Project 13 Report On Colaboration

My group and I have been using various available tools in our quest to collaborate without face to face contact.  Early in the semester we relied on emails and phone texting pretty heavily for our communication.     Everything was great as long as we were authorized to meet each week face to face.  When that was halted by Dr. Strange, we had to resort to other means for collaboration of the minute project details.  At first, we tried Skype.  Skype is a great tool for one on one collaboration or meetings.  However, for our entire group we decided to use Google Hangout, because it allows for multiple users to have a multi-way conversation. Using Google Hangout along with texting and phone calls, we were able to successfully complete our latest project.  My group and I will be meeting via Google Hangout on Sunday to tidy up this last project.  I am honestly looking forward to it.

I personally love the things that Google has to offer.  Google is fast becoming a sort of "one stop internet shop."  The tools Google offers with Google+ rival most of the tool type websites I encounter.  In the end, I think we are probably just grazing the surface of the collaboration tools the internet has to offer.  The next thing I can't wait to try out is a screen capture program.  I think screen capture has mass potential for my future classroom.

Blog Post 13

I can't go without technology right now!

This weeks blog post assignment has proven to be impossible.  I assume the point Dr. Strange is trying to make has something to do with how much our lives have become intertwined with technology.  I have to give him props for his perfect timing.  Had this assignment been given earlier in the semester, I may have actually carried out the order.  Right now I'm in a race against time to try and get everything wrapped up before the start of summer classes.  I really don't have a day to waste.  A day wasted at this point could be the difference in a letter grade.  Honestly, I feel like it is sad that I have to worry so much about a grade verses just learning.  Why do my professors insist on packing in so much crap at the end of the semester when we should just be riding all our prior hard work to the finnish line?  Maybe it's because they know we've already put in so much work, they know most of us won't bail out on extra work at the end.

 Anyway, I do not feel as tied down to my computer or my phone as I think many other people are. First of all, I like to take my time as best I can with technology.  I like to take the time to learn a tool or program instead of trying out everything all at once. Second, I did not even have a phone till I was 21.  It would take me no time to adjust back to the way things were.  The only thing I think I would miss is my phone book and email.  I don't do Facebook.

The question about our future students never having had to go through a techno-fast is an interesting one.  The whole first half of my life was spent in the mountains of North Alabama relatively free from technology as we know it today.  I would imagine our newer generations have never experienced life without TV, phones, or computers.  I have often wondered what would happen if one of those massive disasters occurred like they talk about on the educational channels, and there was no power anywhere.  What would our youth do?  On the other hand, I think it would be a tragedy if we took technology out of the hands of our students.  If anything, we need to get the under privileged children caught up.  Make technology more easily attainable, but that probably won't happen in a capitalist economy.    

Project 15 Smart Board Instruction Part 2

My Personal Learning Network: Final Report

Since I last reported, I have made an extensive effort to grow my PLN.  I found it to be a lot less labor intensive than I previously thought.  Each time I visit a website that I feel like exploring further, I save it to one of the many facilitators technology has to offer.  I created a Symbaloo account, but I find it much easier to add bookmarks on my computer for now.  Later, I plan to go back and add some of the more relevant websites to my Symbaloo.  The advantage of Symbaloo is that it allows me to categorize websites according to where they fit into my life.

My Twitter following has grown tremendously since I began to follow others more freely.  I still don't use Twitter like Dr. Strange probably wants me to, but I have used it as an easy means of finding certain answers to questions I don't know.  Even though Twitter is a super fast way to find others interested in the same things I am, I still don't feel like it is the rock of my PLN.

At the end of the day, I feel like my PLN is growing in the right direction.  I have found many valuable educational tools I plan to implement into my future classrooms.  I have even begun using my PLN in many other endeavors of my life.  I feel like I have a worldwide support team that has my back all the time.  I don't get frustrated when my google searches come up dry, because I can call upon my PLN for the really tough questions.  This assignment has opened my eyes to the advantages of creating digital relationships.  I will continue to grow and adapt my PLN as I proceed through life.

C4T # 4

Last week was supposed to be a routine C4T assignment.  However, I encountered a few problems with the assignment.  I commented on Anthony Capps' class blog called St. Elmo Explorers.  The first problem was that I had to search extensively for a place to leave a comment.  When I finally found a good post, I left a comment.  When I pressed the submit button, my comment disappeared.  I originally thought that it was just in some sort of mediating process, so I did not create a summary draft.  I thought I could just come back this week and recover the memory of what my comment was.  I was wrong.  Unfortunately, I don't remember much about my comment.  I do remember asking a few questions about Anthony's use of blogging in his classroom.  How do I keep my comments from disappearing in the future?

St. Elmo Explorers is a place where Anthony Capps posts assignments, resources, and prompts for his history class at St. Elmo school.  Each of his students have their own blogs as a means for rough writing with public critique.  I think Anthony's concept of how blogging can be used as a tool in the classroom is ideal for what I want to do with my classroom.

Project 11 Short Movie

Creativity and Curiosity: My Thoughts- Special Post #12A

When I was in the Marines, I was always the one who asked the never ending "what if" questions.  My platoon would always get so mad at me for being curious and trying to gain knowledge from the experienced combat veterans.  The phrase of the day would be, "What if grasshoppers had machine-guns Bailey? Birds probably wouldn't mess with them any more."  I learned that curiosity in the classroom is one thing, but curiosity in a combat zone can get you killed.  Curiosity can kill the cat in certain situations.

Nick Saban once said that most humans exist only to get by with the least amount of effort possible; rarely do people actively strive to reach their full potential.  If curiosity fuels creativity, then creativity creates work.  Most people including teachers are not willing to put in the work required for encouraging creativity.  In turn, they are not willing to facilitate curiosity.  In the past, schools have suppressed curiosity and creativity for many reasons.  One reason is that creativity was expensive.  Technology has negated much of that expense through the use of computers and software verses concrete materials.  The more teachers start to understand how technology can be a cheap platform for creativity, the more creativity will be encouraged.  Another reason creativity has been suppressed is that many teachers are just plain lazy and don't want to put in the extra work required to facilitate curiosity and creativity in their classrooms.  Many teachers today are not willing to take the time to research and learn how technology can facilitate creativity in a much cheaper way than ever before possible.

Curriculum can be created to increase both curiosity and creativity, but once again, many teachers are so set in their traditional teaching methods, they are not willing to change.  Video assignments, group projects, and blogging are all ways to incite creativity.  Curious teachers create curious students.  It's important for teachers to lead by example.  When a student asks a question that the teacher has no answer for, I think that teacher should look the answer up right then and there in front of the students.  This shows students that it's ok not to know the answer, but it's important to know where to find the answer and to not waste time in finding it.

I personally feel that some people are just blessed with a better creative ability than others for the same reasons some people are better at math or english.  I have tried many times to play the guitar to no avail.  However, I feel like writing has always come pretty natural.  Still, playing music and writing music is two different things altogether.  That is why some people write songs while others play and or sing them.  Some very rare minds are able to do both.

Can I increase my capacity for creativity?  I think I can.  In todays world of technology and user friendly tools, raw creativity has become a much more attainable thing for me.  I find it much easier to create in a field that interests me.  Offensive football is a much more preferable canvas for my creativity.  I love to see a football team come together and win games by using the plays, schemes, and techniques I have created.  I have had this opportunity only once in my life, and I have been striving to get myself back in that sort of situation ever since.  My ultimate goal is to coach college football.  I plan to use whatever creative ability I have to foster an offense that will be unstoppable.

Elspeth Bishop is a writer for InGoodMeasure.net. She was born and raised in Colorado and now enjoys skiing, playing tennis, and hiking in the mountains of Salt Lake City, Utah.  I do not plan to contact her at this time.  I'm swamped with wonderful unexpected assignments like this one!  :-)

Project 16 Progress Report

My teammate Katie Penton wrote this on her blog.  Her post reflects everything I have to say in regards to my progress on Project 16.  

"I am not quite sure what I am going to do for project 16. My group and I have mainly been focused on project 15. I have a lot to do these last few weeks of school, so I have been taking it week by week. My group and I plan to have project 15 completed at the beginning of next week. Once 15 is completed we are going to get a jump start on 16. So far the only thing I have done for project #16 is watch Dr. Strange's video "Preparing for Project 16." At the beginning of next week I plan to watch the rest of the videos and meet with my group."

Blog Post 12

BLOG ASSIGNMENT

In middle and high schools today, sports or extracurricular activities play a big role in the overall educational experience of their students.  Many teachers will be asked if they will be willing to take on the responsibility of being a coach or sponsor of a club or sports team at some point in their career.  Technology is not only infiltrating classrooms, but it is becoming a major aspect in sports when it comes to maintaining the competitive edge and bringing the pride of winning to the student body.  Everything from computer software to specialized equipment can give a team an edge in competition.

For this assignment, you will view How Technology is Affecting Sports.  Think about how new innovations in technology can improve accuracy in officiating and take further burden away from official decisions.

Next, visit this website.  Hudl.com.

In a new blogpost, describe how this software or a substitute could improve the competitive edge of a sports team you may coach one day.  Do you feel like this could help your team win?  What particular sport would software like this be useful for?

BLOG POST 

More and more high school and middle school coaches are adopting technology into their programs in an attempt to gain a competitive edge over their competition.  According to the website How Technology is Affecting Sports, "If it weren’t for technology we wouldn’t have the instant replay, the headset for coaches to throw, or even the wireless microphone for our referees to mix up their words on. However, technology has come a long way since those early discoveries."  It may be a long time before instant replay becomes a part of high school sports; if ever, because new "micro location" technologies are being developed that can track player and ball movements all over the field of play.  This may be the future of sports officiating, and could end up leapfrogging instant replay if and when high schools decide to try and eliminate some of the burden on officials.

Hudl

Hudl is a specialized software program that was originally developed for the game of football.  However, it has also been utilized by basketball, baseball, and various other sports teams since its creation.  Hudl is used by coaches as a means of communicating information to their players.  So many coaches in various sports have been utilizing video in their preparation for competition for years.  Hudl allows coaches to break down that video data into a more efficient presentation for their players.  It also allows coaches to communicate with their players over the internet using voice over video, blogs, special notes, add on graphics, and general team announcements to build an overall smarter team.  Anyone who has played team sports knows that a team that is on the same page gets more accomplished and inevitably wins more games.

Hudl also helps coaches reduce the amount of time spent on preparation by automatically processing raw video data instead of them having to process the data manually.  Because Hudl is an online account based program, coaches can coach from anywhere they have internet access.  This allows coaches to spend more time at home with their families, which is a plus for any coach.  The job of coaching is evolving so fast today that those coaches that remain stuck behind the technology curb will find it difficult to keep up in the future.    

C4K Summary for April

World Blog Challenge

Ashley's Blog

This week I was chosen as mentor for Ashley while she engages in the World Blog Challenge.  I checked her blog out, and her latest post was a Prezi presentation she had created about herself.  I discovered that Ashley is a very good writer for an eleven year old.  She is from Canada and is an avid outdoors enthusiast.  She enjoys sports very much and she loves school as well.  She only had three total post on her blog, so I assume she is a novice blogger as I am.

In my comment on her bio presentation, I told her that I was very excited to be her mentor for the challenge.  I suggested that she write a post about her many hunting trips.  She said in her presentation that she went hunting every spring and fall.  I asked her what she hunted for in particular.  I look forward to the next 2 weeks of mentoring over the internet.  This will be the first time I have actually assisted someone directly through the internet.  She is so far away, and I just think that is too cool.

18sadu

Week 2 of the World Blog Challenge came with a bit of disappointment.  Ashley had not created another post for her blog, so I requested another student.  My new assigned student was a 12 year old boy named Dustin from Vermont.  Dustin's blog site was epitome of what an average 12 year old boy is experiencing in life. I commented on his most recent post entitled $100 Bill.  In his post, he declares his everlasting love for money and riches.  He says that if he was rich, his troubles would be know more.  I'm sure his viewpoint will change at some point in his future.

I tried to stay as positive as possible in my response.  After all, he is only 12.  I didn't want to just shoot down his dreams.  His perspective of money and riches is sure to mature with age.  I hope his spelling and grammar will follow suit.  I tried to encourage him to write a post about one of his many outdoor activities.  Maybe next week I will see a much better post.

Week 3 of the World Blog Challenge was a pleasant surprise.  Dustin posted a new post called Bike Issues On The Road.  In his post Dustin talked about the issues bike riders face on roads without bike paths.  He discussed how texting and driving has led to more bikers being hit by cars.

I told Dustin that I agreed with him about texting and driving.  I also told him that he should check with his local city counsel about getting more bike paths put in.  I was proud of the fact that I got some feedback from my student this week.  I feel like I may have sparked some interest in a kid that might carry on throughout his life.  I told him that he should continue to add posts to his blog even if no one comments.  Unfortunately, his spelling and grammar are still a bit youthful.  I tried to relay that to him as softly as I could, and I told him the more he writes the better he will get at it.  Overall, I was pleased with my World Blog Challenge mentoring experience.

Final C4K

This week I watched a first grader named Shelly's first online video.  She was very cute to say the least.  While her video was very concise and to the point, she had exceptional presence on camera.  She didn't seem to be shy at all.  I'm jealous.  I get so nervous on camera.  Anyway, she described her wonderful experience at camp.  She apparently had a great time there.  Shelly is a student in Room 6 from Pt. England School in Auckland, New Zealand.

I told her that I really enjoyed her video, and that I would check in on her from time to time to see what her next production would be.  I hope her teacher lets her check out my blog, because first graders tend to tell the truth no matter how bad it may be.  All these kids make me realize how far behind the curb I really am when it comes to technology.  I hate to say it, but I'm almost sad this is the last C4K assignment.

Blog Post 11

For this weeks blog post I watched First Graders in Ms. Cassidy's Class.  Ms. Cassidy's class is from Canada.  Her students learn through blogging.  They are 1st graders.  This is amazing!  She even has implemented the use of hand held gaming type devises.  If your a teacher looking for reassurances in terms of using technology in the classroom, check out her video.

I also watched a Skype interview of Ms. Cassidy that Dr. Strange and some of his students made in 2010.  It was a very well thought out interview in which Dr. Strange and his students asked Ms. Cassidy questions relative to her own classroom.  One of the big questions was in reference to security measures for keeping students safe and keeping what they view within the perimeters of relative media.  Ms. Cassidy was very spoken about teaching the proper use of the "online community" early and often.  She basically said that there was no perfect system.  Each teacher must find their own system in which they protect their students and still be in compliance with their schools policy.


Another thing Ms. Cassidy talked about really hit home with me.  She said that the thing that makes the internet great is the ability for users to provide input in more ways than one.  Some people prefer to contribute via video while others prefer to write using blogs.  Some people prefer to use social networks like Twitter.  The fact that the internet is a dynamic facilitator is what makes it such a great platform for learning.

Between Ms. Cassidy and Dr. Strange's reiterations, the fact that teachers must be life long learners is starting to seriously imbed into my brain.  The more I learn about collaborative learning, the more I understand how important the continual learning of the facilitator can impact the overall experiences of the students.  Honestly, I feel like this assignment is a bit of a broken record.  I get it Dr. Strange.  I really do.

Blog Post 10

"Do you teach or do you educate?"

I have wanted to become an educator for as long as I can remember.  My first grade teacher, Mrs. Crawford was the best, and she still serves as my inspiration today.  However, I did not find out until later that I would prefer teaching high school students over younger kids.  Mrs. Crawford was the first person outside of my own family that I felt really cared about me.  I have had a few other wonderful teachers over the years, but sadly I have had more bad ones than good.  This fact serves as my other big inspiration.  

I feel like high school is my calling, because good high school teachers are educators to students who are on the doorstep of adult life.  I feel like the opportunity for influencing students in a way that will have long term impact on their lives is an opportunity especially reserved for high school teachers.  The decisions faced by teens who have recently graduated from high school, could have serious implications on the rest of their lives.  That is not, however, meant to take away or demerit the importance of elementary educators.  All and all,  I just think high school seniors are old enough to be privy to the facts about facing life beyond the shelter of their parents or caretakers.

ROLL TIDE!

Tom Johnson's Don't Let Them Take The Pencils Home is a post of dialog between school teacher Tom and Gertrude, the School Curriculum Instructional Interventionist Academic Specialist.  I'm not all together sure about what that means.  Anyway, Gertrude is telling Tom that when their students take their pencils home, they test lower than the students who do not on the standardized tests at their school.  I gather that they mean computers and the internet when they speak of pencils.  Tom argues that the research Gertrude bases her conclusions on is shady at best, as all conclusions have been based on measurements of "drill and kill" methods of instruction and testing.  Tom believes in integrating his classroom with technology, and introducing his students to the world outside the school building through the internet.  He says that they should take their pencils (computers) home, and through special assignments and parent involvement, they can learn with them at home just as well as they can at school.  If the students choose to use them for social purposes, so be it.  They will be learning nonetheless.

I wasn't sure, but I do believe this post was actually written by John T. Spencer.  John has a number of education reformation post on Blogs like Education Rethink.  He says, "This post was largely influenced by Larry Ferlazzo's latest post and my own experience with 1:1 computing and my friend Javi's experience with a Parent University." Larry's post talks about the actual studies that have been done about the relationship between test scores and students either having or not having a computer at home.  One study said that students who have computers at home from the time they are in the sixth grade until they leave the eighth grade show a decrease in test scores over that same time period.  Based on my own experience, I would be willing to bet that test scores drop in general from the sixth to the eighth grade, because puberty alone does more than enough to influence test scores in the negative.

Overall, I enjoyed the post.  Although, I had to read it more than twice to fully grasp what was going on.  I also think that John should have posted Larry's study above the post so that it made a little more sense the first go round.  Furthermore, I would have changed the title to "Shady Test Have Shady Results."  In conclusion, I do think there may be a link between low income homes and low test scores, but I don't think it's fair at all to assume that computers contribute to this in a direct way.  Maybe, the problem is, the methods being utilized for teaching and testing at present are not congruent with the methods being utilized for learning and understanding.  Teaches today are trying to build a Corvette using the parts of a Model T with the tools of a caveman.  What do you think test scores are going to do?  No-brainer!