My Personal Learning Network

To start my personal learning network, I contacted three people. I was looking for information about classroom managment. The first person I contacted was Tim Fredrick. He has a blog on various tips about teaching. There are several posts about classroom managment. The second person that I contacted was Mark Karadimos. He is a math instructor and has a blog on teaching. The third person that I contacted was a blogger who is a teacher and has a blog dedicated to the subject of classroom managment. Reading through this blog helped me to learn some good tips that I will use in my classroom one day. I would suggest that future teachers check this blog out by clicking here.

Goodbye Class!

I just want to say that I really enjoyed this class and everyone who was in it. Hopefully I'll see many of you in some of my other classes. Good luck with the rest of your time in college and in your future careers! Mr. Wakeman, you are a good teacher. Thanks for making this class as nice as it was.

Mandatory Post

1. I learned a lot in this class. Although many of the things I had to do stressed me out, I did them. I enjoyed doing the blogs. I like to write in a journal, so I think that I will use blogging for more than just making a good grade in this class. When I started this class, I knew nothing about Google Docs. I am glad I learned about that becasue it is something that could be very helpful if I did not have access to Microsoft Office. Doing the podcast was interesting. I don't think its something I'll ever want to do again, but at least now I know how it works. I didn't have a YouTube account before this class, and it may or may not be something that I use again. In my opinion, I did not benefit from the PLN becasue no one that I contacted ever got back to me. I didn't have a Twitter account before this class either. I will not use Twitter after this class because it gets on my nerves! Making a professional blog is something that can be useful. I think it is a great idea. All in all I enjoyed this class. There are some things that I could care less about.

2. There is nothing that I wanted to learn in this class that I did not learn. I think that this class covered alot and maybe it was too much. I had this class one night a week and sometimes it felt like we didn't get to learn as much about some things becasue we had so much to cover in a short period of time.

3. There is not something that I hated so much that I wish that I had not learned about it, but I did not enjoy having to make so many different accounts. I feel like I have an account for everything under the sun!

4. This class did not excite me in any way. I don't really enjoy technology. I do think that it is useful, but it is not something that I get excited about. It's just something I use.

5. There were some challenging things in this class, but not one particular thing. I think I made some of the things seem harder than they were. I tend to stress easily and get overwhelmed when I do not know how to do something, or I have to do something new. I made it though!

6. I was not bored in this class. It kept me quite busy.

7. If I could change something about this class, I would have seperate classes for elementary and secondary ed majors so that we could focus more on how to use the technology with the age group we will be working with. Using technology with seniors in high school is way different than using it with kindergarteners!

8. I am somewhat technologically literate. I would say I'm probably medium.

9. I will maintain my technologyical literacy throughout my time in college and when I start teaching by using the knowlege I've learned to complete projects, keep up with classmates, learn from others, and gather information. I will make it a habit to take advantage of some of the things that I learned about, like Google Docs.

7 Stupid Mistakes & 7 Brilliant Things Teachers Do With Technology & New Classroom Rules by Education Innovation

Seven Stupid Things Teachers Do With Technology
Seven Brilliant Things Teachers Do With Technology
New Classroom Rules by Education Innovation

I read each of these lists and I feel that they are all important. If I must choose the two most important I would choose the Seven Stupid Mistakes Teachers Make With Technology and New Classroom Rules by Education Innovation. I would choose the first one because I know that there are teachers out there who really do the things on this list. They should be fired. This list shows the example of how not to be a technology literate teacher. These things really happen every day and people need to be aware of it. I would also chose the list called New Classroom Rules by Education Innovation. I choose this one because I think it is a good model of how technology is changing everything we know about how school use to be. This list shows that by using technology, learning can be fun. It's not all about sitting still in your seat with your hand raised when you have a question. It's about having options. With technology, you can go to school in your pajamas while eating breakfast if you want to, get up and go to the bathroom when you want to, and talk when you want to. Technology also allows a person to have many sources at their fingertips. All three of the lists were important, but the two that I chose seemed to really show some important things that people need to be aware of.

At the Teacher's Desk

The blog At the Teacher's Desk is a very interesting blog about teachers using technology. I read five posts from this blog and learned a new perspective on a few things.I read the posts from October 20, September 24, September 18, September 13, and September 10.

In the October 20th post, the author discussed the need for teachers to become social networking experts. This is problably the post that I got the most out of. The author said that they had to cover for a teacher who was sick. The sick teacher's class would be testing in the lab. However, many of the students were already finished with the tests and needed something to do. The sick teacher said that they had been covering probablilty. So, author said that they sent out a tweet which said "Quick, I need some websites for students to do probability games. Sick teacher needs some help." Within minutes responses flooded in. The author of the blog said that this is a not only a positive pin story, but it is more. "It is a hint of what we will soon see in education." The author also stated that Students need a link to what they will learn, and that teachers are that link. I think that being experts in social networking is a great asset for teachers and this story proves how it can be.

The September 24th post was titled "How Do I Know I'm Not Just Being Selfish." The author discussed whether or not the he is imposing his belief that learning about blogging, creating media, and connecting with others or not. Is he forcing his intrests on others? Is technology better than traditional content? In my opinion too much of a good thing is not good. Everything needs to be in moderation. So, by combining technology and traditional content, students and teachers can benefit.

The September 18th post discussed using Skype to connect Mrs. Baker's ESOL class and Mrs. Whittier's Spanish class. I thought that this was a great thing. It shows how using technology can enhance learning and give people opportunities that they might otherwise not have. Mrs. Whittier wanted her class to learn about schools in Mexico and to have an authentic experience with the Spanish language. Mrs. Baker's class got an opportunity to see what attending a private school in Virginia is like. The classes were able to learn from one another and never have to leave their own classrooms.

The September 13th post discussed using technology efficently for communication. The author said that Twitter is good for quick communication, but that not enough parents access it to make it worthwhile. So, by combining it with the class blog by putting a Twitter feed on the sidebar of the blog, a few more parents access Twitter. However, he said that many of the parents do not access it enogh to get the updates on time. The author suggested giving out your cell phone number so that parents can easily access you. Some people are concerned that if they do this they will never be able to "turn off" work. The author said that he prefers speaking to the parents. The author also said that if "turning off" work becomes a problem, he is perfectly capable of not answering a call. I agree with the author here. I think that many parents would prefer speaking to the teacher if there was a real problem. I'm not talking about calling to find out petty things. I would let parents know that they can call me on my cell phone if there is something really important that they need to talk to me about. The technology of cell phones allows a person to be available at all times, which is why I think that this is a great way to use technology to communicate effectively. The author also suggested that teachers try using faceboook. Many parents have facebook and check it each day. By making a facebook account for the class, parents can have access to information on what is going on in their child's class.

The last post that I read was from September 10th. It stated that people are trying to ban pencils and crayons from school because they are dangerous. Now that there are colored penicls, the notes that students pass have drawings on them. There is also something new coming out called a ballpoint pen. People are afraid of this becasue it cannot be erased. This made me laugh. It reminds me of the way people are afraid of technology. It is important for teachers to not be afraid of learnig about and using technology in their clasrooms.

With blogging teachers can keep a professional collaborative blog such as this one. The author has links to his collaborators, which allows him to click and learn new information from peers. It is important for teachers to collaborate so that they can get new ideas and opinions. This will help teachers to stay excited about their job. It will allow them to provide an up-to-date education for their students.

Michael Wesch

I watched the Michael Wesch video called "Toward a New Future of Whatever". In this video he discussed how there is a strong bond between media and culture. When media changes, our conversations change. He showed a picture of his college class. The students looked like they were not paying much attention, and seemed very disinterested. Then he showed a picture of an American Idol casting call. Everyone seemed excited, and very interested in what was going on. He said that the difference was in the word "whatever." "Whatever" has changed into a word that describes our culture today: people think that the world is about them. They are self absorbed and miss opportunities to help others. People lose sight of what is really important and they seem to not actively work on their relationships. Mr Wesch said that things like youtube and blogging is a great way to keep connected. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace are other ways to keep in touch with friends and family. I use myspace to communicate with friends from high school, and my sister-in-law who lives 4 hours away. I also use blogging and twitter to communicate with my classmates and to ask questions about homework. As a future teacher I can see how these things will help me communicate with students and parents. They can use these new technologies to ask questions about homework, projects and other important information. It could also be a quick way for parents to write me a note concerning their child's progress in school. It opens up many doors for educators.

Student's Posting Their Work to Blogs

I think that it is important for students to post their work to blogs and in other ways because it opens up doors and presents opportunities that might otherwise not come to them. A great exapmle of this is how the elementary school students of thePS22 Chorus brought Stevie Nicks to tears as she watched a video of them singing a version of her song "Landslide." She invited the chorus to sing at Madison Square Garden for the Fleetwood Mac Show. If the students had not posted their song on the internet, they never would have been given such a great opportunity. Another example of this is Dear Kaia, a blog that Jabiz Raisdana keeps about his daughters. In one post, he shared about the importance of children spending time outdoors and connecting with nature. He had just finished reading The Last Child in the Woods, which gave him the idea to let his daughter take pictures outdoors and post a photo essay about what she saw. A group of eighth graders in Missouri was commenting on Mr. Raisdana's blog and he noticed their comments. They talked with him on Skype and decided to do a voicethreadfor Kaia about how her photo essay was used to help them learn.

Students who are graduating from college can use blogs to post their work as a type of resume for future employers. They can add videos and other content which would help to show how qualified they are for a job. I think that this is a great idea because one can learn a lot about a person by reading things that they have written, or by looking at pictures and videos of them. A future employer might be able to get a better idea about a person's personality by looking at a blog than they would during a thirty minute interview. A site called Zoli's blog discusses this topic. It says that resumes are dead, and that a person's blog is their new resume.

Another great thing about students posting their work to blogs is that it can give other teachers ideas for things to do with their students. It could be part of a teachers Personal Learnig Network.It is also a great way for parents to see what their child is doing in school. Even though I'm in college, my dad wanted to read my blog posts, so I gave him my blog address. He has been reading them and talks to me about things that I've written. It is a great way for students to share what they've learned in school.

ACCESS

ACCESS, or the Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators, and Students Statewide, is a distance learning tool provided by the state of Alabama. Their vision is "to provide equal access to high quality instruction to improve student achievement through distance learning. It offers online courses. The website offers announcements, important dates, a list of support centers, and resources. ACCESS also provides AP, or advanced placement courses, which are college board approved,remediation modules for the Alabama High School Graduation Exams.

Access offers many resources such as AVL (Alabama Virtual Library), ChemLab, Curriculum Pathways, Elluminate, Grapghmatica, HippoCampus, Mathtype, and NetTrekker. Some of these resources require special programs or passwords from ACCESS teachers. Others are free. AVL allows students to access books, articles, and other information from the web that are normally available at public libraries. Chemlab is a specialized download that provides simulation software for educational courses, such as chemistry. Curriculum Pathways is a free online resource for students and teachers. It has web-based resources for core classes grades 8-12. Elluminate is a live multi-media collaboration tool. Graphmatica is an equation plotter. Students and teachers can print, copy, and save graphs using this tool. Hippocampus offers high-quality multi-media content for general education courses to high school students. MathType is an interactive equation editor. This tool requires a password from the Access teacher. NetTrekker provides digital content which is organized by grade and reading level.

I think that ACCESS is a great resource for distance learners. It has many tools available to students and teachers who are involved in this program. Distance learning is a good option for many students. This is a very useful resource and it seems to be very up-to-date with new technology.

ALEX

ALEX, or the Alabama Learning Exchange was created by the Alabama Department of Education. It is a program that has helpful resources for parents, students, and teacher. There are some good resources for teachers. The first one is the Alabama Course of Study. Teachers are able to access this to help them to make sure they cover all skills that should be covered in each subject they teach. It is divided by grade level. This could also be helpful for students and parents to make sure that the teachers are covering what they should.

Another resource that ALEX has is Weblinks. Links to websites are available to parents, teachers, and students on almost any topic. Teachers can use this to find information to include in lesson plans. Studens can use this to find information for projects and reports. Parents can use this to look up things that their child is studying so that they can help them. Podcasts are another resource that ALEX has that can benefit parents, teachers and students in the same way.

Lesson plans are another resource that ALEX has. Teachers can find lesson plans to use in their classroom and can share their lesson plans with other teachers. This is one of the best features of ALEX for teachers. It allows teachers to collaborate with one another and benefit from the experiences of other teachers.

I think that this site is very useful for parents, teachers and students. I wish that my parents and I had been able to use this when I was in school. It would have been great to have when doing projects. I am happy to see that Alabama provides such great resources to their teachers and students. I think that I am most excited (as a future teacher) about the lesson plans available on ALEX.

Dear Kaia

I really enjoyed watchingKaia's first photo essay and reading the other blogs and comments. There is so much new technology out there for us to use. It opens up so many doors to learn. I do not have children yet, but if I did I would be concerned about their safety just like Kaia's dad, Jabiz Raisdana. I think that it is great though that he is not living in fear and that he is exposing his daughter to technology and more importnatly the outdoors.

There are so many kids today who do not play outside. Part of this is due to technology and part is due to their laziness or their parent's laziness.Technology may be part of the reason, but it can not be blamed. Parents need to find a happy medium for their children. They need to let them play outside and spend time on the computer or playing video games.

The commments on each of the blogs were interesting. I aggreed with most of them. I think that the way Mr. C's class did a video story for Kaia is very neat.It just goes to show you that there is much to learn, even from children. This type of new technology will transform education and the way we learn. As Dr.Strange said in one of his comments, it could replace education the way we know it today, or allow it to survive.

New Media Literacies

New Media Literacies

The New Media Literacies Video named eleven skills that are needed to function and be productive in todays culture. They are skills that everyone needs to do many things that are required of them today because the average person today is both the producer and consumer of technology.

The eleven skills are: judgement, negotiation, appropriation, play, transmedia navigation, simulation, collective intelligence, performance, distributed cognition, visualization and multitasking. I think that these are skills that everyone needs. I do think that they are skills that are needed to be effective today. I believe that I have the skill of judgement, negotiation, play and multitasking. The way to aquire the skills that I lack is to be open minded and to adapt to the changes that are being made.

The New Media Literacies Project

This site explains more about media literacy and how it is used.

The Networked Student by Wendy Drexler

The Networked Student

The Networked Student by Wendy Drexler was an interesting video. It really made me think about how much education is changing and I'm not so sure I like it. The networked student has no textbook and the teacher rarely lectures. This is in high school, but it seems more like college!

The networked student takes control of their learning experience and collaborates with others. They build their own personal learning networked. The student will find valid websites on his subject and checks for the credibility of it. The student is taught how to do all of this before they are required to do so. The networked student will use Google Scholar to search for scholarly and peer-reviewed articles that pertain to the subject they are learning. When the networked student finds a website or article which is worth using, he will post it to his social bookmarking site where he will share the sites he's found with others and he will find site's that others have posted that may be helpful to him. The networked student will also read the blogs of others which might contribute to his learning.

The purpose of the teacher in a networked class would be to teach the students how to build their personal learning network, offers guidance, teaches the students how to communicate correctly with others in a respectful way, teaches the students how to decide what is good and bad information, and helps that students organize the information that they gather.

In my opinion I do not think that students would get as much out of a networked class as they would physically habing their teacher there everyday. As a future educator I do not like this idea because there would not be a need for as many educators as there are right now. I think that a networked class is too complex for younger students and personally if I was a parent of a middle school student who Mrs. Drexler was teaching in this way, I would be annoyed with all of the time my child would have to spend on the computer. Children do not need to have to spend so much time on the computer. They need to be active. In my opinion this idea would be good to use if students were only required to use it in completing one project. It would allow the students the best of both worlds.

Richard Miller: This Is How We Dream Parts 1 & 2

This Is How We Dream Part 1

This Is How We Dream Part 2

Richard Miller's This Is How We Dream Videos explained that our culture is changing in the way we recieve and compile information. I can remember in elementary school when we would go to the library you had to use the old timey card catalog to find out where a book was located. Now a computer is used. It's the same way with looking up information. When doing reports in elementary school I often used my grandmother's set of encyclopedias which did not have the most recent information in them. Now all I have to do is log on to the internet and the information is at my fingertips and is up to date.

Using things such as e-mail and blogs allows people to collaborate and share informaiton with one another. These are great tools to use in a classroom. By using the internet and new technology people are able to create documents with out using a pen and paper. It is important to know how to use the technology available to you so that you can benefit from it. The best way to make sure that people can transition into this new way of learning is to teach them at an early age.

In disagree with Mr. Miller about all writing being done on the computer. Paper and pencils are much cheaper than a computer and many people can not afford a computer. I also think that it is important for people to know how to write things by hand. Some things are effectively done by writing on the computer, but other things, such as a letter is not done as effectively on the computer unless it is a business letter. Letters which are handwritten seem more personal.

I think that I would be willing to write with multimedia and would try my best. I also think that children would be able to do it with alot of practice. I do not think that everyone would enjoy doing it that way.

iPods in Instruction

iPods are beggining to creep their way into schools and are becoming a very useful tool. After viewing this link, I can see just how useful iPods could be in a classroom. Duke University gave 1600 incoming freshman brand new iPods in the fall of 2004. This was part of their Digital Initiative. The students had access to many lectures and other helpful things through the iPods. They can access school information from these iPods. Many classes such as foreign languages, engineering, music and many others are incorporating the use of iPods into the classroom.

Duke University continues to give incoming freshman new iPods and the results have been phenomenal. According to this link, the academic uses for ipods were: course content dissemination, classroom recording, field recording, and study support. Sixty percent of the incomeing freshman reported that recording was the most widely used tool for academic purposes. A site that would be helpful in creating your own podcast to use for instruction can be found here.

iTunes University

Introduction to iTunes University

iTunes University is a new and exciting tool for education. It is both helpful to students and teachers. It is free and offers endless podcasts on every educational topic imaginable. It allows students and teachers to learn and teach in a new way, which allows much flexibility.

Students will probably get the most benefit from iTunes University. They can download lectures to their computer or ipod that they missed, or did not understand. They are then able to listen to the lectures as many times as they would like and even listen to only the parts that they did not understand. This would help many students who might miss class because they are sick or had an emergency.

Teachers can use podcasts from iTunes University as an educational tool for any classroom. It can even be used in Elementary school classrooms. This tool will allow teachers to share accurate information with their class in an audio form. According to another website I looked at,"iTunes University: Better Than the Real Thing",college students who heard a lecture via iTunes University scored better on an exam than students who were given a traditional lecture. This will help both students and teachers achieve their goals.

Dr. Alice Christie

Dr. Christie's Website


After exploring Dr. Alice Christie's Website I found many things that would be helpful to me as a teacher. The part I found most interesting and helpful was the information about Virtual Fieldtrips. Dr. Christie gives a "webinar," which you have to pay to see (which I did not do)about taking virtual field trips. She suggests taking virtual field trips because of all of the budget cuts that have taken place lately.

Virtual Field Trips are a great idea because as a teacher, you can take your class almost anywhere. You could take a field trip to outer space or travel back in time without ever leaving your classroom. In my opinion this is almost better than Mrs. Frizzle's Magic Schoolbus! Another great thing about Virtual Field Trips is that they are budget friendly. Virtual Field trips can save schools, teachers, and students lots of money. Another plus of Virtual Field Trips is that teachers can take their classrooms to places that noramlly a classroom would not be allowed, such as a factory, or other dangerous place.

Wikipedia

NPR Article on Wikipedia


After reading the NPR material on Wikipedia I realized just how unreliable Wikipedia is. I new that my teachers in high school never let me use Wikipedia as a source on any paper, so I had some idea that it was unreliable, but I did not know much about how it worked. I watched the NPR Podcast about Wikipedia The NPR podcast said that Virgil Griffith used IP addresses to track people who edited Wikipedia. It explained how when you edit Wikipedia you must leave your name or you can change it anonymously but it will trace your computer and can tell who edited it. The problem with this is that people can still go into places with wi-fi and edit Wikipedia without being tracked. Big companies such as Wal-Mart, Dow Chemical Co. and Diebold have all changed information concernig the companies to make them seem something they are not. This is the downfall of Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is a good idea, but it is getting to be so big that it is not being used as it was intended to be. The NPR article about Wikipedia says that Wikipedia is a model for 2.0 collaboration. The article also says "Still, Wikipedia's troubles suggest the limits of Web 2.0 — that when an idealized community gets too big, it starts becoming dysfunctional. Just like every other human organization." It is important to remember that Wikipedia, although it contains a lot of good information, can not always be a trusted source.

Overall, my view of Wikipedia is that it can not be trusted. As a teacher I will allow Wikipedia to be used only when it is backed by another source.I will allow it to be used on essays and other small papers, but I will not allow it for the use on research papers.

Tiny URL Practice

This is a practice.

Tiny URL Site

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

This video was very interesting and inspiring. Randy Pausch is dying of cancer, yet he is so positive. He talks about his disease and how even though he does not have long to live, he is healthier than many people in the audience. I couldn't believe that he is so close to death and could do all of those push-ups! He talks about his childhood dreams and describes how he did or did not achieve those dreams. Then he gives us some lessons he learned in life.

Mr. Pausch described some of his childhood dreams to the audience. They sound like many dreams that little boys have. They were things like being in zero gravity, playing in the NFL, being like Captain Kirk, winning big stuffed animals, and being an imagineer with Disney. He accomplished some but not all of those dreams. Something that he said that really stuck out to me was that the two greatest things are achieving your dreams and enabling the dreams of others. Teachers help others enable their dreams every day. That is why I look forward to being a teacher.

Something else that he said which stuck out to me was that the best gift you can give someone is helping them become self reflective. This is true because when someone is self reflective, they see what their weak areas are and are able to work on those things. If a person is self reflective they can accomplish great things in life. He made a good point when he said that you have to decide if you are going to be a Tigger or an Eeyore in life. This is good advice because if you make a conscious effort to be positive, like Tigger, then you will not bring others down with your negativity, like Eeyore.

The techniques he advocates are: have fun, never give up, get feedback from other people because you can learn from it, don't complain-just work harder, show gratitude, work hard, find the best in everybody, be prepared, and "Don't bail; the best of gold is at the bottom of barrels of crap." He also said to be good at something because it makes you valuable. All of these techniques are good things for teachers to go by .

At the end of the video, Mr. Pausch revealed that he had done this "Last Lecture" not for the audience, but for his three kids. It was his advice for them to use in their life. He wanted to leave them something to remember him by. This is perhaps the most important thing he has done in his very successful life.

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture