Earth Day

 Well I thought my last blog should be about Earth day, being it is Earth day weekend.  There have been a lot of different ways of celebrating this  time of year.  There are beach cleanups around this area.  The beach clean up is run buy all different groups.  There are some run by Paddle-boarding and kayak businesses.  They promote the beach clean up by renting their equipment for a discount so people will clean up the water ways and beaches as they paddle.  There are the scuba diving businesses that promote the reef and beach clean up.  They provide lunches and refreshments when you join them.  There are so many different opportunities out there to keep the Earth clean.

Some things that can be taught is about "green" living.  There are different ways to live green.  There are many different products that contain chemicals and are bad for the environment and so many alternatives to them.  In class you can have your students try to be toxic free.  Natural products can be used to create non toxic cleaners by using natural ingredients such as vinegar, water and essential oils.  Teaching children how to combine these things to make non toxic cleaners will keep them healthy while helping the earth.  Another way to teach your class how to be green is to teach them about recycling.  Making your classroom a recycle only
 classroom will show students how recycling is easy to do and this may carry over to their home life.

A good website to take a look at is Green Schools.  This site gives many great ideas on how to help your student learn to be 'green'.

What ways would you have your students celebrate Earth day?    Do you teach about Earth day and conservation in your classroom?

Cloud Drives

I was looking at the different cloud drives and how these can benefit teachers and students.  There are many different drives to choose from.  Some of the drives you can sign up for are: Dropbox, Box, Google Drive and Skydrive.  When you sign up for these programs you can get up to 16 gig free storage.  These drives allow you to integrate them into your Windows program,  They run in the background and when you save a document you can choose to save directly to one of the cloud drives.   You can retrieve your document from any computer or smartphone.  There are even some tablets that you can see your document from.  Cloud drives are a great way to share documents with other people.  You can make folders to share with others.  It is a great collaboration tool.  There can be more than one person working on a document.
I use all of the different cloud drives.  They all have different attributes that work better for different applications.  In one of my classes we used the Google drive to collaborate.  It works great with Google + when we had meetings online.  It holds all of our documents and hangout notes.  This way if anyone missed a meeting then they could look back at the notes.  There is another program that links all the cloud drives together it is called Cloud Magic.  This program links all the drives into one place.  You set up all your accounts so you can search for any document.
I think this is a great addition for the teachers to share with their students.  This will help the student keep in touch with the assignments and you as the teacher.  How else do you think this may be useful?  DO you think this is a good fit for your class?

Project

Hobby project

http://kristinv.wikispaces.com/Hobby+Example+Page

By - Kristin Valenti

 This is a project I am creating for middle school children.  They will be using different technologies to create this project.   I will be teaching a technology class.  I want them to learn how to utilize all different types of software.  I also want to make sure they can use software that is free to use.  The student will also learn how to express themselves in different ways.  They will be creating a video of a hobby they enjoy.  I will have them create a video showing them doing what they enjoy.  They will have a choice of creating a how to for their hobby or do a research paper of a person who also enjoy their same hobby. 

I don’t teach yet so if you have any suggestions on how to put this together I would appreciate it.  Thank you for taking the time to look this over.

Multimedia Project

There are so many different options for digital story telling.  There are programs that let you record sound, video or create presentations including all of them.  There are many options that are free to use.   In the future I would like to have my Western Civilization students create a digital story about one of the people they admire the most that they learn about.   They can pick someone who they have the most interest in learning more about or they can also decide to use a certain time period or an event. 

The students would have to make a multimedia presentation to include sound, graphics, hyperlinks and video.  I will have them use Prezi for the presentation unless they have Power Point or IMovie.  I don’t want them to have to purchase any software.  I don’t think it is fair to have student use software they may have to pay for when there are so many free programs they can use.   I will also have them create a storyboard to show their thought process.

I will introduce my class to a few different programs.  The first one I will introduce is Prezi.  Prezi is a great program to create multimedia productions for no cost.   When creating a Prezi presentation you can include video, audio, text, animation and links.  Some of the other programs I will introduce are:

1.       Animoto – Lets you create video with graphics and sound.  You can pick the pictures you want from your computer or a social media site then add music and\or your voice.

2.      Voice Thread – Voice thread allows you to create a video with voice and graphics.  It also allows people to make comments on your project.

3.      Corkboard.me – This is a program to help build a storyboard and to brainstorm.

4.      Audioboo –  it records sounds whether it is a voice or music you are creating.

5.      Spiderscribe – Is a program to help with a storyboard or brainstorming.  It allows you to work by yourself or with a group. 

First I will use the computer in my classroom and the whiteboard to give them a sense of the programs I want to discuss.  I will then use the computer lab in the school to show my students the different programs and how to use them.  This is the best place so I can have all the students on the computer at the same time.  I will let them explore the programs and find out how they can best use these programs. 

The final project should be a multimedia presentation showing video clips they find or created with sound clips of a story they feel is important to their topic I want them to use at least 3 different types of multimedia.  This project will be creative and fun and an add way of learning and showing what they learned.  When I have all the presentations I will put them together in time sequence and present them to the class as one presentation.

 Prezi Presentation

Prezi Presentation of Digital Storytelling

Computer frontline troubleshooting

Computer troubleshooting gives some a quezzy stomach.  It is scary for some but terrifying for others.  I think the most important thing for people to remember is to not be afraid of trying to fix it yourself.  If it is broke you can't break it anymore and it can always be fixed.  The more a person tries to fix a computer the more comfortable they would feel.  This is actually how I got more comfortable I felt and the more I would try. 
Reading and researching is a great place to start to feel comfortable with technology.  There are many good sites to look at.  Computer Hope is website that has many good troubleshooting tips.  It has tips to troubleshoot software and hardware.  It gives the cause and the solution.  This helps you feel more comfortable by giving you a sense of what is going on.
People who have some knowledge about technology feel empowered.  The knowledge of technology also helps when you have to call your local IT person while at work.  This way when they are asking questions you understand what they want.  It makes it much easier to get your computer fixed. If you are interested in learing more, here are some sites to take a look at.

1. Trish's Escape from Hardware Hell
2. PC Hell
3. Microsoft Word 2007
4. Microsoft Tutorials covering all of their products

I am fascinated with what people put on the Internet.  The things people post on social sites, documents and pictures they post are sometimes not appropriate.  I often wonder “What were they thinking”   I don’t think people really think about the impact of what they put on the web when they put it there.  This is especially true of younger children.

 When talking about the Internet and technology you must also keep in mind, what you put on there is permanent.  The information placed on the Internet could be seen my millions of people years down the road.   Information placed on the web even if deleted may be cached somewhere and it is not really ever erased.   Let’s look at your personal computer and the information held on there.   When you delete the information on your computer it is not really gone.  It is still imprinted on your hard drive.  You can recover this when if you have a special program to retrieve the data.  There are special programs that shred information on your computer when you delete it so it is permanent.  There are a couple of different programs for this.  Boot and Nuke is one of them and it is a free Open Source program.   This program will delete all files permanently so they can’t be recovered.  Now think about the servers hard drive that hold your information you placed on the Internet, do you think that they use this kind of technology to delete your information?   Does anyone really think about that?  Now think about kids and young adults, do you think they even think about this?

I think with all the technology being used by students today they need to learn what they should and shouldn’t share on the Internet.    What people put on the Internet could be used against them if they put the wrong thing on there.  Employers and Universities will look at online profiles to get information on the applicants.   Don Goble states, “College admissions and employers do read your online profiles and they do make decisions based upon information they find out about you online. In fact, colleges will make decisions based upon many forms of questionable involvement.”  I think that we need to teach our children what happens with the information they put online.   We need to teach them the consequences they may face if they put the wrong information on the web.

Who do you think should teach them?  Should it be up to the teachers or the parents?

 

Goble, D, 2012, 10 Things Your Students Should Know About their Digital Footprint,  Edreach.us

Second Life a Different Learning Tool

This week was a very interesting week of reading and exploring.   While I was reading and thinking about what I have learned in this class and in my other technology classes to help educators and student in their learning, I remembered Second Life.  I personally thought this program was a bit silly at first.   I started to delve into it a little more and it has so much to offer.  Second Life is a virtual reality program that is web based but also has a small footprint on your computer.  When you sign up you pick your avatar one that best suits you.  This would be fun if you have your class sign up for this as a class project.  There is a way to keep all the content that is viewed rated G so it is safe for the younger student. 

Second Life has hundreds of places to go and things to see.  There are special areas to go for teaching that helps give you some ideas on what to bring to your classroom.  There are worlds that are dedicated to K-12 education.  One site is West Virginia Education (http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/WV%20Education/212/231/28) which was created by the West Virginia Dept. of Education for teachers as a resource to help them educating their students.  In the worlds you can travel from place to place.  You stop to read and learn about different subjects. 

 Beside the education aspect of Second Life there are collaboration tools for you to use.  There are a few groups from UCF on Second Life that you can join.  It has the ability for chat to talk to your peers as well as experts on subjects you may enjoy.  There are even support groups if you have any problems you may need help with.

I am interested in scuba diving and searched on there for my interest in that and they have groups and places to visit that affiliated with that hobby.    There are organizations such as PADI on Second Life to educate people on diving and the oceans.  There are so many different organization that you can connect with and learn from.

Second Life has museums, art galleries, schools and organizations all for you to explore.  You can visit places all over the world.  There are hundreds of places to go.  The only limitation is your imagination.  They have the Museum of Art in San Diego to visit and see the art they have there.

I only touched the surface of Second Life.   It is a bit hard to get around until you get used to it but it is very interesting.  I will go into this program a little more in depth in another blog.  Stay tuned.

bublus.us

www.secondlife.com

 

 

Are we doing the best for our students?

I am not a teacher yet so I am not sure how well I can answer the question:
Dr. Scott McLeod asks:
“Are we doing what is best for our students, or are we doing what is most convenient for us?

I do think that people in general stick with what they know. If they are used to doing a task one way and have been doing it the same way for a while they don't usually change.  I am sure this is no exception for some teachers especially ones who have been teaching for a long time and are comfortable with their curriculum.

I was in a conversation with a teacher I know and they said that once they have their lesson plan set they use the same one time after time.  This seems to be a lazy way to teach out youth.  This isn't the way all teachers are but there are the teachers out there who are like this.  There needs to be a way to have accountability for teachers to keep up with technology and the changing world.  What do you think about teachers who teach this way?

There are more and more schools that are incorporating online classes for high school studies.  According to The Journal.com,  David Nagel states:  "The percentage of high school students taking online courses nearly doubled in a single year. According to the latest data available from Project Tomorrow's annual Speak Up Survey, more than one-quarter (27 percent) of all high school students took at least one class online last year, up from 14 percent the year before. But the numbers could have been higher, according to the researchers." (Nagel, 2010)  This concerns me if students aren't learning how to utilize technology.  This could hinder their ability to reach their potential to learn all they can from this type of environment.  There are some schools that are too rural to offer students some classes but online classes could be the answer for them.  This was new to me because when I was living in NY they didn't offer online classes to High School students but here in Florida they offer it to students.  Shouldn't we give our kids every advantage we can for them to succeed? 


Resources:

Nagel, D (2010), Report: Online Learning Nearly Doubles Among High School Students, The Journal, Retrieved from: http://thejournal.com/articles/2010/06/29/report-online-learning-nearly-doubles-among-high-school-students.aspx