Contemporary Issues Podcast

I think to start off this podcast one issue I had was trying not to narrarate the article although I am sure I have been docked already for that.  I also wasn't sure if my article was long enough for the podcast to be effective.  I really liked the topic because our chapters have talked about how schools could use the faster updating internet as a tool over books in the classroom.  I think creating and sharing a podcast for our peers just gets us ready and more prepared to use the technology to communicate to others in our field.  Probably the largest thing I liked about the podcat was that I was able to edit out and change parts of it without having to start from scratch.

Lawmakers eye use of mobile technology in schools

"Did I do that?" ~ Family Matters Courtesy of moviewavs.com
Breaking glass ~ CD.textfiles.com http://www.cd.textfiles.com/
Theme Music:  Go Buy A Boat by Matt Rosinski (used from cd)

Exit Slip 11/11

We started class going over what is due in last week's Screencasts.  There was a bit of time to go over SWOT analysis and change screencast since Dr. Boyer was finally able to go ahead and start going through his collection of screencasts submitted.
Next we broke into our presentation/discussion about chapter 9 in Rethinking Education. I think our group breakup was kinda nice and different because it was a random, predetermined list so there was no way to try to formulate a group so you can determine one person to talk.  I really wasn't sure what to do when it came to answering our group question.  The using of the sketch page was a good idea but it did not work as planned.  I wasn't sure how well the conversations would have been in the instant message setup of sketch.  The sketch did actually fall into the ideals of the chapter by how people use social networking and becoming used to not doing face to face conversations.

Screencast Reflection

Cool Tools Screencast of Google Maps

New Screencast

When it came down to starting my Cool Tools Screencast I picked Google Maps because it was something I was familiar with because I like using it to find proximity of locations I travel to in order to find out what is near it in order to keep from getting lost.  So a lot of my preparatory work was done way in advance of starting my recording.  I spend probably a half an hour playing with all the tools on the website to become familiar with them to avoid issues while recording.  The recording of my screencast probably took me close to two and a half hours.  Between issues with my computer and Jing and my poor timing the Screencast took longer than I expected.  At time when I was recording I would try to pause and resume only to find out a couple times it didn't pause.  That was rather frustrating but I chalk that one up to my five-year-old computer.  Also I really wanted to do a basic overview of the tools, which I scraped that idea since it took me way over the time limit.  So then when I recorded it I used the basic, more classroom resourceful tools.  I originally wanted to show how easy it was to customize directions, but found it irrelevant when I needed to fit my time requirement.
I find that doing a screencast can really aid in teaching your students when you are unable to be there to aid them.  I feel that if I wanted to make a substitute teacher's life simple that they could play a screencast of my taught lesson and supplement to it instead of trying to just construct the lesson from the lesson plans.

Exit Slip 11/4

To start today off I realized that I am a moron and wrote down the wrong due day for the cool tools screencast and put Friday (11/5).  I kept trying my microphone plug-in on my aging Dell computer but since the old Mac microphone isn't working I'll need to snag a microphone and do both screencast and podcast.

Today's chapter presentation on chapter 8 the presentation was "graded" on the following positive aspects of how the selected speaker of the presenters was at a designed random selection, they even tied the relationships of the main themes, and finally used the Venn diagram to tie themes together.  Some of the changes are that the Venn diagram be split up a little better and when filling in the group information to do something other than write with he marker like typing.  Another issue that came up with the presentation was that the groups were split up without going over the process first.  I won't deny that I was a little confused at first on what exactly our group needed to do to get our discussion started.

I am really freaking out about my Annotative Bibliography because I seriously overlooked it on the C-Contract and put myself very far behind the rest of the class on that assignment as I was looking to doing my screencast and podcast.  I will just complete the screencast and podcast prior to fixing my Annotative Bibliography issue.

Rethinking Chapter 8

As I am reading chapter 8 I am constantly being reminded of the teaching strategies I am learning in my Ed 302 class where we go over instructional strategies that are not the standardized or "reading to a worksheet" homework assignments but to enhance literacy through practice of reading and writing.  As this semester has rolled on I found that a complete overhaul of education to technology would be something that would take a lot of money and time before the takeover would possibly happen.  As the book states that right now America is really focusing on standardizing their testing in order to be able to keep up with the rest of the world.  Even watching President Obama's speech Wednesday where he acknowledged the democrats got killed in the elections he even stated that now America has to retain money in education in order to keep our students on pace with the rest of the world with the growing global economy becoming an issue.  Back to my point, the generic skills certifications would allow the students and teachers to use the technology available to adapt to each student case and become successful in which field they choose.  With the students creating a portfolio one could say it is much like the School of Education department here in UWSP where students would need to make a portfolio in order to graduate therefore it must be completed in order to receive their certification/diploma.
As this chapter rolls on it reminds me of chapter 6 were we talk bout parents selecting what the students need to learn.  One major difference is that the parents wouldn't be selecting topics for their children to take over the family farm, but guide their children to studying topics that they notice their children are interested in.  Using myself for and example I would be geared to learning about physical activity and sport.  Which oddly enough, I agree with what the book said about adapting games like Sims, SWAT 4 and World of Warcraft as tools to better meet content goals in problem solving and leadership skills.  Ironically enough I would like to think that my coaching, dealing with adversity, and problem solving comes from dealing with various tactical issues that arise from playing games like Madden where you deal with unforeseeable issues like injuries where you have to adapt to them.  Also, a couple years ago our coaching staff used either Madden or NCAA Football to show our quarterback what the defensive coverages looked like.  I won't lie that it was an unorthodox way of teaching it but it was effective.

Group Presentation Thoughts

I really enjoyed being the sacrificial lamb when it came down to presenting the book chapters in the lab section one.  My group presented chapter 2 from the Rethinking book.  We decided to jump at the first group to attempt in order to kind of 'get it out of the way' and avoid being overshadowed by an unbeatable presentation from a preceding group.  There was a couple times leading up to our presentation for the chapter that we worried about presenting Chapter one.  Once we stopped worrying about how we were gonna align our work we met with Dr. Boyer with our ideas.  I felt that our meeting with Dr. Boyer really helped solidify our thoughts and backed the direction we were heading since no other group has modeled the discussions before.  One problem we had was finding time to meet after that original meeting to practice our lesson.  Jim started the Prezi and granted us all access to the project which was nice so we were able to toss information on there without meeting with a partial group.  One big problem was that in the last 24 hours our Prezi fluxed in the amount of pages and changed in order due to some conflicts of interest in our group.  The difficult part of our project was that we did not connect in the same programs which left one group member as a mediator, but also left me out of the 11th hour discussions when the slide order conflict arose.

When it came down to our presentation of the chapter I believe it went very well considering we went over the slide order minutes before class started because they were changed that close to class.  I believed our flow went well in our presentation.  We might not have moved around as much but wanted to point out our slides that were in the section we selected for ourselves.  I really focused on the video games that were out there in my grade schools when I was growing up and how they were like a simple stepping stone to what our chapter was focusing on.  I knew that I could zoom in on the pictures I had on my Prezi slide, but when I was aligning them on the slide on my computer I zoomed in and due to an issue with my computer it didn't retract immediately.  So then I was afraid of doing that during my presentation and embarrassing myself.  When I spoke of course I had in the back of my mind the thought of not saying the "ums", "likes", and "what nots" but of course I caught myself saying them.  I feel that I used my coaching voice and was able to project my voice well, but know that sometimes I get a increasing speed in my speech and become tough to understand.  I felt really proud after watching a couple other presentations that we were trendsetters with our presentation model.

I liked doing the project assignment because then it helps us teachers actually teach before being tossed into the classroom during our practicum.  Not only do we get to teach, but then we have discussions about the chapter which help us understand if we interpreted the chapter the same as our peers.  Probably the best part of the presentation is that we are able to get feedback from our peers and instructor on what they did and didn't like in the way we brought fourth our material.  When we get out in the field we usually won't get constructive criticism from our students on what they did and didn't like on our classroom presentations.

Exit Slip 10/28

To start off today's class we covered the progress the class' Delicious accounts and how many links were on the accounts.  Our section had the most production out of the four sections.  Of course it is because we are like ahead of the other sections calandar-wise.  Another thing we went over was the way we responded to the class mid-semester survey.  Everyone felt that the work amount is too high.  I feel that it was high, but because the reading is all front loaded to give us time to work on projects towards the end.  As for the group discussion at the begining the organization was a little odd.  The group went over chapter 7 and separated us in two groups on each side of a line about pros and cons of how could we operate with or without technology in our classroom.  But then we got evened out in proper groups.  Found it kinda funny how a part of the conversation came down to competition in the classroom, especially when Dr. Boyer used competition earlier with the modeling of the Delicious account.  We covered Elluminate an online webinar tool that can be used to make contact with people.  Watching class play with the Elluminate was pretty interesting because it shown that we could operate on it properly.

Exit Slip 10/21

Today we covered chapter 6 from Rethinking Education.  One of the major steps I really liked that this group did was the group used suckers to separate groups.  The group I was in was the strawberry group.  I really liked how the group has done was identify where each group had to go and were boken up evenly.

Exit Slip 10/14

Well, today we started off the day with the presentation of Dr. Boyer's new ipad.  I thought that was really cool coming from the technology in education instructor because if he doesn't stay current with the new instruments, how would we know about them.  The group that presented chapter 5 from the Rethinking textbook I felt right away did have some very vague reaction and responses to our answers and also did not allow other groups to comment on the information we all have submitted.  I liked their innovative way to separate groups by choosing the color cards therefore keeping the groups uniform in size.  One catch with separating the groups as they did caused some confusion of where to go because areas of the classroom were not designated by color so the groups had to wander and settle to do the process.

Exit Slip 10/7

The initial thing I learned today was that Dr. Boyer wants to make sure that our work is completed and is generous on exactly when it is handed in.  I feel lucky to some extent that I can still finish my work and also catch up now that my football coaching season is winding down to the last month depending on playoffs and opening up free time to really dig out of my hole.  This is still no excuse for my lagging behind but it saves me from frantically worrying about my current status in the class.
The group's presentation started out seeming like it was rehashing the information in the book.  I feel that way because before class started I read most of the chapter again so it was rather fresh in my head. The group really needed to speak up because it was difficult to hear over the computer fans and keyboard keys clicking as students were critiquing the presentation on their blog sites.  Another change that could help is that the group could have divided up groups better because my group was the largest group we had.  Instead of giving the first group multiple parts, they could have split up my group to finish the other topic.