Randy Paush was born in 1960; he died of liver tumors this past year. Paush gave lectures that were very motivational. One question he asked the audience at the beginning of his lecture was "If you had on last lecture to give before dying, what would it be?" Randy Paush spoke to people about their childhood dreams and the lessons they learned growing up. He went on to accomplish very many of his own childhood goals throughout his life. He was always encouraging students to follow their childhood dreams.
Randy Paush was a professor at MIT. He designed a program called Building Virtual Worlds. The program gave students a whole new way of learning by allowing them to access the virtual world while still learning important information. I thought this program was a really amazing idea because a learning experience like that will most likely help students remember what they are actually learning.
Professor Paush also put together a team of students to compete in a NASA competition. The grand prize was a ride on the Comet Vomit. His team won and got to experience what it was like to be an astronaut. This was an amazing opportunity that his students will remember for a lifetime. He was always pushing the students to work hard and their hard work definitely paid off in this situation. I couldn't imagine the feeling they must have had getting to experience something like this firsthand.
This video was so neat. Randy Paush was truly an amazing professor. He knew exactly what to do to motivate his students and get them to work hard to achieve their gaols and aspirations. I thought is was so cool how he was a believer in following childhood dreams because not too many people do that anymore. Everyone gets caught up in everyday life and forgets about what they really want for the,selves but Paush really helps his students achieve their childhood dreams. He pushes them and makes them work hard so that his students will be able to say one day that they achieved their dreams just as he did for himself. I enjoyed watching this video and it gave me the motivation I needed to push myself to work harder at reaching my goals I have set for myself.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Podcast Blog
EDM 310 classes do podcasts about technological concepts in the world of education. I have chosen two podcasts to view from last semester to figure out what could have been done to improve the podcasts for future references. The first podcast I watched was called "Blogs and Blogging" by Silas Smith, Andrea Williams, and Lashonda Pruitt; the three discussed what blogging is and how is can benefit teachers and students for many different reasons. The other podcast I saw was called "Facebook a an Educational Tool" by Theda Hines and Larrica Smith, the two women talked about all of the positives and negatives they discovered about facebook being used as an educational tool.
There are a couple of thing I noticed that could have been done to make these podcasts a little better. Practice is one thing I think that could have really improved the podcasts, this way the students would not have been reading their papers in front of them most of the time and focused more on the information they were presenting. anther thing that would have maybe helped is letting the students pick their own topics so that they were actually interested in the topic they were discussing, rather than choosing from a list of already formed topics.
The last idea I had about improving the podcasts was having a pre-recording session to get the students more familiar with the idea of recording a podcast, this way the podcasts would run more smoothly when it cam time to record the final time. Overall, I think these men and women did a fantastic job on their podcasts!
There are a couple of thing I noticed that could have been done to make these podcasts a little better. Practice is one thing I think that could have really improved the podcasts, this way the students would not have been reading their papers in front of them most of the time and focused more on the information they were presenting. anther thing that would have maybe helped is letting the students pick their own topics so that they were actually interested in the topic they were discussing, rather than choosing from a list of already formed topics.
The last idea I had about improving the podcasts was having a pre-recording session to get the students more familiar with the idea of recording a podcast, this way the podcasts would run more smoothly when it cam time to record the final time. Overall, I think these men and women did a fantastic job on their podcasts!
Monday, February 16, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Fischbowl/ November
AHS just opened up wireless Internet at the school for personal use and use in the classrooms. It is not available for use on the weekends at of now for security reasons. Many people ask the question "Why wireless?" They want to know why students need wireless access in the classrooms and what they could do with this access. This blog was dedicated to answering that question and clearing all doubts that wireless Internet is not needed in schools.
One of the reasons the blog discussed is that there is an infinite number of resources available to students online for projects or assignments; so much research can be done at the tip of your finger. Another advantage is the Internet has pretty much an unlimited amount of storage, students can saved their documents on google and retrieve them anywhere in the world, all they need is Internet access. Teachers as AHS have begun to use blogs and wikis in the classroom to enhance learning. Students will spend their live in a world advancing in technology all of the time so if they do not learn how to guide their way around the Internet now they will not be able to hold up in the outside world. Everything has already changed and advanced from when we were younger and I cannot imagine what it will be like for the generations of students in the future. My favorite thing about this blog was the quote from Albert Einstein that stated "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
One of the reasons the blog discussed is that there is an infinite number of resources available to students online for projects or assignments; so much research can be done at the tip of your finger. Another advantage is the Internet has pretty much an unlimited amount of storage, students can saved their documents on google and retrieve them anywhere in the world, all they need is Internet access. Teachers as AHS have begun to use blogs and wikis in the classroom to enhance learning. Students will spend their live in a world advancing in technology all of the time so if they do not learn how to guide their way around the Internet now they will not be able to hold up in the outside world. Everything has already changed and advanced from when we were younger and I cannot imagine what it will be like for the generations of students in the future. My favorite thing about this blog was the quote from Albert Einstein that stated "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Fischbowl Post #2
This fischbowl video was about teachers being technologically illiterate. I agree with this video in some ways. I do believe that technology has become an important part of a child's education and that they need to be well versed about how to use computers. When I was in grade school I knew nothing about computers, my computer classes in high shcool were a joke because all we learned how to do was play games. When I came to college I realized how much I missed out on in school because almost every class in college uses a computer in some way, shape, or form.
The downfall to me is that I don't think our eduaction system should be too focused on technology. the most important experiences a person can get from education is always hands-on activies because those are the ones you will remember the most. Technology has evolved so much over the past few years that it will absolutely blow your mind, I cannot imagine what will be in store when I graduate and finally become a teacher.
The downfall to me is that I don't think our eduaction system should be too focused on technology. the most important experiences a person can get from education is always hands-on activies because those are the ones you will remember the most. Technology has evolved so much over the past few years that it will absolutely blow your mind, I cannot imagine what will be in store when I graduate and finally become a teacher.
Podcast Blog Post
The first podcast I viewed was the SmartBoard Lessons podcast. The SmartBoard podcast was pretty cool, it is such an amazing tool to use in the classroom. It is amazing how is stores information. It is unfortunate that the SmartBoards are not found in every school since they are so expensive, because I believe that they would be a great value to enhance children's learning.
The next podcast I watched was the Kidcast. The Kidcast was encouraging the use of podcasts in the classroom. Personally, podcasts are hard for me to pay attention to and I don't believe that the students would be very engaged since their attention spans are fairly short. I do think that podcasts are very informative but I think they are more appropriate for the college setting. Another podcast on the list I watched was the This Week In Photography podcast, to me this was the most boring one of all. The podcast was mainly about photographers trying to take pictures at the inauguration and how crowded it was, nothing too special.
Another podcast I watched was MacBreak Weekly. The MacBreak podcast was all about the Mac computers. I have no clue about how to use Mac computers since I do not own one myself but they looked like pretty advanced pieces of technology. EdTech Talk was another podcast I viewed; this podcast was about parent involvement. EdTech Talk was about how important it is for the parents to be involved in their child's education. I thought this podcast was great because it explained how the parent really should get involved because it benefits the child's education.
All of the podcasts I watched were very informative. It was amazing to me how many different podcasts there are and how many there are on education topics. I even saw some about learning Spanish which I thought was pretty neat. The downfall with podcasts for me is that it is hard for me to stay engaged starring at a computer so I know it would be hard for a child to do the same. Like I stated before, I believe that the podcasts are better used in the college setting.
The next podcast I watched was the Kidcast. The Kidcast was encouraging the use of podcasts in the classroom. Personally, podcasts are hard for me to pay attention to and I don't believe that the students would be very engaged since their attention spans are fairly short. I do think that podcasts are very informative but I think they are more appropriate for the college setting. Another podcast on the list I watched was the This Week In Photography podcast, to me this was the most boring one of all. The podcast was mainly about photographers trying to take pictures at the inauguration and how crowded it was, nothing too special.
Another podcast I watched was MacBreak Weekly. The MacBreak podcast was all about the Mac computers. I have no clue about how to use Mac computers since I do not own one myself but they looked like pretty advanced pieces of technology. EdTech Talk was another podcast I viewed; this podcast was about parent involvement. EdTech Talk was about how important it is for the parents to be involved in their child's education. I thought this podcast was great because it explained how the parent really should get involved because it benefits the child's education.
All of the podcasts I watched were very informative. It was amazing to me how many different podcasts there are and how many there are on education topics. I even saw some about learning Spanish which I thought was pretty neat. The downfall with podcasts for me is that it is hard for me to stay engaged starring at a computer so I know it would be hard for a child to do the same. Like I stated before, I believe that the podcasts are better used in the college setting.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
International Blogs
There is a blog by Jarrod Lamshed for his class in Australia. This blog is used a little differently than the other blogs. Mr. Lamshed uses his class blog for reflection questions. The students are given a topic and they have to respond to what they feel about the topic, kind of like a threaded discussion on online. There was also a post for a video quiz where the students have to watch a video for a quiz. this is the link for the blog in Australia http://.web.me.com/jarrod.lamshed/Boys_class/2009_Blog/2009_Blog.html .
At http://teachers.saschina.org/ahossack/ you can see a school in china called Singapore American School. This is a school that teachers American things to the students in China. The teacher, Mrs. Hossack post the children's assignments and also things to help the students if they get lost. The teacher also post pictures and videos of things her students are doing throughout the year so that the parents can see the activities that their children are doing. I think it is really cool that teachers in other parts of the world use blogs the same way that we do here in America. There is a picture of a one of the students from this class located at the top left.
Grade Schools Blogs
A fifth grade class blog from Noel Elementary school was created by Mr. C. The website to see this blog is http://www.mrcsclassblog.blogspot.com/ . This blog was created to let children learn how to use a blog and it is a great way for children to access their assignments if needed. The blog is also used to keep people up to date with what his fifth grade class is doing at school. There are pictures with the class interacting. There is also information about what other class around the world are doing in comparison with his class.
At http://www.millersenglish10.blogspot.com , a tenth grade English class is using blogspot in the same way our class does. Their teacher posts their assignments on the blog. Any dues date they might need can be found on the blog. Students can get on and comment on an assignment if they have any questions. There are also resources to help the students found on Mr. Miller's class blog. The school Mr. Miller teachers at can be found in Branford, Connecticut but the school name was not listed.
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