I was assigned to read Bits and Bytes, Ann Carnevale’s website. Ms. Carnevale is an instructional Technology Specialist, and she developed this website to help the elementary teachers of Plainville Community Schools, in Plainville, CT. It is intended to be a vehicle for sharing information and news related to technology use and integration in the classroom. I loved this site Ms. Carnevale recommends some wonderful sites, some geared to the students and others to help the teachers. I started with the post on 02/22/10, in this post she presents a video to teach you how to use labels in gmail to organize your emails. I learned a few things so I decided to included the video in this post so everyone can watch it. I hope it helps you too.

Gmail Labels

Survey Summary

I didn’t have a theme to my survey I just came up with some questions I thought were relevant to a class full of education majors. I started with wanting to know what type of teacher everyone is planning on becoming. I had twenty-six people respond to my survey. Fifty percent are planning on becoming a secondary teacher, forty-two percent are becoming elementary and twelve percent are planning on focusing on special education. I wanted to know what subject the secondary students were planning on teaching, math and English both had four future teachers, social studies has two, and seventeen replied other, and science had zero future teacher from the twenty-six responses. The next portion of my survey had questions about EDM310 class, the first question asked was if they thought they would be able to implement the tools we are learn this semester into our classroom when we start teaching . Sixteen of the twenty-six responded that they thought they would definitely would be able to use the tools, and the other eleven responded that they would able to use the tools maybe…. No one responded with a no, that they would not be able to use the tools we have been taught, so all of them will at least try to use the tools we have been taught. The next item was on the hybrid format of the class. The majority sixty-two percent stated they could take it or leave it, they didn’t love the format, but they didn’t hate it either. Twenty-three percent of the responders hated the hybrid format, and nineteen percent love the hybrid format. The next section was general questions to find out the demographics of the responders. Eighty-one percent were female and nineteen were male and sixty-nine percent were between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, eight percent are between twenty-six and thirty. Twelve percent are between thirty-one and thirty-five, four percent between thirty-six and forty, and eight percent forty-one or older. I asked the responders if they had considered themselves a technology literate person before they began this class, and sixty-nine percent answered that yes the did considered themselves tech literate before EDM310 and thirty-eight responded no they had not considered themselves tech savvy before EDM310. The next questions I asked was if they thought students should be able to take notes in class using their laptop, I let the responders answer this in their own words, most agreed that the student should be allowed to use their laptops in class, but there were a few were concerned that the students wouldn’t use the laptop for note taking. The last thing I wanted to know was when the last time they had read a book for pleasure, not for a class. Most said they read for pleasure regularly, only a few stated that they only read wants required by their classes. Thanks to everyone who took the survey for me. To view the data click here.

Michael Wesch Video

The Machine is Changing Us: YouTube and Politics of Authenticity a video by Michael Wesch was a insightful video. It makes you reflect on the effect media has on your life. Mr. Wesch believes that Neil Postman’s” Amusing Ourselves to Death” is more appropriate today then when it was written more then twenty years ago. He gives an example by using the word “whatever” and how the meaning of the word has changed throughout the years. Starting out by meaning whatever - that’s want I said, before the nineteen sixties, to the whatever- I don’t care by the end of the sixties, to the MTV generation’s change from whatever to the interfere “meh” and finally to today’s whatever- meaning I’ll do what ever I want to weather you like it or not. I agree with Mr. Wesch we need to turn that whatever into I will help who ever needs help whatever it takes. We need to learn to be less selfish, to teach our children to care for one another, to be proactive in changing the world for the better for all. To answer Dr. Stranger’s questions, how does this video relate to my life? Between work and school I have very little free time, but I will admit I spend to much of it in front of the TV, when I should be spending time with my family and friends. I don’t have a typical college life, I am thirty-two years old, a mother , and a wife, my college life is interwoven with my personal life. Me and daughter have shows we watch together that brings us closer, girly shows as my husband calls them, and there are shows my husband and I watch together , and some I watch by myself, which isn’t hard since we have three TV’s in the house and four computers. My husband watches YouTube all the time, the only time I watch it is for a class assignment. After watching this video I see it in a whole new way. I think as a teacher I could use YouTube in a variety of ways once I become more familiar with how it works. I also think I should read Mr. Postman’s book. I’ll let you know how I like it once I read it. I was moved by the free hug video, everybody has those days when they just need a hug, and the video with man in the mask and the hand statement was inspiring. It makes you realize your not alone in wanting everyone to just come together and agree to fix the worlds problems. If everybody would treat each other the way they want to treated we wouldn’t have so many problems.

This is how we dream

Richard Miller’s “This is how we Dream” kind of made me sad, I love reading books, I would much rather snuggle down in my recliner and read a book, then read a blog, ebook, or a web comic. I know he was referring to academic books becoming absolute in paper format, but long do we have before all books are only available in digital format. It might not happen in my lifetime, but I expect it will had in my daughters lifetime. Okay, on to Dr. Stranger’s questions, Am I prepared to write in multimedia and will my students be able to write in multimedia? I think that I need practice in combining written words, with video, and sound since it isn’t something I’ve had to do a lot of. I think my students will have an easier time using multimedia then I do, I’ll probably learn tricks from them. Students today have been exposed to computers since they were very young, where as nobody had a PC at home until the Commodore 64 came out; nowadays almost everybody has a computer a home. My husband built our daughter one when she was four. I think that what her generation will accomplish will surprise us all, and I think that as a teacher I owe it to my students to never stop learning, and to allow them to teach me something sometimes. As educators we should help our students fulfill all their dreams.

The Networked Student

Ms. Drexler’s video “The Networked Student” was very intriguing. The idea of this type of class for high school and middle school students just blew my mind. I think it’s a great pedagogy . The earlier a student is taught that there isn’t any limits on what they can learn, and to look and think outside the ordinary, the better student they will become. Wendy Drexler stated on her website that isn’t the obstacles she knows she’ll face that worry her, it’s the unforeseen ones that worry her; with reading the potential problems that she does know about and she is still prepared to take on the challenge of turning middle school science students into networked students makes her a true visionary in teaching. I am inspired by her. I hope by the time I graduate I will be ready to tackle the obstacles I’ll face in teaching my students to be networked students. I don’t think I am ready yet, but I am committed to learn what I need to know to prepare myself to help my students on their journeys to become networked students. Dr. Strange posses the question “Why does the networked student even need a teacher?” My answer to this is that everybody needs help or guidance a some point during their journey . Some students will need more help then others , some need motivation to stay on track, and so just need praise for a job well done, what ever they need it’s the teachers job to give it to them, even if it is discipline, they have to know that you care about them and their future.

ipods and itunes U

Itunes U and ipods go together so I’ll discuss both of them together. First I don’t have an ipod, but after all the research I ha’ve read concerning their uses in the class room, I think I need one. Dr. Strange wanted us to start with Duke University concerning the use of ipods in the classroom, so I did. I was impressed with the universities willingness to go out on a limb and try something so radical. Duke is not the only university that jump in to the ipod learning movement . Georgia College and State University started similar projects in 2002. GCSU website goes into detail about how the program was started and how it has evolved into an icommunity . The use of the ipods for learning isn’t just for the students at GCSU, a series of podcast for faculty improvement were also made available to the faculty who couldn't make faculty workshops. These podcast can be found on itunes U. Itunes U has gives anyone access to a ton of learning opportunities. Teachers can go to itunes U and find help with any subject. I like teacher TV. This area is divided into subjects, English, math, and science,which I was thrilled to find, since I still looking for ways to use the technology that we are learning to teach science. I just hope that the administrators that I will have to work with will be as open as Robert Craven of the Orange County Department of Education who told Susie Meserve of the Associated Press about his reaction to the ipod “When the original 5 GB version came out I thought it was interesting. Once I got my hands on one, however, I was blown away. I immediately tried to rationalize its use in education, to determine how we could move these into the classroom.” if all educators were that eager to try new methods of teaching all of our schools would be better. When asked how was his schools using the ipods in the class rooms he gave several examples. My favorite was the recording of the first grades reading their weekly fluency passage, the students are supposed to read as many words correctly as they can in 60 seconds. My daughters in the first grade and we practices all week for these test, I would love to hear how she did on the actual test. I think by letting them hear themselves read it would help the pronounce words better.

Dr. Strange's Wiki Page

Dr. Strange asked us, his students, What is meant by "technology literate teacher" on his Wiki page a tech literate teacher at wiki spaces.com. A technology literate teacher , to me, is someone who not afraid of using technology to teach their student using methods that are going to give the students hands on experience. No matter which grade level or subject you are going to teach the students have to be excited about learning and they have to be challenged if not, they are going to be bored. A technology literate teacher must try new things as they come available, and learn from mistakes as they happen. Technology literate teachers will continue to learn not only from colleagues but from their students as well. What is a TL teacher to know? That’s a hard one to answer, nobody can know everything, but all of use know some, so when we come together the possibilities are endless. If I need help teaching a certain skill I can log on and ask for help. By using the resources available to us the students benefits, instead of one teacher the actually have millions of teachers.
Dr. Strange also asked us "Must all teachers be technologically literate?". This one seems easy right, of course every teacher should be technologically literate. However, we have to remember that there are some teachers out there that have been teacher before computers were a normal household item. With that being said I think that in today’s society every teacher should be able to use every resource that they have available to them. I think that there are some that are afraid of making mistakes, so they don’t try, and it is sad that they have forgotten that you can’t learn something new without being willing to make a few mistakes. So, yes I think all teachers should be technologically literate. I think that the willingness to evolve as the world around evolves will make us better teachers.

Dr. Alice Christie

Dr. Alice Christie's Educational Technology Guide provide a lot of useful information. I was interested in her section about Constructivism. This is the first time I have come across this term in relation to education so, I googled it, and this is how www.funderstanding.com defines it “Constructivism is a philosophy of learning founded on the premise that, by reflecting on our experiences, we construct our own understanding of the world we live in. Each of us generates our own “rules” and “mental models,” which we use to make sense of our experiences. Learning, therefore, is simply the process of adjusting our mental models to accommodate new experiences. I read Dr. Christie’s page and PowerPoint concerning Constructivism, and I think that the theory of students and teachers working together as co-learners is great. I always learn more by being an active part of the process then just by listening to a lecture. I also watched her podcast about geocaching, since it is something I have been planning to do with my daughter. I loved that she gives teacher idea’s on how to incorporate geocaching into a lesson. I bookmarked her site since it had so much information, I am certain that I will be back.

February 14th Assignment

I wasn’t surprised that Wikipedia isn’t the best source of information. Any site that can be edited by anybody with a computer can’t be trusted. If I use information I found on Wikipedia I verify it with another source. Virgil Griffith’s Wikipedia Scanner just proves that the information on Wikipedia can’t be trusted. I’m not surprised that politicians and major corporations would go in and change their Wikipedia page, both pay people to monitor their public image. Do I think that Wikipedia will ever be a reliable information source, maybe. The only way that Wikipedia will ever be a reliable source is if the information that is added is verified and removed if founded to be inaccurate.




Mr. McClung summary of what he learned during his first year teaching was thoughtful . I loved when he said to listen to your students because you may be the only one that does. I believe that to truly help someone you have to know them, and to know them you have to listen to them. I like his comment about communication since it is the key to any relationship, be it a personal or working relationship. I agree that a teacher should be flexible, anything can happen to derail a carefully laid plan. I think the most important advice that Mr. McClung gives us is to make the students the center of our lessons and to remember that it doesn’t matter who else is observing the class, the students is still our audience. I recommend that every check this blog out. http://attheteachersdesk.blogspot.com

February 7th Assignment

I chose to read the posts on podcasting at http://langwitches.org . The first post
“It’s Not About the Tools. It’s About the Skills.” was a very enlightening post. It’s crazy
how we always challenge what we don’t understand. If a parent isn’t familiar with computer
lessons, and just see it as a waste of time, then it is our jobs to explain to them what the lesson is
teaching the student, so that they can understand that their child is being taught important skills. This post gave a lot of information on how to use podcasting in teaching and how to explain to parents the reason behind the use of technology . I enjoyed the “Flat Stanley Project” The podcasts the first graders did was great, I think that the kids’ podcasts were better then mine. They picked out an area to visit, researched it, and made up a tale about their adventures. The digital storytelling post and podcast was interesting The post “Producing a Podcast “ gave details on how to produce your own podcast. I agreed with her post about reflection. It is always important to reflect on projects that have been completed, to think about what the project taught you. The picture to the left was created and shared by langwitches blog.

Comment4Kids

Week 4

My first student to comment on was a student named Chase T. at the Avoca West School.
Chase post was a book review of The Eagle Spike. Chase did a really good job in the review. He gave just enough of information to spark the readers interest in the book, but not too much were he gave the entire book away.

Week 5

Curtis was the second kid I was assigned to comment on. Curtis had written a short story about being bitten by a radioactive spider. This kid is a wonderful writer. He used descriptive words very well, I could almost feel the bit myself.


Week 6

This week I watched a silent movie that Ala had made recounting her holiday vacation, which she had titled "Battling with the Wind". Ala tells us before we watch the video that her little sister wanted to go swimming. In the video we see the wind blow her little sister around. This was a very cute video.


Week 7

Nicholas is writing a story about a vampire bunny. I will have to check back in to see how he finishes the story.

Week 8

James' blog was about finding the correct voice to write in and choosing the correct words. I agree that if you know who you are writing to finding the correct words is easier to do.