Innovation

The lecture given by Nick Donofrio was interesting but very vague as I find most lectures these days to be. It was very exciting to meet some one of his caliber and he was a great speaker but I didn't gain much insight to help me be a better teacher... I think that he was trying to stress what we've been learning this entire semester in class, that we need to prepare our students for the 21st century. Unforuntely he didn't give us any examples or ideas. Basically I think that we can seriously help our students by teaching them how to think and expanding their horizons. Teaching them that they need to think, create, invent, inspire, etc. Which is what I plan on doing anyway... Can't wait to be a teacher!!! :)

Wrap uP

So today was the last real class because next week we are going to a workshop type lecture. Today we learned a new way of using the Intel website, the "Showing Evidence Tool" and it is a fabulous resource. I can definetly see my self using it in my classroom. It is a great way of teaching students how to write essays and is a great tool to help them develop their skills. I would even like to use the application every time I assign an essay. We also learned about Wordle which looks really interesting and cool, I'm sure my students would love that. We also made our last remarks, our reaction to the class. And my final conclusion is that I think I deserve more then 3 credits for this class. Haha I am really glad that I have been working on my Google SketchUp for so long because I would have never finished it otherwise. Now I have to start working on my Electronic porfolio which is also probably going to take a lot of time. But it seems like it is going to be an awesome resource to bring into an interview, I feel like having it would put me above other canidates in the interview process. I really hope that I have the opportunity to use it. So- this class has been really challenging, but I guess I have to respect that because I know that as a teacher I am going to be really challenging as well. I do appreciate the education that I got in this class, I am so much more technology literate now and it feels great. I have already noticed how beneficial it is to know all about and how to use these programs. But I hope my knowledge lasts, i can see it being outdated within 5 years if not sooner.

Copyrightation

The "Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia" is NOT a legal document, but it is interpretation of the law and it only applies to educators who produce multimedia. (Hence applies to me)
Here's something ridiculous that I learned: teachers can only use something they cited for two years, after that they have to get permission to use the source.
The Guidelines in order to stay within fair use are extremely limiting. It doesn't allow you to use very much of any resource.
Mrs. Murphy-Genter brought up a really good point that we have to be really careful and always protect ourselves in terms of citing and getting permission, I never thought about it before. I could potentially get in a lot of trouble, I really have to be more concious of this issue.

And I want to try to use second life but I still don't understand it. It's really confusing. I don't know if there is a glitch with my avitar, but i tried to put pants on her and her skirt won't go away and it's really annoying me! I can't get rid of the damn skirt! AHHH.

Multimedia assessment

I am really proud of the multimedia assessment project that I came up with, and I would love to use it in real life in my classroom. I really hope that I have the opportunity to do that. Also, if I ever employed this project in a real classroom, there would be a lot of opportunity to offer extra credit since there are very different levels of difficulty in the assignment. I hope that I will continue to think of creative and engaging assignments that challenge my students on many different levels. 

sketchy

So I played around with google sketch up and I got some of my classroom done, but it looks like a church and that makes me mad- cause once those walls are up, they aren't  coming down. And it's really annoying that you can't make things bigger or smaller once you've made it- that would be a great feature for sketch up to have. So I guess I will be able to make my virtual classroom after all, but it won't be as good as the idea I have in my head, oh well. It was really cool that we had time to work on our projects at the end of class last class. The virtual classroom and electronic portfolio are probably going to take a lot of time and a lot of work. 

back to reality 3/26/09

Ok- so I hate Google sketch up. I don't foresee myself ever using it in my classroom in any way. I feel that it is more appropriate for an art class, architecture class, engineering classes, design classes, or computer graphics class. It doesn't make sense to the human brain, or at least not to this human brain.- Just found out that we have to make a virtual classroom using google sketch up, looks like I'm getting a D on that! I am very good at being creative and I'm sure that I will come up with a great idea for my classroom, but there is no way that I am going to be able to convert it onto google sketch up. We shall see how that works out...
But on a happier note, we just learned how to make a photostory and Wendy did a great job teaching us! It was really fun, and an awesome resource to use in the classroom.
Window's movie maker also seems like a great program. But I'm not sure how to get the video clips into the program, but I am sure that I could figure it out. Both of these programs help to enhance information and make it more interesting.

Forgot all about the BLOG

I have been so absent minded! I totally forgot all about Blogging, I HAVE to catch up! I'm sorry, I will do that shortly.