click hereto take the test on your social life

Dang that kid was cute. It looks like she will be following in her dads footsteps, because she is a great picturetaker! She seems to be an artistic little girl, who finds a way to make everything beautiful. I think teachers could use digital media in ways such as this to connect with their students and find out exactly what artistic talents or interests they may have. Art and personal expression is one of many fields that are lacking in today's school system. Kids are being taught the same old same old "Three R's" reading writing and arithmetic. Kids aren't being exposed to how fun all these subjects could be with a little expansion of the normal curriculum. For example, teachers could use a smart board to display a project such as this where the students go out and take a few pictures of the favorite part of their neighborhood or school. An activity such as this will sculpt the child's imagination and exceptionally. It will also help the teacher realize what their students true interests may be.

NML Doesn't Know Just How Illiterate They Are

I found that the NML staff had a bunch of good ideas for creating a base when interacting with some one or someones culture that you are not familiar with. The ideas they put forth would definitely help social networkers to build their PLN on a global scale. However, aren't most of these techniques that we would use in everyday life and not strictly limited to technology or social networking?

I think that these ideas aren't simply applicable to computer users in the 21st century, but to everyone in everyday life. These ideals that these people put up, as their base for whatever it is they are trying to do technologically, are tools that everyone has been using for some time. Not just in the 21st century. I can honestly say that as a student, i have used half of these techniques this week alone, and its only Tuesday! And the rest Ive used before.

This is the goal or mission statement stated at the top of the NML website, "a research initiative based within MIT's Comparative Media Studies program, explores how we might best equip young people with the social skills and cultural competencies required to become full participants in an emergent media landscape and raise public understanding about what it means to be literate in a globally interconnected, multicultural world." What does that mean? Statistically speaking, young people are the most technologically advanced individuals on the face of the earth!!! they need to be teaching old people how to use a computer. Or coming up with new stuff for the young people to use.

I checked out the NML blog. Matt Levinson says that his son taught him to use his iPhone. And these are the kinds of people that teach our universities. The truth is that sometimes, the teachers don't know half of the material they are teaching. But that's really not a problem, it comes with the territory. The field of technology is growing ever faster each and every day. So how is a teacher or a student to keep up with the pace? For that matter, who is even setting the pace to begin with? The reality of the matter is that all of us being effected by this spontaneous growth of information are the ones creating, changing, and involving ourselves in it. Its a big circle. Sometimes the teacher will do his job and teach, but then again, that teacher has a lot to learn from an increasingly tech literate college student who might have something to bring to the table. So all in all the trick is open communication and inclusion in the thought process.

Connected Learning

Of course students need teachers! Where would any of us be without some one to show us how to do everyday things? Our parents are teachers. What would life be like without learning how to take a bath or learning to talk. Everyone needs a teacher for one thing or another, whether it be the the learning process or everyday life. Teachers are everywhere, not just in classrooms. First let us define a teacher. Webster's dictionary defines a teacher as one who instructs. I believe that a teacher is far more than that. I think that a teacher is someone who is constantly showing their pupil(s) new and different ways of getting the job done or either relating to personal approaches that may also help. Teachers provide a base for student to learn off of. Most teachers expect their student to learn the basic knowledge of the course, but exceptional teachers want all of their student to learn using their different skills and talents. Teachers are NEEDED!

Think, for a second, what the world would be like if there were no teachers. If students learned using simply a computer and a syllabus. First of all there would be hardly any motivation to learn. The student would simply take for granted all the ideas that were being electronically placed in front of him. Secondly, teachers act as a helper. if a student were to get stuck, who would they call? Could they simply look it up on google? But what if they received an inaccurate source? The answer would be counted wrong and the student wouldn't even know why. Teachers must not only be present in the learning process, they should be abundant.

If i were a teacher of a networked student, yes, my life and profession would be a lot easier, but would it all be as rewarding? Personally, i don't think so. A teacher's job would then consist of simply providing assignments and explaining them in a predetermine video perhaps. In my opinion, networked learning should only be used as an expansion of the traditional classroom style teaching.Use it to expand or reiterate on points brought up in class. The job of being a teacher just feels like it would be made into more of a supervision role, than a learning experience if this ideal were used as the only teaching tool. I plan to only use connective learning as an extracurricular activity for those who simply love to learn and would like to know more or receive additional information about a certain subject.

Richard Miller; This Is How We Dream

Miler believes that we as human beings and teachers are living and experiencing first hand the greatest change in communication in the history of language. He says that some of this has to do with our "workspace". as opposed to the former paper and pen, we now use a laptop that can be taken basically anywhere you want to take it.Another change that has occurred is the storage and sharing.of documents. Anything can be saved forever on your computer or published to a website. Also, the collaboration of documents can be expressed in far many more ways, such as picture video, and word processing. This information is easier and more accessible for and to all. Also, where we work was addressed as being a big change in communication. Information can change instantly changing many people's ideas and feelings toward any certain subject. Miller believes that this venue will continue to evolve. He foresees a time when people will compose using a new composition technique using the web itself. This is a cutting edge idea that i don't really understand, and either does he. It has not been fully created yet. Richard Miller is proposing that schools invest in the research of what he believes will overcome today's already technologically based society. My understanding of how this concept will work and be available is sort of cloudy, but from my knowledge it is still a work in progress. Miller's idea, from just a summation of it, sounds like a way to reform the way individuals look at and comprehend information entirely. Information is already sent and consumed at the highest rate available, but this would completely blow that out of the water.

iPods In The Classroom

Duke university has been using iPods to study the effect on how students use the technology and how productivity in the classroom has been effected, since 2004. The iPods have 20GB of storage , those things aren't cheap! The iPods also come equipped with voice recording technology. Other than the recording feature and other standard features on the iPods, there were some obvious academic uses for the iPods. The first was the accessibility of all the students' information. The iPod was able to sync with multiple course content via podcats and other content made available by the university. The second is the previously mentioned recording software. This allowed students to record organize and make playlists of what they wanted to study. Finally the iPod was an easy way to store and transfer information.

These iPods are really taking all the technology for education such as podcasts and other types of audio/visual storage and bundling them for students, teachers, and anyone else who wants to use it. An upgrade from the regular iPod would most definitely be the iPod touch or the IPhone. These instruments are so adaptable. They come ready to equip with thousands of free or reasonably priced applications ranging from what to eat for lunch to how much weigh to use while working out. There is even a prototype known as ischool that mostly helps students coordinate their classes. The application also features a graphing calculator. These calculators are normally priced around $120, this application is much more reasonably priced and provides much better user interface by providing colors and easier graphing.

ITUNES U

iTunes U sounds like a great tool to help all teachers and students no matter what level. Students could use it to study or even as a source of research. Also, if a student were to use it as a study tool it would give that student a break from the same old type of learning. Students would have as many different perspectives as they could find. They could hear a lecture one day from their normal classroom teacher, then they could go home and futher their learning by hearing or watching the material in a different perspective.

Obviously students benift from iTunes U, but how could a teacher take this and run with it? Teachers should encourage their students took look up other teachers lectures. Teachers should also not get offended if a student considers another teacher or professor's lecture to be more entertaining or accurate. In fact, this situation could be the source of some great debate topics.

Useful Classroom Involvement Tools Using Technology

As we have blogged about many times before technology can be quite useful in the classroom. It seems that every week i find new technology or a different way to use old techniques to help student s better understand what they are learning.Dr. Christie uses a lot of tools and techniques that are a combination of the basic known ideas, and some that deserve to be talked about.

One tool that i was especially interested in was geocatching. Most use this new hobby as a way to hike or do scavenger hunts. However, Dr. Christie has taken it to the next level by involving it in his classroom. This sounds like an excoiting technique for students of all grade level. Christie also seems to be a big fan of photography and digital media. Using pictues has been shown to intrest and assist some kids in the learning process. If a biology teacher showed his/her students a colorful and intriging picture of a flower as an example of a part of the cirriculum; most likely the students will absorb the information if their attention is grabbed in this way.

In closing, it seems that the dctor has been thinking of new was to get his students more engaged in his classroom. More teachers should pursue this way of thinking.

Next Generation Learning Video

First let me just start off by saying those were some nice vans kiddo. This video is great, although i doubt the skateboard wearing youngster put it together on his own. Nevertheless, a great video. All the technology was great. This video makess me wish i was still in le school today just so i could used some of the things that he talked about. Iphones, whiteboards, the internet; I thought a graphing calculator was advanced! Obviously not, there's all kinds of technology available for any type of classroom, whether it be a biology lab or an english class. Tehcnology could be everywhere with the right funding. I would lovve to teach in a classroom with a whiteboard or a computer for every student. Mabey one day this will be possible.

So in conclusion, this kid had some great ideas. The problem is getting more people like his mom to be involved in getting some of these tools to help children learn in a variety of different ways. Think about if evey child in America had a computer. Or even if 75% of children had a computer. What would life be like by the time they graduated? Our population is already known as one of the most advanced nations in the world. Think about what would happen if the children of today were given those kinds of advanced tools. The possiblities are limitless.

Practical Principals

I thought this blog was great. It was very organized. Everything was right there in a link. The blog also had a lot of catchy post titles followed by great sources of information. The practical principals also used far more than a simple blog to get their point across. They used twitter, facebook, itunes and all sorts of useful tools to inform people about what they talked about.

I have added the principals on Twitter and i intend on keeping up with their blog posts. They seem like they have a lot of great ideas and new ways of teaching kids. They seem to have a good sized PLN. I say this because they use other people's blogs and twitter pages to talk about a certain point.

How Can I Make My Podcast Be All That It Can Be?

On the podcast that i watched, the pod casters seemed to have simply printed off a bunch of lines from the Internet on the information they would be talking about and simply regurgitated the information back to the classroom. This is one characteristic that i hope next semester's EDM class won' associate with my podcast group. I plan on meeting with my group a couple times and getting a feel for what we will be saying. This way, the group will be somewhat prepared to actually have a conversation instead of simply reading from a note card.

We have a lively bunch of people in our podcast group so i hope thats a good thing. We also have had plenty of great ideas to get the ball rolling. The podcast should turn out to be great.