"What I've Learned This Year"by Mr. McClung

I really enjoyed reading this post. It was a great article for upcoming teachers. Throughout my education to become a elementary teacher, my professors have encouraged us to be effective teachers. They teach us different ways in which to be effective teachers. I think it is very important to be an effective teacher and to motivate your students in many ways. He gave a lot of helpful information on how to be an effective teacher.
Mr. McClung listed several different ways to help future teachers. One thing he feels strongly about is collaboration. He believes communication is the best medicine. He thinks you as a teacher should communicate with each of your students individually and help each of them in different ways or techniques. I really liked this article and I found it so encouraging for future teachers. Teachers should never stop learning, according to Mr.McClung.

Is Wikipedia a trusted source for information?

I do not think Wikipedia can be trusted, after reading the Wired Story and listening to the NPR Podcast. I just think its crazy that just anybody can be edited on Wikipedia. I don't think Wikipedia will ever be reliable. I do not use Wikipedia very much because of all the negative things I have heard about it. Most of my teachers at south have told us not to use Wikipedia due to this problem.I thought it was cool that they do monitor who changes information on Wikipedia. But I'm still not a big fan of it.

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

I really enjoyed watching Mr. Pausch's video http://tinyurl.com/mvy4oq. At first I thought it was going to be a long one hour video. I couldn't imagine myself sitting through an hour long video of lecture when I wasn't at school. But I was very shocked when I began watching this video. I liked how he started off talking about himself and that really grabbed my attention.I was really into it when he said he only had a few months to live. That was so sad but you couldn't tell anything was wrong with him throughout the video. He was so happy about his life. I was really amazed.
Just listening to him one time, really made me admire him. He has so much going on in his life and he still tries to encourage people. He mentioned in the video to make dreams and make a list of each of them. I liked how he made it his mission to enable childhood dreams. Mr. Pausch was so excited about the subject he was teaching. This is the type of teacher anyone would love to have.
I liked how he made his own curriculum and didn't use the same as every other teacher. He let his students come up with their own assignments. He seemed like such a great teacher.
Mr. Pausch started his speech by introducing his main topics he was going to speak about. His topics were: childhood dreams, enabling dreams of others and lessons learned.
The first thing Mr. Pausch listed as one of his dreams was being in zero gravity. I was happy he got to achieve this goal. His second thing was playing for the NFL. He never got to play for the NFL but he did get to coach a football team and this really showed him a lot through life. The third dream he mentioned was being an author in the world book encyclopedia. He also accomplished this dream. Another dream he had was to be like his idol, Captain Kirk. He got to meet him but never got to actually be him. This video and this awesome man really encouraged me to not give up on my DREAMS!!!

Web browsing alternatives

Mr. Sullivan's presentation was really interesting. It really got my attention. I can't believe all the technology that there is for people with disabilities. It is amazing how much technology can help someone with a disability. There are a lot of different laws also that I was unaware of that protect people with disability. I didn't realize there was so many.
There is screen magnification which makes the text larger on the screen and reads out loud for the person. There is the voice recognition which a person with disability can give commands by talking into a microphone. Then there is the HAL software which reads text and uses braille. I just can't get over all of the things to help those with disabilities.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is a very inappropriate thing to do. If you use anyone else's work you should always give them credit. It is a must. Students can get in really bad trouble if your suspected of cheating. Which plagiarism is considered cheating. Copyright is what protects a person's information or work from anybody trying to use their information as their own.
You should always give credit where credit is due. If you use someone else's work you must site his/her name or give a specific website. You do not have to site anything that is common knowledge or your own thoughts. It is very easy to plagarize because it is hard sometimes to summarize something with out using the words that are writtin out. The student doesn't mean to do this but doesn't catch themselves. So you should always write down all your OWN words>

Is It Okay to be a Technologically Illiterate Teacher?

Mr. Fisch gets right to the point he is trying to make in his video. I think it is not OK for teachers to be technologically illiterate. I believe that teachers should know how to use technology. Technology is getting more and more important in today's world. But I also think teachers should be able to teach even if they do not have technology.

Teachers should not just depend on technology they should know how to teach students just in case something happens to the technology in their classrooms. All teachers should know how to use computers. But you do not have to have technology in your classroom in order teach. There are still many teachers that teach really well and do not use technology in their classrooms. In order to be a great teacher I think you need to know the basics of technology. Therefore, teachers can input students grades and communicate with parents through email and such.

"It's Not About the Technology" by Kelly Hines

I strongly agree with Kelly Hines on her website/post http://www.eduratireview.com/2009/04/its-not-about-technology.html. It was very real. I liked how she emphasized on how teachers should be educators as well as learners. Teachers should help students learn and find different ways in which their students learn. Everyone learns at a different pace and in different ways. I think the teachers should put out a effort to learn how to use different technology in the classroom and teach the students how to use them also. Because our world is coming to technology only. We need to start teaching our children and students early how to use different types of technology because it is going to be very important in the future.
I think teachers should use technology in the classroom as more fun ways in which to learn. By educating the students through technology and not just writing and lecturing. Some students learn better by doing hands on and by using technology the student will be able to do this!!

Michael Wesch: A Vision of Students Today

The website http://is.gd/2c0V0 was very interesting. I found everything the students were writing to be true for most students (younger generations) in school. Students really do spend most of their time on the internet. Students are addicted to facebook and myspace and websites like that. So therefore they dont spend as much time studying books or reading, they rather just look information up on the internet. Technology is used a lot more now and it controls some people to much, to the point were people can't learn with out it. I think it is kind of sad. But it is definitly true that students bring different types of technology to school and play with it rather listen to the teacher lecture.
I don't think anything needs to be added to this video. Everything the students write are very accurate to students these days. But I think the students should be out in his/her field more and experiencing the future career instead of sitting in a classroom listening to a teacher. I think a lot of classes students have to take are a waste of money and the subject area of some classes are not even needed for his/her career. So what's the point in taking the class? Money, Money , Money!!!

Resources for Podcasting

The site http://practical principals.net/ was a really great site to listen to. A lot of these episodes were really long and got really boring though. So, I just listened to the first bit of a few episodes. They all were kinda helpful. But this is all new to me so it is a bit confusing to listen to. But that may just be me?
This site had tons of information. The speakers in most all the episodes knew what they were talking about and stayed on their topics. This site also had a lot of different links for educators to go to. All of the speakers were very professional acting. They had a bunch to talk about, but they were very knowledgeable. They were very casual and down to earth when they talked. I liked that about this website. I really wish I could do this good on videos or presentations in the future.

Former Student's Vieocast Work

The Technology Literate Teacher podcast was very good. These students did a great job and they stayed interesting throughout the video. The students were clear in their speaking and very easy to understand. I liked how they were talking to each other about a topic as if they were just sitting around having a conversation. You would never of thought this was an assignment for a class. It looks like just a couple of students talking. I also thought they all contributed throughout the video.
One thing I saw that the students were doing was being a little nervous, but not to bad. But no one can really help that. It is very hard to speak in front of people. And I know it is not going to be easy at all for me. I know that i should not use "verbal fillers" and try not to talk real fast or real slow. The students also did not look at the camera. They looked like they were talking to the microphone on the table. I also think they shouldn't just keep their hands in their laps, but should move around a little. Over all I think the students did a GREAT job!!

PODCASTS

SmartBoard Lessons Podcast is a really great podcast to listen to. It was easy to listen to and very interesting. The speakers were very funny and sounded happy about what they were talking about. It talks about different things to do at the end of the year with your class. I like that the podcast incorporated everyday movies in to the conversation. Like they used the movie Mean Girls and how in this movie there was math used in it. Mean Girls had math formulas on the blackboard in the background and this podcast mentioned was to use movies during your math lessons. It told us to go and watch movies and try and find math in them. This podcast also mentioned a website called teachersconnecting.com which let teachers talk back and forth about helpful ideas and resources to use in the classroom.

KidCast had a lot of information to share. this podcast was talking about conferences mainly. KidCast allows teachers to have conferences as a media channel. This way everyone at the conference can participate and give ideas and resources that they have. This is another way for teachers to help each other. This podcast was spoken more professionally than the SmartBoard Lessons Podcast. I liked how this podcast gave us ways to teach. Like using visual aids to teach word problems which are a hard subject for students. I really enjoyed this podcast and the information will be helpful in teaching.

This Week in Photography was like a talk show. This podcast was recorded in Canada. The hosts were really excited and friendly. This podcast seemed as if it was planned out. The host got right to the point on what they were going to talk about. They told the audience straight forward what they were going to speak about and didn't jump around and make you get lost. I think that this podcast will be very useful. It gave helpful information about different cameras and how to use them.

MacBreak Weekly was another talk show type podcast. But this one did not get straight to the point of what they were going to speak about, like This Week In Photography did. It was a bit confusing and I was lost. It was hard to follow ans wasn't very helpful to me. It was like the hosts were talking and joking around the whole time and forgot they had to speak on a topic. They never got to a direct point. I didn't really like this podcast!! SORRY!!

After listening to each of these podcasts, I found that podcast will be an important tool to use throughout education. It helps to communicate with other teachers and find new and exciting was of teaching. Podcast are FUNNN!!!:)