My EDM 310 Blog Assignments are Now Complete

A note to my fellow classmates:
I must say, "Yay!"! But only for a moment because I have really had fun working with all of you! We have had some fun times in this class and I will miss everybody as the semester comes to an end. However, we are all going to do great things and this class was just a step in our journey! I have had fun and am glad to be walking out of this class with a new friend! I hope that everyone has a great summer and good luck in all your endeavors!

What I Learned in EDM 310

This course was not only a great refresher course for me but also one that taught me things that I haven't learned before. I had never used blogs, or iGoogle before and I never would have. I have enjoyed learning about these things. I have also had a wonderful time employing them on a weekly basis. I would have never used a blog if it hadn't been for this class and I would have never known about iGoogle!
I have really enjoyed this class and the new material it has introduced me to! I look forward to using blogs and iGoogle in my classroom. I also look forward to using the skills that Ms. Averitt refreshed us in. All in all this class was wonderful and I really enjoyed it!

Electronic Interaction

For my electronic interaction I e-mailed one of my favorite high school teachers. Mrs. Dwanda Brew is a Business and Computer Science teacher at Eagles Landing High School in McDonough, Ga (Henry Country School System). Mrs. Brew not only teaches at Eagles Landing but she also heads the school's Future Business Leaders of America (a school club for students preparing to go into business). When I was in school Mrs. Brew taught Basic Computer, and Multi-media courses. I always enjoyed her classes and this is why I contacted her!
Mrs. Brew now teaches classes in Computing in the Modern World, and Introduction to Animation and 3-D Design. Mrs. Brew has always had the outlook that all students should have a good education in at least the basics of computers. She believes that everyone should be able to efficiently operate computers. I owe my computer knowledge to her!
I also believe that all students should have a good education in technology. In today's world technology has a prominent space in the work place and in society in general. I feel that as long as we have educators such as Mrs. Brew in the school system teaching students how to effectively and efficiently use the technology of today that education, society, and above all students will be able to move up and create new solutions to the problems of today.

My visit to the Foley ACCESS Lab

For the ACCESS Lab assignment I went to Foley High School with my classmate Samantha Mason. Foley's ACCESS Lab wasn't functioning yet but it was all set up to be fully functional in Fall. The Lab was well endowed! It had two large flat screen televisions (one in the back and one in the front of the room), a smart board with a projector (that is the equipment that is in the picture with me), and is capable of holding a class of at most 32 students.

The ACCESS Lab at Foley High School is also being used to lower the drop out rate of its students. They have hung a poster in the room to advertise their campaign against the drop out rate. The ACCESS Lab at Foley believes that by keeping students in contact with leaders they will help the students to feel less overwhelmed and therefore keep the students in the school! I believe that this is a great idea because most students have been raised in a technology rich environment and technology helps to keep them better engaged in school.
Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators, and Students Statewide (ACCESS) is a computer based program that allows students to take courses that are not available at their schools. ACCESS is a distance learning program that gives students a wider choice of classes. I believe that ACCESS Labs are an amazing program. I only wish that they had this when I was in school! I had a wonderful time exploring the ACCESS Lab with Sam Mason and I look forward to working with the ACCESS Lab program throughout my career!

Edutopia

In the podcast A Night in the Global Village teachers and students took part in an overnight "adventure" where they had to live like people in less fortunate countries do. I have never seen anything like the "camp" that was in this video podcast. I think that it is an amazing program that can be utilized to help show students the living conditions of other people. I remember one day in my 11th grade American History class the teacher shut off and blocked all of the lights, locked all of the doors, turned the heat way up, and put all of us students in the middle of the classroom with all of the desks around us. We were all on top of each other and it was stifling. My teacher did this exercises to help us to experience what it was like to be a captured person on a slave ship. These ideas are wonderful ideas to both get students involved and to help them to understand situations that they have not been exposed to!
I also watched the podcast The Edible Schoolyard where students learn to care for nature. In this podcast the students spent the first hour of their day planting plants and learning to grow things. I believe that this is a good program to employ because it teaches students responsibility and how to care for the planet. I wish that there was a program like this when I was in school! It is my thought that this program would be useful in any school and I hope that maybe one day I will be in a school with one of these programs!

Pluses and Minuses of Blogs in the Classroom

For my reflection on this blog post I read Samantha Mason's Blog. Samantha is in my EDM class and we worked together on our podcast project. Our blogs are similar and her experiences seem to be the same as mine were. I believe that blogs in the classroom are a wonderful idea. This semester I have had to either respond to or create three different blogs. It has been an educational experience. I had never used blogs before this semester. Blogs are an interesting media as I have learned through the blogs of others and my own three.
One of the pluses of blogs in the classroom are a greater connectivity between students in the class and the class material. Students can learn lessons in class and then if they don't understand homework or have questions they can log onto the blog and ask their peers or the teacher. Another plus is that the information from class is in an easily accessible place. Students are always on the computer so why not put the material in an place where they can find it and respond to it!? Blogs are also a great place to put classroom homework assignments!
A minus to having classroom blogs is the threat of bullying. If students are putting their work and questions out on a blog for all to read it is always possible that some of the others might bully or respond too critically to some. Another minus is that there isn't as much accountability to the students. Blogs are more of a abstract area and some students may never use it. It would also be hard to keep track of all of the complexities of dealing with the bullies and the solutions that could be employed to stop the bullying.
Blogs are complex especially when you have a group of people all on the same blog. All in all though I think I would like to give it a try in one of my future classes tough!

EDM 310 Podcasts

First I listened to my groups podcast. Our podcast topic was "Can Facebook be used as an educational tool?". It wasn't perfect but I can't say that I am really disappointed by it. Our podcast was a little monotone and we could have put more emotion into our voices. There was also a lack of pauses in this podcast. We should have breathed a little more! I also noticed a loud clicking noise that showed up occasionally. I don't know what it was but it took away from what we said!
The second podcast that I listened to was "Technology Used in the College of Education at USA". This podcast felt rushed and the person's voice kept cracking and she stumbled over her words and lost her place a few times. One of the voices was too loud and the other wasn't loud enough. Their words were distinguishable, however, which was a good thing! I was able to hear what they were saying! They also knew their material and I learned somethings!
The third podcast that I chose to listen to was "Can TeacherTube be useful to Teachers?". In this podcast they sound up beat. They enunciate all of their words and they sound comfortable. They seemed to move the microphone excessively though which made a good bit of distracting noise. There was also some of noise in the background which also distracted me from what was being said.
The last podcast that I thought was interesting was "Using Games as Educational Tools.". I liked how they used the Mario Theme in the back ground at the beginning of their podcast! The theme did get distracting after the introductions though. They sounded confident and knew what they were talking about. Some of the voices were too loud though; like they were right next to the microphone.

Mathematics with Technology

In Judy Chandler's Mathematics with Technology podcast she explains that technology is essential to education and specifically math education. She elaborates by what tools technology can add to the learning of math. Ms. Chandler states that technology engages students in a "multi sensory, authentic, and collaborative...learning environment". She has found that technology helps students to make connections with past lessons and future education.
Ms. Chandler also made a podcast on Thinking Mathematically. In this podcast she talks about how many student become disengaged from the content of the class while others do not. She believes that teachers need to engage thinking by asking questions. She believes that by asking big questions and engaging the students you can help to direct them in the proper discussion. She tells us to challenge students to think so that they can remember and learn how to learn.
These podcasts can be useful to myself as a teacher but not in the specific way that hers was. I will be teaching English not Math. However, I know that technology and questions can be useful to my subject material as well. As a teacher I can use technology to help students to interact with the literature and history. I also know that I can ask well placed and well thought out questions to help my students to learn the subject matter and really think about it also.

The Stanford Challenge: Improving K-12 Education: "Growth" vs. "Fixed" Mindset

The "Growth" vs. "Fixed" Mindset video on ITunesU was very interesting. I didn't realize that people hold themselves back in their learning. It makes perfect sense that your mind can grow just like any of your other muscles. That you just have to use it to make it stronger and yourself smarter. I also think that teaching the "Growth" mindset is an interesting concept. I would never think that teaching a mindset could make a difference in how people learned.
I believe I can be accused of having both mindsets. When it comes to math I am definitely a "Fixed" mindset. I think I am this way because I have never been good at math. On other subjects I would say I'm a "Growth" mindset because I know that I can learn from those. I can definitely see myself helping my students by teaching the "Growth" mindset. It would be a very helpful tool to my students if I could help them in something that they don't think that they can learn. I would be able to show them that they could learn what they thought was impossible for them to learn!

WGBH Podcasts

The WGBH section in ITunesU is a very interesting tool for teachers. I have never seen or used this aspect of ITunes and I am very excited to find something like this because it has the potential to be very useful to teachers of every subject and every grade level. I watched a couple of the video podcasts in this section and was amazed at how interesting this mini-lessons are. I can definitely see myself using this in my class.
My favorite WGBH video podcast was the Total Solar Eclipse Animation. This is one of those things that you can't actually witness with your own eyes so that is what made this video so interesting to me. This video did a good job both showing and explaining its subject and content and I could see this video as being very useful in a middle or high school classroom.
I think that it would be a good idea for teachers to use this aspect of ITunes not only to help them teach their class material but also to show students that there are many different places that they can go to learn and research topics of interest. ITunes is mostly used to download music so I believe that if a student knew that these types of educational materials existed in ITunes they would be a little more open to learning and researching for fun!

Podcast Reviews

The first podcast that I listened to was You-Tube for Education. Overall I liked their ideas and comments on this subject. They did a decent job with their podcast. However, they could have done some things better. The one thing that I would improve on in this podcast are the way they sounded. I think it would be a better podcast if they sounded more interested and upbeat. They didn't sound like they were really interested in their topic.
The second podcast that I listened to was Possibilities for Using Facebook in an Educational Setting this podcast is close to what my group's topic is. In this podcast they sounded more upbeat and enthusiastic about their topic. What I would improve in this blog is the amount of "um"s, I would also try not to sound too nervous or trip so much over my words.
I know these things are hard especially when you only get one shot. Maybe the key is not thinking about that aspect of the Podcast project!

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture was an amazing video! He really is an amazing person to be so brave in the face of a terminal illness. Growing up I had to deal with the loss of a loved one to lung cancer. It is very hard watching some one you love dieing in front of you. I can relate to what his family went through.
Randy Pausch is an inspiring man because he either accomplished and/or learned something from all of his childhood dreams. Just the fact that he attempted his childhood dreams in the first place astonishes me because I can't even remember most of mine!
I can see how Pausch was able to enable the dreams of others. His attitude and the fact that he was able to achieve most of his dreams is inspiring and makes me want to achieve my dreams! It's also very inspiring that even if he didn't achieve his goals he still learned a great deal from his experiences. That is the sort of lesson people need to be taught...that even if you can't achieve one of your dreams its better that you tried and learned than never trying at all.

International Teacher's Blogs

The first international class blog that I found was for The Livewires a year 3 and 4 class in New Zealand. They use their blog to stay connected to each other during the school year and the holiday's. There really isn't much on this blog currently because they just came back from their summer break. However, they did post about their school's annual triathlon which they just took part in.

The second international class blog that I found was for Mrs. Lowe's Area 11 student's. Mrs. Lowe and her class are located in western Australia. They are using their blog as an experiment to get to know the technology of the blog medium. They are also using their blog to post their writings about their class activities.

Blogs in K-12 Classrooms

The first blog I found was Miss Lee's Classroom Blog. Ms. Lee is a 4th grade teacher and uses her blog to connect herself and her students to their families. She posts what they do in class along with the homework that is due the next day on her daily blog posts. She has made her blog fun by posting a few of her favorite websites including ones for Mad Libs, and Learn to Speak Chinese. She also has links to her classroom website and her Advanced Math Blog.

The second blog I found was for Mr. Craig's 11th Grade British Literature Blog. Mr. Craig is a teacher at Missisquoi Valley Union High School. He uses his blog not only to update his class on whats going on but also uses it as homework assignments. He not only assigns his students work on the blog but also on Facebook. Another interesting thing is that he recommends using Wikipedia most teachers wouldn't touch Wikipedia with a 10-foot pole! Overall Mr. Craig's blog is very educational for his students. He is helping them to navigate the web in a very efficent way and I only wish my high school teachers would have done that for me!

ACCESS

ACCESS is an Alabama state-wide program built to help high schools offer more to their students. Some Alabama schools are unable to offer either the remedial course levels and/or the advanced and AP course levels. ACCESS is designed to remedy this problem by giving these high schools and their students access to these classes. ACCESS allows for high school students with out access to classes that they need to connect with other schools that have these classes. It helps them to be able to complete their high school graduation programs.
ACCESS works by connecting teachers and students in different areas. They may be connected at the same time or at different times. There are also many ways of being connected. They can be connected through video-conferencing or web-based modes of delivery. Video-conferencing is usually synchronous, streaming, and has specific office hours. It is a virtual face-to-face. The web-based modes are normally asynchronous, accessed by a web portal, have multi-media content, and also hold office hours. This method is the similar to going to a web site. ACCESS also can blend these modes to create a more balanced feel to the program.

Plagiarism

To plagiarise something is to copy someone else's words. Sometimes it can be more than that though. It can also include buying, stealing, borrowing, or hiring someone to write your paper. In essence plagiarism is illegal and wrong. When it comes to writing a paper, report, review, or any number of other pieces of writing you should always use your own words. If you have a need to use someone else's words you should always put those words in a quotation and cite your source. Plagiarism is a tricky subject I know and when writing a paper I am always very self-conscious of what I am writing and how I am writing it.
When you are assigned a project or paper the teacher is trying to get your words and feelings. The teacher is trying to evaluate you and what you can do. A teacher doesn't want someone else's work. They are trying to evaluate you and what you are capable of. Why steal someone else's writing or other media when you can develop your own? Give your thoughts, feelings, works, and other things. Evaluate yourself and learn more of you! Don't steal someone else's!

ALEX (Alabama Learning Exchange)

ALEX or Alabama Learning Exchange is a website dedicated to helping Alabama's educators, students, and their parents. It is a resource website that is continually expanding. It relies on the input of the people who use it. Alex is a tool to share lesson plans, activities, information, advice, web links, and more. You can also find and connect with the Alabama Courses of Study that is provided by the National Board of Certified Teachers. This website is designed to keep Alabama's educators, students, and parents up to date on all of the latest standards, methods, and information available.
I believe that ALEX will be a great help to me when I become a teacher. I am nervous about first starting out and I believe that this website will help me to get through all of the apprehension. ALEX with it's connection to other educators, lesson plans, activities, and information will be a big help when I first start out and throughout my career as an educator! I believe that ALEX will be a big help to me and I look forward to using it in the future. I believe that everyone should look into ALEX themselves and discover the wealth of information and help that ALEX offers!

Review of Mr. Stephen Sullivan's PowerPoint

Mr. Sullivan's PowerPoint was very helpful in educating me of the different ways to help the sight-impaired. I have a good friend who is also legally blind. It makes me happy to know that there are ways to help her to see the computer better. I had no idea, until I read Mr. Sullivan's PowerPoint, that there is software out there that can help people like my friend to be able to read and understand what they are trying to see on the computer! I am glad that there is a whole array of software out there like screen magnification, screen reader, and voice recognition. I look forward to learning how to use some of these and applying them. I am very excited to be learning how to help future sight-impaired students or friends!
I also had to review another website on this topic. The website http://www.w3.org/WAI/References/Browsing also covers the material that Mr. Sullivan's PowerPoint did. However, this web site went into more detail of the different software's and programs that you can use to help the sight-impaired. This website offers a whole list of different programs and methods that can be used and bought for the sight-impaired and learning disabled. The website gives information for people with disabilities, screen readers, browsers with adaptive technology, voice browsers, and other access methods.

Who I Am

Hello Class! My name is Jessica Kiser. I am 21 years old. I am originally from Atlanta, Ga. I lived there up until about a year and a half ago! That's when I moved to Gulf Shores with my husband, right after we got married! We moved here for a change of pace and scenery. This is my 1st semester back at school since we moved! I'm so happy to be back in school! In Atlanta I was majoring in Art Education but when we moved down here I found out that USA doesn't offer that! So I changed my major to a double major in Secondary Education English/Language Arts. I'm okay with this change because literature is also one of my passions! I love to do my art, take pictures, read, and horse back ride (although that doesn't happen as often as I would like!)! I am currently working at Books-A-Million in Gulf Shores.
For my PowerPoint Presentation I am planing on putting lots of pictures in it. I love working with PowerPoint! It used to be a hobby of mine in High School! I'm going to cover my family, my heritage, my wedding, my husband, and probably my hobbies and youth. I may also cover other things that interest me like what I like to read, and my dog! I am really looking forward to this project and I can't wait to present it to everyone!