Ipods

Ipods are being used more and more in the classrooms to aid in instruction, as a means of taking tours, listening to interviews, and student presentations. Students use them to listen to guest lectures. They can learn a new language or listen to music and concerts all from their classrooms or anywhere. The student can access videos, pictures and books, see them and read them anywhere. This technology makes available information that might not be available to some students. It not only opens the world of knowledge but, puts that knowledge at their fingertips. Ipods travel which is important in our world of laptops. Most podcasts are listened to on the go and not in the classroom. In this way podcasting has moved the classroom to the world and the world to the classroom.

Duke University was credited as a pioneer in the use of ipods in education. Duke University has increased its use of ipods in the classroom. They use them to supplement instruction in many ways. They even went so far as to distribute ipods to be used by incoming freshmen. The students would then be required to use these in any class that required ipods. They formed a group called "DDI", to distribute and encourage there use. Your can check out DDI at: here The Center for Instructional Technology has interests in videocasting too. Some instructors feel that the use of this technology allows them to bring the class outside of the classroom and into the real world.

The use of ipods is increasing from elementary and middle schools, to high schools and colleges all over the world. I feel, that anyone not using them will be missing a lot and are at risk of being left behind by technology. I hope to use this technology in my classroom when I begin teaching.

My Presentation

Dr Christie

I was going through Dr. Christie's website and found very interesting topics. One is how to involve the young and older student and teacher together to learn from one another. This shows that everyone has something to contribute and you are never to old to learn something new. But the site I was most curious about is the link to web page designs. Since we have to design a website I thought that this would be most informative and I was right. There were many examples of how to start websites and create them to be target specific. She told how to add animations that would be interesting for kids. She offered links for downloads of animations that would work for web pages designed with students in mind. There were examples of good web pages, excellent web pages and not so good web pages with suggestions on how to improve the look of the pages.

Her site is a great opportunity to learn things that I could use in the classroom. A website for example is most useful to provide information about who I am and what I do as well as personal interests and classes that I teach. It would also be beneficial to show my educational background and plans for the future. By providing this information on a website I would be opening a link to parents who would otherwise never really learn about who I am. The website would be a way to draw students interests in me as a teacher and as a person, definitely an advantage in teaching.

Wikipedia

I don't think that Wikipedia can ever be fully trusted. As long as the sight is not regulated and verified any type of change can be made. Yes, I know that you can tract the changes but, most people don't take the time to do so. This allows for misinformation to be broadcast as fact and spread all over the internet. As someone who loves history I have learned that not all that is written is fact and in fact it is often tainted with personal opinions and ideas. I have always read several sources if I was interested in something in particular. I also won't read what the historians have written without comparing personal biographical accounts of what happened as well.

Most people that I know that just want quick information will use Wikipedia without any concern as to the authenticity of the content. They are just looking for a quick answer and they don't care if it is truthful or not. An example is celebrity tabloids , many are not accurate but people are just curious and want some information even if it is wrong.

best of fisch oct

With growing technologies being used in the educational field, it is necessary to be able to make this information available for students to access. Filters are a necessary evil to protect students. However, if that protection limits useful and necessary knowledge then the use of that technology is mute. It has been an ongoing battle with companies that claim one thing and do another. I think we have to push for companies to take responsibility for there claims, even if that action takes the form of legislation. Many advances that we have had in this country led to products being produced for certain functions and, not until these companies were held accountable by law did they take responsibility. That type of accountability has to extend to software companies as well. It is a different field and products are being made for consumer usage so, the laws have to extend to this medium as well.

I think that once again as a country we need to support education and this support should include the internet and protection of its use. One thing is always a problem, people want to have a strong diverse education system with well qualified teachers but they fail to see the need for financial support to accomplish the mission. What would be ideal is that the different education systems throughout the U. S. should have their own team of software producers that would benefit and work for the educational system and not bureaucracy. Someone outside of the system should not be making the decisions of what is important and safe and what is not.

Karl Fisch

I agree with Fisch that teachers, in order to be effective teachers, must keep up with advances in technology. For one thing, If they are not familiar with new technologies, you can bet their students are. How can a student learn from someone that is not in touch with the current world. Admitting to not knowing is not a sin but not wanting to do something about it well, that is another story. As Fisch says technology is to much a part of our world to ignore it. As educators we want to prepare our students for the world. How then, can we effectively do that if we are not connected to that world. Technology is the connecting fiber of everything we do as Fisch says. To ignore the technology available would be like trying to jump from one mountain to another. Technology is what students relate to and want to learn about. We need to be able to teach it otherwise, we are not really doing our job.

I don't feel that a teacher should ever stop learning themselves. When new technologies are available they should try to learn as much as they can. Their jobs can be made easier by what they learn. I also feel, that classes should be offered and incentives made for teachers to always continue their education. With everything they have to do, I know it isn't easy to have to worry about learning something new. We ask our students to learn something new because our world is constantly changing and we have to change with it. We have to evolve and teachers should want that. They should never be satisfied with the knowledge they have now but should want to learn more. Life is learning and it doesn't stop until we die.

International students blogs

My first international blog that I came upon was Sunshine Coast Grammar School,located in Queensland, Australia. It is a Christian based, but multi-denominational school that has grade levels pre-k thru twelve. Something of interest is that they have six international "sister" schools located in Japan, Italy, China, France and Canada, so there is a lot of cultural diversity. They offer a variety of sport activities like, soccer, softball and football. In addition they offer various language courses as well as music and choral programs. They offer classes through the Internet as well. Many students board at the school for the year. Take a look:
click here






I also found a blog belonging to a class of ten and eleven year olds out of New Zealand. They each have a blog that describes who they are and something about their family. In their blogs they talk about what they did at school that day. One student talk about something she was knitting and others talked about field trips they took. One girl named Claire was telling everyone about the characters or little figurines they were making and hers was of a reporter interviewing someone. Greg was talking about the bad weather they have been having with wind blowing everyone around and people sliding off the road. He says he has been without power for two days. Some of the entries are very interesting so, check them out at:here Here is a picture of Claire.

us student blogs

I found a blog written by Conners Emerson School which is a k-8 school in Ear Harbor Maine. The home page gives general information about the school from schedules, assignments, to different presentations throughout the year. There are student links and teacher links. Here is a picture of the "mathelets", a math competition club at the school. The student links offer other educational opportunities about local and distant places and cultures. The teacher and staff links offer NWEA meeting notes and continuing training sessions, as well as forms and documents that a teacher would, ie. grant forms, Title One forms. Look for yourself at here



The next blog that I found was from Albany High School in New York. In this blog was some of the same information and hopes and dreams of the future, mixed with a little fear of growing up and to quote Anne Meyers to "being kicked out of the nest"
Also were many comments on fundraising events and athletic events around the school. One student was dispelling myths and lies about her school, showing her school pride. Here is her picture and her name is Sara DeWitt. You can check the comments at:click here

Did You Know?

As I watched the video "Did You Know", I was suddenly struck with the very truth of the place technology holds in the educational world. It has held this place because it is such a vital link in our world in general. Without knowledge of how to use computers and related technology, a person can be compared to someone in a library who cannot read. Vast amounts of information is in cyberspace and you have to know how to reach it, capture it and use it. More knowledge is available than can be kept in one place and yet this knowledge needs to be available to everyone. This knowledge is the key to communication throughout the world. How can we communicate without knowledge of the subject we are communicating with or about. What library is going to be large enough? What classroom can be large enough to contain everything we want to know? What better way to share information fast enough for the information to be useful than through computers. As our world grows, so must our technology and our ability to use the technology available to us.

The technology is out there to be used but the equipment is not available to everyone who needs it. Meeting this need should be a concern of everyone who wants an educated, well informed society, who can meet the world and interact with it. We need to address this with our congressional representatives. We need to get communities involved in fund raising to bring computers to the classroom. The very businesses that will one day want to hire some of these students will want someone capable of using this technology and someone able to grow with it. So, I think we as a community, as a nation we have got to convince these companies to help prepare students with the computers they need in their classrooms today. It is an investment in tomorrow that we can't afford to miss. The gains are just to high and in comparison the losses can be devastating.

If we don't act now we will lose our place as a strong country because our citizens will not have the education needed to be knowledgeable, purposeful and responsible. How can a country stand strong without it's people knowing about other cultures, languages, politics and religions. This isn't something that we can aford to ignore if we want to continue growing in the new millennium. We have to do what ever it takes to keep up in the world, so that we can be a productive, knowledge based society and that means for everyone. So, speak up, start fundraisers, write letters, make calls and fight for what we need. Are you with me?