ePortfolios

OK I understand and agree with the purpose behind ePortfolios. I think its a great idea to track your experience and professional growth throughout your career. Something I probably should have been doing since my military days. I also like the idea of students creating ePortfolios from the early grades and maintaining them throughout their school career. I believe it is probably a good idea to maintain that same portfolio on throughout their working careers. Technology keeps on making advances by leaps and bounds, who wouold of thought of doing this 30 years ago.

Smart Boards

O.K. This project just blew me away. We all know how technologically challenged I am, but this smart board technology takes the cake. The project was way cool, although I felt a bit inhibited due to my lack of experience in working with this type of program. What I think is great about it is the fact that students can down load the program and work on class projects from their own home computers. Or even work jointly on projects or classroom work from individual computers in the classroom. (My project makes use of this feature.). Since I am most probably not going to be teaching in a traditional classroom, I hope wherever I happen to teach either as a sub or perhaps as a trainer in the business world this technology will be available to me. I could not imagine why any school district or business would not encourage the use of this technology.

On the subject of technology in our schools, the video on Harrison Central High School was amazing. To find that traditional subjects such as physics and algebra can be taught with a new twist with the use of computers and video technology to analyze a cheerleaders moves to graphing the intensity of sound waves while playing an instrument brings new dimension to teaching and learning. The hands on approach these teachers take with their students in and out of the classroom, such as the case with the science department's trips out to the woods and the swamps, I think would give any student a better understanding of the world around them and how their actions affect their environment. These approaches to traditional subjects using modern technology keep the students active and interactive with the program which can do nothing but enhance the learning experience for all students. This leads me to again to not understanding why more schools (school administrators) do not embrace the new technologies and the advantages they can afford both teachers and students. Harrison Central High School seems to have set a benchmark for all educators to aspire to.

Video/Smart Boards

On editing and posting our PSA video. Michelle used her students and her kids for most of the footage, and the music was performed by her Fiance, then dubbed in during the editing process which I found to be quite educational. We initially had a few issues converting the video clips from the flip software (Michelle's Digital Camera Software) to Movie Maker but worked it out. Our video ended up being about 1 minute. This whole experience has led me to want to experiment that much more with the Movie Maker Software.
Never knew how versatile smart boards were. Although I will probably not be using one in the classroom (as a teacher anyway), I do like that students can use the software on their own computers for class and homework assignments.

Video

This video thing is way cool. I didn't know that editing could be so easy. I realize this is probably over simplified but "who knew"? Looking forward to completing the project and uploading to Youtube.

Igoogle

Well I've done it. I finally set up my Igoogle page. All kinds of gadgets to play with, I'm finding I tend to play more with them as I pregress. Now it takes me forever to get started with real work. I have to check my e-mail and my Igoogle page before doing anything else. It can take me as long as an hour or so before I do anything else. I can see this is going to take some self control. I do have a question for anyone reading this though, I want to add gadgets (like this blog) to my page; is there any way of doing this if it is not one of the gadgets in the Igoogle add-ons? Let me know.
Finished Power Point lesson, I hope it's o.k. Had issues with trying to link a picture to a video down load. I've tried several things, and still doesn't seem to want to work. Any ideas in this area would also be appreciated.

Just Getting Started

I have been away all week so I really haven't been able to get much done. But I have started gathering information and have found that most of the tools we have disscusssed in class (thus far) can be used together for conducting research. This will definitely cut down the time factor for seeking out and organizing specific information in the future (once I have the hang of how everything works).

My Friends

http://www.diigo.com/user/Mssabatuccihttp
//www.diigo.com/user/Kristenoverley
http://www.diigo.com/user/Mmislevy

Social Bookmarking vs. RSS

The video and reading on RSS were very educational, especially for someone as new to all of this as I am. I have found using social bookmarking to be an excellent way to manage my research, which I am conducting on several topics. It has also opened avenues for finding more sources through others. Although I have not used a reader sight as of yet I will be subscribing to one very soon to see how that works out. From everything I have read and viewed so far there really shouldn't be a comparison or preference of using one over the other; it seems to me one could use both social bookmarking and an rss reader to complement each other. Like I said, I am new to this and I could be wrong.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking would definitely make life easier for accessing research and keeping sites readily accessible. As one who is constantly researching one thing or another for various papers, I would think that using a social bookmarking site to keep my sites organized and easily accessible would be the way to go. Up until now I have been very traditional in conducting and storing my research. I can also see how social bookmarking can be useful in the classroom for both students and teachers. Teachers can use these sites to post readings for students, as well as use the students bookmarks to verify the validity of the websites they are using for source information. It seems to me the development of social bookmarking is a strong indication that how we gather and manage information is a continually evolving process.

Amazed

Although I should not have been, I was amazed by the video, A Vision of k-12 Students today. What really amazed me was the amount of time kids (or anyone actually) are spending on computers, using IPods, and other technologies to advance themselves and their education. Not only the amount of time using technology , but how little time using the more traditional methods of old, like reading a book or a newspaper. Not that this is a bad thing, but different. I say I should not have been surprised by this because having a 17 year old son who practically lives on his computer, I had not realized until just recently just how much of his school work and related school social life revolved around this technology. He is most definitely a digital native.
I also found quite interesting that in researching lesson plans for this weeks assignment that in virtually every plan I looked at there was at least one piece directly related to or requiring the use of a computer with Internet access for research or some type of project completion.
In the article "Teaching & Learning with the Read/Write Web," author Wesley A. Fryer makes the comparison of today's technology and how our ideas are communicated with that of the invention of the printing press in the 1450's and the part it played in the dissemination of Martin Luther's Theses on the Catholic church in 1571. A duly appropriate comparison considering the magnitude of the impact these technologies have had and are having on society and education today.

Thus Far

What can I say? I was unaware of the multitude of information out there and the technologies that have developed. As a fifty year old grad. student I can see that I have a lot of catching up to do. One might say that I am technologically challenged in many ways. I can see that it will take me a while to get the hang of using some of these new (new to me anyway) systems, and forms of relating information and learning. Things have changed dramatically since the days of when I started my bakery engineering company and used a Commodore 64 to generate the billing. I find it interesting as well that along with the advances in technology a new tech terminology has evolved becoming at home in our culture and eveyday language.

What is a blog? Well by reconning at this point, a blog is an alternative form of communicating ideas between groups of individuals where anyone can be involved. In the classroom a teacher may post a lesson that can be used interactive with studeents. Attachments may be placed on the blog for the students or parents to examine and comment on.