Project #6

Blog Post #5

The iSchool Initiative

   Travis Allen was obviously a motivated and innovative high school senior. As a senior in high school, I was more interested in what girls were in my class and whether my grades were high enough to keep me clear from parental enforced probationary periods. I was far from forming international initiatives like The iSchool Initiative.
   The idea of incorporating iTouches into classrooms to supplement learning is not necessarily a revolutionary idea I'm sure. I am sure there are teachers out there that incorporated the device into their classroom when they first came out. However, to suggest that we replace traditional classroom tools with the iTouches is brilliant. The iSchool apps discussed in the iSchool Initiative would make for great learning devices to replace books, calculators, maps, globes, and paper products.
   In Zeitgeist's Young Mind's entry, it was plain to see that Travis Allen's efforts over the past three years have payed off. He looks to have created quite a program that is making a big impact on our education system.
   I think that the idea is brilliant. The apps used for examples in the video all seem as though they would work perfectly to not only replace school supplies, but to help students with organization, as well as establish better communication between students, teachers, and parents. Personally, I feel as though a pro verse con list for applying the use of iTouches into our school systems would result in a long list of reasons to utilize this initiative. I may be forced to admit that I play devil's advocate more times than not and instinctively look for reasons not to enforce a new idea. I was at lost for such practices with Allen's idea. In fact, it's surprising that his movement is not bigger than it is.
 
Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir

   This video was amazing. As an advocate for music of all kinds, I appreciated the musical aspect of the video. Even more impressive, the amount of coordination that must have been involved is impressive not only on a technological platform, but a musical one as well. To line up each participant's contribution to such perfect alignment must have been pain staking. I love the idea of incorporating this kind of use of technology into music. I noticed in the credits that Virtual Choir featured singers from all over the world. It is amazing to think that this composer could use singers from so many different places and still collaborate with all of them and put together such a beautiful piece of music.

Teaching in the 21st Century

   According to Kevin Roberts, to teach in the 21st century is a shift in the traditional form of instruction including the presentation of facts and content to the now of helping to filter information students have access to. I am inclined to agree with most of Roberts' assertions. While I do agree that educators should adapt to more of a facilitator of building skills, there will always be a place for formal instruction. Mathematics still have formulas and our histories will not change. While students now have different outlets to access this information, there is still and forever will be the need for an educator to present these to students. There are certain disciplines that social medias and technologies should supplement rather than replace.
    Students do have the ability now days to access a plethora of information from countless sources due to technology. It is very important for educators to arm students with the abilities to not only access and process this information, but to also teach them how to assimilate new information with old as well as filter fact from fiction.
    In Teaching in the 21st Century, I loved the emphasis that Roberts placed on the difference between entertainment and engagement. In a world of decreasing attention spans, teachers aim to entertain students while spoon feeding curriculum. It is imperative that we as educators of tomorrow make sure to instead engage our students, igniting creativity and originality within.

Flipping the Classroom

   I love the idea of this approach of instruction. As a student, I often times found myself in the groupings of students outside of the norm described by Katie Gimbar's Flipping the Classroom. In some disciplines, I grasped the information quickly and became bored with the slow pace of instruction leading to a lack of concentration. In other subjects, I found myself slow to understand leading to discouragement and frustration. In both circumstances, the lesson outside of the first couple of minutes was rendered useless. I was a goner. As mentioned in Dr. Lodge McCammon's Fizz-Flipping the Classroom, lecture was ineffective and a waste of time for me and students like me.
   To use videos for instruction for use by students before class is brilliant. This puts the pace at which they learn in their own hands with the option of pausing and rewinding. It is much more interactive than traditional homework that I was inclined to and would have supplemented my homework experiences dramatically.
    While this is a great idea, I feel as though it could be used more in some disciplines than others. For example, I aim to teach history/social studies in the future. I can definitely see where a tactic like this would be awesome for a history teacher. But in the same respect, our history is a story that needs to be told. The application process of history is different than say the application of mathematics. There is an inherit need for history to be told, and many times an application exercise of curriculum in a history course involves direct instruction.

C4T Assignment

Comment #1

   I viewed Art Viewer by John Burrows. His blog is dedicated to the artwork of his art students. While the posts are not very recent, they are from 2012 and are very impressive. I did not expect the caliber art that is present on his blog. I commented on Portraits. Each student in this post drew a portrait of someone famous and not. I was amazed at some of the drawings. Examples of people drawn include Jack Nicholson, Taylor Swift, and Justin Bieber. In my first comment, I complimented the students abilities to create art as well as John's dedication to showing off his students' artwork. I enjoyed viewing these creations and look forward to re-visiting this blog.


Comment #2

   In my second comment, I viewed a post that was dedicated to one specific drawing that happened to be a work in progress. It was apparent that Mr. Burrows was particularly proud of this piece because he wanted to showcase it; and for obvious reasons. Similar to my previous comment, I complimented the art. I was genuinely impressed with the student's abilities and completely understand why he wanted to showcase it in a post. I look forward to seeing the finished work.

Blog Assignment #4

   I found Langwitches to be an extremely informative blog! After reading the assigned material, I cruised over the blog and found a plothora of useful information. It is blogs like these that I foresee myself taking away valuable information from when I am looking for inspiration in creating my own lesson plans

First Graders Create Their Own Read-Along Book

   While I was somewhat familiar with podcasts before this assignment, I have never even fathomed the idea of incorporating this technology into the classroom for learning purposes. It was amazing to me as to how much the children in Ms. Tolisano's class got out of creating the podcast for Dinosaurs Before Dark. I can definitely see how as a teacher one could really get creative with podcasts to help their students with reading, writing, and speech lessons as well as in other curriculums. I loved the fact that the children were so engaged in the recording process of the book. According to the post, the children were actively experimenting with their voices such as inflection and tone to reap the best possible recording. They also enjoyed working with garageband in setting up the audio. While I do not see to many combinations of how this could be used to enhance a students reading and writing abilities, it says to me that any activity that grasps the attention of students and not only engages them in learning, but motivates them to do the best they can is an activity worth pursuing. Also, while playing the recording, the students actively followed the audio while following along the text with a finger. I can see where reading time would be more engaging and exciting if they were to follow along a recording in which they had pride in making opposed to traditional methods of reading.

    I was most impressed with the benefit of podcasts in their nature of sharing. It is so encouraging to think as more and more educators turn to podcasts and technologies like them for instruction, there will be more and more great ideas for teachers to share with one another good ideas for instruction through podcasts.

Podcasting with the First Grade

   In this post, students were asked to record the roles of the character Jack and Annie in the book Vacation Under the Volcano, by Mary Pope Osborne. Similiar to my previous thoughts, it is amazing at how enthusiastic and motivated these students are to participate in this podcasting activity. They seem genuinely excited about taking part in the recording. When you find an activity that encourages your students to use their imagination and to expand their creative abilities, you have yourself a good lesson. When you do all this as well as fully engage your students in participating in an enjoyable and team building exercise, you have yourself gold for an instructional tool.

Flat Stanley

   Similiar to the previous posts, I found the podcasts dedicated to Flat Stanley by Jim Brown to be a great idea for motivating children. This activity required the children to pick a geographical location and to check out a book on that location. After researching their location of choice, they were to create a podcast informing it's listeners of that specific destination. I cannot think of a better way to deliver a geography lesson. Not only are the students building confidence in developing their own technological creation in a podcast, but they are learning about different places all over the world.

  

Wordle Project #2

Wordle Project #3

Blog Post #3

Blog Post #3 

1.  Peer review is an effective way to evaluate and improve a classmate's academic work. It can be immensely effective so long as the parties involved subscribe to certain rules of conduct. I find from personal experience, that it is helpful to obtain constructive criticism from not only an authoritative presence, but from peers as well. If done properly, both parties can benefit from such instruction.
    When receiving peer review, it is important to keep an open mind to suggestions and corrections. One must be careful not to become defensive about any suggestions that are offered. Furthermore, the person offering suggestions must be careful to not only offer constructive criticism, but also suggestions for improvement as well as compliments. Also, you are going to want to remain positive and stay away from any instructions or statements that maintain any negative connotations. Also discussed in the tutorial and video, it is important to be thorough in your review and to make sure to give the effort that you would expect in return. The point of peer review is to improve students' abilities. By sticking to the guidelines discussed in the tutorial and video, one can improve a peer's writing abilities without stepping on toes.

2. a) In the video Technology in Special Education, Lacey Cook demonstrates how her students with verbal, audible, and learning limitations utilize technology to improve their capabilities in an academic setting.
    It was very interesting to see the broad spectrum of uses this particular class had for technology to improve their ability to learn. Everything from audible limitations, to communication limitations, to visual limitations, the students in this class could use technology to their advantage to better overcome their limitations. It is also exciting to think that as technology progresses, the possibilities for future advancement in special education through uses of technology will increase. This video showed how a student who once was limited to not participating in class activities because of their physical or learning disability can overcome those objections and participate.
   b) I found an app entitled Sentence Builder that I feel would be highly effective with a special needs student that had any type learning disability. This app allows the student to literally build a sentence from the ground up. I feel as though this would be effective because it has great graphics that will not only help to keep the student engaged, but it is organized in a way that allows the student to make mistakes but is instantaneously corrected. The words are large and gives the student the ability to make their own mistakes and fix them.  The video Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts by Vicki Davis was an interesting video that stressed the importance of empowering students through allowing them to incorporate themselves in the   world using technology in the classroom.
    I found it very interesting that the classroom where this video was filmed was at a rural school in south Georgia. Ironically, as mentioned by a lady on the film, these rural students were connected to students all over the world. There seemed to be a certain level of academic freedom in this setting. The students in Mrs. Davis' Class were able to think more critically and to brainstorm and come to conclusions independently because of the technology present in their classroom. Vicki Davis even admitted that her students had recently taught her something that she did not previously know.
    I took away a lot of information regarding this project and it's effectiveness. None more important than the fact that because these students were allowed to freely think and learn, they demonstrated to their teacher their strengths and weaknesses allowing for their teacher to adjust her curriculum to maximum effectiveness to each and every student. With traditional instruction styles, only specific  students benefitted from a paper and pencil type education, whereas with the inclusion of technology, instructors can now concentrate to dial in on each and every student.

Blog Post #2

Did You Know? 3.0 - A John Strange 2012 Version 
Did You Know 3.0 A John Strange 2012 Version discusses the explosion of technology in our world today uses statistics to convey the point that our world is rapidly changing. In addition to pointing out the many changes that are and will occur, it also gives it's viewers the impression that our nation is falling behind to others. For example, the video states that 25% of the highest iqs in India outnumber our entire poplulation. This is scary to know that as the world grows smaller through technology, our population has fallen behind in academics and intellect. In addition to India, the video references China. Eighteen million Chinese now speak English and another three hundred million are learning. I am not as frightened by this fact as the previous in that I believe that the peoples of China's fluency in English will have little impact on anything but improvement in foreign relations and commerce. China has surfaced as a leader in the world market in the facets of commerce, trade, and technology. I do not feel as though it is entirely bad that the majority of them can speak our language. Im flattered. I don't know a lick of Chinese. I was flabbergasted by the statistics in the video pertaining to technology in our world. For example, over a million Youtube videos are watched every minute. It blows my mind at the magnitude of Youtube and it's influence on the world. Along side Youtube, Google, and cell phones, the technological advances in the past couple of decades have changed the world forever. The advances have changed the workplace for socities in the modern world. With that, there has to be a change in the education system to prepare our students to excel in a changing world. Other countries have the jump on us and it is scary to think that our once great and powerful nation is slipping in academics. We as educators must change our approach to teaching. Instead of spending precious instruction time on information that will most likely be obsolite within a couple of years, we need to teach our students the art of learning and give them the tools they need to adapt to the rapid changes that are so abundant in the modern world we live in.

Mr. Winkle Wakes by Mathew Needleman 
Mr. Winkle Wakes is a short video describing the world as we know it today from the perspective of a man that has been asleep for a hundred years. The video does a great job of communicationg the differential in technilogical advances in the working world and that of the education system. It uses examples of a hospital, and an office building to point out the differences in adaptation in our workplaces and our schools. Our schools and subsequently our students are neglected of cutting edge technology that other parts of the world are utilizing to prepare their students for an ever changing world. This video as simple and short as it was did a fantastic job of pointing our education system's flaws. It's example of a single old labtop in the back of the classroom versus the high tec equipment found in a hospital is a great example of our desparities in education. While I do not think that the majority of our population is oblivious to this growing problem, it takes metaphors and a media presence to ignite a change. While I do not think that Mr. Winkles Wakes will make too many appearances in Congress hearings and State Government functions, it does have almost fifty thousand views. It is a good message that our education system needs reform, and maybe if enough Youtube videos are viewed on the subject, people in power will take action.

Sir Ken Robinson: The Importance of Creativity 
In the video , The Importance of Cretivity, Ken Robinson discusses our education system and what he believes to be a major problem in it. In an extremely entertaining lecture, he discusses how we are literally sucking the creativity out of our students with a traditional and obsolete form of education. He explains that intelligence is interactive, dynamic, and distinct. We have to dwell on each with our students to not only find, but nuture the talents that lie in each student. He explains that our education system was built for an industrial world. In our hierarchy of education lies the subject matter that will best prepare learners for an industrial world. While the mathematics, languages, and humanities are so vital, we must learn to embrace each student and really tap into their creativity. He mentions that children have an enormous capacity for innovation. Initially, they are not scared to be wrong. But as they progress through our education system, they are not only taught that mistakes are the worst infraction, but that creativity should be left outside of the classroom where traditional 19th century instruction rules. We "stigmatize" mistakes while simoultaneously squander talents from children. Ken Robinson does a wonderful job of conferring upon his listeners the nature of our education system as well as what we need to do to improve it. The more educators that subscribe to the teachings of Ken Robinson and other progressives like him will see their students not only excel, but excel at what they are naturally gifted at. I took alot from this video. It inspired me to educate myself on how to make myself a highly effective educator and diligently look for ways to help my future students by finding the creativity within them that is so vital for their personal success.

Corning's narrated video A Day Made of Glass 2: Unpacked. The Story Behind Corning's Vision, Project Glass: Live Demo at Google 
Corning's narrated video A Day Made of Glass 2 depicting the possibilities for future use of glass is eye opening. The use of glass for display and interactive tools is exciting. It seems as though some of the possibilities could really benefit future generations in every day life. Specifically, education in the United States would see a tremendous change in it's system. Seeing as though education is far behind in technology with other areas of life in our society, a change of such technological advancement would do wonders to help students achieve academic and professional success. There is no doubt in my mind that students would not only learn more with the tools featured in the short film, but students would see endless possibilities in expanding not only their mind, but their creativity. it is encouraging that of the few examples Corning used, school was one. With the future of our country at mind, I think it is imperative to make sure that our schools are included with the rest of the world in technological advancements. To let our schools fall further behind is to put our students at a severe disadvantage at suceeding in the future. The examples in the video suggesting the large displays and convenient ways to project tablet information would really put endless possibilties at the fingertips of our students. It would be hard to imagine that a school of the future, like the one featured in "A Day Made of Glass" would not see an output of more creative, dynamic, and intelligent students than those of a school found in todays technological stoneage. I am excited for the future to see what advancements our schools adopt and the magnitude those advancements will have on our future students.