Last blog about blogging...

Well its official this will be my last blog of the semester (I hope not my last blog ever). This Computers and Education class has provided me with a lot of new experiences and opportunities including keeping up with my very own blog and it has been a great one. I never realized how many blogs are out there and how many topics were covered, especially education and teaching. It has been great reading blogs posted from other teachers and aspiring teachers about their classroom experiences and activities they have done that they found most productive within their students. However, I have also found blogs that teachers have used for their own personal "ranting and raving sessions" about their students and the schools they teach in, even though I did not find many of those it is just important to remember that those kinds of postings are not what blogging is about and should not be used for that purpose because others can read them and feelings will be hurt as a result of it. All that said I just want to make it clear that blogging has been a positive learning experience for me and it has introduced to me a new way of communicating with other teachers and providing families a more technology based way of sharing what we have been doing in the classroom. I hope that with all the information I have attained about blogs and the positive results they can produce I will have the opportunity to one day introduce blogging to a group of students and see what their reactions are to it... This has been a great semester, thanks to everyone for reading my blogs and I hope to talk to all of you again in person or using some form of technology someday since we are all just so smart now about using different forms of technology communication :)

Weekend fun and technology exposure :)

Well hello again everyone... Just have a quick story to share with you about my weekend and how technology brought some of my family members to tears... On Saturday we celebrated my aunt and uncle's 25th wedding anniversery by throwing them a surprise party... They had absolutly no idea, it was really fun to see that the surprise aspect was a complete success :) A kind friend of the family made a amazing slideshow with his laptop that was to be shown during the party with the use of a projector... This slideshow was really special it was a 25 minute showing of pictures of my aunt, uncle, family members, and trips over the last 25 years... He included great picture features and a ecletic choice of music to go along with the pictures... Before long into the showing I saw my aunt wiping away tears of joy and happiness... It was really great to see how this collection of pictures combined together and shown to people with the use of technology could produce such positive and happy reactions within everyone... This was a perfect example of what advancing technology can do to contribute to people's personal lives and produce such happy and emotional feelings within themselves... I really enjoyed my time at the party and the heartwarming and touching technology influced slideshow was just icing on the 25th anniversery cake :) Till next time...

Teacher's Technology Use in the Classroom

Howdy everybody... It's coming down to the wire in the semester and while I am excited to embrace the next chapter in my life it is pretty stressful closing out this one right now... However, some cool new experiences have been happening in these last few classes of EDT 400 including a young teacher who came in and spoke about her use of technology in kindegarten and first grade classrooms... It was a really interesting presentation, she has incorporated all kinds of technology resources and programs in hopes of providing her students a more interactive way of learning and a more in depth way of sharing with their families what they have been doing in school... She uses Moodle, a blog, and podcasts to keep a record of her students progression in the classroom and then posts the results of their work to the class blog... What she has created and established in her classroom is truly amazing, however it is a little overwhelming to see what she has done... It makes me feel a little insecure about my own ability to do something like that for my classrooms, but hopefully with the new skills and information I am learning from classes like this and hearing from teachers like the one that spoke, I will begin to have more ideas of what I can do for young children and how to do it... That's it for now, until next time... :)

PC Commercial Review...

Hello again everyone!! I saw a commercial this past week that really peaked my interest because it kind of went along with my Hot Topics paper I submitted earlier this semester, where I weighed the pros and cons of owning a Mac laptop compared to any other PC... Windows PC has put out a commercial where they followed around a young college student in her search for the perfect laptop that was under $1000 dollars... When entering the computer stores, she mentioned how she wanted a laptop with speed, a comfortable keyboard, a good hard drive, and a 17 inch large screen... She began by looking at Mac computers and the only one that was close to her $1000 budget was one with only a 13 inch screen... She replied to these limited laptop options with "I'm just not cool enough to be a Mac person"... She then looked at the PC options and found a much larger variety to choose from... This inevitably resulted in her finding the perfect laptop that matched everything she wanted and more... Now I am not trying to "diss" Mac at all because they definitely have their pros... But as you can see from this commercial, there are a lot more options out there then just Macs and PCs are much more affordable to college students... Thanks for reading and feel free to check out the commercial I have posted the link below :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=621NMj9_SR4

New technology beginnings...

These past two EDT 400 classes has really opened my eyes to some new technology devices and experiences that I never thought I would even look into before... We have explored Podcasts, Wikis, and SmartBoard in class and I am kind of embarrassed to say that I have never looked at a Podcast before this, I thought Wikis were an inaccurate source, and SmartBoard I thought was maybe a really bright contractor or builder? LOL But after these classes I am happy to say that I have broaden my horizons and hopefully with the information learned my classrooms will be more enriched in technology use... The Podcasts are a great resource for both teachers and students, you can find just about any topic in a audio or video podcast and the best part about them is they are FREE! SmartBoard is a really great tool and we were lucky enough to have a stimulating demonstration of it and I was glad that this was my first opportunity seeing it... It was predicted that in the future SmartBoard will replace every chalkboard and marker board... It was really interesting to think that this might happen... How will schools change? And will traditional teachers who have been teaching for years be open to a change like this? All I know is that if SmartBoards were a part of every classroom lectures would be a lot more interesting and children would become much more involved in the lessons... That's it for now... Till next time :)

A Whole New Mind Review

Well, its been a while since my last post and its time for me to open up my mind again and share with you some thoughts. During Spring Break we were required to read A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink, however I do not see this book as a requirement I see it as a helpful tool. I thought it was a great resource for aspiring teachers who want to provide their students with a technological learning environment where all the lessons are accommodating to their own learning styles.
In the book Pink talked about the six senses, which I thought were really interesting and a great way to determine the most accurate way to teach children. My favorite two senses of the six were design and play. Design is a big part to every teacher's classroom and curriculum. Teachers want to make sure they design a classroom environment that will produce a positive place where children can have fun and learn at the same time. Teachers also want to make sure they design a curriculum that will cover the most developmental areas and address the most areas that the children need growth in. Play was another great sense mentioned. Play is always important in the classroom and I believe it produces the most learning within children, especially socially. Technology provides a lot of opportunities for both design and play. Technology and classrooms are evolving so fast that it is essential for prospective teachers to stay informed, which is why I am glad I had the opportunity to read this book.
That's it for now until next time...

Using my Skype webcam

Hello again everyone! I know it has been a while since my last post, but I had to give my brain a little mental break and shut it down last week, but now it is time to reboot. I did get a chance to have a technological experience over my week break when I had a Skype conversation with my cousin that I have not seen in months. It was so cool to see her and be able to talk face to face, not just a regular old phone conversation anymore. My family members and I have taken a giant leap into the technological future. After having my Skype conversation with my cousin I started thinking about how beneficial Skype webcam would be in the classroom. It could really give kids an interactive learning experience from a educated perspective and the educated side does not even need to leave the comfort of their home, office, or classroom. I hope that I continue to have positive experiences with Skype, because I am seriously considering using Skype webcam broadcasts in my future classrooms, so my students can have a variety of different learning experiences in school. Till next time...

Technology Commercial Review

Hello again... Well I do not have much to discuss about myself... However, I did see a new technology commercial this week that I thought was interesting... Microsoft used a four and a half year old girl in their new computer advertisement to demonstrate how easy it is to use their features and products like uploading digital pictures... The little girl shows the television audience how to upload, enhance and fix, and send digital pictures to people, in this case her parents... While this ad was very cute and actually a good demonstration to those people out there, who may feel intimidated by the fast moving technology world, I can't help but wonder if this is a good example or a bad prediction of the future to come for the younger, much younger users and viewers.
When in truth downloading, uploading, or anything to do with a computer is not always as simple as a commercial portrays. Just because it shows a young girl doing it viewers should not be fooled. Everything new must be learned and everything new must be tried several times before it can successfully be mastered. I do not know how much I like a young child portrayed as a computer teacher, when she was probably being instructed during the entire acting production of the commercial. Children should be exposed to technology because they are the future and so is technology, but I don't think children should be used as bait for computer buyers out there who think it is as simple as this ad demonstrates... I don't know, that's just my opinion I might be a little dramatic here and taking this ad a little literally, but it is just what I think... Any other thoughts?

Wall-E Review

Hey all! I know I am going to get a little off topic, but I just had to share with you a movie that I saw just this weekend and while it was a children's movie I thought it brought up a really interesting theory regarding advancing technology for the future. Little Wall-E was a robot that was created along with many other robots to clean up after humans, they pretty much did everything for humans. So, this inevitably enabled humans all they did was sit in chairs that moved on their own and watched a t.v. all day that just appeared in front of them. All the humans were very overweight because they did not need to get up or do anything for themselves because robots did everything. I won't go into too much more detail about it because I think everyone should see Wall-E the movie it is awfully cute and interesting how they viewed humans in the future. I recommend everyone watch this movie and see how their views reflect the future. It is interesting to think while this was a innocent, fun children's movie will our far distant future look like this with robots and us not having to do anything? I don't know just something to think about... Till next time :)

Teachers and Blogging

I decided to do some research in regards to teachers and blogging. Do teachers like to blog? Does it make communication between students, parents, and peers easier?
For the most part I have found positive articles and reviews about blogging. One teacher Jeff Utecht, who is a big believer in blogging in the classroom explained in his article Teachers as blogging models that teachers "must model good blogging for your students. You must read blogs, reflect on what you are learning, and link to other sources. That as a blogger your actions speak louder than words." Jeff saw great results in the classrooms he guided through the blogging process. Children were beginning to create amusing and informative webpages, that they were able to add to as they learned throughout the year.
On the other hand, I found an article that was not as positive with its blogging results as others were. Teachers speak out of turn was an article by Greg Toppo from USA Today. He investigated some of the more negative results that have happened as a direct result of blogging, including loss of jobs and teachers and students being ridiculed because of some of their blog posts. Greg says that while most teacher blogs are being used to talk about different classroom successions and failures and discussion follows. Other teachers are taking their blogs as an opportunity to rant and rave about the "unflattering details" that go on in to public schools, like lack of funding, vandalisim, and accounts of chaos about children. This has resulted in a lot of new and up in coming teachers losing thier first time jobs, because of the free speech they used in their web blogs.
While I think web blogging is good and becoming a more technological advancement for teacher communication I cannot help but wonder how much blogging will end up doing more bad than good for teachers. I just hope that with some of the negative results that has happened to teachers blogging in the past, future teachers will become smarter and more sensitive in what they say on the internet. It is very important to remember that everyone can read what you think and write and you should think before you post.

My First Blog

Hi! I am Christina. Well, it is the beginning of another semester here and one of the highlights of Spring 2009 is a computers and education class where I get to create and manage my very own blog. This is very exciting for me and a little scary at the same time since I have never blogged before and I don't know what goes into insightful blog posts. However, this semester is all about gaining a new respect and understanding for advancing technology and what is have to offer for my future classrooms. So, I think I should just keep my head held high and see what this blogging has to offer to me.

- Some things I want to explore for my next blog will include: what has blogging done for teachers? does it make it easier for teachers to communicate with others and share their ideas for producing a better classroom atmosphere?