My EDM 310 Blog Assignments are Now Complete

Classmates, were done with the semester!! I hope everyone had as good a time in class as I did! We were able to learn about one another through our google/ powerpoint assignment about the third week of class which was fun. I hope to see some of you guys in some of my other classes in the future. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Final Blog Post

I had a great time this semester in our EDM 310: Microcomputing Systems in Education class. I learned a lot about technology in the classroom and how teachers can use technology to enhance students learning. I learned about blogs, podcasts, itunes, ACCESS labs, and much more. I think I enjoyed writing blogs the most. It was a change of pace from the normal assignments we usually have to do in our education classes. Plus we were able to see other students in our class blogs and see their opinion and perspective on assignments. The podcast we did was a lot of fun as well. Me and Jill had fun preparing it. We were a little nervous at first when we did ours but as we went on with it, it became easier and more natural. I also enjoyed the powerpoint/ google presentation we did I think the third week of class. It was fun and interesting to learn about everyone in the class and how diverse our classroom was!

I can't think of anything that I haven't learned in this class that I would have liked to learn. I think I feel this way because I was introduced to many new things in this class. I think it may have been nice to have another physical education major student in the class however. In some assignments, I had to become creative because most students were elementary or secondary education majors and the assignments were designed for them. But it challenged me a little to become creative and I enjoyed it.

Electronic Contact Assignment

For this assignment I e-mailed a teacher from New York, Bill Ocker, that my older brother is friends with. The e-mail exchanges worked great. He was very helpful and I learned some new stuff about technology and how he uses it in his physical education classes.

My initial email:

Hello Mr. Ocker!

First of all I would like to thank you for responding to my request to converse about technology and education and how you as a teacher use it in your classroom. I am glad I was able to find a physical education teacher to do hold these conversations with because that is my major. I know from my experience with my EDM 310 Microcomputing Systems in Education with Ms. Averitt that teachers now a days have many opportunities to use technology in ways to educate their students. However, I personally believe physical education teachers need to be creative in discovering ways to use technology with their students because most p.e. classes are held in a gymnasium or outdoor setting such as a playground. The technology teaching tools we have learned how to use productively blogs, podcasts, and igoogle home pages. Are you familiar with these?

Personally, I think the overall concept of technology with education is more adapt for main course subjects such as math, science, english, and social studies just to name a few. The only teaching tool I think would be somewhat successful in the physical education setting would be blogs. As a teacher I would use a classroom blog as a communication partnership between students, parents, and myself. Through the blog, students will be able to share their opinions about my physical education class as well as share new ideas with one another on how class projects, games, and exercises can improve and be more fun. Students will learn how blogs can be beneficial by keeping their blogs positive and clean. Also, parents will be able to receive a better understanding of what their children are doing in their physical education classes.

I look forward to hearing back from you Mr. Ocker. Hope your school year is going well thus far!!

Mr. Ocker's Response:
Matt,

I am glad to converse with you about how we utilize technology in our Physical Education classrooms in the Maine-Endwell School District. We are very fortunate in that our district received a grant two years ago to furnish a great deal of our classrooms with Smartboards. We as Physical Education teachers were invited to staff workshops where we were trained on how to utlize this technology in our daily Physical Education classrooms. Smartboards are basically interactive whiteboards. You can connect them to a projector, computer, or camera/camcorder. This year will be the first year that we will utilize this new technology and are planning to do so after the first of the year when our classes will remain inside (most of the time) due to the weather.

Some of the ways we will utilize this technology is to play videos directly from the New York State Physical Education Profile website (http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/ciai/pe/profile.htm) We often use these videos to analyze the skill performances of our students. The smartboards will allow us to play these videos in our classes to help students gain a better understanding of what is expected of them. When utilizing the smartboards we can stop the video, draw/diagram on the screen, and break down the action/skill in a evry slow and precise manner. We have also purchased additional software that contains interactive lessons/activities to help reinforce our instruction while allowing the students to utilize the smartboard in a variety of ways.

We have already utilized smartboards during our football season this fall. We used the boards to watch our game films. We were able to have our athletes actually diagram certain angles and distances on the board during the footage. It was a very helpful resource.

We also utilize computers to analyze Fitness data. Every student in our district K-12 does the FitnessGram Fitness Assessment in the Fall and again in the spring. The students input their data each time into a computer and analyze their results. They then write a Fitness Program that they are encouraged to engage in during the summer months.

One additional way we utilize technology in our district is very similar to blogs. We have a tool called the Parent Portal that allows parents to utilize their home computers to look at their son/daughters grades on a daily basis. Parents actually can log into a pre-registered account and look into each teachers gradebook to see how their son/daughter is doing. they only have access to their childs grades of course but this has really opened up the lines of communtication between parents and teachers. They do not have to wait for 5 week progress reports but rather can see what their child is doing in Physical education on a day by day basis.

Hope this helps and I look forward to speaking with you again,
Bill Ocker
"Go Red Wave"

My Response:
Mr. Ocker,

Wow, sounds like your school district is doing very good with techonlogy in the classroom! That is fantastic your school district was able to receive that grant for the Smartboards. I actually hear of Smartboards about 2 weeks ago when I visited an ACCESS lab at a highschool in Robertsdale, Alabama. ACCESS is an acronym for Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators and Students Statewide. Administrators and teachers all over Alabama are excited about ACCESS. ACCESS basically offers students to take courses at another school that are not offered at theirs through a webcam and a few other technology resources. Unfortunately I was not informed too much about the use of Smartboards outside of ACCESS.

However, Smartboards sound like they are great to use as physical education teachers. I love the fact that you can use them in a variety of ways, in the classroom and with your football team. The website (http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/ciai/pe/profile.htm) is pretty interesting. I am sure the students enjoy using the Smartboards so they can visually track their progress in the class. I think it is amazing how the Smartboards can stop video, draw/diagram, and break down action/ skill in slow motion. Hopefully schools across your area will be able to use them in years to come.

Like I said, I love the fact you can use the Smartboard with your football team. How is your football team doing anyways? But I am sure your student-athletes can learn what they are doing well and not so well better through this technology. I also think your use of computer software to track students fitness results is super. I just hope students follow through with their program over the summer months. But I guess thats totally up to them! I mean after all, teachers can't do everything for them.. They need to have a little self initiative too!

Parent Portal sounds very similiar to blogs. I think it is very important for parents to be able to see their son or daughters progress on a daily basis. Its good too that it is private and can only see their son or daughters information.

Well thank you for the quick response! You have been very helpful. It is interesting to learn how teachers in other parts of the country use technology to further their students education in the classroom!

His last response:
Matt,

It was nice to be able to share some information with you. This is the link to our districts Parent Portal information if you are interested: http://www.me.stier.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=590

Our JV Football team won our last 5 games in a row (after dropping our first 4 of the season) including a final game victory over a Chenango Forks team that is traditionally one of the best in our area. Our Varsity Football team lost in our Sectional Championship game as a 4th down pass play was intercepted in the end zone on the final play of the game that would have given us the victory. We created a new Website for our Football program this year: http://www.mespartanfootball.com/

I will be coaching a Basketball All-Star team this year...(The Sleepy Floyd Traveling All-Stars) and am looking forward to incorporating technology to keep the stats/video/audio commentary of our games.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions. Feel free to contact me at any time. Enjoy your Holiday.

Bill Ocker
"Go Red Wave"

Duke's Poetry and Documentary Expression

I listened to "Poetry and Documentary Expression", which was presented by Tom Rankin. Tom begins the introduction and explains how poetry includes documentary and vis versa. He explains how poetry and documentary have a lot in common, mainly a connection with everyday life and the culture and creativity of common experience. They also share an attachment to history and an impulse to "fix" both the hear and now passing moments. Poetry and documentary, he says, try to stem the tie of forgetting which Mr. Rankin believes both poets and documentary share and are concerned about.

Mr. Rankin explains Robert Pinsky was born in New Jersey and attended Rutgers and Stanford and taught at a number of different colleges. He has published several books as well.

I was confused with this assignment and do not know if I did it correctly. I plan on seeing what I need to do to fix it and correct it tomorrow.

ACCESS Field Trip

ACCESS is an acronym for Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators and Students Statewide. Administrators and teachers all over Alabama are excited about ACCESS. ACCESS basically offers students to take courses at another school that are not offered at theirs through a webcam and a few other technology resources. Before this trip I thought the ACCESS lab as a whole would be more work than it was worth. I thought maybe in a few years it would be successful, but right now its just too new to work right away. However, through this trip I learned it is a great resource for students and teachers to further their academic excellence. The ACCESS lab cost about $85,000 to establish and was funded by grants rewarded to the school.

Jill Revette and I traveled to Robertsdale high school to visit an ACCESS lab. Mr. Mitchell, the assistant principal at Robertsdale high school, greeted us in the front office and brought us to the ACCESS lab. He was extremely helpful in explaining the lab and answering any of our questions. He explained that there were a bunch of little things that needed to be addressed for the ACCESS lab to be ran correctly.

All of the technology in the classroom is provided by "Tandberg Audio Science". Some of those things that needed to be changed in the classroom included changing the ceiling lights from regular florescent lights to be grid covered lights. This was needed to deflect that light being recieved from the webcam so that the two classrooms could see one another clearly. Similiarly, the classroom also had to be painted a regular white color instead of the semi-gloss that was there before for correct lighting purposes as well. There was also a three-sided glass piece propelling from the ceiling that picked up noise vibrations throughout the classroom which allowed the students and teacher in the classroom to be heard equally for the other connecting classroom. In the classroom they use portable lap tops instead of putting up computers at each seat. This is because they will not necessarily need to use their computers daily. The lap tops are numbered for the students in case damage is done to them. After they are done using them, they lock up the laptops in the back of the room. There was one high definition television and one webcam in the front of the room as well as one t.v. and one webcam in the back of the room. They also have a document cam which has the power to zoom in extremely close to certan objects put under it. This for instance would be used to show an important object with specific details to all of the students extremely clearly. I thought this was very neat.

Due to schedule conflicts, the ACCESS lab was not available for the students at Robertsdale this semester. Next semester there were be a daily class for students. The class size will consist to about 18-24 students. The teacher that instructs the ACCESS lab has to go through training at Troy University. Also, in front of the classroom is a telephone/ fax machine. In case the teacher has a problem with coordinating the ACCESS lab with another school or any of the technology in their classroom, they can call the "super computer" which is also in Troy. It is a quick and convienant way to solve problems.

EDM310 podcasts

So our blog post assignment for this week is to listen to 4 EDM310 podcasts, including our own and to make a list of suggestions for improvement. Unfortunately, my groups podcast was not available on the website, therefore I am unable to critique my own that much. From what I can remember, I think me and Jill did a pretty good job with holding conversation with one another. We didn't rehearse too much for the podcast which I think ultimately was an advantage because, well, it didn't sound rehearsed! However, I think we could have done a better job of speaking more clearly. We also had a tendency to repeat some material. But overall I think we did a good job for our first podcast. It ended up being pretty fun to do too!

The first podcast I listened was Sara Large and Tina Dillen . They did the same topic as us which was "How technology is used in our classrooms at South Alabama". I thought they did a very good job on their podcast. They sound very prepared and have a lot of material throughout the topics they use. They talked about folitek, ecompanion, as well as blogs and podcasts. They talk about the positive and negative sides of efolitek and ecompanion but they both agree that folitek and ecompanion is a good resource for students in the education field. The only thing they say is a flaw in folitek is the lack of knowledge teachers have with it, which I agree. Overall, I think they did a very good job on the podcast because they thoroughly explained folitek and ecompanion in a manner of someone who does not know what they are could gain a better understanding of that technology.

The next podcast I listened to was presented by Ashley Corley, Brooke Busby and Kimberly Pierce. They discussed how blogs are used in classrooms in the United States. They also talked about how blogs can be used effectively in education. The group explains what a blog is by saying its a contraction of the word web blog. She says the first bloggers were explorers and journalists. She also explains that there are many types of blogs, that blogs are free, and that they have many uses. The group did a good job of explaining quality information. The only suggestion I think I would have for them is to make their podcast more of a conversation between the group members because it seems like they read for most of the time. That being said, I thought they did a great job overall!

The last podcast I listened to was performed by Danielle Tasker , Stephanie Ellis and Jalisa Mobley. They discuss how facebook could be used as an educational tool. They did a good job of explaining how facebook works for those who are not familiar with it. They give information how facebook got started as well. They all agree that facebook is a primarily a social network. The group ultimately decide that facebook it could be used as an educational tool by teachers can use a facebook page displaying assignments, note card information, post and read each others comments about assignments, ask questions on the main dashboard. Overall I think they did a good job of discussing with each other and bringing up quality information but the only suggestion I would have for them is to sound more enthused and upbeat about their topic.

Maine Department of Education/ Mathematics with Technology

The Maine Department of Education podcast is told by Judy Chandler. The topic is Mathematics in Technology. Judy Chandler is a technology integrations specialist, math teacher, and math mentor trainer for the Maine Learning Technology Initiative. She says that some teachers do not embrace technology as a productive classroom resource. She also states that the National Council of Essential Mathematics says technology is essential in teaching mathematics because it influences the mathematics that is taught and enhances students learning. She says we have plenty of technology sources and tools in our classrooms these days that could be used in mathematics lessons. She believes students need more than textbook learning to fully understand and comprehend their mathematics material.

This was an interesting podcast to listen to. Judy Chandler spoke very clearly and easy to understand. With my major of physical education, this podcast does not directly relate to me but I agree with her argument that there should be more emphasis on technology in the classroom in regards to mathematics. Not only math, but all subjects in our school systems should learn to use technology more successfully in their teaching lessons. Mathematics is an important subject to focus on because its an essential subject for children to learn throughout middle school, high school, and college. Technology seems like it could give that extra push students who may be struggling with math need to be able to understand the material.

"Growth" vs. "Fixed" Minds

This podcast was about the difference between "Fixed" and "Growth" mindsets. Dr. Carol Dwech explains that a "fixed mindset" is when students believe that their basic intelligence is just a fixed trait. This means the students are concerned about how they chose their activities on whether they will look smart or not during it. The "growth mindset" is simply the teaching of the brain as a muscle. The "growth mindset" is a muscle that increases intelligible skills.

Dr. Dwech taught the growth mindset by developing an 8 session workshop. Half of the workshop was taught study skills and a growth mindset and the other half got all study skills. The study skills did not work because the students did not have motivation to put the skills into practice. But the first group was able to learn they could increase their intellectual skill, and learned their brain is like a muscle that it gets stronger with use. The students with just study skills had declining grades with the first group with both study skills and growth mindset had increasingly good grades.

The growth mindset was tested by race car drivers. Dr. Dwech says the difference between the winners and losers was simply how they handled defeat. The "growth mindset" allowed drivers to stay in their zone and the drivers admitted their mistakes and then were able to overcome them. This allowed "growth".

I believe the "growth mindset" should be applied in the classroom because I think it helps students learn from their mistakes. The race car driver example was a great example by Dr. Dwech. Teachers should use the "growth mindset" to help their students increase intelligence to optimal performance.

Grades 6-8 itunes podcast post

I watched the grades 6-8 podcast titled "Characteristics of the sun". The podcast explains that the suns mass generates the gravitational force that holds the entire solar system together. The sun is actually a star and compared to others is below average in size and temperature. Did you know you can fit over one million earths inside the sun?! Pretty interesting right. The podcast explains that the superheated gas above the suns surface is known as the corona and it is about 3,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, the earth is about 93 million miles away from the sun. That's a pretty long ways away. The most interesting part of the podcast is when it explains if one was able to ride a spaceship to the sun that travels 5 kilometers per second, it would take a little less than a year to get to the sun! That is a long time...

These k-12 podcasts are pretty cool. There are so many of them and they cover a wide range of topics. The majority of them deal with science and the solar system. However, it was interesting to see that the "Characteristics of the sun" podcast I listened to is the same for grades 6-8 as grades 9-12.

I don't really think that these podcasts, sense most of them deal with science and the solar system, can really be of use to me as a physical education teacher. However, I feel like elementary, middle school, and high school teachers could find these useful. If students are having trouble learning material dealing with science of the solar system, teachers can have them watch these to help them learn. The podcasts are clear and get the material across very well.

Accessibility For All Presentation Comments

Our class listened to Mr. Sullivan speak on October 2. In his presentation, I learned about web accessibility guidelines, ensuring web accessibility, and common adaptive software. Web accessibility is basically making web pages accessible to all users including those using adaptive hardware and software. He also talked about how web accessibility is required by the law and mentioned "The American's with Disability's Act" and "The Telecommunications Act of 1996". The "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0" (WCAG) was adopted by World Wide Web Consortium in 1999. This made content accessible mainly for disabled users. Devices used for disabled people to access the internet include: Portable Data Assistants and Refreshable Braille Display. Mr. Sullivan was very passionate about all of this information and it was interesting to listen to.

The Edible Schoolyard AND A Night in the Global Village

The Edible Schoolyard podcast is about an outdoor classroom at Martin Luther King middle school in Berkeley, California. Students spend time planting, harvesting, and eating organic food from their large, edible schoolyard garden everyday. Teachers incorporate the schoolyard into their classes such as social studies, math, science, everyday life. They try to make the garden the center of teaching. According to the podcast, they are learning basics of ecology, photosynthesis, cycling of matter, resilience of an ecosystem, cooperate and do projects together, and build community. The students also learn to cook the food they grow during school as part of school lunch. The kids sometimes forget it is even school, but at the same time the kids are all learning vital and fundamental information.

When I first saw the assignment of listening to "The Edible Podcast", I did not really know what to think. I was curious to see what it was about. It was interesting to see that this middle school thought creatively in basing most of the their learning off of a large edible schoolyard. I have never heard of such a thing but anytime I hear something different like this, that the students have a fun and easy time learning quality information, I am interested. Maybe when I am a teacher I can incorporate something similar into my classes.

The second podcast was "A Night in the Global Village". The voice of the podcast was quite hard to hear actually. The podcast itself was about a program designed to help kids know what it feels like to walk in someone else's shoes. The program focuses mostly on hunger and poverity as well as sustainable development. These kids in the podcast are from Denver, Colorado and travel to Perryville, Arkansas. This is where the Global Village is located. Students are split into groups and experienced living conditions in the following countries: Thailand, Zimbabwe, Urban, Guatemala, and Appalachain and Urban refugee camps. All but the refugee camps are able to receive one resource, such as food or water as well as a bucket of some other resources they can use.

I think it this podcast was cool because I think it is important to see how others live. Sometimes kids take for granted what they have, but at the same time do not understand what others have and do not have. The global village seems like it could humble kids. I do not know if it would be all that possible to incorporate this into my classroom as a physical education teacher but hopefully in other classes it would be.

Alabama Virtual Library

Alabama Virtual Library, also known as AVL, is extremely useful to teachers, students, and citizens in Alabama. AVL allows teachers, students, and citizens online access to important library and information resources. Most of the information comes from online databases that have research articles coming from magazines, journal, and newspaper articles. The AVL allows students to achieve academic excellence more easily.

Since it is only offered to residents of Alabama, one cannot register online. People have to go to their local library and obtain a Alabama Virtual Library card. However, schools may offer their students AVL cards. Some universities and colleges allow their students to access specific campus databases for AVL. Overall, I think AVL is an interesting idea and I feel like it could be useful and help students, teachers, and citizens obtain better knowledge of material they desire through online library resources.

Podcasts!

I listened to episode 146 first in the SmartBoard Lessons podcast. It was all about clouds. The two people who presented the podcast was Ben Hazzard and Joan M. Badger. In this particle episode, it happens to be Joan's birthday, which Ben seems to endlessly point out. They hold their show out of Lake Winnipeg. They talked about clouds and cloud formation. Ben says "clouds shelter us from the stars". They are interesting to listen to because they get along well together.

The next podcast I listened to was in the Connect Learning section with David Warlick. The podcast consisted of an interview with librarian Ann Krembs. The only problem I really had with this podcast was all the noise in the background that I heard while David and Ann were doing the interview. But besides that I thought it was a well conducted interview between the two.

I then listened to KidCast.tv Learning and Teaching with Podcast. This is hosted by Dan Schmit. The title of the podcast was "Questions make the world go round". I thought it was interesting because it was only one person talking the entire time, which is pretty hard to do. The first two podcasts had 2 people in them and seemed to flow better. He talks about extending a students sense of asking good questions by asking methodical questions.

The last podcast I listened to was in EdTech Talk and was hosted by Maria Knee. She opens the podcast by saying she welcomes conversations and enjoy discussions that follow. She asks for clean conversion. This podcast discussed the role in parents in education. She interviews a lady named Lorna who has been involved in her kids activities for a long time. They discuss that is it very important for teachers to be involved in the organization of student activities by committees with middle and high school students. I particularly liked this podcast because it seemed natural and not really.

Coming into this assignment, I did not really understand what a podcast was. But after listening to them I gained a better understanding. I found that all of them opened with music and the ones that sounded better were the ones with at least 2 people holding the conversions. I think this assignment has helped with our upcoming podcast we will give.

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

I just watched Randy Pausch's last lecture on www.youtube.com. It was a very interesting speech to watch and listen too. The first thing I noticed about Mr. Pausch was his humorous personality. It was sort of weird to me because before I watched the lecture, I knew about how he only had so long to live. So the first few minutes it seemed like he was in an upbeat mood and he was telling jokes. So right off the bat, I was intrigued with this man.

Mr. Pausch lectures about how although he has ten tumors in his liver, he still is going to keep having fun everyday. It is admirable to watch him talk because you tend to forget he is a dying man. The speech is based on: his childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others, and lessons learned: how you can achieve your dreams or enabling the dreams of others. One of his dreams, among others, was playing in the National Football League. His little talk about this interested me because I thought it was relative to me in that how I want to be a basketball coach. He talks about something I have previously heard from my old high school basketball coach and that has stuck with me. He says "if you see yourself screwing up and no one is bothering to tell you anymore, that's a very bad place to be". It makes sense because you should only should start worrying when no one is trying to help or correct you because them saying something to you shows they care.

Mr. Pausch also talks a lot about the "headfake". This means that the best way to teach someone something is to make them think they are learning something else. I have thought about this concept a lot in how I would like to teach basketball when I coach. I believe basketball is a way to teach kids important lessons without them consciously knowing they are. So, his little spiel on that was fascinating. He also mentions people who help us. These are: teachers, mentors, parents, colleagues, and friends. Everyone should have people they can count on to help them through situations and be there for them.

Throughout his speech Mr.Pausch refers to the brick wall. This means it is a stoppage point in what you are trying to achieve. Near the end of his lecture he mentions that brick walls let us show our dedication. He is saying that anything good comes with hard work. Mr. Pausch mentions some final lines of advice to close his lecture. Some that stuck out to me included: don't complain- just work harder, be good at something- it makes you valuable, and find the best in everyone because no one is all evil, just be patient with them. It is eye-opening to hear him talk because you know he is talking about doing the right them and you know it can be done because he proves it. Overall, watching this speech was definitely influential and I'm glad I was able to learn about Randy Pausch.

International Teachers Using Blogs

The first international blog website I found was about Rachel Boyd Nelson, a teacher in New Zealand. She teaches a year and a half class of 5 and 6 year old's. Her blog is interesting as it explain the classes recent activities. I like that she has links on the site that offers to read more about herself, a presentation on why she thinks students should blog, and much more. Even though her students are as young as 5 and 6, she still has them blog. I think its great that these young children are learning how to use computers and communicate through the web at such an early age. The link to this website is: http://www.blogger.com/profile/08772655279835157125




The second website I found about international teachers using blogs is about K. Lehman. She is a high school English, Creative Writing, and Multimedia teacher in Yagnon, Myanmar. Her blog discusses previous lessons she taught in class. She also posts assignments on her blog. To help her students with their writing, she has links they can click on grammer, punctuation, and spelling. The link to this website is: http://lovetowrite.typepad.com/msk/

Teachers using blogs in their classroom.

Teachers all over the country are using blogs. They are doing so to connect their classroom work with parents as well as interacting their students more through the web. Melanie Sullivan is a teacher in Needham, Massachusets and says she uses the blogs because parents like to know whats going on in the classroom. And the more the parents know about what she is trying to accomplish in the classroom, the less they will get upset. They parents also enjoy it because it allows them to hold conversations with their children about school.
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2006/09/07/teachers_take_bulletin_boards_online/

Mrs. Marisa L. Dudiak, a second grade teacher in Maryland, also uses blogs for her students. It is interesting because she teaches 2nd grade but is still able to use it. After her class returned from a field trip on a Native American farm, she had the students log into the class blog page. There the students were able to write about what they learned. This allows the students to be interactive with technology and lets the parents better understand what is going on at the fieldtrips. She says the students enjoy writing on the blog much more than in a typical journal. Teachers enjoy them because they are easy to sustain.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E5D7113FF93AA2575BC0A9629C8B63

After reading these articles, I think it makes a lot of sense for teachers to use blogs in their classroom. I feel like it is fun for the students and gets away from the repetitiveness of writing in a journal for assignments or using e-mail. It allows the whole class to interact with one another. Hopefully more teachers will learn about the benefits of blogs for their classrooms and use to to their advantage.

Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators and Students Statewide (ACCESS)

Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators and Students Statewide or ACCESS, provides classroom courses for teachers certified in Alabama through technology. Administrators and teachers all over Alabama are excited about ACCESS. According to the news release by the Press Register on July 10, 2008 all Mobile County high schools will have ACCESS. ACCESS basically offers students to take courses at another school that are not offered at theirs via internet. Among the opportunities ACCESS offers includes: additional course offering through multimedia, advanced placement courses, remediation and supplemental courses, multimedia and technology tools to promote instruction. ACCESS also provides teachers with videoconferencing tools.

Teachers go through a training process to learn how to use the material. ACCESS is also free for all students in the state of Alabama. Courses are taught during the regular school day and as soon as all high schools in Alabama have ACCESS in 2011, every school will have the same bell schedule to correspond with one another. I am not sure how useful it will be with physical education (my major) but it will definitely be valuable for all core subjects. I am excited to learn more about ACCESS and actually see it in person.

Alabama Learning Exchange (ALEX)

Alabama Learning Exchange or "ALEX" is a free database used by teachers, administrators, students, and parents that helps them relay lesson plans to one another. The links at the website offer several attracting opportunities for all. The "weblinks" feature offers teachers, administrators, and students links to help learn about any course field they desire. There is a link for "lesson plans" which allows teachers to share their own and help out one another. The "professional learning" option allows people to find professional development opportunities. One of the very interesting links is "distant learning", which is run through ACCESS, which I will post more about next week. But this is simply for students who want to take a certain course but their school does not offer it. They can take the course through multimedia! The website also contains a search engine and a "personal workspace" option.

I have never heard of ALEX before this class but when I researched it, I found it to be interesting. I think it is a very useful tool for people to use. I am a physical education major so when I checked out the website I clicked on all of the physical education links to see what they had to offer. I look forward to seeing the website and program grow and I will definitely use it when I start to teach.

Google presentation topics...

In the google presentation we have to complete in about 2 weeks, I will discuss what I posted in my previous blog, which is where I am from and how I got to South. I will also talk about my family, my interests, and what I plan to be doing in a few years.

Why I'm at South...

This is my second year here at South Alabama. I am from a city in New York called Binghamton. Its about an hour south of Syracuse and a few hours from New York City. I moved down here last year to take a scholarship as head manager of the men's basketball team here at South. I applied for the position and did so because of my desire to one day coach basketball at either the high school or college level. I actually only had about 24 hours to make my decision to move down here. I was offered the position Thursday night when school started on Monday. I decided to come down and attend school here without ever living outside of New York, ever seeing the campus here, or ever being in Alabama.

Welcome!

Hey, and welcome to my blog! I am new to all of this and excited to see how it all works....