Blog Post #14 Final Reflection

Project 16

This was s a collaborative project between Kelsey Robinson and Brittany Hamilton.

Comment for Teachers

C4T #4

Missouri Law on Sexual Misconduct of Teachers

This was a very interesting blog post from Bill Genereux. Missouri has just written a state law that is trying to be passed that will supposedly help students against teachers who could be sexual predators. This law will make it harder for a teacher who gets fired from one job because of being accused of sexual misconduct to get a job at another location until the trial is over. The two different school systems can talk about why the teacher got fired. What is disturbing is that they make a law for this but they don't try to figure out a way to speed up the trial process.

They also will put in effect that if schools don't already have a policy on teacher-student communication, then they will be making one. This includes social networking, texting, and websites. I do think that there needs to be a policy set in place about this issue but I do wonder how far will a school take it? Will they ban technology in the classroom altogether?

Then the bill goes off into some crazy things like strictly watching what websites a teacher is using in the classroom to communicate with his/her students. I do think there needs to be some restrictions but to pick and choose could hinder a child's education. They need to be learning from the internet and gaining knowledge there that they might not could get anywhere else. But to restrict all teachers of this, I think is absurd. Just goes to show you that " the good suffer with the bad" is true. It makes it seem like there is no faith in teachers anymore and I have a problem with this.

They are starting a new procedure to inform teachers on the signs of abuse and teach them on how to report it, etc. This can be a very valuable thing and I am looking forward to this being implemented (even if it is only in Missouri right now). But I will have to agree with Mr. Genereoux that this is something that needs to be taught to the students as well. Since they are the ones experiencing these terrible crimes, they need to be provided information on how to spot the warning signs. If the students were taught this early on then we might could prevent some of these cases from ever happening! I can't wait to see if this bill gets passed and how it will effect other states.

Dissertations and Technology

 This was a post about how Bill Genereux is trying to figure out what he will write his dissertation on. He calls it his KYHOI (knock you head off idea). In the beginning he was thinking about focusing on video literacy but now he is turning more to "Mediated Literacies in Education." He changed his mind after finding a blog by a guy named Paul Bogush. He is the only one in his school that uses these tools the way that he does. His students make videos, post and more. He doesn't get any encouragement or support from his administrators so he has made it into his PLN. This has helped inspire Genereux to write about the connection between what teachers are doing with their own mediated learning and what we want students to do. He has to narrow it down still and frame it into a question that can be studied.

On this post I talked about how I feel that Bogush was making a good choice by having his students involved in a blog even though he has no support on it. It made me really think about how EDM has opened my eyes to how we can use the technology in the classroom to help improve the students education. I don't care if its encouraged at the school I teach at or not, I have already made up my mind that I will be using it in my classroom. I told Genereux that I know he will narrow it down and make it into the wquestion that he is looking for. I also thanked him for his wonderful blog and helping to instill in future teachers lives!

Special Metaphor Assginment (Blog Post 14)

 Wow! After reading the blog post on the metaphors and going back and reading Tom Johnson's post and my response, I feel like an idiot! I just wasn't thinking! It all is so clear to me now. I think that somewhere in the back of my mind I knew it wasn't just talking about pencils but then I wrote like it did. I probably missed it because I was trying to get through the reading so that I could write my response. I remember really liking the post about it and how he took a stand against the no "pencils at home" rule. But now when I read it, I see how it was talking about the use of technology.

 I have heard a lot of metaphors since you asked us to start logging them. My fiancee called me a "big baby" the other day because I wanted to see a chick flick and he rented some horror movie. This made me laugh to actually think of an adult with a pacifier and diaper on! Then while watching a TV show, my mom said that "the bad guy was like a rock." What this actually had to do with the TV show, I have no clue but to think of someone round and gray was kind of funny. I also have heard: "she ruffled his feathers," "you are the sunshine of my life," and "his presence warms the room."

As educators, we can teach our students about metaphors by defining them and showing them some examples of them. We can also ask our students to share what they think is a metaphor and we can discuss it as a whole. Metaphors and similes are sometimes confusing so it might be best if we also do a lesson on similes. I know that I sometimes get them confused! We can also do a small project on metaphors by creating some and then portraying them in either a picture or a story that uses them.

We use metaphors to portray a message. Sometimes if we use metaphors it will help grab the audience and keep them intrigued so that we have time to get our point across. I know that I will pay more attention if you add metaphors because it will keep me wondering what the speaker or editor is really talking about. This allows the audience to think! Metaphors need to be used more inside and outside the classroom!!

Final Report on PLN

I am really enjoying adding things to my PLN. This has been something that I will continue to use throughout my teaching career. I have recently added a few new tiles. They are:

• Alabama Virtual Library- I figured this would be something I could use as a research tool when looking into different subject matters and material that I might not have a lot of information on. I will also ask my students to use this.
• ALEX- After doing a blog assignment on this website, I decided this would be an excellent choice to ass to my PLN. This will be a website that I will use frequently as a teacher. I will be able to use it to look into different lesson plans and to make my own. I will also be able to find great resources here. 
• Discovery Education- This was a website that I stumbled across that I found really interesting. It has great learning resources for each grade level and subject. I will be able to use this to get a different perspective on materials and it also has worksheets and projects. 
• Alabama Department of Education- This will be a valuable tool to use because it is a direct link to the Course of Study web page. I will definitely be using this when making my lesson plans for South and also as a teacher. 
•  ACCESS- I added this website even though I will not be teaching high school students. I will be able to use it to access other websites though and it provides great learning tools and opportunities.

This is all that I have added since the progress report but it is something that I will continue to add to. I really enjoyed this project and think it was an excellent choice to add to the EDM assignments.                   

Blog Post #13

ALEX

(Alabama Learning Exchange)

ALEX is a project of the Alabama Department of Education. It is designed to share educational materials and information through a one stop resource for parents, teachers, and students. The resources are connected to the Alabama Course of Study by National Board Certified Teachers. On the website, you can communicate with other professionals through Listservs, find lesson plans, and interactive resources connected to the Course of Study standards, benefit from best practices in Professional Learning, and links to help your students. 

There are eight different link options on the homepage that can take you to a variety of places. They are: Courses of Study, Web Links, Lesson Plans, Search, Personal Workspace, Professional Learning, Podcast Treasury, and ALEXville. When going to these links you will learn many things about the Department of Education and many great resources that will help a teacher in their classroom. 

I decided to explore the Lesson Plan link option. You are able to either make your own lesson plan by using your Personal Workspace or you can find lesson plans by Author, Title, or School. You can also find lesson plans by subject. If you decided to make your own, then you need to log in before beginning. When looking for a lesson plan, you can go as far as searching for one by the subject, grade or even by a keyword. This provides a teacher with an effective search engine for lesson plans. I decided to look into Social Studies on a 2nd grade level. The first lesson plan that came up was to use a picture book with Google Earth to highlight ten major landmarks on the world. This would be such an amazing lesson to show students places that are so important on the Earth!

I also decided to check out Podcast Treasury which is actually called gallery 360. They have featured content that you are able to click on and it will begin automatically. The featured content right now is: My Class 2.0, Oil Spill Science, and Cast In Iron. You are also able to click on different subjects and check out the different podcast for the things you are teaching at the moment. This was such a neat website and I loved looking into all the podcast that teachers downloaded of their lessons. It is an amazing way to help other teachers out and really unites teachers around Alabama.

In my opinion, ALEX is a great tool for teachers. You can find lesson plans and a variety of useful resources. This will help teachers be more effective in providing their students with an effective educational experience. It also allows you to see different ways of teaching a certain topic and what has been useful for other teachers. As a future teacher, I will take advantage of this website and use it in its entirety. I also hope to one day be Nationally Board Certified so that I can help other teachers by providing them with what has helped me and what hasn't. 

Comments for Kids #3

Investigative Reporting

I was assigned to this particular blog post on Mr. McClung's website. This was a story about how James O'Keefe and his investigators went undercover as a Muslim group to find out how Ron Schiller felt about federal funding and the Republican Party (also called the Tea Party). Ron Schiller is the head of National Public Radio. They had him on video talking about how the Tea Party are a bunch of middle class, gun carrying racist! He then goes on to talk about how NPR would be better off without federal funding. He thought this Muslim group was going to donate 5 million dollars to NPR. The video goes on to interview Mr. O'Keefe and why he decided to make this video.

When the CNN reporter asked O'Keefe why he felt the need to go after NPR, he said that since the media wasn't going after these people then he would. The reporter then asked him if he felt like it was wrong to lie to find out this information. This is where O'Keefe said no because thats journalism. That is what the media does. Do I think it is morally wrong for O'Keefe to have lied to get Schiller to admit to this? I really don't know where I stand on it. I believe that it needed to come out one way or another and this seemed like the only way for someone to get it out of him. I see O'Keefe as going after people that need to be exposed. Though his tactics aren't considered "morally correct" he gets the job done and exposes bigger lies and scandals. 

Rocking Around the Clock

I was assigned to Charlotte's blog. She is 6th/7th grade class and lives in Adelaide, Australia. She wrote her blog post on how her classroom is performing a dance called rocking around the clock. She has a dance partner and talks about the different moves they will be doing at the same time. She also states that she is real excited about learning the dance and how it begins with the boys leapfrogging over the girls and then how a couple of them do cartwheels. Her performance was on April 2.

I responded by talking about how dance is a positive thing in our lives and how it can alleviate some of the built up energy from being in a classroom all day. I also talked about the style of dance they were doing and talked about how it is a fun one and its very energetic. I asked her to please post about how it went and asked her was it for a certain class or were they just doing it for fun. She seemed very intellectual and her writing was organized and fluent. 

Mrs. Yollis' Blog

  Mrs. Yollis' blog is well created and easily accessible. She gives information about herself, where her school is located (California), and videos and blog posts of how to do certain things to help her viewers out. It is easy to find out about her students and what they are required to do. She also has a tab called Time Zones of Friends where she has clocks showing what time it is in different parts of the world. When clicking on a link it takes you to her wiki where she explains everything about her blog. Mrs. Yollis has a blog because she loves how it connects the children and parents. She refers to it as Open House. She uses a blog because it helps her students have an authentic audience for their writing, there able to reflect upon lessons, navigate through the Internet,participate and contribute to an online community, and much more!

She involves her students by either assigning them to a post and asking them to comment on it or by allowing them to create a post individually or with another classmate. They can write about what they have learned in class, topics that interest them, a place they have visited, or give tutorials to something they at one time didn't understand or know how to do. They have also posted movies about what they have learned. Mrs. Yollis involves the parents by asking them to comment on the blog post and the students blogs as well. When she creates a new post she will email the parents about it and give them some sample questions to ask or answer about the particular post. She also provides them with a RSS feed. When she started to notice that the comments were coming from the same families, she started the Comment Counters. This is where a student will get a sticker on a chart for each time they comment on the blog and they will also get one for each family member that comments on it as well. This helps plug the parents in because the kids are pushing them to go comment. They involve other classes by participating in their blog posts as well. They leave comments on other students blogs and the same goes for the other students. 

Mrs. Yollis' blog is strictly based on educational purposes. She wants to help her students reach their writing potential. With her blog, she makes sure her students know how to write a comment as well as a post. She has different time zones, and educational links to help her students learn about other things besides what is being taught in her classroom. The How to Comment video was very informative. I like how you can open up the different tabs to collapse other comments or open up the post that you are commenting on. In the video, she gives a great step by step process of how to comment and how to do it properly. I am glad we were able to analyze her blog!

The post on Family Blogging Month was really great. I loved reading all the exceptional comments that parents and students had left. I also loved the fact that Mrs. Yollis asks the parents to be involved. This is something that I want to strive to accomplish in my class and also with my blog. I want to close the gap between school and home for the parents and students. Commenting on her blog had me so worried. I was hoping I wrote everything right so that my comment would get approved. I know I usually do but she puts a lot of pressure on you! I like that because it helps the students make sure their writing is where it needs to be as well.

Adia's Blog: My Brilliant Blog Mascot

 Adia wrote a wonderful blog post about how she has now made a stuffed animal at Build-a-Bear. It has become her mascot for her blog. She named her Angel Face and she loves to practice karate, sing, swim, play the piano,  swing on trees, and of course roller skate. She made a video of Angel Face doing all these activities. It was such a cute video. At the end of the post she asked her readers if they had a mascot and if so what kind.

I talked about how I would like to make a blog mascot from my favorite stuffed animal, Freddie the Frog. He would be a good mascot because I want to decorate my classroom in a tropical rain forest theme. He would be able to watch the students and let me know if they were acting up and also be visible on my classroom blog. I also told her that I have never actually went to Build-a-Bear but that I would love to one day!

Project 15

Final Project Progress Report

For the final project I will be working with Kelsey Robinson. We will be doing an instructional video on how to use Twitter and the benefits of using it as an educator to connect with other educators. We are working on getting material and information about Twitter together and we are excited to learn about Twitter in the process!

Blog Post #12

Pay Attention

Instructions: Watch this video and then comment on the impact that technology makes on students. Do you think technology can be effective in the classroom? How do you feel about using cell phones in the classroom for educational purposes? How do you feel about the high school students answers to the questions? Can we change their outlook on education? 


Answer: This video really made me realize that technology is something that teachers should start incorporating in the classroom. Students use some form of technology everyday. This is something that could help change students perspective of school. They could want to come and learn because they would be engaging in the technologies that they use everyday. Technology could be effective in the classroom if it is used the right way. You could have podcast for the students to learn from, blogs for them to show their writing skills, online test, and so much more! There are so many different things you could do with the technology to help a student learn. This in return could get them excited about coming to school, which could improve their grades.

Cell phones in the classroom would be tricky for me. Like the video said, you could use them for surveys or finding out information about people for a project. But this would be something you would have to watch carefully. It is so easy to send your friend a quick text and you wouldn't want them using them for the wrong purpose. I hated what the high schoolers said about the school and classroom. These are real outlooks from kids who are graduating. It just shows there needs to be a change in the classroom and technology is the way to go. Its the way the world is heading so why not the schools? We can change their outlook on education by providing them a fun relaxing atmosphere when they walk in. By switching things up, the students won't get bored either. One day you could lecture and the following day you could have some expert on the subject your teaching skype your class or they could listen to an educational podcast from another intellectual. The possibilities are endless!

Project 14

    
You have to scroll to see the recipe, but it is there.

Special Assignment #2

Mr. McClung's World

Mr. McClung's blog is an exceptional blog and has allowed me to learn so much about him. By his blog I can tell that he is real passionate about teaching and helping his students become efficient users of technology. I also can tell that he wants his students to feel comfortable in his class and know they can ask a question and not get yelled at for it. He strives to teach them in a positive way while also letting them have fun. I noticed that Mr. McClung really wants to let the parents in on their child's education by having this class blog. The parents are able to access it and see what there child is learning about and share in on their school work. He makes his blog very inviting to the parents and wants them to get involved. As an educator, Mr. McClung strives to be the best that he can be. He tries to engage the students in different learning experiences that will help them when they are in their own careers. By establishing technology into them at a young age, he is showing them that it can be used for educational purposes. This also helps them in learning that they too, will use it one day in a professional setting.

His rules were very short but to the point. He asked his students to basically be an all around good student and to follow instructions in five simple rules.It shows that his teaching is direct and he likes to engage his students in the lessons. His connection with his students is a positive one and it shows that he wants them to be involved. He is definitely big on communication which is excellent! As a student, these rules would make me a little nervous at first because I wouldn't know what to expect from his class. I would be worried that I wouldn't follow the directions quickly or scared I wouldn't make him happy. But I do think after getting to know him, I would see that his expectations are achievable. As an aspiring teacher, I love how creative he was with his rules. He didn't use the usual rules that teachers put up in their classroom. Instead he made his students wonder about him and want to learn from him. He also portrayed that he wanted them to learn together as a whole class and that meant them being involved in the process. The first thing under everyone needs is a day planner-which is sold at school. I believe he put this first because students need to learn to be organized and a planner is the best way to accomplish that. It also will help students to keep up with their work and make sure they have certain things done on the correct days. The penalties for being late on homework assignments in Mr. McClung's class seem fairly reasonable to me. I say this because he states that he keeps homework to a minimum and you have your class period to work on it and as long as you turn it in by the end of the day then you won't be counted off for it. This means when it is not done on time that the student probably didn't work on it in class. That is the students fault for not using their time wisely. When comparing his penalties to Dr. Strange's, I think that we get it better than Mr. McClungs' students. With EDM we have all week to do the work and if were late we don't get a whole letter grade taken off (Dr. Strange doesn't like grades). I love what he has to say about what he hopes his blog will accomplish. He wants to keep everyone informed on what his class is doing while also providing parents, teachers, and students with links they can look into and other sources that will help them out. As an aspiring teacher, I want to establish a secure blog that my students, their parents and anyone else can go to and find out what my class is doing and things that have helped me become a great educator. I want my students to feel like they can find help with their work on my blog as well as show their parents what they have been doing in class. I want to provide other teachers with links to projects, worksheets, etc. that I have use in my classroom.

I decided to look into ConvinceMe.net and kidblog.org.Convince Me is a website set up for people to debate topics that are important to them and to share recent news that has came up. It is a free site and they have three different types of debates. They are: Open, Battle, and King of the Hill. In an open debate you can have multiple debaters all convincing for one side.  In battle it is a one on one debate and King of the Hill is where you are given one main argument and you try to convince members to give you points. The points are given by other competitors siding with your argument and the more points you get, the bigger your photo becomes! You can also link this to your blog and any debates that you give have to restrain from profanity and any personal attacks. You could use this site to have debates with people from around the world or have your students use it in the battle option and debate back and forth on certain issues. I think he put this on his list so that people could have somewhere to go to express how they feel on certain issues and to debate on them. This can help someone make a stand on a certain issue or you could just go read what other people have to say and see what side that you agree with. I think it could also show you the opposing sides argument and why they feel that way. Kid Blog is a website set up for elementary and middle school teachers to create a unique and safe blog. The teacher has total control over the students blog and can access it or restrict things at any time. The blogs are only viewable by the teacher and other classmates. They are no advertisements  and the blogs are simple and easy to use. You could use this to set your students a blog up that is only for them, their classmates, and yourself. It could be about the class homework, assignments, projects, etc. I believe he posted this link to his blog so that teachers and future teachers would have a place to go if they were interested in creating a blog for their students. 

Mr. McClung's rules on internet safety are very detailed. This will help the student to be able to distinguish on what they should put on their blog and what not to put.  They also are told to NEVER put personal information like their last name, address, phone number, etc. He also provides them with an email address if in any case they need to put one on a link they go to. This will ensure that they do not get slammed with spam or anything else. I definitely would not take any of these rules out and if I added one it would be to always ask your parents or teacher for permission to view any webpage that I didn't give a link to. 

The blog post that I had to comment on for C4K was in the categories of social studies and videos. When going and looking in social studies, I found a lot of videos from CNN on current news topics and things that are going on around the world. I decided to look into one of the recent posts about the U.S economy. It more specifically got into the unemployment rates. The post had three graphs in it that talked about unemployment rates between age, gender, and education. The one on age showed true to most statistics. Younger people are unemployed at a higher rate than older people. It also stated that with the economy the way it is, this number is starting to level out! The gender graph showed that men are unemployed more than women because most jobs that have to cut first our industries, construction, warehousing. Most of these jobs are male dominated. The education graph proved that people with the less education are usually the first to be cut. There is a lower percentage of people with college degrees that are cut. This post made me think about how unemployment is still hurting our economy and made me wonder if we will ever get it fixed.

I love how Mr. McClung can have different sections on his blog so that students or parents can easily navigate around. This helps them because there is so much information on his blog. I also like how he has a search engine on his blog where if you can't find something your looking for on his blog, you can just search for it. This helped me a lot when I couldn't find where his safety tips were for Internet use. I would be interested to learn more about Blogger and if we can have these commodities on our blog as well. Mr. McClung makes his blog so accessible to other students, parents, teachers,etc.. As I stated earlier, he seems to genuinely care about helping others navigate around his blog. He makes it easy by having tabs at the top so that people will be able to find what they are looking for. This helps parents find their children's work a lot faster. He also gives helpful links that future teachers, administrators and parents can go to that will help them. All of this makes his blog effective!

Mr. McClung's blog is so different from other 8th grade blogs that I have visited. His blog has more depth to it and really lays out what all the students are doing in his classroom and how he is helping them to understand technology. With his blog you can find something faster than you can on the other blogs that I have visited. His students seem to know what is going on in the society and world around them and their writing is honestly much better than some that I have read on other blogs. I think him really getting his students to think and engage in issues of this world helps make them better citizens. I am very glad that we were able to dissect his blog and learn about what kind of educator Mr. McClung is. This has helped me in a tremendous way and I hope to use this valuable information when I set up a blog for my future students.

Blog Post #11

First Graders In Ms. Cassidy's Class

This was an amazing video that portrayed students working with various types of technology in the classroom. I was shocked to see how many different types they used at such a young age. I love how they talked about each type and then told how it had help them approve on learning skills, writing, and other things that we strive to teach in the classroom. I was taken back with they started talking about their Nintendo DS and how they use them in the classroom. I had never thought about using them in an educational environment. When the students told of how they were used and what they were able to learn from them, I enjoyed seeing this perspective. The teacher really inspired me to use different types of technology in the classroom.

I like the aspect of using these technologies but I have to wonder how do we provide the students with them? I just don't think you could ask  the parents to go out and buy them. I know our school system doesn't have the money to do this either. I think all this sorta depends on the school you are placed at. Though I do like the idea of using all this in my classroom, it will just depend on if the class is given the funding or if the parents can help contribute. I think this is the big issue with technology and anything else, really.

Skype Interview with Ms. Cassidy

This was such a great skype interview that really informed me on technology in the classroom. Ms. Cassidy is so passionate with what she does and it really shows when she begins talking about her classroom and students. I loved learning about how she used blogs in the classroom and how she was able to track how many people viewed each students blog and where they were from. This gave the students encouragement. It's nice to see that her principal and school board back her up with the technology. The principal's over time who didn't really like it never discouraged her and that is awesome! I like how she started using technology for her classroom and not personal. I have thought about making separate accounts for my personal and professional sites. She gave so many good viewpoints on why future teachers should respond positively about technology in the classroom. We have a head start on some things and if we start now then it won't be so overwhelming if we decided to use it in the classroom.

I was so glad she talked about twitter. I am definitely one of those students who doesn't take full advantage of  it and doesn't really understand it. It really can be a great learning experience for me and I can get some great ideas from it. I also liked how she talked about how we can use blogs in just about anything we decide to teach by posting assignments, projects, etc. on there. I have never thought about using facebook as an educational tool but you definitely have to be careful with that and do as she said and have your students make a separate account just for school.

I learned a lot about how to keep my students safe in the classroom with the technology. I liked the fact that she talked to her students about technology and how to not put your last name on anything and other types of information that could get you in trouble. I also liked how she taught them to just go to certain websites and not click on the flashy ones on the side. If they have a question they know they can go to their teacher or to their parents and this is a great thing because they know they can trust them. Trust is a major thing that needs to be instilled in the classroom and especially when using technology. Thank you so much for this interview. I hope to remember the things I learned here.

Blog Post 10

An Open Letter To Educators

This was a post about a video that Dan Brown produced on how schools are interfering with education. He talks about how in today's society the world around us is changing and everyone is jumping on board except for our education system. He said you still go into Universities that have one teacher per every 80 to 200 students who doesn't encourage interaction among students and they don't take the time to remember your name or get to know you. You spend an hour sitting in class while the professor is in front of the class lecturing from a power point. You are told to remember the facts that he talks about. Dan goes on to explain that with the use of the internet, all the information is right at our fingers now. We don't have to memorize facts anymore because the professor isn't the only one with this information anymore. The schools just need to jump on board and work with the use of all this information. Dan Brown dropped out of school because he felt it was hindering his education. 

When the video was over, Morgan Bayda goes on to talk about how she agrees with the video and why it had an impact on her. Though she doesn't agree with dropping out of school, she does think that Dan is right about how lecture classes and other things in the school system is being held. There is a need for change or the world will give up on schools. She goes on to talk about how one of her education classes was different thought. She was encouraged to interact with classmates and to use technology such as blogs, twitter, and other articles to improve her education. 

I really enjoyed this blog post. Like so many of the other videos and post we have looked at, it talks about how the school system needs to be changed. This is something that is talked about but when will it be put into action? Like Dan said, if something doesn't happen soon then the use for schools and universities will not be needed. I know that some of my classes are a complete waste of time and money. I pay a lot of money to be in these classes and then we meet to hear these lectures that I don't need to hear. I never open my textbooks; I have even gotten to the point where I don't buy them anymore. Anything I can find in them, I can find on the internet. Now I'm not saying that I would go as far as to dropping out of school because honestly, most jobs now require you to have a college education. Whether I like it or not, I will need a job and a career. I want to influence people to make this change occur and not only talk about it but to put my words into actions!

Don't Let Them Take Pencils Home

This was a very fun and informative blog to read. It was about pencils and how one teacher did not want students to take them home because she saw a study that showed if a student took the pencils home it would decrease their score on a standardized test. The other teacher makes an argument that the study is only comparing it to standardized tests and does not have any other information proving this but the teacher won't budge. She then starts to talk about how if they take them home they will only play horrible games like hangman and not do productive stuff.  The fellow teacher goes on to explain that what he does is make sure he has something interactive and fun his students can take home and do so that they will be doing something productive but if by chance they do play hangman then he is okay with it. He says that there is something they can learn from this and that he can't stop them anyways.

This post is about how teachers focus on the problem more than they focus on the solution. One teacher is so busy worrying about test scores and what will happen if the students take the pencils home and the other is thinking about how he can allow them to take the pencils home but still be in control of the situation at hand. As teachers we will be faced with many problems but this doesn't mean that we are to just take away something. Instead, we need to find ways to make it better for the students without taking away their rights. If we give them options then it will be a lot more beneficial then just taking things away from them. This will also help us to come up with ideas to keep learning fun so that the students do not become bored and uninterested. I will remember these things when I become a teacher to better help my students!

Comments for Teachers

C4T #3

I had the privilege of being able to read and comment on Ms. Jenny She's blog. She did her blog post about Why Teachers Should Never Give Up On Students? She talked about how even though there are times we want to give up we know that the kids need us. She posted an amazing youtube video on a little boy picking up starfish and throwing them into the sea. A man tells him that he can't make a difference because there is too many of them and so the little boy picks up another starfish and throws it in the sea and says he just made a difference in that ones life. 

This video was such an inspiration to me. When we get down and think we will not be able to make a difference in every child's life we just need to remember that each child we encounter, we can make a difference! I responded by talking about the video and thanking her for posting it for others to see. I will remember this when I am having a bad day!

C4T #4

I had to go back a few post to find one that was relevant to teaching because she hasn't posted in awhile. I found this one on her teaching about the Mighty Mariners. After teaching about them, she asked her students to draw pictures of a waka. A waka is a canoe in Maori. The slide show depicted the waka's in an amazing way. The students used a lot of color and you could see the definite shape of the waka. Her students are very artistic!

 

I posted about how the pictures were beautiful and how I had never learned about the Mighty Mariners or what a waka was. After reading her post, I decided to google it and find out more information on it. This is something that I found quite interesting and that I think I would like to incorporate into a history lesson one day!

 

Skype Interview

Blog Post #9

What I've learned this year

By: Mr. McClung

Mr. McClung wrote a wonderful blog post about the things he learned during his first year. He talked about how lessons should be student centered and be based on student comprehension. I certainly agree because sometimes we feel like we have to make it just right to look good for the principal when we need to make sure the students are our top priority. One thing he learned really hit home with me. It was that we need to have better communication with teachers. This is something that I think teachers really need to establish. If we started talking about issues and helping each other out then the school would be more beneficial to the students and the workers. Arguments happen in schools but if we can just communicate better then some of these problems wouldn't occur. He talked about how technology should be our friend and that we should never stop learning.


When he started talking about not building expectations too high because we set up our students for disappointment, I thought back to some of my past teachers who had done this. This is something that we need to be aware of because we don't want to discourage them if they fail. That is where we need to help them and tell them that they still can succeed. This sometimes is the only encouragement they might get! We also need to get to know our students so that they are able to trust us. All this takes is really listening to them and understanding where they come from. I know as a teacher we will not have a lot of time but this is something I believe we should make time for.


I am so glad that we were assigned to this blog post. It was very inspiring to me and I can't wait till the day I can make a post after my first year of teaching!!

Comments for Kids #2

C4K 4

I was assigned to comment on Litia's blog. She goes to the Pt England School in Auckland, NZ. She is in the 6th grade and is an excellent writer. She wrote a blog about the earthquake in Christchurch. She stated how it was devastating and that 300 people are still missing and there has been 75 confirmed deaths. Many buildings and streets have been destroyed. The cathedral (shown above) is an old historic landmark and it has collapsed on one side. I went and looked at an older blog she posted and it was a video to all the residents of Christchurch. In it she stated that she hopes they are okay and to never lose hope.

 When commenting on her blog, I told her how excellent of a writer she is and that she seems like a really sweet kid who is genuinely worried about the residents of Christchurch. I then went on to talk about the devastation over there and how I hope rescue teams can find some of the people missing. I also commented on how it is a real tragedy to see all these gorgeous, historical landmarks ruined.

C4K 5

 

I was assigned to Helen's blog. She is in year 7 at the PT England Intermediate School in Aukland, NZ. She is in room 21 and her teacher is Mrs. Lagitupu. In her blog post she talks about netbooks and how her school had them use them in a trial and error study. They are going to be able to keep them for their personal use as soon as they get the okay. She talks about how she has enjoyed using them for blogging, emails, and games as well as in class. In her class, she has used them for statistics and has learned how to make graphs on them. She says that her most exciting time is getting to use them to learn literacy.

I responded to her blog post first by telling her that I loved her post and was excited to see what they were doing. I also told her that I have a netbook and am very fond of mine as well. I went on to talk about how as a future teacher I cant wait to be able to incorporate technology in the classroom and that I love how her teacher is doing that. This really inspired me to be a motivator for technology in the classroom because I see how it has helped Helen.

C4K #6

I was assigned to Nathan O's blog. He is in Mrs. Phares' fourth period class. The blog post was about bullying and how it is increasing in the schools and the world. He talks about how little comments can soon turn into heated arguments which can result in fighting. He believes that bullies should be punished by having to spend at least one day in prison!

When commenting back on his post, I talked about how bullying is becoming a serious problem and how we need to make teachers and parents realize that it is going on so that something can be done about it. It has become a serious threat and there are students that are committing suicide because of bullies. I left him with the thought that we need to come up with a good way to deal effectively with bullying for the victims and the one who is bullying. This could then be turned around for good and we could make a change in the students life.

Smartboard Presentation Group #1

This was a collaborative project worked on by: Brittany Hamilton, Courtney Starkie, Joshua Ragsdale, and Rashad Adams



After we taught we sent our "students" the quiz online to take. Here our the results. They did very well and we were pleased with how they came out.

Click the image above to see our full response.

I really enjoyed being able to teach using a Smartboard. This isn't my first time using one but my first time really teaching a lesson. During my observation hours I was under an amazing teacher who let me use hers in the classroom and I was also allowed to teach her students a new spelling game on it. I really enjoy using a Smartboard. It gives me a new way to teach students where they can interact with the lesson. I loved doing a game at the end of our lesson.  I think as a future teacher this is a great opportunity to see if your students are retaining the information.

I learned a lot using the Smartboard during this lesson. I loved that we were able to learn new ways to make forms by using Google Docs. I have really enjoyed being able to save my work online and access it from any computer. This is very convenient for me. I also liked how we had to use the smart notebook software to create the lesson plan. This allowed me to download it and I am now able to play around with it. I am very glad I got this opportunity.

Blog Post #8

Richard Miller: This is how we dream

Richard Miller gives a great lecture about how things are changing in technology and how the school system needs to get on board. He talks about how he loved books and inspired to write one. He finally did and now it is out of print and you can buy it on ebay for like .57 cents. He talks about how technology has changed from students using books to now finding virtually everything on the web. Miller says that most newspapers and books are also now available in web pages to better suit people's needs. It also now has links to photos and audio is included.

Miller says that the education system isn't prepared for this because they don't have Inspiring teachers or spaces. He said until all teachers get on board, nothing will change and therefore students will be behind. Am I prepared to write with multimedia? Before taking EDM I would have said no but from what I have learned in this class and from the web, I think I will be prepared for this change that will be taking place. This is something that will need to take place and that means that teachers will need to get out of their comfort zone and learn about the programs the students will be using. How can we teach something if we don't know anything about it?

Will my students be able to do this? I honestly think they will. As an elementary teacher I will be establishing this in them at an early age. The good thing about this is I will be able to help them and this will almost be all they know. If we can get kids using multimedia at an early age then it will not be as difficult for them when they are made to use it in higher grades. Besides, kids today are so use to technology that this will be another part of their life that they will be incorporating it into. This is where education is going to and I am excited to be a part of it!

Chipper

Chipper was a video about a girl who is in EDM 310 and doesn't do her work. She procrastinates so much that she ends up making bad grades in Dr. Strange's class and decides to leave the university because of him. She then opens up her own  flight school where students can make their own schedules and come whenever they feel like they should come. It ended up being shut down because there was no quality education and people can't fly without actually practicing first. After this she gets an online degree and Dr. Strange helps her get a job with a school. She then gets fired because she never went to class. Afterwards, she got a job as a waitress thinking it would be easy and could go to work whenever she wanted to but she also got fired from there. Chipper then decided to become a nanny because she thought it would be easy and she could get paid for just staying on Facebook but the parents didn't offer her the job. She then decided to become a garbageman and afterwards had a "cleansing" of her mind. She went back to school to get her Master's and decided to really focus in school and not to procrastinate.

EDM310 For Dummies
This was a video about two girls that at the beginning are very overwhelmed with the work in EDM. Then they have a book pop on the screen that is called EDM310 for Dummies. It is a book about all the websites and projects that you will use in EDM310. It has tutorials and a step by step guide on how to survive EDM. This book ended up helping these two girls enjoy the class and get a lot out of it.

In these two videos I learned a lot about EDM and what not to do. I know not to procrastinate or you will not get the assignments done on time. I also know that with a little help this class can be enjoyable and not that difficult.  I would like to create a video on the process of using the flip cameras and how to edit it on imovie. I know it isn't the difficult but it took me awhile to figure out how to take things out of video without messing it all up. I'm still not really sure. This would be very beneficial!

Learn to Change, Change to Learn

This was a video from distinguished educators on how the education system needs to change. They talk about how education is the same as it has always been and the world around the school is changing. Studies show that coal mining is more IT intensive than education!! That is really disturbing!! This means that the education system needs to change. The video talked about how students are surrounded by their social networks all day and when they get to school the things they use the most aren't allowed in the classroom. If they were, students would be getting an education that is geared towards the students involvement and their independence. These things are what is going to make the 21st century education so vital. First, they need to have these technologies and changes established with the teachers. Without them, none of it will be possible. I agree with what the educators in this video are saying. We need to get the schools to incorporate technology so that we can move up the top 55 and become more IT intensive than coal mining. This is a change that has needed to be made for awhile now but we have to start somewhere and now is the time!

The Secret Powers of Time

In this video, Professor Zimbardo starts off with saying there are 6 different time zones: 2 focus on the past, 2 focus on the present, and 2 focus on the future. The people from the past are either past positive or past negative. Some people are present oriented and only are concerned about what is going on now. The future oriented people are worried about what is going to go on later in their life. People in the south are more past oriented and people in the north are more present oriented. Robert Levine wrote a book about the pace of life. The pace of life is where people divide their own experiences into timezones. It is also divided into time duration which is usually divided by whether they are bored, excited or not.  He goes on to talk about how a child in America drops out of school every 9 seconds. He says that it is worse for minority groups and the male population. This is because kids are in a society where they live in a society where. technology is everywhere except for in schools. Kids are in a rush all the time and are use to not having to wait. There is a fundamental change going on in the society and schools need to jump on the technology train and get with the program. We need to understand peoples time perspective. People are forgetting their family's to make sure they become successful. This is something that needs to change as well. There needs to be more emphasis on family values and all it takes is people changing their perspective on time.

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Daniel Pink discusses what motivates someone. He says there are two studies that he wants to discuss and they are 1) if you reward something do you get more of the behavior you want? and 2) If you punish something do you get less of the behavior you want? He then goes on to talk about a study that MIT did that showed how students reacted to the test they were given and how well they did for different types of rewards. The higher you got, the better the monetary reward was. They concluded with a shocking result that most people wouldn't think but it was: above rudimentary skill the less the reward matter meaning the reward doesn't work that way. I would have never thought higher incentives would lead to worse performance. Another thing he talks about is how money is a motivator and if you don't pay people enough, they won't be motivated. This was easy enough for me to see because money is a big deal to most humans. What I didn't know was if you pay people enough it will lead to them being focused on the work and not the money. Autonomy helps people be better workers especially when the boss gets out of the way and lets the worker do the things they need to do. Mastery is a way that people do things they love and not worry that they don't get paid for it. Purpose is something that people really care about as well.

I love how this video talked about what can help us change the world and make it better for us all. If these were emphasized in the classroom then our students would be excited about the things they are doing. Success could become a major thing in the classroom when the teachers get behind the students and let them be independent thinkers and learners. These were both amazing videos and I enjoyed a lot of things they discussed.

Blog Assignment #7

Randy Pausch: The Last Lecture- Achieving Your Childhood Dreams!

Dr Pausch gives an excellent lecture about how to achieve your dreams and how to enable others to achieve theirs.Dr. Pausch taught computer science and worked for Carnegie Mellon Univeristy, where he instructed a class based on virtual reality. He titled his lecture "The Last Lecture" because normally it is the last thing you talk about before you die. He was diagnosed with liver cancer but he had a great attitude and just lived his life. He begins his lecture by giving us a list of all his childhood dreams. They were:

• Being in zero gravity
• playing in the NFL
• winning stuffed animals
• authoring an article in the World Book Encyclopedia
• being Captain Kirk (later changed that to meeting Captain Kirk)
• being a Disney Imagineer

He was able to achieve all these childhood dreams in some way. Though some were harder than others he never gave up on them. He talked about how he was able to and what pushed him to keep going. On the one about playing in the NFL he talks about "head fake" which is a way to learn indirectly. He said that most kids don't even realize they are learning about communication skills and teamwork when their playing football. This is a sneaky way to learn. This was extraordinary because I don't even remember what my childhood dreams  were. He said the only catch is that we tend to push them in the back of our minds and only see them as things that we dreamed about, but could not possibly come true.During the lecture he talked about brick walls and how they are there for reasons.One of them was to let us prove how badly we wanted things. This was so true because I know that when I hit a brick wall I just strive to work harder. This is a great teaching lesson!! This part of the speech led into the main thing: How can I enable the childhood dreams of others? This is what he began to ask himself.

This is where he becomes a professor which helps him really be able to help others pursue their childhood dreams. He is now in the setting to encourage them and teach them things that many others might not have a passion for. He has 50 students randomly picked for his class and they are put in groups and are asked to work together. Each group has to make a virtual world. Afterward, they are asked to rate how easy their partners were to work with. This was a great reflection for them and can be considered one of the best things to teach your students. When Dr. Pausch is talking about the Alice Project he talks about how the students are then going through "head fake" because they are having a lot of fun on the computer that they don't even realize how hard the computer programming is they are mastering. When he uses props this helps students learn in a visual way. Props help students see things as they are and they find the material much more interesting.

He then talks about lessons learned and how the role of parents, mentors, and students are a major part in achieving your dreams. At the end Dr. Pausch brings in some thoughts that he wants to leave others with. A few of them are: Have fun, help others, loyalty is a two-way street, listen to feedback and use it, show gratitude, don't complain-just work harder, and find the best in everyone-maybe their good side will come out eventually. I really like these thoughts and will make sure that I remember them. His lecture was very entertaining and I am glad that I got to listen to it. I learned some very substantial material from him and I hope to apply it with my students so that they can achieve their childhood dreams.

Project 10- PLN Progress Report 1

My PLN is definitely a work in progress. At first, I honestly did not know what it was or how to form it. After watching the videos, I decided to use Symbaloo for my PLN. While in symbaloo, I decided to go ahead and make a personal one so that I can keep up with all the websites that I go to. This will be a big help with me planning my wedding right now. On my EDM webmix I have:

• Blogger.com- for my personal blog and also for the EDM 310 class blog
• Twitter.com- to follow the EDM staff and other educators
• Skype.com- to use when interviewing someone, etc..
• Gmail- to keep up with what is going on in my class
• Youtube.com- to upload my videos
• Dropbox.com- to have access to many documents used in classes
• google images- where I get majority of the images I use for my blog post
• Dictionary.com- to help me look into different words and their meanings

These are just a few of the items that I have put on there now but I am sure that it will continue to grow as the semester continues!

Comments for Teachers #2

C4T #1

I had the privilege of commenting on Edna Sackson's blog. She lives in Melbourne, Australia. She writes some very informative blog post and they reflect her personal thoughts and opinions. The first one that I was able to comment on was about the Power of Communication. She was talking to a fellow teacher and was suprised how the other teacher dismissed the idea of her students using drama to improve their second language skills and a group of the students applying their knowledge through tech tools. It seemed that she liked her students to all be on the same task and under her control. She didn't want to share the control with them. Edna decided to approach the situation by discussing with the fellow teacher about her own two kids. She talked about how they both learn in two different ways and that is when Edna asked her how they would do in her class then. The teacher immediately saw what she was doing wrong and was open to exploring ways to change. This helped her see how the gradual release of responsibility could improve her students and her classroom.

I commented about how I love the approach that Edna took to talking to this teacher about changing. I said that Edna has helped me learn that not all students will learn the same or at the same pace and that I need to be ready for that and always have something for the students who finish early to do. I talked about how I like that Edna used something personal to the teacher so that it would hit home with her. I also like how the other teacher took it as constructive criticism and did not get her feelings hurt by this. This post gave some great points about what a small conversation can do to impact your teaching style.

C4T #2

Edna then wrote an amazing post about how change isn't easy and how it can be difficult at times but how it is very necessary. She gave many valid points to how to change from one scenario to the next. My favorite statement that she made was to shift from focusing on teaching to focusing on learning. This is such a major thing that most teachers do not even think to change. She also said that learning new ways is challenging and its going to take patience, openness, time and resilience. She ended it with saying that as educators, in the business of learning, we need to be learners ourselves.
I couldn't agree more with all that she said. She made so many points that as teachers and future teachers we need to always remember. By this I realized that education is going to change and that we need to learn to adapt with it. As a future teacher, I can't be too set on a certain teaching style or way because it will all be changing. Technology is one of the biggest types of change the school will be seeing and as a new educator I want to instill in my students lives that my classroom is based on learning and that I will try to share the responsibility with my students and let them help out with making their experience a successful one. 

Project #11 Book Trailer

Blog Post 6

The Networked Student 

 

This was a very interesting video. I love how it captured the steps of how to be a networked student. This is a true example of connectivism. The student in the video uses a wide range of resources to build his learning network. Not only does he use websites and blogs to learn more about American Psychology he also listens to educational podcast on his Ipod. This helps him have a range of educational tools. With no book in the class, he is able to expand his knowledge and become responsible for the things he needs to learn. Being a networked student will help him in the long run and he will be able to survive living in a world where everything is based on technology.
Does the networked student really need a teacher? I think yes! Like the video said, she is the backbone to what he has become. Without the help and support of a teacher, a student will not know how to fully reach the potential to becoming a networked student. A teacher can help by showing a student what to do, how to fix a problem, how to communicate properly, and more; but without a teacher the student will not know this. I feel like I am prepared to be a teacher of a networked student. It will be difficult but I believe that EDM has helped me learn more about the internet and how to use it effectively. With this, I can help a student learn more about technology and how to use it in the classroom. If I don't know something then I will research it until I do.
Wendy Drexler is very brave for wanting to try this with her middle school students. I don't know if I would be able to do that. Its hard, I think, because they are still at that immature age where they are not going to be responsible. But I do believe that if she does it right and makes it fun, then they might enjoy it and like being able to work on things on their own. It could honestly go both ways.

A 7th Grader's Personal Learning Environment

This student has her Personal Learning Environment(PLE)down. I was amazed by how it had so many sources and she is getting as much out of the internet that she can. Her teacher has given her a lot of leniency when it came to doing her work on her own. The student took this oppurtunity to work with different resources so that she learned everything she could about a particular subject. While doing this, she had fun and learned about responsibility. I also love how it makes the class almost paperless. It helps save the planet but also saves the teacher money because most schools today don't have the money for printing and paper so it comes out of the teachers pocket.
Her PLE makes my PLN look horrible. She has a lot more resources than I have on mine. After watching her video, I thought of other things I can start adding to mine though.

Smartboards

Michael Stanton writes a blog post about how smartboards are the least cost effective way to improve learning. He said that two of the main reasons he believes this is: 1)they don't change the model that is broken, they just make it more expensive and 2)smartboards are an administrative cop out. He doesn't believe that the smartboard will do anything to help because you still have to teach the students things they don't want to learn and it doesn't reduce a teachers workload. They are an administrative cop out because administrators use them to write proposals and use money to make the classroom look better but it doesn't change the actual learning of the classroom.

Bill Ferriter writes a blog about why he believes interactive whiteboards are useless. He said that he used his for about a year to conclude this information. He said he crafter three nifty assignments out of it but overall it didn't make his curriculum any easier. He believes it takes too much money to help teachers learn how to use it and that it doesn't make the kids learn any more effectively.
I found a useful blog post that a lady named Angie wrote about tools on a smartboard that are effective to use in the classroom. This is a contrast to what the other two authors wrote about smartboards. She has found a way to use her smartboard to help her students learn and to help interact them in the process. To check out her post about smartboards Click here

Comments for Kids 1

C4K #1

My first assigned kids blog was a boy named Owen T. He is from Charlottesville, Va. He is in Mrs. Paula White's class. I went back to some of his old post and discovered a lot about him. He has a great imagination. He wrote a short story called the Hillbilly Chainsaw Massacre. It was funny but also had an edge to it. He is also very fascinated with looking up things online. He is always posting about new Ipod apps that he is finding and famous quotes.

I was able to comment on a post of his about his favorite links to go to on the internet. It was fascinating because every link was different and told me something he was interested in. A lot of them were about online game sites that you could visit. Upon visiting one, I played online Monopoly and that was fun. He also gave a link to Youtube. When commenting I told him what I thought about each link and offered him some advice. I told him next time he might would want to explain each link so that we knew what we were looking at. I really enjoyed looking at his blog.

C4K #2

The next kids blog I was assigned to was a girls named Gina Marie. She is in the fifth grade and lives in Mew York. Her teacher is Mr. St. Pierre. When learning more about her I found out that she loves to go ice skating. I have never been so it was interesting reading her blog post about it. She has wrote many blog post about her weekends and some are short stories and poems. 

I was privileged to read about her Valentine's Day. It was not a good one though. She started off by helping her father make dinner for her mom for Valentine's Day. They made heart shaped ravioli. It got bad when she started having problems breathing. At first, her dad thought it was because she had went ice skating the night before but when her mom got home she put her on a nebulizer just to be safe. This helped her breathing to calm. I responded by asking her if this had happened before and told her she should maybe go see a doctor about it. She recently posted a blog saying she went to the doctor and she has Broncho Spazem. I don't know much about that but it doesn't seem too good.

C4K #3

The last student I was assigned to was a child by the name of  Frankie. He is in the fifth grade and lives in New Zealand. I don;t know much about him because he only has a picture of himself in his blog. But I did go back and look at his blog from last year to find out more about him. He is an excellent writer and uses a lot of descriptive words in his text. He seems to have a fun personality because he wrote a blog about how amusing it was to see his teachers dressed up as bugs and critters in an assembly. He also had a video on there from when he made a volcano and it exploded!

I had to comment on his picture because that was all on the blog at the time. I just told him that it was great to meet him and that I had read some of his post from last year and that I couldn't wait to see what he has in store for us this year. 

Timetoast Part 2

Blog Post #5

Practical Podcast

This was a very interesting podcast. Scott from Colorado and Melinda from Missouri are talking about their educational experiences as teachers. Scott has just recently taken a position as an interim middle school principal. He has always been in the high schools so it will be different for him. In Colorado they now have an accountability law where they will have a leadership team to make sure everything in the school is working efficiently. I think this is an awesome idea because it can help the teacher to be accountable to one another and all the weight isnt just on the principal. To get the parents on board with Scott being the new principal, he sent them a letter introducing himself and told them after July if they had any questions or wanted to get to know him better they could stop by the school for a cup of coffee. I like how he makes it very welcoming for the parents to get to know him. The podcast is a very neat idea how these two individuals come together and talk about education and technology that they are using. They love everything that comes with iphones, and ipad and they are looking into the droid.

I think this is a great way to communicate with other teachers and also let an audience hear what you have to say on different subjects dealing with education. I learned a great deal from this and want to continue listening to it in my spare time.

The Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom

Joe Dale gives us valuable information on the benefits of podcasting. Any student born after 1980 is considered a millennial which means they have not known life without a computer and technology. Podcasting helps teachers interact with their students outside the classroom. It is an excellent idea when a student is absent from school for a long period of time due to sickness or some other reason. It can allow the student to be able to hear what the teacher is teaching on and therefore that student will not be too behind on their work. Creating a podcast is fairly simple and it will not take up too much computer space. You can also get the parents on board by showing them that they can keep up with their child's progress and hear what their child is learning about. It is also a great way to have your students show how they would create a podcast and what they would talk about.

I am definitely on board with podcasting in the classroom. If it can make my job effective as a teacher then I will do it. I would love to see my students create a podcast about themselves so that I can learn more about them and see how creative they become with it. This will also help me keep students up to date with the material learned in the classroom while they are absent. One thing I think I would use it for the most is to put the material taught in the class on a podcast so that while students are doing their homework they can go back and listen to me teach it if they didn't understand it. I also loved how this website gave me valuable information on how to podcast.

The Education Podcasting Network
The Education Podcasting Network is a valuable website to learn more about podcasting and to share with others. I like how you can find podcast about specific subjects on this website. This can help me find better ways to teach certain topics and to find out some valuable information for myself. I can form lesson plans from the help of other educators all over the globe. I love how the website said that: "the best way to understand podcasting is like a merger between blogging and radio." I had never thought about it that way but that is exactly what it is! This website showed that podcasting is easy to subscribe to and with EPN you can go to specific subjects and hear a ton of podcasts on that subject.
I will be using this website when I begin teaching. I went to some podcast on Mathematics and it really breaks down how you can complete a problem. Since Math is my sore subject, I will probably use these podcast in the classroom so I can effectively teach my students how to solve mathematical equations. I will also try to contribute to this website by forming podcast and uploading them. I will also try to allow my students to do podcast and upload them as well. I listened to some classroom podcast and they were just wonderful!!