Scenario

In three to five years, I see myself graduated, having a family and working the job of my dreams.  My strongest attributes are that I am a hard worker and a team worker. Some of my challenges are that I am stubborn and that I believe that yes technology is great and wonderful, but we should not forget our past and the craftsmanship that many put into it. If I was to learn a new software I would attain classes and ask other of help if I were stumped. Technology can truly help children excel by giving them billions of resource and the click of a mouse. I remember bag phones, and how we have iPads. The evolution of technology has helped students how may have a hard time reading, listen to a story without having to be taken out of class. As for my education, technology has made it more interesting, and harder and the same time.  I as having to learn these items that many of my future students already know how to use. I would encourage faculty to use technology for the betterment of the students, but let’s not forget how important working hands-on is. Tools like Animoto and comic builder sites are great for allowing my students to express themselves in a different and “cool” way.  

My Wow Moment

I cannot lie. My ah ha moment did not come in this class. It came in one of my Block 1 classes. Our teach showed us how to use our own Macs to better the students. We learned how to zoom in and out of text to help  students see better. We learned how to change the contrast of the screen to help with headaches and eye strain. We also learned how to use the text-to-speech application. I really wish we would have learned this items in class, instead of all of this other websites to use. I do not know much about running a Mac, and I believe that is where you should start out at. Funny how I took more out of a class not dealing with technology, than my own technology class.

Podcast favorites

Overall, I really only had two podcasts I enjoyed listening to. One was Kevin Honeycutt's podcasts. I feel that I have an advantage over just about everyone because I personally know him. My mom works with him at ESSDACK. He is such a nice guy and truly loves what he does everyday. You cannot call it work or a job because he loves it too much.

My second podcast I liked was EdTechWeekly. They were so laid back that it was enjoyable to listen to them. Almost all the other podcasts I listened to, I had to force myself to do so. They talked about items that I found interesting, too. I found myself agreeing with lots of what they spoke about too.

Semester favorites

One of my two favorite items we explored this semester was Kan-ed. 

Kan-ed allowed for so many opportunities. For instance, the genealogy program intrigues me. Family history is something that lots of children do not know. I found it completely amazing when I found my Great-great grandfather’s census on there. He was such an amazing person and doctor back in his time, that when I find anything about him and his history I cannot get enough of it. I want that for my future students.

The second favorite item was Animoto. It really allowed everyone to show off his or her own creativity. I liked being able to show what was must important to me, and doing it in an eye-catching way. 

Podcast, Website & Blog Mid-term Critiques

Part 1: Podcast

The two podcasts that I listened to were both very good. Giving information to people about helpful sites they could use in that classroom. You could tell that they both put time and effort into making their first podcast. Good for both of them.

Part 2: Website/Blog

The websites and blogs were both awesome. The skills of both came out in their website and blogs. It can be very difficult to create these items when having never done it better. Kudos to both of them, I give them both an A+.

Podcast Reflection #12: EdTechWeekly #186

I believe that it is quite apparent that one of my favorite podcast is EdTechWeekly. In this podcast, they talk about a program were it webs together all items that connect people. You can use your Facebook account, e-mail, twitter and just about anything. Once webbed, they create these clusters or nodes. It color coordinates the nodes so that it is easier to identify the groups. They talked about going to a first time conference where they learned about this program. He stated that 100 people were here at the conference and they listened to 15 presentations a day. It was talked about using this program at learning analytics to look at at-risk students.  The draw back from this program is that everyone using it has to use it the same. If they change how and why the use it for, it will mess up everything. The nodes will not be connected the same as before. To me, this sounds like a good program once the kinks get worked out.

Comics in my classroom

COMICS!!!! What a great idea for students to do in class. It takes an average lesson, to a great lesson. It allows the students to express their personalities. When I am wanting my students to expressed what they learned throughout the lesson, I could have them create a comic. It is seriously such a fun activity!!!! :)

Podcast Reflection #11: EdTechWeekly #190

EdTechWeekly, oh how I love you! Dave Cormier and John Schinker are so great to listen to. This podcast was perfect for me. I DO NOT like twitter!!! Why in the world would a grade school have all the teachers tweet? Twitter is such a horrible thing to me. They are talking about forcing people to use the twitter, I feel that way about this class. I do not want to tweet and the fact that I have to upsets me. Dave Cormier said that you cannot force people to do this. So this grade school wants the parents to follow the teachers on twitter. What happened to e-mail? I love e-mail or snail mail, I won’t complain. Ahhh, I just do not like twitter.

Podcast Reflection #10: It Simply Isn't the 20th Century Any More Is It?: So Why Would We Teach as Though It Was?

Professor Steven Heppell talked about the evolution of technology. It is crazy to think of just how far we have advanced in the technology world. I still remember having a green screen Apple computer. I thought that we were the coolest person ever. Now your cell phones are just mini computers in our hands. The power that one smart phone has more power than an entire school in the 80’s according to Heppel. Then I begin to think, is all of this technology good? We were able to live without it before, and now look at our economy. People are losing their jobs to robots. So the main question is, how much technology is enough?

Podcast Reflection #9: EdTechWeekly #191

In EdTechWeekly, they talked about technology in the classroom. There was an article wrote in Read Write Web about what students felt that technology held back education. The article stated that the Internet filter and no mobile devices were holding back their education. I personally feel that allowing cell phones in school, especially grade school, is wrong. Students can learn without their cells phones. Call me old fashion, but I stand true to my beliefs.

Podcast Reflection #8: iPods #18: iPod touch Basics

Tony Vincent makes me realize that I need to be able to do more with my iPod touch. I'm not using it to it's fullest ability and that is not just effecting me, but my future students too. I really like watching his podcasts. He just has a way of explaining things so that everyone can understand.

Podcast Reflection #7: Learning in Hand #24: Project Based Learning

Tony Vincent does a great job at clearly explaining iPod and iPad applications in this podcast. It is quite interesting to think that you can do so much with an iPod. I have an iPod Touch and I mainly use my for my NikePlus application. I love running so that application is perfect for me. Just think of what else I could do this my iPod Touch if I just explored it more.

Podcast Reflection #6: YouTube Plus

Tech Chicks are very laid back. It is easy to listen to because it is an informal conversation. I mean that is it formal but it is not at the same time. In the podcast they talk about different ways a classroom could use YouTube. One was Quietube, this site censors YouTube videos for a class to watch. May videos have items in the video that many students should not heard or listen to. This site helps take away that stress of editing videos. Another site was SynchTube, this site allows you to create a room where multiple students can watch the same video from anywhere at the same time. This would be great for collaborating with a school in another country. Oh the possibilities!!

Podcast Reflection #5: A new feature on VoiceThread

M5 commenting. This is the first time I have heard of this type of commenting. Steve Muth talks about how text messaging is cold, flat and leave you guessing who someone is and that they really mean in the message. M5 commenting is warmer and more accurate on your feelings about something. You use your webcam or a microphone and can comment on multiple posts that someone as posted. It leaves the other person more able to understand what exactly your comment means. Facial expressions and tones of voice are great detectors on how a person feels and what they truly mean.

Podcast Reflection #4: Driving Questions 2010: Carpool with Jim Beeghley

I absolutely love listening to Kevin Honeycutt's podcasts. In this podcast Kevin spoke with Jim Beeghley about bringing history to life. Mr. Jim Beechley is an IT policy specialist. They mentioned how amazing the iPod and iPad are for bring history to life. You can bring up pictures of places you are at and look at how they looked 100 years ago, and they use google Earth to look at how the look now. You should look up how your town looked 100 years ago. It's amazing at what is still there and what is gone. These men mentioned that children should write narratives of picture or items that they see. Kevin Honeycutt states that "photography is a time machine" and that "it is moments in time that we are capturing". What would your narrative say?

Podcast Reflection #3: Driving Questions 2010: The role of school administrators

Mr. Kevin Honeycutt is such a great person. I would like to state that my mom works with him and he is such a whoot to be around! In his podcast "The role of school administrators" he talks to Tim Holt (the director of instructional technology at El Paso ISD). They both agree that technology is extremely important in schools. Honeycutt compares teaching to football. When he first brought it up I thought to myself how is he going to tie this together, but is does it perfectly. We have to teach students what they can do in the end zone. If we do not push students' knowledge for the future, what happens when they reach the end zone without that knowledge? Nothing. We cannot keep teaching in the past but we as teachers have to teach in the future only in present day. Sounds confusing, but makes complete sense. Like Kevin Honeycutt says, "We owe it to the kids".

The "New" You

 The Avatar I made of myself. This is such a great tool to use for your students to protect their rights of pictures on the internet. Plus is fun creating one anyways! :)

This is my Voki. It was so fun making this. You should try it! :)

Classroom 2.0

Classroom 2.0 is what every teacher should join. It is a network of people educating each other. There are live chats about so many different topics. You could have so many questions answered that you have about technology, teaching or just about anything else. It is such a helper tool to keep ahead of the game when talking about technology. Use it, you will not be disappointed!

EduTecher

EduTecher is a neat site. I like how it allows you to search by subject and grade level. One source that I found to be useful in my content area was ABC Health & Wellbeing. This site is helpful because when I do any lessons over health, nutrition or life styles I use EduTecher to help find good quality sites that are helpful for me and my students. ABC Health & Wellbeing gives many helpful tips on improving your health. There are great recipes, food safety, fitness tips and so many more options. The second source I found was 4Teachers. On 4Teachers there are many tools that you can use. One tool was the teacher tackle box. There you could search by multiples subjects and find hundreds of lesson plans. In FACS education at Kansas State University they do not have the students take a sewing class, but this is a main unit that FACS teachers teach in schools. This site has many great lesson plans for teachers about fashion, sewing and dressing for an interview. If you do not have a strong background in sewing this is a great site to look into. The third resource that I found was 21st Century Literacy. Here you can find more lesson plans, worksheets and much more. I loved doing worksheet in my FACS classes in high school. They helped me understand better and then I had a visual aid to help me later on in the class. I really think that both teachers and students could greatly benefit from this website.

Kan-ed Reflection

I wish that I would have known about Kan-ed when I was in high school. There are SO many useful sites on it. I love Genealogy and to be able to discover and learn more about my family is such an amazing feeling. Like in the picture, that is my Great-great grandfather Howard G. Hunsberger. He was the “Buggy Doctor” in Kansas from the late 1800’s to the early-mid 1900’s. 

I also found it very interesting that there were pictures of the original documents. There are great sites for children to learn about finances. There’s no such thing as “starting them off too young” when it comes to finances. 

There is SOOOOOOO many lesson plans available for you with just a tap of a finger. I could use the lesson plans if I am wanting to get some new ideas for lessons for my class. There is just so many options.

Overall, this website is MIND BOGGLING!!! I could spend hours upon hours digging around on this site. It is definitely a great site to invest in!!!

Animoto in my Classroom

Animoto is a great tool for the classroom. It can be a more creative way to share information and material to  a classroom. It also is a good activity for students to express how they see themselves in another form than just writing. It helps students look at themselves and helps them to know it they like what they see or not.
It is just a good way for students to learn in the classroom and outside of the classroom.

Using Twitter as an Educator

Twitter. I do not like it. First there is no way to read all of the tweets from other educators. I have other things that I should be doing instead of being on Twitter 24/7. I understand that many people like Twitter, but I feel that if I do not like it I should not be required to use it for this class. Yes I know that we our broadening our knowledge of technology, but Twitter is just not my cup of tea. I have strong feelings about it and that is all I should say.

Fun with Text

Wordle is such a fun way to engage your students in a new way of learning. You could take the vocabulary from the unit and have the students create a Wordle at the beginning of a new unit. The students then have seen the new vocabulary and are becoming familiar with it. Overall I just love using Wordle for my everyday use. It’s fun, creative and I just like it. 

Reflection 2: CDK's Education Technology Place

I find the webpage CDK's Education Technology Place to be very helpful. There are links to the College of Education homepage, K-State homepage and there are many interesting videos to watch. The navigation through the site is easy as pie. Everything is very clear and easy to understanding. Getting lost and confused is practically impossible. 

Reflection 1: Technology Bits, Bytes & Nibbles

For my articles I read Tennessee School Requires iPad For Class and Angry Birds Valentine’s Edition. I found that it was very interesting that the school is using iPads in place of computers. I find this article to be a great idea. Giving the students a way to always be connected to their school in a way that they find interesting is a great tool to have. However, with reading both of these articles I started to wonder how the teachers are going to be able to stop the students from downloading apps, like Angry Birds, to their iPad instead of working on assignments. I wonder if there is a way to block the app store since it is already programmed on the iPad. With that being said, I still find this requirement to be a new and exciting way to learn. I would have loved to have the opportunity to learn with this type of technology when I was younger. I believe that this is a learning device and I would use this is further my education opportunities in the classroom.