Video Reflection

In my past life I was a video editor for a local TV station. I edited video for the morning and evening news. For my education technology class I had to shoot and edit a video. This is a completely different experience from what I’m used to dealing with. I know that we should have planned more before starting to shooting our project, so we would be better organized and have a more cohesive project. I really do like editing video, and it is something I have missed the past few years. I’m hoping I can get my students to do some video projects in the future. I am confident that I can teach my students how to use iMovie or windows movie maker, but I’m not sure that I will have the time as a new teacher to take on such a project. I’m also not sure that I will have the cameras or computers for the students to use to make videos.

Online Quizes

I found a website called that quiz where teachers can make up online tests. I did a sample class and test on angles that you can take here. The neat thing about this website is that you can assign each student their own password, but the students don't actually need their own account. It automatically gives the correct answers and the grade at the end, and collects the scores for the teacher. The teacher can set up different classes and assign quizzes to each class separately. They also have a whole bunch of quizzes and tests you can browse if you don't want to make up your own.

screen grab of a sample fractions test so you can see the user interface.

Math in Nature

I created this webquest on trackstar which can be found here


Then I created this worksheet using google forms for my students to fill out afterwards.

Useful Apps

I'm currently reading though the Connecticut Common Core Core of Teaching for another class.  I know that my fellow TCPCGers are doing the same, so I wanted to share an application I use a lot called Skim. Its a PDF reader that lets you highlight and mark up the document. You can also do the same thing with nook study, but I'm partial to skim.

Classroom Technology Tips Article

For class this week we had to read an article from edutopia.com that provided a list of ten tips for using technology in the classroom. There was nothing too groundbreaking for me in this article, but it was a good reminder to always be creative in how you think about technology. I have a few points I wanted to highlight.

• The common theme I see between this weeks article and last weeks Alan November article is using technology for communication. Using the Internet provides us with so many variations over the old fashioned pen pals if we know where to look.

• This article also talked about finding your classroom technology experts. I think of myself is being very good with technology and may not need too much help from a technical standpoint in my classroom, but I think its important to see what ways our students can think of to use technology.

• I wanted to ad some things to their list. They talk about using a website as a classroom hub, but they never talk about moodle.org. This is a program that can be installed for free onto the school servers  and is very similar to blackboard.

In which I present you a math video

Maru may be cute, but he isn't exactly math related. I do have to share a math video this week, so I chose a quick review of the Pythagorean Theorem.

iMovie screencast

I used screencast-o-matic.com to make a screencast demonstrating how to put a title over video in iMovie.

I Love Maru

As Lamar pointed out, the internet and cats will take over the world.

In response to Alan November

Another task for this week was to read this article on November Learning.   This article deals with a lot of the questions I was asking in my last post.    It also brought up some interesting points I hadn’t heard of yet.  There is definitely a lot of food for thought.  

In the first section of the article they talk about the notion some kids (and adults) that if something is on the Internet then it must be true.  His story of a teen who reads and believes that the holocaust did not happen may be a bit extreme, but it gets the point across.  I think that all teachers should heed November’s advice,  “In every subject there ought to be a standard exercise of presenting students with different versions of the truth and asking them if they know how to discriminate among them because students now have access to more information than everyone in this room can possibly imagine.”

In the second section, November talks about putting webcams in every classroom.  This is an idea that I find to be a little scary.  I don’t think anybody would want a webcam installed in their workspace, and it really seems a bit too Big Brother in 1984 to me.  November makes several good points about sharing classroom activates with parents and family at home.  I think that webcasting special events that parents are invited to attend in person is a good idea.  If the class does regular presentations, then maybe it would be better to record them and send them home on a thumb drive or DVD. 

November also goes on to talk about parents giving feedback to their kids in real time.  “Through the technology the parent can listen and see the kid. With just a standard computer with a built-in microphone, the parent can talk to the kid and can send notes.”  Once again, I think this is good for special occasions at school, but I would be weary of letting it go to far.  I am afraid that this would be a tool that helicopter parents would take too far. 

In his article he talks about requiring every student to take a course online.  I think this is a really good idea for schools that aren’t able to provide higher level classes to their students.  This would give schools the option to group together AP classes and give more kids the opportunity to take them.  Schools could also give kids the option of taking some collage courses online.  I don’t think online courses could take over for 100% of the school experience, but I think it would be useful in rural areas where students have long commutes into school.  Maybe have one day of school as an online day.  Maybe you could even use online classes to have school during weather emergencies where otherwise school would be closed for days.  There are certainly many, many ways to utilize online classes.   

The last comment he made that I’d like to talk about was, “Staff developers, please don’t train teachers to use technology without kids. Ask every teacher to bring two or three students. The trainer trains the students, not the teacher. If you train teachers in technology, they tend to go back and do what they always did -- they will automate.”  I think this is a brilliant concept.  If you show the kids what the teachers have at their disposal they will be asking about it, and probably come up with completely new ways to use the technology. 

I think the bottom line is that technology isn’t going anywhere and teachers need to accept it.   If we can manage to not only accept, but latch on to all of the tools new technology gives us we can give our students a better learning experience.

Do you know 4.0

We where asked to watch this video for class.  Some of the facts it brings up where things I already knew about, but others where new to me.


This makes me look back over my technology collection.  In 1995 I inherited a mac classic from my uncle.  In 2008 I did a little comparison with my new cell phone, a Palm Centro, against my first computer.  I'm going to recycle that here and add in the stats for my brother’s new phone, a Droid 2.


Processor:
Droid 2: 1.2 GHz
Centro: 312MHz
Mac Classic: 8 MHz


Droid 2: 8 gigabytes and an included 8 gigabyte micro SD card.
Centro: 64MB and an SD card slot
Mac Classic: 40 MB


These numbers are something that really makes my brain spin.  My cell phone out powers my first computer by a huge amount, and the rate at which technology keeps improving never seems to slow down.  Teenagers are seemingly attached to their cell phones.  From what I have noticed working with teenagers while I lifeguard, and observing in high schools, text messaging has taken over for passing notes in school and for evening phone calls.  Is a teenager that sends over 2,000 text messages a month going to gain the face to face communication skills they will need to survive in the business world?

If I look at the amount of video that is uploaded to you tube in two months I have to wonder what percent of that is quality content?  The video we watched said that in two months you tube uploads 153 years worth of video.  How can you sift though that to find what is useful?  If we look at the push to online news I have to wonder how the journalists are keeping up with the volume.   With the constant demand for 24 hour a day news content to feed TV networks and news websites how can producers and reporters turn out a solid product?  I worry that this push for constant content isn't a sustainable pace. 

On the other side we know have all the information we could ever want at our finger tips.  If I wake up at two in the morning with a burning desire to find out  how to tie an alpine butterfly knot I can, or if I missed the local news on TV I can catch the stories on my cell phone. This gives you a ton of opportunity to enhance your lessons using tools you find online. 

I think the real strength of the internet is being able to connect with other people.  I've been a bit of a geek most of my life and was using internet message boards long before MySpace and Facebook where popular.  If   you can find a way to tap into these resources you can have classes working together with students all over the world.  If President Obama could tap into social media to help win an election, I'm sure that teachers can find a way to tap into that power to enhance their classrooms. 

I'd like to close with a quote that I think sums up my feelings.  “Internet is so big, so powerful and pointless that for some people it is a complete substitute for life” - Andrew Brown

New Beginings

I quit my job three years ago with the intent of becoming a math teacher.  Its been a slow road, but today I am starting the TCPCG (teacher certification program for college graduates) program at UCONN.  Hopefully this time next year I will be certified to teach math.  I'm anxious about the workload I have undertaken, but am excited to get this show moving a little faster.  It will be quite a change for me to have classes all day four days a week this summer!

My first class is an education technology class with Professor Hale.  I've always been a little bet of a computer geek, so I am excited to learn all about how I can use technology in my future classroom to help engage my students and make things more interesting for them.   So far today we have learned a little bit about google docs, a tool I am already somewhat familiar with.  We went over how to make surveys (they call it forms), something I didn't know google docs could even do.  We have also set up blogs to track the trials and tribulations of this journey.  Being a math person I am not much of a writer, but I look forward tracking this journey.