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.