Ted Talks

The first video that I watched was Evan Williams: Twitter’s Unexpected Uses. The first time that I have even heard of twitter was through this tech class. After about a month of getting introduced to it, I would hear people talking about Twitter on the today show, Ellen, and and Oprah. Then, I was really shocked when my mom asked me one day, “What’s this Twitter thing all about?”

One thing that I learned from this presentation is about the program “Summize”. I think this will be very helpful for me. One thing that I don’t like about twitter is that I find it overwhelming at times because there are so many different topics being discussed. I feel it is hard to focus on one topic. But this will allow me to search for a certain subject and see what different people are tweeting about dealing with ONE subject.

Twitter has grown on me a lot during the semester. I don’t update my twitter status very often, but I like reading other peoples updates. I think that if I received text messages from twitter, I would become very annoyed. I would have to limit the people I follow so this would not happen!

The next video I watched was Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity? I couldn’t agree more that creativity is as important as literacy in education. I think that once students get to college, professors think that they lose all their creativity. I have been in so many classes that lecture all hour and were supposed to sit there and still be interested in the subject. They have no assignments that involve us and our creativity. Once I finally started taking elementary ed classes, I found that to change. There were projects that let us explore and use our creativity!

Prompt Number 4

One of the reasons I choose this prompt was because lastnight I watched the movie “Seven Pounds”. I read the poem that was posted in response to this picture and it mentioned guys wearing pink. In the movie, the girl Emily buys Will Smith a pink shirt to wear on their date. The poem mentioned how pink is always for girls and blue is boys. So, I’m not sure why, but that poem made me think of that movie. Here is a link to a synopsis of the movie if you want to read more about it (it does include some spoilers).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0814314/synopsis

I rented the movie because a friend had told me it was good. I had no idea on what the movie was about. So, I was pretty confused throughout the movie! But, I’m actually really glad in the end that I had no idea why Will Smith was doing all of this. It turns out that he was on his cell phone while driving and he ended up killing 6 people because he crossed the center line. I was pretty surprised at this ending and it made me think a lot about using cell phones in the car.

I know this sounds really bad, but I think that a lot of people can relate to this. Have you ever been talking on your cell phone in your car on a real important conversation while driving? And then you end up at your destination and you hang up, and you can’t really remember getting there? This has happened to me many times (usually when I’m driving home in a familiar area). When this does happen, I get pretty freaked out.

So after watching this movie, I wondered how much does driving with a cell phone effect your ability to drive. The link below is a very interesting article I found on this topic. In this article, a professor from the University of Utah says that a 20 year old driving with a cell phone has the reaction time of a 70 year old driving without a cell phone.

http://www.livescience.com/technology/050201_cell_danger.html

Another thing that this poem made me think about was why pink is for girls and blue is for boys. The links below gives some answers to this question!

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=238733

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=238733

And here are a couple of kids who really like pink and blue! But as you can see, the girl has the pink room and the boy has the blue room.

Jing Video

So I’ve been playing with this for over an hour on how to get my jing video into here and it’s not working so if you copy and paste the link below into the top of your internet, it will work!

file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/ekuure/Desktop/ED483/WikiSpace.swf

Continue reading »

Blip

A couple of weeks ago, we explored the program blip. It is a music site where you can create a playlist and then share it with others. As I was searching through the music, there seemed to be a variety of tunes you could listen to. I think that incorporating music into your classroom is very important. There are so many informational songs that you can add into your lessons to make them much more interesting and fun!

It was very interesting hearing about other programs that groups explored. It just amazes me how many programs are on the internet that you could incorporate into your classroom.

http://www.screencast.com/users/ekuure/folders/Jing/media/305488b5-7294-4da4-b250-3e3efb5086e5

My 25 Random Thoughts on Education

1. I’m very amazed at how much education has changed even since I’ve been in Elementary school.

2. I’m very jealous at some of the things kids are doing in the classroom. I wish I could have had an opportunity to do some of the cool things they are doing.

3. I think that some of the older teachers who have no education on technology are really missing out. Not only them, but their students also.

4. I can’t wait to have my own classroom today.

5. I love going to garage sales and finding things for my classroom someday. I already have a huge stash in my attic.

6. I love school. I find it very strange that I will be done in a year.

7. I have learned so much already by just being in the classroom. I think student teaching will be such a great learning experience.

8. There is always something more to learn about education and teaching. I really like that.

9. Some of the most influential people in my life have been my past teachers. I want to be like one of these teachers someday.

10. I think that math problems are so fun. Solving problems dealing with math is one of my favorite things to do in school.

11. I’ve learned so many things about Writer’s Notebook this semester. I want to launch these in the classroom that I’m student teaching in if they don’t already have them.

12. I think it’s very sad how the music and art programs are being cut from school. Those used to be my favorite part of the day and I think children need these subjects in their life.

13. Although I think technology will play a big part in the classroom in the future, I think it’s still important for kid’s to sit and relax a paperback book.

14. You never know what the children in your class experienced before they came to class that day. And as teachers, we need to be very aware of this.

15. I think it’s very important for children to get outside as often as they can during the school day.

16. There are tons of useful tools on the internet that you can use in your classroom.

17. I always wonder if there will be a day where there will be no teachers.

18. I think teachers need to be full of creativity.

19. Teachers need to be kids at heart.

20. I may be the only positive person a child sees in their day.

21. I think it’s very sad how there aren’t many male teachers in Elementary Schools. There are a lot of kid’s who don’t have male role models in their life and I think that’s very important.

22. I don’t believe in standardized tests one bit.

23. I think getting kids and up and moving around the classroom is very important.

24. I think that communication between parents is very very crucial in the students success.

25. I’m willing to move anywhere to find a job. I’m very excited but scared at the same time.

My Wordle

Methods Placement

I’m really happy about my methods placement this semester. I am in a 3rd grade classroom at Superior Hills. Right now, they are doing a lot with writing workshop and their writer’s journals. It is really neat to see all their ideas being made into books. They seem to enjoy doing both of these projects.

There is only one computer lab in Superior Hills and teachers must sign up for their class to use it. The teacher that I am working with types up the books when they are done. Then, she gives them back to the students to draw pictures on them. As far as I’ve seen in the classroom, they have not used technology very much. For their writer’s journals, they did print off pictures from the teacher’s computer to put inside and on the cover of their notebook.

I think that there are many ways that the children could use the computers more. Again, I’m not really sure if they do use it for any other subjects. An idea would be to an informational book on different animals. This way, they could use the internet to find information on different animals around the world.

I think that using websites for math can be a very fun way for kids to get interested in the subject. Last year in one of my field placements, they used different websites that have fun math games on them. I also found a few Language Arts/Reading resources that could be used in the classroom. Below are a few links of some websites that could be helpful for students!

Math Resources

Language Arts/Reading Resources

Technology in the 21st Century

I think that technology in the classroom will continue to grow more rapidly than ever. Looking back as to when I was in elementary and middle school, it has grown a tremendous amount. I think as teachers we need to keep up to date with everything thats going on with techonolgy. In the past couple of weeks I have learned a lot more about what else is out there on the internet. I think that a lot of the sites and programs we have talked about will only become more and more popular with kids and classrooms. On the other hand though, I think it is very important to make sure that we do not only use computers in our classroom. I think writing with pencil and paper and reading out of paperback books is something that every child should experience and enjoy.

First Blog

I have never used a blog before so this is very new to me! It seems like a good way to communicate with other students. I think that having this option will help a lot of people be able to express their ideas in a different way. I’m excited to learn more about blogging!