Project 15 Interview

This interview is visible on Mandy Sullivan's page. We both interviewed two musical performance majors at South to see how they use technology in their classes. Enjoy!

Substantive Presentation

This is a Google presentation created by my group(Mandy Sullivan, Rachel McGuire, and I) about the Honest Reflection post on Dr. Strange's blog page for EDM 310.

Here is the actual presentation we spoke about in the presentation:

Video-cast!

It's Time for Technology Talk iTunes for University of South Alabama!

My video podcast group: Rachel McGuire, Mandy Sullivan, and me!

Check out our sweet video!

April 24th Blog Post, PLE & 2 Questions

The first video I watched is a 7th grader's PLE(Personal Learning Environment):
Here's a link to the video, Welcome to My PLE!
In this video, the student created a social bookmarking site. On the site she also had links to pages that weren't scholarly. I really liked the Note-taking feature she talked about which saved information from website in an archive with the location it was found. The student said she was free to learn about the things that interested her--her example was box jellyfish. This freedom gives her the responsibility to learn on her own. She also tried to email experts in this field of study to check the accuracy of her work. Compared to my PLN and this student, we have separate ways of learning, but we both are learning through the internet. I am going to try and find her note-taking application and try to add it to my PLN.

Two Questions:
1. Is it OK to be a Technically illiterate teacher?
Absolutely not! Times are changing and in order to stay up do date with the world around us, a teacher needs to be one step ahead of her students and technology. With the incorporation of email in the school system and PowerPoint, I don't understand how a teacher cannot want to utilize technology in the classroom.

2. What's my sentence?

Two questions that can change your life from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

I'm not sure what my sentence would be yet, maybe something like "I will not settle for mediocre today, I need to do my best always."

Were you better today, than yesterday?

PLN

For my final installment of my PLN, I am utilizing Twitter as a way to follow other English teachers, specifically with writing tips in mind. Some provide me with things they are doing in their classrooms, while others provide "writing tips of the day" type of posts. This is beneficial to me not only as a future teacher, but as student. Currently, I am still exploring Facebook, website, and blog pages that will benefit me as a teacher. For example, lesson plan ideas for Shakespeare. I hope to build my PLN more this summer and make even more connections in the future.

Google Earth

Click on this link to read place marks.My Tour for EDM 310

1. Bimini, Bahamas
2. Marianna, FL
3. My Parents house in Marianna
4. Alpha Omicron Pi, University of South Alabama
5. College of Education, Mobile, AL

Teaching about Technology With Vocaroo

My mother, Vicki Taylor, is a 3rd grade teacher in Florida. She is always looking for convenient ways to incorporate technology into lessons and expand her curriculum. Recently, I had a conversation with my mother about the things I am learning about in EDM 310. We spoke for a while and I mentioned to her about my Google Presentation I posted to my blog earlier this semester. She was unaware of the location of this program in her google account and her ability to have a free blog page. I explained and showed her how to create a Google presentation, form, and how to share documents. She also has begun a blog page for her classroom, after seeing mine. Her blog page is one that I follow publicly on this blog site (Vicki Taylor).



http://vocaroo.com/?media=vJP6ZzD2yCYf9JoBU

Wordle and April 18th Blog Post

Here's a wordle that shows a little bit of my PLN and how these technologies all are tied together:
title="Wordle: PLN"> src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/1902458/PLN"
alt="Wordle: PLN"
style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd">

This wordle that I created above is symbolic of how many different things were are exposed to this semester. This class has given me the opportunity to connect with not only other students outside of my classroom, but to students and teachers all over the world. The things we are learning now are springboards, in which we as future teachers can begin. Learning about new technologies will be something we constantly will have to be doing as teachers.

Comments for Kids Week 14

A first grader named Ryland in Mrs. Cassidy's class wrote a post about riding bikes with his family.

It read:

Bike Ride

I am gonig for a bic rid aftr school with my famle and my dog

How precious is this?

I commented with:

I hope you enjoyed your bicycle ride with your family. I wish I had a bicycle! What color is your bike?

A Math Teacher's April Fools

Some tricks with technology...a good laugh!
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Comments for Teachers Week 13, 14

For the next few weeks I will be following Allanah King Dragonsinger blog.

The first post read,

Last week I tried my hand at some time lapse photography in my classroom. I did a little research (thanks to the sister of a colleague who attended Learning@School this year) and discovered some Mac software called gawker which runs on your computer taking photographs at whatever interval you specify. I showed my students how it worked then set my laptop up to run during 3 different blocks of time during the day: literacy time; maths time & lunch time (which was very interesting to watch). I’d like to get a whole day but that would mean a little more thought as I’d need to reposition things for power supply etc.

So here we go – a glimpse of Room 9 on St Paddy’s Day.

I thought that this was absolutely fascinating that she did this. I wrote:

Hi my name is Spring. I attend the University of South Alabama and I was assigned to follow your blog for the next few weeks. I think it is great that you are incorporating new technologies in the classroom. Is there anything else you are using in the classroom?

This video was really cool to watch! Take a look!

My teacher commented back with:

Hi Spring – we use all sorts of technology – video, camera, recording (for podcasts), computer technology – we’ve used google wave, docs etc. We’re on a journey that has endless opportunities.
I’m waiting for the iPad to be released in NZ – I’d like to use that in my classroom too.

I left her another comment on 4/14/2010:

Yes, that’s awesome! It really does seem like the possibilities are endless. My professor actually just got his ipad a few weeks ago and is already putting it to good use!

Comments for Kids 13

This week for comments for kids, I commented on Room 14's blog post about Hermania's favorite thing to do at camp.
The post read:

"Climbing to the top of the wall I struggled to climb it and I nearly sliped of but I hung on to a leaf on the beanstalk I tried to beat the record made by Nikoia of 1 minute. But I failed as I slipped off the beanstalk."

It also include the picture of the beanstalk, visit the blog here!

I told her that:
"This is an awesome beanstalk. It would probably be one of my favorite things to do too! My name is Spring and I am also in EDM 310 at USA. Try again, it's alright if you slip, just try again!"

April 11th Assignment

Posting work to a blog is important because this information can be shared. By utilizing the internet as a podium, so much more information can be found. Through these connection new connections are made.

Below are 3 examples of sharing information via the internet(blogs, website, comments, Skype)



1. "Dear Kaia":
My last blog post shows how a father's (addressed to his daughters) blog captured the attention of Mr. Chamberlain's classroom. The class was commenting on their blog when Kaia's father decided to Skype the class through blog posts.

Read the "Dear Kaia" blog post
Watch Mr.Chamberlain's the response video to Dear Kaia

2. Another connection that was made is as I was commenting on Jackie Gorski's Blog post about the above connection, Mr. Chamberlain's commented on her post about their response video for Kaia. It was amazing.

Jackie Gorski's post about Dear Kaia

3. After watching "The Last Lecture" video, I ordered the book that I found out Randy Pausch wrote based on his lecture. I did not know he even wrote this book until I read the comments below the post of this video on YouTube.

Watch The Last lecture here, or below on my post titled: The Last Lecture



Skype this semester(thus far...):



This semester, I have used this technology to keep up with some of my classmates. Mandy, Rachel, and I use this program to communicate with each other on off weeks when we don't have class to make sure we are all caught up and clarify any questions we have about assignments. I also have my Skype set up, but have not yet used it to contact Dr. Strange, but the semester is not over!