Final Blog Post--Reflection

It's quite clear the overarching things I've learned this semester about technology. I mean, just look at my first entry about how embarrassing it is to accidentally tweet and then read the rest of this--how I'm actually sizing up different types of technology based on their usefulness in the classroom based on my understanding of them. Part of me feels like being on a commercial just to help sponsor the idea of Technology. Zoom in on a college student up to her neck in twisted computer chords, her face lit by a blinking computer screen. Announcer: "Are you tired of spending endless hours trying to figure out what all those buttons and keys do?" College student looks up pathetically and nods. "Are you tired of looking like a fool by a little box that can't think for itself?" College student starts to weep. "Now, with just a little assistance, you can conquer a moderate amount of your technology anxieties!" College student beams with joy. Different shot of that same student walking down the stairs of a powerful looking building--possibly a university or corporation. Student: "I used to freak out about all things computer, but now I'm telling my superiors how to do things that can better their lives. Thanks, Technology!"

Okay, so that's an exaggeration, but I still feel like my attitude about technology has changed, and that's the most important thing in my opinion. I don't think technology is purely a distraction and only brings in temptations or mind-numbing material to everyone's lives--I see that with the proper application of the tools available on computers, we can make our lives more productive and social. Networking isn't just about going from business to business and it's not just about Facebook either. With websites, blogs, videos, wikis and countless other pieces of technology, we have the ability to reach out and connect with people who can inspire us and teach us. Collaborating with peers and professionals is as easy as turning on your computer.

I think the most helpful blog I subscribed to this semester was Cliff's Notes because he had lots of links to other very helpful sights about good teaching tools and technologies to use. It was pretty consise as well--some other blogs you have to wade through a lot of stuff before you find the treasures. This wasn't the case as much with Cliff's Notes.

I also think the most useful pieces of technology for me to learn to use were the class websites and iMovie. I realized how a class website allows me to be more organized and available to my students (not to mention their parents). And I had no idea how many applications I could use for iMovie to make potentially boring subjects something kids would be excited to watch or even make. I definitely plan on using some sort of technology in my future teaching depending on what is most needed for that class. Wikis for collaborative papers, blogs for publishing daily journals, iMovie or garage band for bringing in more creative elements to the class . . . the possibilities go on. Part of the reason I wanted to become a teacher is because I had so many bad ones growing up. I thought that there had to be a better and more interactive way to teach, and now, oh mighty Technology, you have made my point.

Khanacademy

This weeks' blog post is going to be about khanacademy.org, a one man mission to teach the world math, finance, and physics . . . among other things. Though this doesn't have much to do with my subject area, I can immediately see three applications for me personally in my life and teaching career--

1.) I can direct students in my English classes where to go with their math woes since I am much more qualified with words than with numbers. This is a great resource so that if my students ask me about any math concepts, I can point them in another direction instead of letting my face go red with their persistent staring in expectation of me saying something intelligent.

2.) I can actually learn certain math concepts I may need to make an analogy in my class. Or, in some crazy turn of events, if I have to sub for a math class, I can brush up on my number skills so I have more to bring to the students than apologies or nice poems about math.
 
3.) Finally, and most applicable in my opinion, I don't have to use khanacademy to know that I have the potential to do something similar. The concept of having mini-lessons available online would be great for students who need a refresher on certain topics we've covered in class. I might, for instance, make videos like those on kahanacademy after school that week, going over the major themes we've covered. These videos can then be available as a study guide for students.

The possibilities are pretty open with this idea, and so more ideas helpful to my classroom could soon follow.

Proposal for my Final Project

With the first mention of WebQuests in class, I was intrigued. I snooped around online a little to see what I could find out, which proved to be rather difficult since I had no idea what I was looking for. On WebQuest.org I found some information about them, and then a search engine to view them. I opened up the search boxes to see what these said WebQuests looked like. I typed in vague topics like English and writing. The blinking cursor mimicked my confused blinking. Nothing came up with those words. In a desperate attempt, my hesitant and trembling fingers typed in 'math' but still . . . nothing. In frustration, I sighed and placed my hands heavily on the keyboard. In doing so, I accidentally searched for 'ew' and a few WebQuests actually came up. Go figure. Despite these beginning issues, it looks like a really cool piece of technology to learn, especially dealing with collaborative writing or learning historical contexts of books, etc.     

Online Flashcards--A Flash of Inspiration

One quiet Thursday night in the upstairs bedroom of a college apartment complex--a vague location due to my increased awareness of internet safety--I was reading through my textbooks and writing down notes when a longing thought penetrated the mist of boredom threatening to set off the smoke detector . . . what if I could make online flashcards? No hand cramps, no awkward note cards to carry around, the ability to have pictures or more detailed descriptions on them without cutting out and pasting pictures and looking like an over-sized  kinder gardener. . . it sounded so blissful.
The media-and-technology fairy laid a gentle hand on my shoulder and made me jump. "But you can make online flashcards!" She gently chided me. "Have you learned nothing?" "Of course I have!" I protested with embarrassment, shoving the notes away and turning to my computer, dramatic theme music rising with my realization.
And there it was. With the words "flash" and "cards" nestled snugly in the Google search box, I found what I had been longing for. Flashcardmachine.com is a free service that allows you to create your own flashcards, or even create flashcards your classmates or students can use. You can upload pictures and audio, combine sets of flashcards, and share them with others on the site. You can also upload an application that allows you to put your flashcards on your Ipod (with a fee).
In my joy, I suddenly looked back at the media-and-technology fairy with a sour expression. "Really?" I asked. "You couldn't have told me sooner?"   

Internet Safety

The resources online that educate about internet safety were fascinating and eye-opening to me. I though I had a pretty good idea about what I needed to do to keep myself safe on the internet, but I really didn't have a truly solid idea until now.
I learned that someone only needs a few pieces of personal information to be able to either locate you or steal your identity. Keeping your birthday (especially year), place of birth and home address safe are of utmost importance. There are also lots of resources to help prevent and work through pornography, specifically on lds.org. There are also several sights online that give you access to controlled internet use such as the k9 internet filter.
Besides protecting yourself against identity theft, there is also the danger of keeping yourself safe online in relation to your healthy sense of self and reality. The videos from Frontline in our resources were a little scary to me in their reality of how much teenagers are sucked into the internet. I was disappointed and even outraged when some of the parents in the video didn't seem to be making an effort to have more face-time with their children or were "supporting" them by giving them the freedom to post provocative pictures.
Though the sites will be different when I'm a parent and the technology is almost impossible to imagine, the ideas will still be the same and so I have become a lot more solid in the things I want to do as a parent to protect and educate my children and students. For my children, I'm going to make sure I spend face-to-face time with them everyday, and have a good talk with them at least every few days. This is helpful because of Family Home Evening and the practice of eating dinner together. I also want to have a small portion of the week, maybe Saturday mornings, where we spend time as a family with no technological distractions so it can be more appreciated and put in perspective when used again.
As a teacher, this gets trickier but I'm definitely going to have this in mind when putting together my assignments and evaluations, such as tests.
I feel there should be a medium between education and encouragement of technology, as well as monitoring and control. Kids want structure, but they also want to be understood and so we shouldn't make them feel ashamed. We just need to teach them, even just a little in the classroom because it may be the only place they get that kind of instruction.      
I talked to my older sister about some of these basic principles about not revealing too much information about herself online, and also how to protect her daughter who is almost one year old. Although my niece is still pretty young, I gave my sister some general advice about things to look out for as her daughter gets older because technology exposure starts at younger and younger ages. Some of the things I told her she knew (like not to put online when you're going to be out of town) but she didn't realize how just a few bits of information can result in identity theft. She was also interested in learning more about pornography prevention, which I hadn't focused on much until she asked me about it. Together we explored different options. It felt really cool to inform my older sister about things that could help her, and it was also neat to feel more part of my niece's life even though we live so far away.

Shakespeare Video--Multimedia Assignment

Because of privacy issues, I did not embed my Shakespeare video on my blog (not that I wanted my own acting on here anyway) but I did want to talk about the things I did to make my video. The whole process was rather difficult--meaning I was just about on a first name basis with computer tech people in the lab I was working in, but here are some things I learned how to do.
Once I got everything working and figured out how to import video and music (half the battle) I pieced together my own videos with transitions of varying types and lengths, adjusted sound because the quality wasn't great, added slow motion affects at one point for the dramatic throwing of a bottle, added music and adjusted when it faded in and out, and added text at key points in the movie that help the class know were you are in the play. 
Uploading the video to YouTube (also set on private) was another challenge in and of itself. When I first stated uploading it, the time guesstimater told me that it would take 566 minutes to complete. Aghast and even a little claustrophobic, I typed and clicked furiously to find another way. Though they say that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing and expecting different results, that's exactly what happened. I was both relieved that it worked and worried about my sanity (or the sanity of who said that quote to begin with, really).
Though I may have embarrassed myself in the learning process (who knew that the power button for a Mac was on the back bottom left corner of the monitor?) it will be completely worth it when my class sees the video and experiences a high level of engaged learning, not to mention a profound blending of technology and art worthy of any prestigious award.  

Weekly Reflection: AudioBoo

It's interesting that just a few days before we mentioned Audio Boo in our last class, I actually stumbled on it in one of the blogs I follow. Looking around on the website, I realized that there were a ridiculous amount of  educational applications possible. The accounts are free so you can have all your students sign up and give them assignments to record things as a podcast or just a one-time deal. Some applications could include an interview (meet the author), a book summary, a poem, an explanation of a concept learned in class, questions the students have for the teacher or a tutorial the teacher can have her students access if they need help on homework, etc. And the actual recording and posting process is a breeze, so students shouldn't get too stuck on technical things. (The same goes for the teacher who may be a little technology shy . . . phew!) You can also have the students follow each other so they can listen to each others' posts (which is a huge incentive for kids to do a better job). I'm sure there are dozens of other applications for just about any subject taught in school. Not to mention, it's a pretty fun tool to have for your personal life, too.

Because I'm so handy-dandy, here is a link to the AudioBoo site.

Realization I Should've Realized

So, my weekly participation has always been a little hard for me because I always try to find my own resources online with how I could teach technology. I thought I would come up dry before the end of the semester (which is devastating when you know there are almost limitless resources available--could anything else make you feel more incompetent?) but then I realized what one of my greatest resources was . . . drum roll . . . my Google Reader! All the blogs we subscribed to at the beginning of the school year are surprisingly full of great stuff to use. (I wonder if that's maybe why we did it . . . *significant look*.)I looked through the hundred or so posts I had been missing out on and found site after site that would be great resources for a classroom. I'll just post one here, but now I'm relieved my discoveries haven't come up short. I guess it was almost like sailing through the internet and discovering a new continent instead of the end of the earth.

This week, I want to mention ourstory.com. This site is amazing not just for school but for a student's personal life as well. You just sign up to the sight for free and start creating a very visual time line. There are lots of possibilities in a classroom setting--students could create a time line of their life to help them pick certain life events in order to write a personal essay or they could create a time line of certain books they've read so they can follow plot and character development. I've actually written a lesson plan in one of my previous classes that requires students to create a time line. How much more exciting to use a computer and pictures to do it than a paper and pencil!

So, lesson learned--I'm going to look through my Google Reader blogs more often and keep adding to my resources so I can always pull from them and learn as a teacher.

Storyboard

Here is my storyboard:

Copyright Information and Assignment

First of all, I had no idea there were so many resources about copyright laws specifically for educators and students. Here are a couple of links I want to keep track of  my future teaching:

Copyright Scenario Checklist
Copyright Guidelines for Students
Copyright Education

Here are a few more links for creative commons, an incredible network of sharing work I never knew existed:

Wikimedia Commons
Free Play Music
Fotolia
Creative Commons/Flickr

Now that I have all these jewels on my blog, I'll go on with my assignment which is to critique how two videos make use of copyright laws. The first video I was unable to embed because that feature had been disabled, so here is the link instead:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Jba5HsWDsA
I decided to use this video clip because I've thought about doing something similar in my future English classes--talking about things you learned in class that you also found in pop culture or the world outside of the classroom. From what I can tell in the video, the teacher doesn't necessarily show clips in class of pop culture references to history, the students just bring it up to the teacher. This doesn't really touch on copyright law at all, but my guess is that the teacher does show the occasional clip in class. This would be perfectly acceptable under copyright law because a clip is only a small percentage of a work and would be educational because it would be helping students understand what was taught in class. When it comes to the actual video however, it seems likely that the teacher might have stepped on some copyright laws. There are both clips and music used in the video and neither have any sort of citation. The good thing, however, is that only short clips are used and only small portions of songs. With additional citation in the ending credits, the teacher would be completely free from copyright problems.
One question I do have is how copyright works if you have citation around the video but not in the video. For example, in this video there is no citation for any music, but under the video there is a link to download the song from iTunes. Is it infringement of copyright law to have a video that could so easily be separated from the citations?

Next video:


I thought this video was really great. This would probably be similar to something I would show in my English classes during banned book week or if we were discussing this topic at the time because it could really pull students into the topic. This could also be a great assignment for students to get them more involved. As far as copyright laws for this video, there was no citation for the music or the pictures of the book covers. I know the music needs citation, but I actually don't know if the same rules apply for images also applies to book covers. I'm guessing it would be safe to say so and cite it anyway. So, although the video was great, it could become completely legitimate with just a couple more citations.

Though copyright can be a pretty bland topic, seeing it in action and applying it to what I see has really helped me see how easy it can be to follow the law and still have great resources for my future students.

Weekly Reflection: Book Trailers

It's no surprise that most anybody would rather watch a movie than a read a book. Even as an English major, there are people who try to get away with book analysis by watching actors than flipping pages. (That doesn't work out very well in college, just so you know). So, why not use technology to get kids as interested in books as they are in movies? This weeks technology in teaching find: book trailers. I had heard of them before and even seen a couple, but didn't quite apply the idea to teaching in a classroom. Why not have students make book trailers for the books they read in class? It would be a fun and relatively easy way for them to focus on themes, characters, setting, style, mood, etc. without being force-fed the information. Nothing makes something less exciting than being told you are consciously learning. So, here are a few links to websites that have book trailers and even some ideas about making your own:

Bookscreening.com
Booktrailersforreaders.com/
 
And just for some cool information about book trailers:
Book Trailers

Miss Ashley's Website. Oh yeah.

So, here is the link to my first ever website. It's pretty snazzy if I do say so myself--but you be the judge. A kind judge, that is.

https://sites.google.com/site/missashleysenglishclass/

Weekly Reflection: Ning's the Next Best Thing

Ning may sound funny, but I found out it means business. It's a teacher-student networking site which, to be honest, I didn't even know existed until today. When we were discussing its uses and applications in class, I was struck with all the simple tools that could help so much with the problems in classrooms today. That sounds like the sweeping statement of an idealistic (or pessimistic) undergraduate, so I'll be more specific as to what I mean.

1.) The Teacher-Student-Parent Circle of Communication. I know. Jazzy sounding. But from my own experience as well as the experiences of many others, it's clear that innumerable times there are miss-communications between these three parties. Parents don't know what their kids need to be doing and if their child seems to be slacking they may blame the teacher, who may, in turn, blame the parents for not doing a good job of teaching their children to follow directions, and the child may occasionally get a lash from either side or otherwise stay out of the whole mess. If parents can go online to know what their kids need to keep up with, then accountability is entirely on the student and there are no blame games. Nothing lost in translation. A love triangle, but connected with understanding instead of creepiness. 

2.) Classroom Unity. It's been shown that students in most classrooms never end up knowing more than a handful of other students in their class even after being together for a year. With a networking site where students get to discuss classwork with each other (outside of the classroom, no less) they get to know each other and form bonds that can strengthen their sense of classroom security as provide resources for help they may need. Study groups no longer have to involve shuffling around awkwardly trying to make eye-contact with peers--it's as simple as "friending" someone and leaving them with comments and questions.

3.) Homework Help. Sad but true--not every child has a parent who is able and/or willing to help them with their homework. With the online chat feature of Ning, this problem is also remedied. If the teacher or volunteer parents let the students know they are on the chat for certain hours during the week, students can get the help they need even if the help isn't in the house.

Of course, there are a few downsides to be considered. What kind of technology do the students have access to in their homes, schools and communities? How tech savvy are the students? Regardless of the few problems that may come up with using Ning and other related sites, I couldn't believe how helpful it sounded. I felt like all teachers should receive training for it right away so they could create better learning environments for their students, but I can at least feel grateful I have knowledge about these helpful tools for my future classes.   

Blogs, Google Reader and Twitter

I've decided to start following the blogs listed below:

Cliff's Notes

Dangerously Irrelevant

The Tech Savvy Educator

Kconger's Posterous 
 
The Thinking Stick

Cliff's Notes and Kconger's Posterous are both recommendations from the class that look very helpful, so I thought I would tap into that. The other blogs I discovered on my own and look very interesting. Dangerously Irrelevant has a focus on the future of schools and things that teachers should be aware of today. The Tech Savvy Educator is a sharp looking blog that has the same focus as our class--integrating technology into teaching. The Thinking Stick has up-to-date information about new technology and how technology can be used to help students.



Concerning Twitter, I looked around for a while before choosing two people to follow, but I decided on AuntyTech and ChristyWhite3. AuntyTech's real name is Donna Baumback and her focus is on the power of the library in schools, especially the libraries media capabilities in helping kids in the classroom. Christy White has interesting posts about projects her students are working on. These projects deal with technology and seem to be tapping into the creative juices of her eighth graders.



I think the most useful resource to me would be Cliff's Notes. There are a ton of relevant articles about technology in relation to education and the site is easy to navigate and current. I feel like my eyes have really been opened as to how much is out in cyberspace, not just to entertain but to help with educational pursuits.  

Let the Games Begin!

For my first post on this blog, I will tell you how I normally go about finding cheese.

Step 1: Locate refrigerator in household kitchen. It is usually in a corner. Not always.
Step 2: Open refrigerator door and search shelves for package labeled cheese.
Step 3: Locate the cheese and enjoy.

Simple enough. It's not the most exciting process, and most people would probably be able to condense it into just the third step (no offense to those who need the other two steps), but the process of finding the other cheese of which I speak--the proverbial cheese of incorporating technology in teaching--is much more complex and exciting. More exciting for me because, well, I'm just not good with technology.

Sure, I text and email and can navigate through word processors and the like, but . . . blogging? What does it mean to follow someone? Isn't that a little creepy? What's all this stuff on Google? I thought it was just a search engine. To further illustrate my ignorance, a friend of mine once told me she had just tweeted and I said, "How embarrassing!" It was a joke, but it still mirrored how I felt about all this social networking business. Ignorant. In fact, there's a video about the first tech support in history that makes me feel a little better and a little worse all at the same time about my technology predicament.

But thank goodness for this class! I hope to be able to learn about all of the things mentioned above as well as other things I didn't even know existed. I would list them, but . . . I don't know what even exists. It's not the most ambitious list, but hey, you have to start somewhere. Most importantly though, I want to be able to learn how to find new technologies on my own so that after I graduate, I'll still be able to search out my own cheese without referring to my previous list and coming up pretty short. 

On my blog, I added a few widgets. These widgets include a search bar and a Twitter link. I think the search bar is useful because if I (or anyone who happens to stumble on my page) want to find a piece of technology I wrote about quickly--bam! It's possible. Also, once I start going on Twitter, the posts that will be posted on my blog page as well can be a fun way to flesh out the blog and connect more fully to my personal learning environment.