazing choir without any of them being in the same room. What else can we do without seeing another person? The design of the video was amazing I do not think they could have done a better job, the singers were in perfect harmony, its scary what we can do with technology.

Teaching in the 21st Century by Kevin Roberts
Yet again another great video. Mr. Roberts raises many questions on how to teach in the 21st Century. What are we going to do considering all the information out there at the touch of our fingertips. Well we will teach. Students do need to learn how to use these tools that is why it is important for us to learn how to use them first. I believe we are on the right path. Schools are starting to get iPads and do podcasting. Everything seems to be coming together. I really liked how the video was put together. It shows that we are not using the plain power point presentations anymore. He showed what can be done to make a lesson unique. I really liked what he said about "How will we monitor these new tools, the same way we do with pencil and paper" That is so true! Kids are going to get in trouble some how, there will always be that student that wants to test the limits. I remember when I was in high school and Myspace and facebook were blocked one student would find a proxy then that would get blocked we would find another and that would and so on and so on. It is going to happen and we will just keep pushing back. It is a crazy feeling to think that when I graduated in 2007 Myspace and facebook were banned and now they are growing to be almost requirements, in four years the world has changed so much. Just imagine ten.. Wow. Thank you so much for the amazing video I am going to keep those questions with me for the future.

Time Toast

Blog Post #4

I started my reading with Langwitches. I had not thought about recording the students and playing it back for them. I thought that was a very unique idea and also very effective. I like that after she recorded the students she gave them scripts to follow along. That way that are not only hearing the word they are seeing the word. Relating the spelling to sound, hearing the meaning, and learning the context of the word. For younger students this is one of the most important tools for language. I also like how she showed how to use this same strategy with older students. Reading Edgar Allen Poe I could hear the students getting involved in the story. When they are reading they are reading with excitement and feeling. Lastly on Langwitches I really appreciated the photos, with how they showed what they had written on the board, the students following along and more. These showed us where to begin with trying to use this assignment in our classroom.

Second I read Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom by Joe Dale. Mr. Dale is the teacher I had been following for C4T. He has so many great ideas for the classroom and is so involved with many things. In the video he gave us some ideas of how to use the podcast with the students. I agree that podcast for when a student misses class is an amazing idea. Also some students need a little extra work after being in the classroom this will help them once they are at home trying to do homework they can play back the lesson from their teacher for help. With some podcast they can have videos and text some students are visual learners and need to read the text to learn, and some need to hear the lecture. With podcast you are catering to all kinds of learners.

Judy Scharf Podcast Collection
I knew that the term "podcast" had something to do with iPod but I had never put broadcast and iPod together to make "podcast" neat. I loved that Ms. Scharf started with the terms, told us what podcast meant, how it came about and what sites find the software to start our own . Then she gave seven tips to success on using podcast in the classroom. These will be very helpful she told us to start with making sure we learn the software which in theory is common sense but can be over looked by thinking on the lines of learning as we go. Most importantly in her steps she tells us to let our students make the decisions on, who they want to work with, their topics, and giving them a time frame. Then Ms. Scharf broke down a time frame of how to teach students how to make their own podcast, Amazing! She gave step by step ideas to an amazing process. She did a wonderful job on her page to show us by breaking down all the procedures to making a great podcast even giving us examples. Thank you so much Ms. Scharf.

This is my Sentence.

Blog Post #3

It's Not About the Technology
After reading Ms. Hines' post I have to say I agree with her 100%. I do not think it is all about the technology. Even though we are changing and in time it will be all about the technology but you have to build the house before you can live in it. There are teachers in public schools today that are well into their sixty's and they are not "technologically literate." Is that a problem today? Well in my opinion no, I think it will be in the future. That is why I am thankful for this class because when we graduate if we are not technologically literate we will be over looked in the education world. The teachers today that are not up to date with technology some of them know enough that they can get by but there are others that are so far behind that a workshop is not going to help. Are their jobs at risk for the future? I think so. I think they will be replaced by a new generation, one with new ideas. Technology is becoming a huge deal! I personally do not know how many years it will take but one day we will not have books for schools. What will the older generations do if they do not know how to operate what is in the future?
In a class that I have at South one of my teachers (in an education class) does not know how to operate the Smart Board. He literally stumbled across the fact that you can just press the board during a power point to go to the next slide. Meaning he tripped and caught himself with the board and said "Wow, did you all know it did that?" In another one of my classes a teacher asked me if I knew how to work the projector. I think that while yes teaching us to be technologically literate is most important I think the next step should be revamping our own teachers. With that being said I know we will get there one day.

Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher? By Karl Fisch
I understand why that post won most influential post of 2007. That was very impressive. I am more thankful for EDM310 every week when we read these post. I am going to be honest, I did not know how important it is to be a technologically literate teacher. After seeing every week how many extremely intelligent people stress the importance of technology I see I was very wrong. I do not know as much as I should and I am learning. My sister is a teacher and when I was telling her about this class she told me to learn as much as I can because she now has to have a blog and website for her 3rd Grade class. She was not taught how to manage her own website and has had to learn herself. I never even thought at any time in my life that I would have to have a website when teaching a history class, but the day is coming.
I would like to thank Mr. Fisch for this post it put a lot in to perspective for me and I now want to focus and make more time for EDM310 because I am realizing this is a class I am going to need and use everything we learn. I would now like to thank Dr. Strange for showing us these videos and post, and also giving us the skills and tools we need to make it in the future. In Mr. Fisch's post he said "If a teacher today is not technologically literate - and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more - it' s equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write." Wow that is amazing! That one statement I feel sums up the basic purpose of our class. It is an amazing feeling when you see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Gary's Social Media Count
I watched the Social Media Count in amazement. I watched it change by the millions per second. Then I noticed that I had only seen the information for 230 seconds! The numbers for a day, month and year were incredible! I could not believe it. This is going to change our lives forever. Teachers need to be more and more prepared for the technology in our future. Our lives will revolve around it on day! Students will be required to have social media accounts, assignments will be sent through them, who knows what all is going to happen? The amount of online classes are getting higher and higher. People are getting there Masters Degrees without even stepping into a classroom. The state of Florida has started an online high school program. Children are being taught at their own pace. Is this going to help or hurt our social skills? How will this effect our interactions in the future?
In five seconds I watched items shared on facebook jump to 67,000 items, in five seconds! I can barely say my name in five seconds. Thats insane! After watching the Social Media count I started messing around and watched the "Mobile" tab, I have an iPhone, I love it but watching the difference in Androids being activated compared to iPhones I think the world disagrees. There are about 400,000 Androids activated compared to iPhones sold. The world changes more and more every day. I never thought Myspace was going to be a thing of the past. But it is, I don't know anyone that still has Myspace. I can not help to wonder if facebook will to be in the past one day? With the way technology changes will facebook be able to keep up? Will people? I guess we will see.

Michael Wesch: A Vision of Students Today


I really enjoyed watching this video. I feel it tells the truth about how students really feel. We are tired, sometimes we don't want to go to class, we are thinking about other classes or taking the time to not think at all. I respect the students for taking the time to do the surveys to breakdown down their day by the hour the message is loud and clear. I agree one hundred percent that technology is the future, now is the time for us to learn how we are going to protect it so that it will not be abused. Students bring their computers but that does not mean anything related to school work is taking place. Teachers need the tools and knowledge of how to monitor and mold students into using technology in schools how it should be. There is a time and place for facebook, class is not it. I know that videos, blogs, articles and so on can send a different message to each person. Watching this video I thought how good is the classroom. Are students learning any more than they would online? I personally am a social person and I like the "in the classroom" feeling. I live in Baldwin County and commute just because I like being in the classroom listening to the teacher. Online teaching does not work as well for me.
With that being said, are those students going to be taken into consideration? Classrooms can not just disappear. How far can technology really go in schools? We still have to have them. How will we balance both? They sent the message in the end that implied to me that they do not believe technology alone will save us. I have to say I agree, life is more than technology. We are preparing for battles that are not here yet, jobs that are not useful yet, technology that can not be invented yet. So many things are going to be obsolete before they are even used. Life seems now to be a competition. Nintendo came out with Wii, then there was Xbox Kinect, then Playstation Move, they are all the same concept all different prices all claiming to be the best each putting the other in the past. What all is technology going to put in the past. The thought of people being replaced crosses my mind every now. It is a scary thought that technology is no where near where it is actually going.

C4T Summary of Joe Dale

In Mr. Dale's first post that I read he talked about the benefits of Twitter. Mr Dale is a language teacher and talks about how important Twitter is with language skills and communicating with other countries in the world. He has videos and links to Twitter, Flickr, Peekr, Twittersheep and so many more things to do with Twitter. I clicked on a few of the links and they were all actually very interesting. He talks about how important it is for teachers to continue their professional development and what he has found is the best way is basically by Social Media, in this post he talks mostly about Twitter.
The second post I read by Mr. Dale was about a competition called The Language Perfect World Championships. This is an amazing competition with countries from all over the world. It last one week and in the first day students had answered 2.5 million questions. Mr Dale has been placed in charge for making sure that England brings home the trophy. I am interested in seeing how the United States does in the competition. I am going to be sure to ask him when the competition is over.

When I first looked at Mr. Dale's blog I did not know what to think. His blog is titled "Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom: Getting Personal at Language World 2011. I thought "Hmmmm, I need to look into this." Language, well grammar is not my strongest subject. But what I am learning from his blog is very interesting. He is much like Dr. Strange and has become a rather large fan of Twitter. I am still trying to figure out Twitter. He actually wrote me encouraging me to enhance my Twitter skills and use it now and in the future with my career. He shows in his blog how much Twitter has helped him learn from all over the world and how much you could learn from Social Media. In Mr. Dale's second post talking about The Language Perfect World Championships I had to admit to him that I was embarrassed that I have never heard of the competition. I wished him good luck for England in the competition. I also hope that the United States does well.

Google Presentation

Sir Ken Robinson:The Importance of Creativity

This has been my favorite video so far! I have never heard of Sir Ken Robinson, oh my gosh he is so funny! During this video I could not help to take notes, I wanted to remember everything he said so that I can share this with others, I wrote two pages. The video was filmed in 2006 and in the beginning of the video he talks about how children that started school that year would retire in 2065 now children that started this year will retire in 2070. How do we prepare them for a life that we wont even be here to see? We can't. But we can give them the skills to learn along the way so that they will know how to change with the world. I believe that is the most important trait among man kind. The ability to adapt, the world changes everyday. Why should't we? He says that kids will take a chance, they are not afraid to be wrong but by the time they become adults they are taught it is not okay to be wrong and we take less chances. Fear is not an instinct we are born with, its developed. Why should we teach children to be scared to take a chance? Its okay to be wrong, that is why its called learning you learn from mistakes.

Sir Ken Robinson made a very interesting point when he said that schools around the world teach the same, even though we know schools around the world beat us academically. They do teach the same we are just lazy as a unit. He says that the curriculum is Mathematics, Language, Humanities then the Arts. When a school needs to do a budget cut they don't start with sports its the Arts. They cut out new band equipment and Art projects. Education can kill creativity. Art is a language, when you can not speak to someone you can show them. Even back to caves thousands of years ago, they had no written language so they drew. They told their stories in pictures. I thought his jokes about Shakespeare were incredibly funny I like how he brought humor into such a serious subject. Humor always keeps an audience interested. When he talked about Gillian Lynne, he showed that she was an exception of the "We do not grow into creativity we are educated out of it." Now more so than ever children are put on medication to get them to sit down and listen. Do we think about what we might be destroying inside? If Gillian Lynne would have left that room that day being told she had a learning disability think how much would have changed in the art world today? How different Broadway would be? This video was amazing. I hope to see more of his videos.

Mr. Winkle Wakes by Mathew Needleman

The message in this video is very clear. It is showing that the world is changing so rapidly but yet we are not teaching people how to change with it. Everything we once knew in the world is changing and converting to technology and schools still teach on the same curriculum "Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic." I remember when I was in high school and would bring home assignments from classes such as Forensic Science, or Criminal Law and my grandfather would tell me that when he was in school "All you needed was Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic." That is just not the same story now. If we do not teach students about computers and social media even, they will be lost in their future schooling, jobs, even grocery stores. Drink machines take credit cards if that does not tell you that the world has turned to technology then I have beach front property in Kansas for you! Nah, just kidding. But really is it too late for us to catch up? If we as teachers should be steps ahead to teach our students and schools have not changed than how far behind are we? Scary thought.

Did You Know? 3.0 by Karl Fish and Scott McLeod

Wow!!! Is all I can say at first to that video! I have seen a video similar to it before and knew a few of the facts but it doesn't matter how many times you hear it, I can not believe the United States is falling that far behind! We have gotten so lazy and it seems that the generations tend to be getting worse. I definitely did not know that India has more honors students than we have children! How can that be? We are becoming so technologically based that if we do not catch up we can kiss World Super Power goodbye. All of the facts were so incredible even the fact that in the time that I watched the video 67 babies were born in the United States. I highly recommend the video Social Media Revolution Socialnomics 2011. It is just as amazing as this video!! With me becoming a History Teacher its a very scary thought to think how much the world will change between now and the time I become a teacher. The video says that technology doubles every year and by seeing the statistics about the United States and how soon China will be the number one English speaking country. Its scary, what will I be teaching? Will I be telling my students stories of how we once were the Super Power but we fell to far behind?

This video truly showed me the importance of being technologically literate. Just with the fact of how much technology and the world has changed since 2008 will blow your mind. As teachers we have to keep up. We actually have to be five steps in front! Because think about it, they said that a student getting a four year degree by their Senior year what they learned their first two years will be outdated. Being teachers we are preparing students for the future, so really we need to be teaching them two years ahead. Teaching students how to do jobs that don't yet exist is crazy I can not even wrap my head around that but they prove the point so loud and clear when saying that the top ten jobs in demand for 2010 did not exist in 2004! What? How are we moving so quickly? I think what got my mind thinking the most was B.G. What did we do before Google? I personally use Google I would say at least 15 times a day. If you can not find it on Google you might as well forget it. Its the same way with cell phones. First graders have cell phones, I can not imagine the future. But I also can not wait. Thank you so much Dr. Strange for sharing this video with us.

Project 2 Wordle