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!