A quick fact:
Did you all know that you can use google from your cell phones?
Text to G-O-O-G-L-E as who you are sending to, and then type in whatever information you're looking for. You can find definitions, movie times, closing times of restaurants and stores, etc.
Example: Type 'pizza 13045', and you'll get pizza places in Cortland.
Cool, eh?
Check it out, because it is VERY, VERY useful.
Monday, February 26, 2007
RSS Feeds
Wikipedia defines RSS as "a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated digital content such as blogs, news feeds, or podcasts" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format).
In the classroom, I hope to use the following RSS feeds:
-Class blog where students can post responses and reactions to class material.
-Personal blogs for posting on class material.
-Podcasts for book talks and creative writing pieces.
-LibraryThing as a dominant source for sharing book ideas for outside reading.
-Class website including video and audio clips for viewing.
This new technology should not go to waste...
In the classroom, I hope to use the following RSS feeds:
-Class blog where students can post responses and reactions to class material.
-Personal blogs for posting on class material.
-Podcasts for book talks and creative writing pieces.
-LibraryThing as a dominant source for sharing book ideas for outside reading.
-Class website including video and audio clips for viewing.
This new technology should not go to waste...
College-Bound
How important is college to Americans?
College is becoming essential in order to achieve jobs now! When my parents went to college, they could have graduated high school and received similar jobs that they received upon graduating college. High school graduates could obtain decent, normal-paying jobs without worrying about a college degree. Today, college degrees are necessary for many, many jobs--high school degrees are not what they used to be.
Consult the following article from the TIMES:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/magazine/25wwlnlede.t.html?_r=1&ref=education&oref=slogin
In Christopher Caldwell article above entitled "What a College Education Buys," he states that "In 1979, according to the economists Frank Levy and Richard Murnane, a 30-year-old college graduate earned 17 percent more than a 30-year-old high-school grad. Now the gap is over 50 percent." College degrees are becoming more important to have now-a-days.
I think it is good that more students are going to college now than they have been in the past, but I am just concerned with how high colleges are costing students and parents now. Tuition prices rise more and more each year; I fear for what the prices will elevate to when I have children of my own who I want to send to college. These college loans are going to haunt me for decades...
On the upside, at least more students are becoming more educated. Friedman would argue that our youth needs to become more technologically literate in order to compete with growing, surrounding nations. Colleges are becoming increasingly technologically literate and are aiding young adults to become great competetors in the job field both locally and nationally. Sending more students to college is a great investment for the future of our nation, but it is becoming quite costly.
With more students going to college, we need to prepare more students for college. Especially, we need to prepare them technologically for a different academic atmosphere. Teach students how to research academic articles on library search engines. Teach them how to navigate credible sources on the internet. Get students to publish on the internet to begin to interact with others across the nation and the world. This, at least, is what we can do as teachers to help our students transition into a highly competitive college setting.
College is becoming essential in order to achieve jobs now! When my parents went to college, they could have graduated high school and received similar jobs that they received upon graduating college. High school graduates could obtain decent, normal-paying jobs without worrying about a college degree. Today, college degrees are necessary for many, many jobs--high school degrees are not what they used to be.
Consult the following article from the TIMES:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/magazine/25wwlnlede.t.html?_r=1&ref=education&oref=slogin
In Christopher Caldwell article above entitled "What a College Education Buys," he states that "In 1979, according to the economists Frank Levy and Richard Murnane, a 30-year-old college graduate earned 17 percent more than a 30-year-old high-school grad. Now the gap is over 50 percent." College degrees are becoming more important to have now-a-days.
I think it is good that more students are going to college now than they have been in the past, but I am just concerned with how high colleges are costing students and parents now. Tuition prices rise more and more each year; I fear for what the prices will elevate to when I have children of my own who I want to send to college. These college loans are going to haunt me for decades...
On the upside, at least more students are becoming more educated. Friedman would argue that our youth needs to become more technologically literate in order to compete with growing, surrounding nations. Colleges are becoming increasingly technologically literate and are aiding young adults to become great competetors in the job field both locally and nationally. Sending more students to college is a great investment for the future of our nation, but it is becoming quite costly.
With more students going to college, we need to prepare more students for college. Especially, we need to prepare them technologically for a different academic atmosphere. Teach students how to research academic articles on library search engines. Teach them how to navigate credible sources on the internet. Get students to publish on the internet to begin to interact with others across the nation and the world. This, at least, is what we can do as teachers to help our students transition into a highly competitive college setting.
In-forming
From a 2.0 to 3.0 world... Are we ready? Can we change our classrooms to shift with these changes?
As a pre-service teacher, I know that I want to use the internet as much as possible in the classroom because it has such a vast array of information. My main concern is that I need to teach positive sources and help students realize what websites are not great sources of information. Everyone today is using the internet for multiple reasons, so we should teach students to be fluent in this new, everchanging, growing text that they can even contribute to.
Thomas Friedman's Flattener #9 in his book The World is Flat is In-forming (Google, Yahoo!, MSN Web Search). His discussion of "in-forming" is valuable for us to reflect upon when thinking about future classrooms. According to Friedman...
In-forming is...
"...the ability to build and deploy your own personal supply chain--a supply chain of information, knowledge, and entertainment" (179).
"...about self-collaboration--becoming your own self-directed and self-empowered researcher, editor, and selector of entertainment, without having to go to the library or movie theatre or through network television" (179).
"...seeking like-minded people and communities" (179).
Students need to become their own teachers. They need to teach themselves how they learn, and they need to learn how to master the biggest informational source on the planet: the Internet. Search engines are essential tools that students will need to master in order to become successful participants of this world. Everything is online now from applications to information, store hours to government documents, book reviews to blogs. If we can encourage as much in-forming, as Friedman talks about, in our classrooms, our students can learn how to become powerful editors, researchers, and learners. If we want active learning, we need to get students to use the internet for school purposes. With so much valuable information posted on the internet now, we need to guide our students to these pathways so they can become knowledgeable growing young adults.
As a pre-service teacher, I know that I want to use the internet as much as possible in the classroom because it has such a vast array of information. My main concern is that I need to teach positive sources and help students realize what websites are not great sources of information. Everyone today is using the internet for multiple reasons, so we should teach students to be fluent in this new, everchanging, growing text that they can even contribute to.
Thomas Friedman's Flattener #9 in his book The World is Flat is In-forming (Google, Yahoo!, MSN Web Search). His discussion of "in-forming" is valuable for us to reflect upon when thinking about future classrooms. According to Friedman...
In-forming is...
"...the ability to build and deploy your own personal supply chain--a supply chain of information, knowledge, and entertainment" (179).
"...about self-collaboration--becoming your own self-directed and self-empowered researcher, editor, and selector of entertainment, without having to go to the library or movie theatre or through network television" (179).
"...seeking like-minded people and communities" (179).
Students need to become their own teachers. They need to teach themselves how they learn, and they need to learn how to master the biggest informational source on the planet: the Internet. Search engines are essential tools that students will need to master in order to become successful participants of this world. Everything is online now from applications to information, store hours to government documents, book reviews to blogs. If we can encourage as much in-forming, as Friedman talks about, in our classrooms, our students can learn how to become powerful editors, researchers, and learners. If we want active learning, we need to get students to use the internet for school purposes. With so much valuable information posted on the internet now, we need to guide our students to these pathways so they can become knowledgeable growing young adults.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Book Talks on Podcasts
A great way to get students interested in reading different books: book talks on podcasts.
Nancy Keane's website (http://nancykeane.com/rss.html) offers multiple book talks on podcasts.
In an earlier class, I talked about how students used podcasts to record their creative writing projects. One way for students to share their outside reading books would be to create podcasts, and post them on the class website to share with other classmates. If a student is unsure about what he/she wants to read next, he can listen to a peer's book talk to veer that student towards his/her next book selection.
This method can keep students learning outside the classroom. They have access to student's book reviews on the internet. We should keep this idea in mind if we want to instill a reading/writing workshop in our own future classrooms.
Nancy Keane's website (http://nancykeane.com/rss.html) offers multiple book talks on podcasts.
In an earlier class, I talked about how students used podcasts to record their creative writing projects. One way for students to share their outside reading books would be to create podcasts, and post them on the class website to share with other classmates. If a student is unsure about what he/she wants to read next, he can listen to a peer's book talk to veer that student towards his/her next book selection.
This method can keep students learning outside the classroom. They have access to student's book reviews on the internet. We should keep this idea in mind if we want to instill a reading/writing workshop in our own future classrooms.
Learning Pyramid
How do I know that I am going to retain the information I learned through my social bookmarking project?
The best way to retain information is to teach it. Then, the next level is to learn by doing or creating. This is the first thing that came to mind when I was refelcting about the project: the learning pyramid:
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~tbayston/eme6313/learning_pyramid.jpg
Besides learning about valuable skills and techniques I can incorporate in my future classroom in regards to social bookmarking, I learned how students can retain information.
How can we increase retaining information in classrooms (based on this project)?
1. Create interest through choice. I was interested in this topic, so I was eager to keep working on this project.
2. Group collaboration. Students will need to learn how to interact with others as they work towards a higher goal or product. This will be necessary in the real world, as I learned this myself working with classmates.
3. Working for a meaningful project. This project is one that we can all actually use in our lives. The skills we used towards creating this project are ones that we will need as we enter into the classroom, a future job. The project was meaningful; it wasn't just researching information on symbolism...
4. Learn by doing. We actually created our own websites that we are using. By immersing students in an active project, they will understand this material better than by trying to remember facts and regurgitate the information.
5. Teach your findings to classmates. This allowed for us to work on our oral presentation skills, as students will need this according to the standards. Students will learn better from one another because they are speaking in ways that one another can understand. They put their information into context that they can all understand. By teaching the class, students will learn many techniques/projects and will be an expert at one.
I think that having group projects like this in the classroom is very effective. Students use all four essential skills targeted in the standards, they interact with one another, they learn how to do the project with each other and on their own, and they actively create the project. They have ownership over their schoolwork, it provides purpose to the project, and they are interested in the project because it is of their choice.
My only concern would be that students should self-asses and group-assess every member's contribution in group work. Perhaps we should even be doing that in our group projects.
The best way to retain information is to teach it. Then, the next level is to learn by doing or creating. This is the first thing that came to mind when I was refelcting about the project: the learning pyramid:
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~tbayston/eme6313/learning_pyramid.jpg
Besides learning about valuable skills and techniques I can incorporate in my future classroom in regards to social bookmarking, I learned how students can retain information.
How can we increase retaining information in classrooms (based on this project)?
1. Create interest through choice. I was interested in this topic, so I was eager to keep working on this project.
2. Group collaboration. Students will need to learn how to interact with others as they work towards a higher goal or product. This will be necessary in the real world, as I learned this myself working with classmates.
3. Working for a meaningful project. This project is one that we can all actually use in our lives. The skills we used towards creating this project are ones that we will need as we enter into the classroom, a future job. The project was meaningful; it wasn't just researching information on symbolism...
4. Learn by doing. We actually created our own websites that we are using. By immersing students in an active project, they will understand this material better than by trying to remember facts and regurgitate the information.
5. Teach your findings to classmates. This allowed for us to work on our oral presentation skills, as students will need this according to the standards. Students will learn better from one another because they are speaking in ways that one another can understand. They put their information into context that they can all understand. By teaching the class, students will learn many techniques/projects and will be an expert at one.
I think that having group projects like this in the classroom is very effective. Students use all four essential skills targeted in the standards, they interact with one another, they learn how to do the project with each other and on their own, and they actively create the project. They have ownership over their schoolwork, it provides purpose to the project, and they are interested in the project because it is of their choice.
My only concern would be that students should self-asses and group-assess every member's contribution in group work. Perhaps we should even be doing that in our group projects.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
iPod Assault
I was listening to the news today, and this story caught my attention:
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/16773546.htm
Teacher attacked for trying to take away a student's iPod!
One student was listening to his iPod when his 60-year-old math teacher tried to take it away from him. The student became angry and aggressive, and he shoved his teacher into a locker where his neck smashed. Students kicked and punched him, so he suffers broken bones and even has a neck injury. He is in critical but stable condition.
When I heard this story, I thought it was unbelievable that a student would defend his iPod to these extents! I could see how iPods would become distracting in classrooms and that they should be taken away when becoming a problem, but what do we do when students become this hostile over it?
Are iPods banned from certain schools? Do teachers have to make their own rules about not allowing cell phones or iPods in the classroom? Do we want to have these rules, or are they necessary?
I know iPods can be used for educational purposes, but I don't think that most students are using them for that. Maybe this news blurb is making a greater statement about iPods in schools...?
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/16773546.htm
Teacher attacked for trying to take away a student's iPod!
One student was listening to his iPod when his 60-year-old math teacher tried to take it away from him. The student became angry and aggressive, and he shoved his teacher into a locker where his neck smashed. Students kicked and punched him, so he suffers broken bones and even has a neck injury. He is in critical but stable condition.
When I heard this story, I thought it was unbelievable that a student would defend his iPod to these extents! I could see how iPods would become distracting in classrooms and that they should be taken away when becoming a problem, but what do we do when students become this hostile over it?
Are iPods banned from certain schools? Do teachers have to make their own rules about not allowing cell phones or iPods in the classroom? Do we want to have these rules, or are they necessary?
I know iPods can be used for educational purposes, but I don't think that most students are using them for that. Maybe this news blurb is making a greater statement about iPods in schools...?
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