The Last Lecture

I've watched this video before, and honestly, I was not looking forward to sitting down and watching it again. But once it started, I realized I'd forgotten how amazing this man's zest for life was. Even when faced with the unthinkable, he was able to find the positive. I love the fact that he was not only trying to impart some knowledge on his audience, but doing it with humor.
When he listed his childhood dreams, he was specific. He didn't just list that he wanted to some big things. He listed exactly what big things he wanted to accomplish as a child. And just because he didn't achieve some of his childhood goals, didn't mean he didn't learn an incredible lesson in trying to achieve them.
He stated that he wanted to experience zero gravity. This would be an impossible feat for many people. This was an impossible feat for himself, but he managed to find a way. Faculty and staff couldn't participate in the project, so he resigned as faculty and re-applied as a press worker. Even when faced with adversity, he didn't give up. He took the opportunity given to him, and readjusted his own position so that he could experience those things that were important to him.
The types of things he spoke of in his last talk are good life lessons that he felt everyone should learn. Even when faced with death in a few short weeks, he wanted to teach people. This is the kind of teacher I want to be. I want to never stop learning, never stop reaching for my goals, and never stop teaching others things that I learn along the way.

Karl Fisch

I cannot say that I enjoyed reading this post as it was lengthy, but I did agree with most of what he had to say. He is an advocate of technology. He sees the potential for technologically illiterate teachers to be damaging to our future educators, lawyers, doctors. Why is it socially acceptable for a teacher to say "I don't know anything about those computers!" and not for a physician? Because, we, as the public understand the necessity of technology. We understand that with technological advances comes answers to the questions we've asked for years. Without technology, where would our lives be? No phone chats with your best friend when you are both stuck in 5 o'clock traffic. No microwaved dinners. No email, instant messaging, facebook, or blogs. Our life in this modern world, would quickly become the twin of the most poverty ridden third world country without technology.

This blogger understands that, and takes it to heart. He feels very passionately about transforming our previously accepted stance on tech illiteracy. And we, as educators should join his plight!

Dr. Strange's Wiki

After first reading the wiki I was confused at what my instructions were.

That said, this was an enlightening page to explore. All the terms used are so objective. What is appropriate for one, may not be for another. What should a tech literate teacher know/do/etc? All these questions could be answered in a milion different ways.
In my own personal opinion, a tech literate teacher must be able to understand new and common technologies and not be afraid of them. She must be willing to learn more about those technologies she doesn't already understand. She must accept the fact that her students will more than likely know more about many of these things than she does. To teach is to learn constantly. (and that doesn't mean a student cannot teach you some things!)

It's Not About the Technology

When I first read the title, I thought, "Yeah, right!" But the author made some very profound statements. I totally agree with the fact that technology is useless without an innovative teacher. You can spend as much money as you'd like on supplying a classroom with things such as computers and smartboards, but unless the teacher in the classroom is willing to not only learn about this equipment but also make it work for her class, then the money has gone to waste. I also agree that teaching is a learning profession. One of the reasons that I wanted to go into education is because I love learning so much. Without the desire to continue learning, your students will know more than you in a few short years. There is never a bad time to learn something, and if you want to continue to be good at your job, you have to invest time and energy into learning things to make you better at you job.
I also really loved the comment she made about teaching being like a physics principle. If your students don't grasp the concept the first time around, regroup and approach the material from a different angle, an angle they can understand.

A Vision of Students Today

This video reminded me a lot of the "Did you know? 3.0" video that we watched a few weeks ago. I do not however feel the same as some of the statements made in the video. One thing that it mentioned was that only 18% of the instructors knew my name, or that I was in class with over 100 people. I consider myself lucky to not identify with these statistics. I know that my instructors all know my name, or at least my last name and I my largest class consists of about 40 people.
As far as making this video different to ADD to it... Looking at it from a broadcasting standpoint, I think the camera work was extremely shaky and many of the words that either flashed across the screen or that were written out by hand did not focus well on the camera. I would have possibly changed the setting from the lecture hall to more of a classroom, although I do understand the point they were trying to make with this. I felt the video was good and had good information, but the shakiness of the camera distracted me throughout the entire length of it.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is something that typically happens unintentionally. It is something that can be easily fixed though. In note taking, be sure to clearly mark one's own thoughts versus the thoughts or notes from books or lectures. Record interviews when possible, or take thorough notes with your own words clearly marked. When writing papers, be sure to include proper citations. If ever you question whether something is plagiarism or not, just site it in your paper to be sure. Even if your citation is simple, giving credit where credit is due is very important.
Copyright.com states that "Copyright is a form of protection grounded in the U.S. Constitution and granted by law for original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Copyright covers both published and unpublished works." This means that if someone writes something, whether it be an article or a novel, this law will protect anyone else from taking credit for authoring it.

Web Accessibility

This power point offered many useful definitions. It also listed some serious things to think about that one without a disability may over look. I have never personally had to deal with one of these disabilities and can barely imagine what it must be like to struggle to make it through everyday. The world is not very accessible to people with disabilities. And his PowerPoint explained that and offered suggestions to make our world more accessible to those that are different.
The website taught me about new tools that I didn't even know existed. I think I'd heard of the readers before this class, and thought they were cool, but I had no idea that there were web browser made to read to you, or programs that you could install and run to enlarge the print on your computer screen. I did not know of a voice browser that responds to speech. That I think was one of my favorite products. It's amazing what technology has created. :)

assignment 2

This podcast shows many different ways that a teacher can use podcasting in his classroom. One of the things I love most about this, is often teachers don't have many options for incorporating creativity into their lessons. By allowing the students to create podcasts, you are insuring their knowledge and understanding of the information. It gives the children an opportunity to use their higher order thinking skills. "To teach, you must understand."
I also love the way the teachers and students used the podcasts to stay connected to each other when they weren't all in the classroom together. Teachers can post lectures or notes or answers to Study Guides to podcasts. They can also show parents what is going on in the classroom. I think parents would probably enjoy this most.

EDM 310 videocast

I was unable to view this video cast. I downloaded all the necessary Quicktime things it told me to, and still I could not manage to get them to play. But, I can only imagine some of the problems they encountered. I have watched several on the internet and can tell a huge difference between those students that are well rehearsed vs. those students that try to Ad lib. Even if someone is very knowledgeable of their topic, it's hard to remove conversational pauses from our speech. There are usually lots of uhms and ahhs. This not only sounds unprofessional, but it sounds like the person doesn't know what they are talking about.
I will definitely script my video cast. I think that by having everything written down, it will help keep my group on task and also ensure that everyone has equal speaking time. There is no need to get a poor grade due to one's own laziness and script isn't hard to write.