web 2.0

I found the website kobobooks.com. It is a place where you can get an application for your iphone and download books from a list of millions. This could be useful for a reading assignment. The teacher could assign a book from the website and the students could read it anywhere they are. I would venture to say that withing the next ten years just about every kid will have at least an iphone; and what kid doesn't bring their phone with them everywhere they go? They will have no excuse not to read the assigned book. Also this is a good site to find out what books are being read the most right now and it makes it easy to find books you would be interested in.

Final Reflection

I learned a lot from this class. I am not an extremely tech savvy person but I learned how to do a lot of things that will make a difference in my classroom. It is easy to see that the world is shifting toward being almost completely technological. Everything will be done with computers and super small cell phones and it will become increasingly important to keep up with technology.

I love all the resources we were exposed to during the class. I will definitely use a lot of the things I learned about in my teaching career. I am going to study this out a lot more so that I can be super effective as a teacher. I will always try to remember to not use technology just to use it and that it should enhance the learning process. I like that the teaching field is open to being adaptive to the changing times. I will have to adapt myself more as well and learn more technology so that I can be a successful teacher and citizen.

Internet Safety

I had the opportunity to watch a lot of videos on the isafe website. Ever since the last class period, I have been telling all my roommates about the importance of limiting the amount of personal information that they post on the internet; especially on Facebook. I have since taken my birthday off. One reason is for safety reasons and the other reason is to see who really remembers my birthday, which is in three and a half weeks.

My roommate Joe is always up for learning new things and he really enjoyed learning about internet safety. Of all my roommates, I think that he would be the one to actually change what he is doing.

One of the videos I watched was a video made by student about the dangers of internet chatting. The video showed a student chatting with a girl and they decided to meet on a Saturday. When he arrived he was picked up by the girl's "father" and they began driving away. As they passed a school, he jumped out of the car and ran inside. The man chased him inside and the student called the police before the guy could stop him. The police came and arrested the guy and it turned out that there was no daughter.

It is important to not share any pertinent personal information online; especially when chatting. First of all, you shouldn't chat with strangers, much less give them any personal information. There are many people online that have nothing but the worst intentions and just want to take advantage of people that aren't educated about these things. Identity theft is a big crime today and for someone trained enough, it is surprisingly easy to steal someone's identity. For these reasons and others, it is important to be extremely careful and picky about what you put online.

The Interview

Education Festival

I actually found myself unexpectedly enjoying the education festival I attended last week. I went in not knowing what to expect but I quickly discovered what was going on and jumped in. I had the opportunity to talk to a few presenters about their projects as well as just look at a few posters. They all were very organized and easy to read which made it an easy atmosphere to be in. It was obvious that they presenters were passionate about their topics. Most of them were research projects so the posters had their findings on them in boxes, graphs and charts. I could tell that they had spent a lot of time and effort making them. It was also interesting the variety of topics that were presented. I was surprised to see projects about subjects that I have been thinking about like how to help students understand the importance of doing well in school to better prepare themselves for their futures. I also saw a project that I am participating in. Lucy Ordaz is doing a project researching the effect of reading groups in middle schools and I go and volunteer each Tuesday and Thursday morning and read with some students. It was neat to see what her findings have been.

Video Reflection

I really enjoyed making this video! Justine and I worked hard on it and used our limited video making skills to come out with a fairly good video. It will be published on this site as soon as I figure out how to do that! We didn't run into too many problems during the production process. We only had to do one take which helped cut down on the recording time and the amount of footage we had to go through. I think that if I had to make a video by myself I could do it, it just might take a while. It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be when we started and it made me want to make more videos. The only problem with that is that I have an HP which is apparently less effective for movie-making. We shall see!

Media Project

Justine and I are working together on our video and we have our idea in place. This past week, we had difficulty finding time to meet so not as much got done as we had planned. Our idea centers around an interview and what one should do and what one should not do during an interview. We are going to include some humor in it because we want our video to be at least a little interesting and fun to watch. Seeing as this is our first time editing a movie, we don't want to the low quality of the filming to add to a boring movie. I know that when teaching it is important to be yourself so that the students feel comfortable around you; that is why we are going to be (hopefully) somewhat comical. This week we will have much more time to do it. We have planned on Friday at 10 a.m. to begin filming.

Video

Justine and I are working on the video together and haven't officially shared ideas yet, so we have not concluded on a final idea for the video assignment yet. One idea that I had was to do a sort of question and answer format. It could be about our specific majors. This is my first idea because that is something I could easily talk about for the allotted time.

Another idea would be to try something funny. I have been watching a lot of Bill Cosby stand up lately and it would be fun to try something like that. I like being funny sometimes because I like to make people happy.

I would also like the video to be interesting so that people will want to watch it. I want to make sure that it shows a part of me in it as well.

Classroom website

http://sites.google.com/site/dfamesclass2/

This is my classroom website. It is still in its infant form but hopefully as I go it will improve and become a real tool for my future classroom.

Project

I have been thinking about doing something with Microsoft Excel because I am fairly inadequate with it. It would also be very helpful for me personally to do a project with Google Earth because I am a Social Sciences major and that applies nicely with something that I could use in the classroom. I have decided now to make an activity using an Excel spreadsheet. The students will have to use the example spreadsheet format that I give them to make up their own trading activities and how to best maximize their resources. Each student will also have to make a graph using Excel to show how the resources are allocated between the countries.

Technical Difficulties

When I am dealing with technology problems often arise. This might mean that I am extremely unlearned with technology or I just have bad luck. One of the most frustrating things about the BYU printing system is how often the printers malfunction. They always choose to malfunction on the days when you have five minutes to get to class and you have to print a five-page paper. Either the printer is out of ink, or out of paper, or the card monitor isn't working so you have to go find another printer at another site on campus. This results in being late for class and having everyone stare at you with an annoyed look on their faces. Recently I haven't encountered too many problems, omitting the fact that my computer crashed last week. I have learned to be very patient when dealing with technology and to always have a backup plan for lessons and things that I might teach.

Problems I have encountered

There have been various problems in my experience with computers and technology. The most recent one was a few days ago when I turned on my laptop to find it completely different. All the files that I had saved were gone! My music, my documents, my settings, everything was gone. It was very frustrating and to this day I have no idea what happened. Computers are always mysterious and I guess sometimes they just need a fresh start. The best thing to do is to not get frustrated and look at the problem as a minor setback.

My experience with technology

I can remember my early childhood days when we had an old DOS computer and I thought it was the coolest thing in the world! I have always been fascinated by computers and the things they can do. I remember in Middle School having to learn to type and soon thereafter becoming a little disenchanted with technology because I realized that typing was an essential skill and was very difficult for me. I have since learned a lot more about technology and keeping up with all the new things that come out is a job. I am confident in my abilities to accomplish necessary tasks in school but as far as doing fun or cool things with it I am a novice. I am excited to learn about how to better utilize technology in the classroom because I know that it can add a whole new dimension to the learning experience.