Thursday, October 13, 2011

Blog Post #8

Changes: Next ExitThis is How We Dream
In the two parts of this video, Richard Miller discusses the evolution of human communication. He starts out by saying he grew up with a love of books, and decided that one of his goals when reaching adulthood would be to publish his own book. He succeeded at this goal, and now his book can be published on Amazon for 59 cents. He goes on to discuss how we are moving from a book bound culture to a digital culture. Now we can "check out" books from a vast digital library without ever exhausting the supply of books. You never have to wait for someone to return a book before you can get a copy. Not only are we publishing our ideas in words, but we can also use picture, video, and audio.

One of my favorite parts of this video was when Miller said "the only limits are those we place on ourselves." The way we get information is steadily changing, constantly updating yet we can always find history and older information. I also enjoyed the point Miller made about his lecture. Without the internet, it could have taken years to get his message out there, but because he has unlimited access to this tool, it was published within a matter of minutes AND reached a global audience.

I absolutely loved Carly's post. The assignment she came up with makes me want to go and create my own version. The idea of incorporating an assortment of videos to meld together in my own teaching philosophy is exciting to me. In reading various things I find a sentence here or a song lyric there that portrays a thought I might have had in a way I hadn't thought of expressing it. Using videos from various sources to do this same thing really exemplifies what Richard Miller was talking about when he spoke of using multimedia in writing. The variation between videos breaks up the monotony of text and allows readers to stay more engaged in your post.

EDM310 For Dummies
Both of these videos were helpful to watch at the beginning of this class when I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. :-) The Chipper Series, while a bit long and exaggerated, was helpful because it reinforced the message that you get what you put in to something. If you work hard, the benefits are well worth it. If you put minimal effort in, you are just wasting time. As far as a video I would like to create, I think it would be helpful to have a video which thoroughly explains basic functions on a Mac. When I first came in to the lab, I had only used my iPod and my iPhone. I had never used a Mac and I had no idea how to do the simplest things on one. I couldn't even figure out how to close a window because the functions were so different than what I was used to on the PCs I have used growing up. Once I figured out the basics, I enjoy the simplicity but I was like a deer in headlights at first.

Overall, I agree with the majority of things said in this video. I agree that the way we currently approach school needs to change dramatically, and I think we are on track to do this. We do need to place the student in the center of the motivation for the classroom, and understand that they do have experiences and opinions that they can bring to the table. They are not there for us to simply fill them with information and send them on their way. I think we can do this by creating more interesting assignments and teaching students to use a variety of tools and technologies aside from just pen and paper to do this.

One thing I did NOT agree with in the video was the lady who claims that if she were to redesign a school she is not sure she would use the traditional bricks and mortar school. I am assuming she means that she would go to using a strictly internet based learning system rather than a real classroom. I agree that we should be using technology in our classrooms, but I do not think that technology should replace our classrooms. There will always be, in my opinion, a value in coming together in person to discuss things face-to-face, and we can't let ourselves get carried away with social networking to the point that we no longer know how to interact with an actual person standing in a room with us. As much as schools are meant to teach facts and information, they are also there to help teach appropriate social behaviors.

Update- Project #10 My PLN

A screen capture of my Symbaloo desktop
As you can see, I have chosen to use Symbaloo to organize my PLN. Over the course of the semester I have added a few things to my PLN that I have found interesting from blog assignments and other activities. I have found Symbaloo helpful because everything is neatly displayed and you can get to anything by clicking on an icon. To me, this is much more appealing than scrolling down through countless lists of things trying to find what I'm looking for. My PLN is definitely still a work in progress. I have not put as much effort into it as I probably should have at this point in the semester. At first, I was a little intimidated by the idea so I wasn't adding things as I came across them. Going forward, I will be sure to add things I stumble upon on Twitter, Facebook, news sites, etc. to my PLN so I have those resources available to me in the future.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Blog Post #7

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture
Randy Pausch is truly someone I think everyone can learn from tremendously. His teaching strategies were all about not just providing students with the skills they needed to do whatever the assignment at hand was, but also providing them with invaluable life skills. His philosophy, in my opinion, can be summarized by the following quote from his Last Lecture: "It's not about how to achieve your dreams. It's about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you." It does not matter what you might be able to achieve of your own accord. What matters is how you treat the people around you, who help you achieve those dreams.

Brick walls are not there to keep us out.
In his own way, he taught his students never to give up. One of my favorite quotes from the lecture is, "The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop people who don't want it badly enough." Determination and fortitude are two characteristics that are very important to me, because I had a great example of those traits early in my life - my grandmother. I learned from her that if you make up your mind that you truly want something, then you can overcome any obstacle that might get in your way.

He also taught that you should always put others before yourself, and "When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody's bothering to tell you anymore that's a very bad place to be. Your critics are your ones telling you they still love you and care." Even though we might not appreciate "advice" and criticism at the time we are given it, we never want to come to a place where we realize no one is giving us feedback anymore because that means we have chased away the people who love us. Constructive criticism is a very valuable thing and we must learn to take it and use it to transform ourselves into a better version of ourselves.


Randy Pausch: Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.
Finally, perhaps the most important thing I got out of this lecture is summed up in the following two quotes: "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted," and "I probably got more from that dream and not accomplishing it than I got from any of the ones I did accomplish." It is important to keep a positive attitude even when we see ourselves as not achieving the things we set out to do. There are no failures - just lessons learned in an unexpected way. When something doesn't go as planned, we have to step back and look at the events from a distance to see what we can learn from what did happen and take that away with us to make the next attempt better.

C4K Summary Post, October

We are Kids with a View
For this week, I commented on the class' blog, but directed my comment to Mallika. We were supposed to give an interesting fact about the United States of America. I asked Mallika if she liked to watch movies, and then told her that Hollywood, California is the movie capital of the world, and that it is the place where cinema was born.

For this class, I was assigned to comment on the 10th student down in Mrs. Gregory's 5th period class, who happened to be Michael F. Michael posted all about his two favorite video games, which were Smackdown VS Raw 2010 and Need4Speed, both for his psp. I told Michael that I wasn't a very big fan of wrestling (I think it's a boy thing and just don't "get it."), but that I did like to play racing games sometimes. I told him my favorite racing game is Project Gotham Racing, and that I also liked to play Wii Sports Resort sometimes. I am okay at bowling but for some reason I have gotten really good at golf.

Mrs. Gregory has also created a random student selector for comments. When I visited the site, I got Brynne from period 4. Brynne's post was about fingernails, and what they are made of. She also wanted to know what she should blog about next. I told her the name of the stuff fingernails are made out of is Keratin, and asked if she knew that hair was made from the same stuff. I also told her that her next post should be teaching her readers how to do something. In a previous post she mentioned being a singer, so I told her maybe she could explain how to read music or what makes a good singer.

For the remainder of my C4K comments, I was very sick with pneumonia and was unable to access the links to my assignments once I got well. I e-mailed Dr. Strange and he said that he would mark me as being sick.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Blog Post #8

Changes: Next ExitThis is How We Dream
In the two parts of this video, Richard Miller discusses the evolution of human communication. He starts out by saying he grew up with a love of books, and decided that one of his goals when reaching adulthood would be to publish his own book. He succeeded at this goal, and now his book can be published on Amazon for 59 cents. He goes on to discuss how we are moving from a book bound culture to a digital culture. Now we can "check out" books from a vast digital library without ever exhausting the supply of books. You never have to wait for someone to return a book before you can get a copy. Not only are we publishing our ideas in words, but we can also use picture, video, and audio.

One of my favorite parts of this video was when Miller said "the only limits are those we place on ourselves." The way we get information is steadily changing, constantly updating yet we can always find history and older information. I also enjoyed the point Miller made about his lecture. Without the internet, it could have taken years to get his message out there, but because he has unlimited access to this tool, it was published within a matter of minutes AND reached a global audience.

I absolutely loved Carly's post. The assignment she came up with makes me want to go and create my own version. The idea of incorporating an assortment of videos to meld together in my own teaching philosophy is exciting to me. In reading various things I find a sentence here or a song lyric there that portrays a thought I might have had in a way I hadn't thought of expressing it. Using videos from various sources to do this same thing really exemplifies what Richard Miller was talking about when he spoke of using multimedia in writing. The variation between videos breaks up the monotony of text and allows readers to stay more engaged in your post.

EDM310 For Dummies
Both of these videos were helpful to watch at the beginning of this class when I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. :-) The Chipper Series, while a bit long and exaggerated, was helpful because it reinforced the message that you get what you put in to something. If you work hard, the benefits are well worth it. If you put minimal effort in, you are just wasting time. As far as a video I would like to create, I think it would be helpful to have a video which thoroughly explains basic functions on a Mac. When I first came in to the lab, I had only used my iPod and my iPhone. I had never used a Mac and I had no idea how to do the simplest things on one. I couldn't even figure out how to close a window because the functions were so different than what I was used to on the PCs I have used growing up. Once I figured out the basics, I enjoy the simplicity but I was like a deer in headlights at first.

Overall, I agree with the majority of things said in this video. I agree that the way we currently approach school needs to change dramatically, and I think we are on track to do this. We do need to place the student in the center of the motivation for the classroom, and understand that they do have experiences and opinions that they can bring to the table. They are not there for us to simply fill them with information and send them on their way. I think we can do this by creating more interesting assignments and teaching students to use a variety of tools and technologies aside from just pen and paper to do this.

One thing I did NOT agree with in the video was the lady who claims that if she were to redesign a school she is not sure she would use the traditional bricks and mortar school. I am assuming she means that she would go to using a strictly internet based learning system rather than a real classroom. I agree that we should be using technology in our classrooms, but I do not think that technology should replace our classrooms. There will always be, in my opinion, a value in coming together in person to discuss things face-to-face, and we can't let ourselves get carried away with social networking to the point that we no longer know how to interact with an actual person standing in a room with us. As much as schools are meant to teach facts and information, they are also there to help teach appropriate social behaviors.

Update- Project #10 My PLN

A screen capture of my Symbaloo desktop
As you can see, I have chosen to use Symbaloo to organize my PLN. Over the course of the semester I have added a few things to my PLN that I have found interesting from blog assignments and other activities. I have found Symbaloo helpful because everything is neatly displayed and you can get to anything by clicking on an icon. To me, this is much more appealing than scrolling down through countless lists of things trying to find what I'm looking for. My PLN is definitely still a work in progress. I have not put as much effort into it as I probably should have at this point in the semester. At first, I was a little intimidated by the idea so I wasn't adding things as I came across them. Going forward, I will be sure to add things I stumble upon on Twitter, Facebook, news sites, etc. to my PLN so I have those resources available to me in the future.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Blog Post #7

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture
Randy Pausch is truly someone I think everyone can learn from tremendously. His teaching strategies were all about not just providing students with the skills they needed to do whatever the assignment at hand was, but also providing them with invaluable life skills. His philosophy, in my opinion, can be summarized by the following quote from his Last Lecture: "It's not about how to achieve your dreams. It's about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you." It does not matter what you might be able to achieve of your own accord. What matters is how you treat the people around you, who help you achieve those dreams.

Brick walls are not there to keep us out.
In his own way, he taught his students never to give up. One of my favorite quotes from the lecture is, "The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop people who don't want it badly enough." Determination and fortitude are two characteristics that are very important to me, because I had a great example of those traits early in my life - my grandmother. I learned from her that if you make up your mind that you truly want something, then you can overcome any obstacle that might get in your way.

He also taught that you should always put others before yourself, and "When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody's bothering to tell you anymore that's a very bad place to be. Your critics are your ones telling you they still love you and care." Even though we might not appreciate "advice" and criticism at the time we are given it, we never want to come to a place where we realize no one is giving us feedback anymore because that means we have chased away the people who love us. Constructive criticism is a very valuable thing and we must learn to take it and use it to transform ourselves into a better version of ourselves.


Randy Pausch: Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.
Finally, perhaps the most important thing I got out of this lecture is summed up in the following two quotes: "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted," and "I probably got more from that dream and not accomplishing it than I got from any of the ones I did accomplish." It is important to keep a positive attitude even when we see ourselves as not achieving the things we set out to do. There are no failures - just lessons learned in an unexpected way. When something doesn't go as planned, we have to step back and look at the events from a distance to see what we can learn from what did happen and take that away with us to make the next attempt better.

C4K Summary Post, October

We are Kids with a View
For this week, I commented on the class' blog, but directed my comment to Mallika. We were supposed to give an interesting fact about the United States of America. I asked Mallika if she liked to watch movies, and then told her that Hollywood, California is the movie capital of the world, and that it is the place where cinema was born.

For this class, I was assigned to comment on the 10th student down in Mrs. Gregory's 5th period class, who happened to be Michael F. Michael posted all about his two favorite video games, which were Smackdown VS Raw 2010 and Need4Speed, both for his psp. I told Michael that I wasn't a very big fan of wrestling (I think it's a boy thing and just don't "get it."), but that I did like to play racing games sometimes. I told him my favorite racing game is Project Gotham Racing, and that I also liked to play Wii Sports Resort sometimes. I am okay at bowling but for some reason I have gotten really good at golf.

Mrs. Gregory has also created a random student selector for comments. When I visited the site, I got Brynne from period 4. Brynne's post was about fingernails, and what they are made of. She also wanted to know what she should blog about next. I told her the name of the stuff fingernails are made out of is Keratin, and asked if she knew that hair was made from the same stuff. I also told her that her next post should be teaching her readers how to do something. In a previous post she mentioned being a singer, so I told her maybe she could explain how to read music or what makes a good singer.

For the remainder of my C4K comments, I was very sick with pneumonia and was unable to access the links to my assignments once I got well. I e-mailed Dr. Strange and he said that he would mark me as being sick.