My EDM 310 Blog Assignments are Now Complete

Although all of my blogs may not have always been on time due to technical difficulties, I finally got them all finished with a day to spare. I am thankful I have this page to show off to people when they ask me what I did this semester. I had a great time with everyone in my class and enjoyed spending every Thursday night with them. Merry Christmas everyone and I hope I have more classes with all of you at some point in the future!

What I Learned?

I cannot begin to explain the things I learned in this EDM 310 class. When I tell my friends I have to go home to write a blog for a class they look at me like I am crazy. I am glad I have this blog containing all of my evidence of what I have learned in this class. This was my first Education class to take and I must say I was nervous at the beginning but I think I ended up doing fairly well in this class. I believe the most interesting thing I learned was all the things that can be done with a Google Account. Before this class I did not have a g-mail address, which now I use for almost everything. I also did not have a personalized iGoogle page of my own that allows me to get my daily horoscope, look at movie times, check my e-mail, and get a new Seinfield quote everyday ALL ON ONE PAGE! I believe learning how to create documents such as presentations, papers, and spreadsheets on Google was also a very useful skill I am thankful to have learned. Those are only the things I learned that help with my personal life. The amount of things I have learned that can be helpful in the classroom are endless. Not only to mention the Google Documents, but the blog I am typing on write now is also associated with Google. Blogging and podcasts can be used in endless amounts of ways in education as you can read about in many of my previous blogs.

Duke University- Center for Documentary Studies

The podcast I listened to on iTunes was "South in Black and White" by Tim Tyson and Tom Ranken. The two men are discussing how we live in a world today where they think it is ok to discuss things that happened in the past. They are wanting people to understand and think outside of the box about some of these racial issues (such as the cross burning discussed in the podcast) instead of seeing it as evil. They discuss the importance of exploring history and how it influences us in many ways such as liturature, art, and music. I believe they stress the point that they are not teaching the course to critcize or start drama but to get people to look at things from different perspectives, something my history teacher has been encouraging us all semester to do.

The second podcast I listened to was "Marilou (Project Hope)" by Libby Conn. After listening to this podcast I understand now that these are supposed to be videos but unfortunantly mine are not working. This podcast is about a woman named Marilou who starts out by showing a scar on her body and explaining the horrible things that she has lived through. Libby Conn (the narrorator) goes on to explain Marilou's battle with her mother's schizophrenia. After many of her mother's violent outbreaks she was forced to live on the streets of Boston to escape her mother's physical abuse. The podcast goes back and forth from Libby interviewing Marilou about the life she lived due to her mother's disorder.

Electronic Interaction

For my electronic interaction project I did not choose a teacher from another city and state I chose a college student, my cousin Christina Payne, who is also an Education Major (Special Education) at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota. The most common way I talk to her is through Facebook, so we decided on the simple solution of having our conversation through Facebook messages. I started by asking her the basic questions:

J: Where do you attend school and what is your major?

C: I go to St. Cloud State University and I'm actually a Special Education Major with a license in learning disabilities, then I'm planning on getting my autism certificate

J: Ok, and at St. Cloud are there many aspects of technology used in the classroom? I know we use things like clickers and online classes at South Alabama but I want to know some of the things being used in classroom everywhere. I wonder if they are similar?

C: In psychology classes and a lot of chemistry classes at St. Cloud, we use these things called clickers, you have to buy them, then you have to buy a separate pin number for each class and sign up online. We used clickers for attendance and quizzes that we had every week. Then later you can go online and check your grades. It was kind of nice because they let us know if we got the question right or wrong after we submitted our answers. Lets see, what else do we have? We have online classes as well. I don't take them thought, so I can't tell you what they're like. I guess they are supposed to be easier than in class classes. If you need more information I have other things to talk about.

J: Yes, any other information would be helpful because I am trying to learn as much possible about the technology used there so that I can compare it to what we use at South. We used the clickers in Psychology and Biology, mainly because they're both pretty big classes.

C: Ok, well we have this thing online called D2L (desire to learn) and this is where our teachers can post assignments, quizzes, grades, homework, their objectives, and anything else online for us to see and then we can keep track of our grades and when everything is due. There's also this thing that teachers do for their resume called E-PORTFOLIO and it's basically a resume but online and split into different categories of what you have accomplished so far with any experiences, essays you wrote for college along with other work accomplished in college. So for almost all of my teaching classes I have to do an assignment for my E-portfolio. It's very hard and I have to do mine through this program called Dream Weaver.

J: Because I'm an Education major we have e-portfolios too. We use a system called foliotek though and it's not too confusing but I wonder if they are the same thing. All this information is very helpful but I have a few more questions.
1.This D2L? Does every teacher have their own page or does it only show you the teachers you are taking right now?
2. You're e-portfolio, are they in categories like content knowledge, teach and learning, diversity, literacy, and professionalism?
3. and then those categories are broken down into like technology, ethics, and things like that?
4. Give me a couple of examples of stuff that you've had to put in your E-portfolio.

C: Being a special education major is nice because I work at a group home for people with disabilities so I'm getting experience to put in the e-portfolio. I would have no problem answering these questions...
1. Every teacher has there own page set up for every one of their classes on D2L and they can either choose if they want to use it or not. If they want to use it, we have a D2L page ad the class shows up and w just click on that and it has all of our information for that class.
2. Our E-portfolios are more like experience, where we live, our classes, IEP examples, and what we would like to deal with as a Special Education teacher... Learning Disabilities, Emotional Behavior Disorders, or CBD. I think special education e-portfolios are a little different because we have IEP's to deal with.
4. Some examples that I have had to put in my E-portfolio are IEP examples, so that they know that I know how to write them out for a student, Experiences with special education, my personality, and stuff like that. It's just like a resume but it's easier for job places to look at. It's tough though cause you can't just copy and paste stuff, everything is in a file.
I'm glad I can help. I know how tough education projects can be because you always have to contact people for information and stuff. I only have a year and a half left so if you have any questions what so ever about education let me know cause I can help you out. I got lucky, I just decided my major last semester and I'm still going to graduate in four years!

ACCESS Project

Matt and I chose to visit Robertsdale Highschool to check out their ACCESS lab. I learned more about ACCESS from their vice principal, Mr. Mitchell, than I have learned all year. He started by explaining to us that they physical aspects to a lab were just as important as the technology used. Some things that we found out that are neccessary that you don't read about on web sites are the walls and the lights. Mr. Mitchell told us that the walls of the room they chose had to painted because the gloss makes it harder to see on the camara. Also, they used something called grid lights which helps keep off the reflection for students watching in another location. Another thing they did to keep their lab up to date is putting slides on the chair as opposed to wheels, which helps the carpet stay nice.

Next thing we talked about was the technology of the system. Mr. Mitchell told us they use a system called Tamdberg Audio Science. In the classroom they use lap tops instead of putting up computers at each desk because they students do not use a computer for every class. The lap tops are numbered so that if there is damage done to one they know which students it is. The classroom had two televisions, one in the front and one in the back. He explained that the one in the back is used to see the students in another location and the one in the front is used to see the students in the classroom. Another thing he showed us was something called a document cam. It looked somewhat like a projector but has the power to zoom in and out very, very well. He showed us how it worked and creates a very clear image no matter how close you zoom. Other aspects of technology we saw was the speaker that picks up vibrations, it allows anyone in the class to be heard at the same volume reguardless where they are sitting.

In the front of the classroom next to the printer\fax machine there is a telephone that allows them to call the "super computer" located at Troy. These are the people in charge of everything. If there are any problems with the system they must call them and inform them to fnd out the way to fix it. Troy is also in charge of matchng up the students in another location to the school which have these ACCESS labs. The teachers trained to teach these classes were taught at Troy, but then we learned that the students in the remote locaton don't even have an actual teacher with them sometimes the just use an aid to keep the students under control. So they are literally being taught everything through a camera and some speakers.

We had the opportunity to ask Mr. Mitchell some questions and he discussed with us some of the complications with an ACCESS lab. These included the fact that many schools have different scheduling. Therefore, it is hard to create a master schedule knowing when and what is going to be taught. Some schools may go by block schedule and others by periods , creating the problem of getting students in two different locations to learn the same thing, at the same time, for the same period of time. We asked him how Robertsdale Highschool came around to getting an ACCESS lab. He informed us that it was granted to them because they filled out the paper work and were chosen. The lab cost around $85 thousand dollars and took about a month from start to finish.

It's Time For Technology Talk

The first one of our EDM 310 podcasts that I listened to was my own. Matt and I discussed "Technology Used in our Classes at South". First of all it was very hard to sit through it and get used to hearing my own voice. Some of the things I noticed that we could have worked on is how nervous we sounded. Also, our is a lot shorter than many of the other podcasts. I think we needed to relax a little bit and I'm pretty sure we would do a lot better if we had practiced more. However, we did make a point to make sure we were making conversation instead of sounding monotoned.

The second podcast I chose to listen to is "College of Education Classes and Technology Used in Them" by Kathryn Bentley, Kerri Owens, and Hanna Nolan. One thing that could have made this podcast better is being a little more certain about the facts. They incorporated everyone into the conversation very well but then everyone is uncertain about the question asked. I was very interested to know about the scale of 1-10 and the consequences of scoring a 1 on anything in Foliotek. I think these girls did a wonderful job with their speaking skills though. Everything was heard very clearly.

The next podcast I decided to check out were my good old buddies Brooke Busby, Kimberly Pierce, and Ashley Corley while they talked about Experiences with Blogging. The information used for this podcast was very interesting. The only advice I could give is to make it sound a little more like conversation rather than just reading. I understand though that it was our first podcast and none of us did a spectacular job. I enjoyed watching everyone do them more than listening to them by myself.

The last podcast I listen to was Joye Wiggins, Rachael Beaty, and Keller Weathers. I think this group did the best at making these sound like a real conversation. Again the topic they discussed was very interesting and easy to hold listeners attention. I think this group had the same problem I did, with trying to spit out what they wanted to say. We all could have worked on that a little more. I think it got us off to a very good start doing our podcasts in Mrs. Averitt's class.

Mathematics with Technology

This podcast was put together by Judy Chandler. The topic of the podcast Mathematics with Technology. She discusses some views on ho teachers feel about adding technology in our schools today. Some teachers think it takes to much time, other believe it's too much work to learn. Technology influences what is taught and enhances learning. Some technological advances made in the math department help children with keeping their attention and can be offered immediate feedback and also helps use different examples so that they have more practice.

In the aforementioned I named many ways technology can be used in the Mathematics field, it motivates, it keeps the attention, it helps children see where their mistakes are. On the other hand podcasts like these can be helpful for not only motivating student but also motivating teachers. I believe the podcast I just listened to was recorded in hope of adults listening to it and learning something from it, not just for kids.

What is a Planet?

The podcast I chose to watch was from ages K-5 titled, "What is a Planet." The video podcast discussed the number of planets found in the solar system. The thing they found was hard to classify as a planet because of certain characteristics. According to Neil deGrasse Tyson, the director, the count of planets in the early 1800s was greater than it is now. After finding all these planets they came to the conclusion that they had actually found an asteroid belt. Most of the document talks about a planet called Series that turns our to be an asteroid along with the well known "planet," Pluto.

I think podcasts like these are very important in our education today. They do not only teach learning through listening but there types of podcast are short videos that broaden our knowledge about things we would have never learned. I think this podcast was very interesting and used by any age but especially younger children because it is explained very easily. To check out more podcasts like this you can search in the iTunes Store.

"Growth" vs. "Fixed" Minds

"Growth" vs. "Fixed" Minds is a video podcast put on by the Stanford University. The students were seperated into two groups: the Fixed mindset were the children who appear intellegent and then the growth mindset were the children who were taught how the brain works like a muscle and absorbs information. Dr. Dwech tells the interviewer that teachers could tell which students came from which workshop. Dr. Dwech gives a very good example about race car drivers and how the drivers improved by finding there mistakes and fixing them.

I believe podcasts like this show teachers the importance of not only what they teach students but how they teach them. Dr. Dwech states how important motivation is for children. They can have the study skills they need, but not the motivation to apply them. Children need teachers to break down the learning cycle and not just give them information but also help them process it and understand it.

Mr. Sullivan

Mr. Sullivan was a visitor in our EDM 310 class on October 2nd. He put on a presentation called "Accessibility to All." Mr. Sullivan explained to us that he was legally blind and explained many softwares that he and others use to help. We got to see examples of how these tools were used. One of them was a lense that zoomed in on where ever the person runs the mouse. Another one we looked at would read aloud whatever the mouse ran over. Mr. Sullivan explained to us that when one of your senses does not work, the others work better. He showed us that because he was blind, he could listen to the computer reading everything very fast and translate it for us. He also helped raise awareness that there are people out there and all web sites should be accessible to everyone. We learned how to make our blogs accessible with just a little extra work. Now with these programs if he were to every wonder about my blog he could find out with out the help of other. I very much appreciated him taking the time to come talk to our class.

Edutopia

A Night in Global Village: Heifer Ranch by Gearge Lucus was the first video I watched. It is the story about people help the less fortunate. They allow kids to take a walk in someone else's shoes. They also donate livestock to impoverished families and raises awareness about impoverished and hungry families. These students and teachers take are shown what the living conditions are like in other countries. They are separated into groups and given rights to one resource in which they must exchange for other things they need. They also receive other good such as matches and food. They undergo many challenges such as making their own food and some student lost the use of their hand. One girl explained that this trip showed her how to live outside of her comfort zone and shows what other people go though in their lives.

The second video I watched on Itunes was The Edible Schoolyard put on by Martin Luther King Junior Middle School in Berkeley, California. It is about students in 6Th grade at this school who spend their first period outside planting and gardening. The class uses this garden as a hand on experience when teaching math, social studies, and science. The teachers are hired to make the garden the center of teaching. The students are taught to work together with their other classmates to get the jobs done, most of them probably wouldn't get done without teamwork. The founder of the Edible Schoolyard, Alice Waters, started to the garden to cut down on costs. I am truly jealous of these students.

Alabama Virtual Library

The Alabama Virtual Library, also known as the A.V.L., is a group of internet resources that can be used by student, teachers, or even just citizen of the state of Alabama. The site consists of magazines, journals, and news paper articles that can be helpful to the public. One way to use the site is to get an Alabama Virtual Library Card that you can get from any of the Public Libraries here in Mobile.

The other way the site can be useful is the database search. This tool allows you to find information but selecting an age group or a topic, ranging from Adult Education to Social Sciences. This site can also be used to find a specific magazine or journal, however it is only virtual copy of th information it is still very helpful to people. The Alabama Virtual Library can be useful to pretty much anyone living in Alabama but it is especially useful for college students and teachers.

Podcasts

The first podcast I checked out on itunes was ConnectLearning hosted by David Warlick. I chose Episode 99 which was an interview with a librarian named Ann Krembs. Although I have not heard any of the others, the flow of this one is very natural. It doesn't seen rehearsed on like it is being read off of a card. Another thing to point out, the music in the beginning caught my attention right away.

The second one I listen to was EdTechtalk, which coincidentally starts out with music too. The voice at the beginning sounds almost like a robot. They state early in the podcast that there goal is to welcome conversation. In the episode that I heard they are interviewing a woman about parents and their role in school. Just like the last one this one doesn't seem to be memorized.

The next one I listened to was KidCast. The tag line for this podcast is very clever: "Questions make the world go round." This is very true especially when it comes to kids because that is how they learn is by asking questions. This one does not sound as natural as the last too. It sounds a little more organized and more thought out as though they spent a lot of time on it. I don't think this podcast would be very interesting to children, it is more like listening to a professors lecture.

Now I have moved on to listening to MacBreak Weekly. I do not like listening to commercials so this one was not one of my favorites. Luckily I have a "scrub" bar to skip through these advertisements. The MacBreak Weekly sounds like the morning news or maybe two D.J.s on the radio babbling about economy and politics and other current events.

SMARTBoard Lessons Podcast was my favorite one I listened to. The music in this podcasts encourages people to keep listening. It's not all talking, it has some good music to keep people's attention. The lesson on the podcast is about clouds. Again, it sounds like people on the radio just having a conversation. The conversation in this podcast reminds me of Chuck and Shandi off of Lingo, they sound very comfortable with each other. I like how they don't only talk about the lesson they also talk about what's going on in there lives, so it sounds more personal.

This Week in Photography was my last podcast to listen to. The host of the show has nick named the show T.W.I.P. This podcast would be very interesting to any person who likes to take pictures or wants to anything with photography. It discusses magazines and photographers. The host of this show is a man named Scott. In this episode he interviews his favorite photographer named Andrew Darlow and where to find the best printer. Podcasts are great for people to share there thoughts to anyone who wants to listen!

The Last Lecture

"The Last Lecture" was a lecture done by Randy Pausch. This lecture was done by a man who only had about three to six months to live due to ten tumors in his body. His over all personality was wonderful. He was very healthy looking and very optimistic about the lecture. He looked as though he had been happy all his life because he showed pictures and noted that he was always smiling as a child. In the beginning of the lecture when explaining to everyone his situation, he said "We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." I loved this and wrote it down immediately.

The lecture he gave covered many keys points such as the "head fake learnings," where he would teach one thing with the intention of secretly teaching them something else. Another thing mentioned often were the brick walls. These were the things stopping us from what we want to do. Sometimes they're there for a reason. He talked about his childhood dreams. They ranged from being in a zero gravity atmosphere to being an imagineer. I loved the story about his football coach and the statement about when you're messing up and nobody tells you that means nobody cares. I thought that was a very good way of looking at things.

Randy Pausch started a course called Building Virtual Worlds. His students did such a good job on there first assignment that he didn't feel he had anything left for them to do. His students got so good at building these virtual worlds that they started having shows for people to come and see the worlds created by this students. They showed an example of one and it was amazing. It looked like someone must have spent a ridiculous amount of time on these projects.

This extraordinary individual created a game based on Alice in Wonderland that taught people about computer programming. This is one of those "head fakes" I discussed earlier. He also created a similar program that taught java through and interpretation of The Sims game. He talked about his friend And Van Dam that talked him into going to graduate school and becoming a professor. He told him if he was going to sell something it should be something worth while like education.

He ended the lecture by telling the importance of Karma, that of which I am a firm believer in. He tells the audience to always apologize when you mess up and to always focus on others. It was already known to the audience that this man was not self centered at all . There he was giving his last lecture and he talked about the people in his life that have influenced him and made him the person he is, but he went further and got the entire audience to sing happy birthday to his wife. The last few things he said were the most important. The lecture was titled follow your dreams but it was another "head fake". He was teaching people how to lead there life. Also it was to teach his children something. It was very interesting. If you would like to read it the link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

International Blogs

The first international log I found is a teacher in Brazil who uses the blog to communicate with his class. He answers some of the questions that his students post to him. Also another thing I have yet to see on a blog, he had a place where the students would take a vocabulary quiz. It was very interesting I almost wish I was one of his students so I could see what the test was like. The top of the page said "blog designed to test and discuss web tools that can enhance language learning". The teacher also put many helpful links and tools on the right of the page such as a Google Search, the Cambridge Dictionary, and a slang dictionary which I thought was very funny. I think everyone should check out this blog I believe it was the most organized and easiest to follow and use the tools. The link to this blog is http://ihopeitworks.blogspot.com/.

The second blog I chose to check out was started by a teacher named Erin Freeman from New Zealand. The name of her blog is M3teacher, which I think is very clever. This blog uses many interesting techniques to communicate with the teacher. One blog post had an invitation to study at a pizza bar. It had a place where the people who were coming could put their names. Also the teacher posts weekly, a list called "Diigo's Bookmarks." These are links that the teacher thought her kids or parents might find interesting or useful. Some of these links included online flashcards and other fun ways of learning. I have placed a picture of the teacher to the right. The link to this site is http://m3teacher.blogspot.com/.

Educational Blogs in the U.S.

The first blogs I found used in school is not used by one grade specifically. It has posts from teachers about ducks that they keep as pets in there classroom. It all started when a duck laid eggs on one of the playgrounds at the school. They placed an egg in each kindergarten class and the blog is used to keep the students and parents and other children at the school updated on the ducks. The blog is called The Duck Diaries which I think is a very clever name. It was very interesting reading about what was going on. The blog also posts pictures that some of the 1st and 2nd graders drew of ducks and other things. The link to this blog is http://duckdiaries.edublogs.org/. I hope some of you find this interesting even though it is from a couple of years ago.

The second blog I chose to look at was for a sixth grade class. The site was put together by a teacher named Mr. Hetherington. I never found the name of the school but some of the blogs posted were very interesting. A lot of the blogs were posted by the teacher telling his class about it and about somethings going on in his class. Then there were many, many blogs posted by students. Some of them were just funny little things they decided to post on there and then I saw some haikus and poems that the students had posted. I assumed this was an assignment that the teacher told them to post on the blog site. This site is also very old but I thought it was one that showed a lot of the things you can use blogs for in school such as assignments and communicating with your teachers. The link to this site is http://hetherington.learnerblogs.org/.

ACCESS

ACCESS, also know as Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators and Students Statewide, is a program that gives access to instructions and courseworks for highschools in Alabama. ACCESS will consist of Internetbased courses with Alabama certified teachers helping with the online process that would not usually concist of Alabama ceritfied teachers. The program will also have internet bases courses using instruction models tought by "E-teachers. "

Some ways ACCESS will help students and teachers connect on the internet is by by providing access to many things that are going to help. Some of this will be access to advanced diploma coarses, which will help some students finish college faster. Another plus to this program, it will expand the number of class at these highschools and also expand the resources these highschools will have. I think the most important thing this ACCESS with be bring to highschool teachers in Alabama is more technilogical tools brought into the classroom to teach. Again, I still do not fully understand how the program works but i am excepting to learn more when I visit a highschool who has all the advancments in teaching this program has to offer.

Sorry it's late I couldn't bring up the file to learn about the program with computer that I use.

ALEX

ALEX, also known as the Alabama Exhange is a computer program for teacher, parents, and students that allows them to share lesson plans quickly. I think the most useful feature on the page is "lesson plans". You can choose from a number of subjects then after choosing the subject you can choose by grade or keywords to find lesson plans for what you are teaching. Another feature is the "weblinks" where a teacher, administrator, or student can find very helpful links. I believe you can also create a "personal workspace" which would keep things for your eyes only. The website also gets into "professional learning" with information about things like Special Eduation and Alabama Leader Developmeant. The "distance learning" feature talks about ACCESS which I will know more about fo my next blog. I am still a little confused about how all of this works but I hoped this helped a little bit!

My Google Presentation

I'm not too sure yet what my Google Presentation is going to cover. It will probably discuss some of my favorites such as color, resturant, band, tv show and a few other things in that catagory. I'll most likely mention a few things about the children at the daycare where I work. My family will also show up in the presentation. Hopefully I will have a few more ideas before I get started.

About Myself

I don't really know what to write about myself. My name is Jill Revette as you can see. I was born here in Mobile. That is one of the main reasons I go to South. I don't have many interests other than music. Some of my favorite bands include The Doors, The Beatles, Sublime, John Butler Trio, and Jack's Mannequin. Actually another interest I just thought of, I like to buy things off ebay. I work at a daycare which goes along well with my major, Elementary Education. That's really all I can think of to say right now.