Electronic Contact!

For my electronic contact I emailed a teacher from the South Pacific, Raenette Taljaard. For our assignment we were supposed to get in contact with another teacher, whether it be somewhere else in the United States or somewhere else in the world. We were then supposed to find out how they integrated technology into their classrooms and what they thought the importance of technology was. I was very pleased to find out that Ms. Taljaard used technology often and used it in very creative ways.

The first thing that she said she did with her class was to use a SmartBoard for everyday use and as a data projector and video screen. She also said that she had various macbooks and eMacs on rotation for her students to use for math, literacy, and other subjects. I thought this was such a great idea because it allows students to become familiar with everyday technology like computers while also learning.

Another thing that she said she used in her classroom was podcasting. She allows her students to do podcasts of Narratives, reports her students have done, or a summary of some activity they have done. She also stated that some teachers have even used podcasts to record their students's goals or strategies for solving math problems. She also said that she uses Garage Band, iMovie, Keynote, and other interactive media. She gave a great example of how she uses all these things for one project. She explained that if they were learning to do Narratives they may start off by doing interactive activities on the SmartBoard, use ReadWrtieThink to draft the Narrative, take digital photos and use GarageBand to record audio, then use iMovie to publish it.

Raenette Taljaard gave me a lot of great ideas about how to use technology in my classrooms. I loved the idea of using things like GarageBand and iMovie! HEr project breakdown was also very helpful because it gave me a specific look at how all of the technology is used. Talking to her helped me to better realize how to integrate technology into my own classroom and how important it is for learning.

Duke University

This podcast that I listened to was put on by Duke University and their center for documentary studies. This center is responsible for putting out collaborative documentaries that focus on sharing community issues and expressing artistic ideas. The podcast tha I listened to was an interview with Nilaya, a girl who had suddenly become homeless after she ended an abusive realtionship. She lived with her daughter but found it hard to support the both of them on just one income. She moved in with a roommate which worked out well, until her roommate was laid off from her job.

Nilaya explained that becoming homeless was one of the worst feelings because she was no longer part of the regular population. She also realized that even though she had a job, that did not mean that she could not become homeless. There are a lot of working homeless people out there, and she had to learn this first hand. After she got evicted from her apartment, she started looking for shelters that her and her daughter could stay at until she found some kind of affordable housing. It was through this shelter that Nilaya became involved with project hope.

Project Hope is an shelter project that helps the homeless. Through Project Hope, Nilaya started attending meetingss for Homeless For Families, which brings together homeless families and gives them good information and avenues out of being homeless. Nilaya finally got out of her situation and the shelter after a whole year. She is now involved in educating other homeless families about what it means to be homeless, why they are, and how they can get out of it. She learned from her experiences and is now able to share with and help others out of similar situations.

I thought that this was a great podcast and I love that Duke University is using the podcasting technology to teach others. Other universities would be smart to follow in the same footsteps!

EDM Podcasts

The first podcast that I listened to was about how technology was used in classrooms here at south Alabama. The people talking were Kerrie Owens, Hannah Nowlan, and Katherine Bentley. The fisrt thing that they discussed was the use of folioteck in the college of education, which is an online portfolio that is used to complete class assignments. They also talked about usa online, which is used by both students and teachers to communicate assignments and such. The discussion of the topics was very good but I felt that they should have divided up talking time better. I thought it was very good that they also talked about the downside of some of the technology, but the podcast just seemed kind of scattered.

The second podcast that I listened to was by Adrienne Lynch, Joylyn Reese, and Brian Stevens. This topic was about how youtube could be used as an educational tool. One of the things that they talked about was how it could be used for classroom project or a presentation. This podcast also seemed kind of unorganized, however, and I felt that the subject was not developed as much as it could have been.

The next podcast that I listened to was about websites that could be used by Elementary teachers, and it was by Rosilyn Harris, Marlena MArsh, and Tomeka Washington. They discussed different websites that they found that could possibly be useful to elementary teachers. I really liked this podcast because it couls actually be helpful to me as an educator. The only downside of this podcast was that there was a lot of quiet time, but overall it was really good and very helpful!

The last podcast that I am going to discuss is actually my own. The students in my group were Brett Kittrell, Taylor Irvin, Jenny Mosley and I. Our topic was the Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. We simply discussed the lecture, how it affected us, and what kind of lessons that we pulled from it. I felt that we definitely could have dug a lot deeper into our topic and that there was a lot of quiet time. Looking back on it now, I wish we would have discussed more about how we could use the lessons we learned later on in our careers.

Mathematics with Technology

This podcast was narrated by Judy Chandler. It is titled "Mathematics with Technology" and comes from the Maine Department of Education. Chandler starts off the podcast by discussing how many teachers act as if they are only teaching students for a brief amount of time and they cant wait until finals. She also discusses that technology is very important in the world of teaching mathematics and that there are various tools that are available to further students' education. Mathematics is one of the most important things that a student can learn while in school. It will help them later in life and other things will build off of their knowledge of math. In these podcasts, Chandler discusses specific ways in which teachers are using technology to teach math and why it is important.

Chandler explains that most teachers tend to teach straight from the book, which is not very helpful because it disconnects them from the students and material. One way in which teachers are starting to become more connected is by using laptops as a mean of integrating technology into the classroom. Chandler feels that by using these laptops that it enhances the students critical thinking skills and provides them with hands on skills for the future. The technology also helps the students develop math concepts and provides visual representations.

Chandler also believes that students should be engaged by asking them questions. She says that by asking questions, they are forced to think harder which helps them remember better. Students must always be challenged otherwise no growth will take place. By asking questions, you are allowing the student to be challenged and helping them better understand the thinking process.

This podcast was very helpful when it comes to integrating technology into math. I had never really even though tabout technology being present in math, but Chandler discussed ways that it was. I also learned the importance of using technology in math and the importance of math in general!

Growth vs. Fixed

This video was an interview with Carol Dweck, a professor of psychology. The interview was all about the difference between growth ad fixed learning. Dweck explained that there is a big difference between people who have a fixed mindset and a growth midset. People with a fixed midset believe that they have a certain trade and they cannot get any better. They are always concerned about how they look while doing a certain task. People with a growth midset, however, believe that they are continually learning an that they can improve their skills.

Dweck also went on to explain an experiment that they did with students. They divided up students to go through an eight session class on learning. Half the class was taught using fixed learning and the other half was taught using growth learning. The students that were taught using growth learning were taught that they are able to continually learn and that making mistakes does not make you dumb. She went on to say that there was a considerable difference between the two groups of students, with the "growth" students learning a lot more.

One of the applications that Dweck gives for us to walk away with is that it is okay to make mistakes, as long as you learn from the. She said that to be successful in the business world today you have to be able to learn from your mistakes and imrove from them. She gave an example of race car drivers and said that drivers who think that they can improve usually do, while drivers who have a fixed mindset rarely learn from their mistakes or get better.

This was a pretty good podcast, but I did find it kind of boring at times. It was informative but slow at the same time. I love the idea of fixed and growth learning, though, and I definitely agree with what Dweck was saying!

Edible School Yard and Global Village

I just finished watching the video about The Edible School Yard, which is at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in California. It was such a great video and I loved the teaching methods that were used on a day-to-day basis. At this school, the students are taught things such as math, science, responsibility, and life lessons all from a garden. The students are responsible for growing the garden themselves and they get to see the finished product at the end of each season by cooking foods using the plants that they grew naturally. This is such a cool idea for teaching students about how they can learn from anything, even a garden.

This video was not only an entertaining one, but it also provides teachers with ideas for their own classrooms and how they can use the same methods to teach. One thing that would be fun, would be for me to make my students grow their own mini gardens in the classroom. We could do this by using the typical seed-in-cup method, but it would still provide me with the tools to teach them responsibility and even how the plants grow. Gardening is a way of teaching science because the students can learn about the water cycle and how the sun helps the plants grow. I think that any way of incorporating nature into the classroom is amazing, and I will definitely be doing it when I start teaching!

The next video that I watched was a video about The Global Village located in Perryville, Arkansas. This "village" is actually an overnight experience for local middle schoolers to attend and learn about other cultures that are living in poverty. What is is great about it though is that it is a first hand experience of what poverty in other countries looks and feels like. The kids are taken to the village where they are then divided up into families and refugees. Each family is given certain supplies, but the refugees are given nothing and must either deal or beg the others for food throughout the night. This is experience is a great life lesson and a lesson about what is going on around the world. It motivates students to get involved and educated about their world and learn how they can help.

The Global village is a great teaching tool for educators to use in their classrooms. One way that I would like to utilize the same concepts into my classroom is by teaching my students about people and animals from around the world and how they are living. I would even like to create a fake community of my own for the students to help with. It would be a great way to teach my students about other cultures still make it fun for them as well.