Pocket Full of Nonsense

This week has been full of run around and comings and goings.   I have come to understand the importance of assesment, rubrics, guidlines, inspiration, and kidspiration.  All these tools and assests have and will come in very useful for my future years of teaching. I find the with the help of rubrics teachers are capable of grading their papers more swiftly and evenly.  I also love the inspirtaion part of this weeks lesson what child does not want to be inspired through the use of technology and be able to incorporate it into their lives, home, an school environment.

This semester has been and wonderful, hard, interesting, and long experience for me.  I will be graduating in the fall of this year and every step of the way has been one step closer to being finished!  I have come to know wonderful people and teachers and have been able to overcome obstacles and trials.  Most imporantly i have come to and full and comfident understanding of my chosen field of study and most recently in the study of technology and all the ways it can be incorporated not only in my life but in my work and in my future students life and work atmospheres.   This has been a very long and winding road but the race is almost complete and i can not wait to get started on my new life as an educator.  This is just the begining of my life and just the begining of continually making things up on the spot.

The Digital World

         Over the ages the digital world has been apart of our lives and has only improved and become more and more prominent over the past decade.  Technology is like a tsunami wave consuming everything it comes in contact with.  The wave does not always destroy what it hits but can overwhelm the people or bodies around it.  Technology is an amazing invention and can be used to better the future of our world and Lord know we need all the help we can get, so what better way to utilize this digital awakening then by showing our students how to manage, manipulate, and make for themselves a new and brighter future.  With the help of teachers around the world who are dedicated to knowledge we can incorporate technology in the classroom with things such as United Streaming which makes videos, blogs, movies, slide shows, and speeches accessible to students to use and learn from.  There are also digital devices that have been around doing their job for quite sometime such as Safari Montage.  The educational content chapter from this device is amazing and has been around for a very long time.  As a child I remember watching such shows on the television like Reading Rainbow, Magic School Bus, School House Rock, and the list goes on and on.  If you think about it technology and education have gone hand in hand for quite some time.  They take the technology out there and put it together with education to make instructional shows for children across the world.  Teachers also have to be aware that technology can be a trap and unsafe as I stated earlier it is like a tsunami so be careful in your teachings and demonstrations as too not bring to much attention to the unsecure sites and information.

Technicolor Vision

Over and over again i find myself lost in the enormous amount of technological advances made in our everyday lives.  I feel as though sometimes I am trapped, stuck, surrounded, and confused with all the information around me.  I have technicolor vision.  I am a member of the past and it is hard for me to take off my technicolored glasses.  I used them as I wish.  Technology today is quit amazing and extremely vast in all of it's bells and whistles.  As stated above i feel trapped and completely overwhelmed, especially when it is hard for me to understand what exactly is going on around me.  In my ETEC 424 class I have been slowly exposed to a variety of wonderful Web 2.0 tools that will not only assist me as a person but help me as a future educator as well.  The key to knowledge is to ask questions and in a never ending world of knowing, technology, and entertainment you have to ask question in order to just stay afloat.  I also find it completley alurring, I want to continue learning a new.  This blog was made up on the spot but so are most of my thoughts and that is why I like Web 2.0 so much it because it can allow you to be random and out of the blue.

Casting the Pod

Podcasting is inevitably getting more and more advanced and predominant in the United States almost daily. I for on did not know what podcasting really was until this lesson, I have become familiar with downloading, Google sites, Web 2.0, and others but pod casting is a new one for me as well. I find it interesting that there are both negative and positive things about pod casting and that they are so far from each other. The negatives about podcasting as stated in the lesson is that they can interfere with face-to-face contact, and even make families become more distance from each other. This is one of the daily problems teachers face in their classrooms with controlling the issue with cell phone usage and other such technological advanced items. The positives are however unwavering and bring families together over seas and expose different cultures, and make known the tragedies happening half way across the world. In a classroom environment I find pod casting’s availability helpful for students who may be very ill, missing school, or maybe even disabled. By using podcasting you can enhance the availability of your classes assists and make them easier to attain.

Podcasting differs from Web 2.0 in my opinion because of the magnitude of podcasting and how it can be accessed world wide and that Web 2.0 is more of just classroom enhancement and more activity based. Podcasting is more visually enhanced and deals greatly with the communication aspect of teaching and long distance accessibility. Web 2.0 is small scale and can be used for more small and interactive things such as blogging which helps with writing skills, vocabulary, research, and other such things to help enhance a students creativity. Creativity is however elevated with Podcasting as well due to the fact that it can help aid in anyone’s ability to share information in any form or fashion they choose weather through TV shows, Blog, and personal journaling.
I for one do not own a iPod, MP3 player, CD player, or any such technology advice other than my computer. If I did have one or more of one of them listed I would definitely use it for music because that is all I know how to get and put on there. My knowledge base when it comes to technological devices is very limited. I would use them in my classroom for cultural purposes and also allow the students to become more aware of their environment and city, town, or state politics and world domination that is going on with war, earthquakes and things that happen in the here and now that will change the course of their future. Like it is with podcasting and most things in life there are disadvantages, advantages, and consequences both good and bad. To name them all would be very time consuming and take quit a bit of time. I do however know that the use of any of these items needs to be limited and used with precaution because of the disadvantages associated with them. There has to be a line and it needs to be reinforced.

Web-bing 2 0wn

Posting it YOURSELF

 Collaboration, creation, informative, and interactive!  That is what it is all about. Web 2.0 is about gaining control over what you want to know and gain in any particular learning experience.  It is a collaborative work put together by anyone, anywhere, with any piece of knowledge wanted or needed.  It is a creation of knowledge, ideas, entertainment, communication, and organization.  It is a informative piece of work that provides readers and learners with a magnitude of information available for all ages, ethnicity's, and learning base.  It is interactive and can be changed, altered, and personable.

To sum it all up in one word its...YOU!  You can put yourself into it, or take yourself out of it.  The point of Web 2.0 is to make knowledge accessible and it allows the reader to access information the will most likely be helpful to their needs and/or wants

I think the invention of Web 2.0 is going to change the way teachers interact with their students when it come to integrating technology into their classrooms.  It also has a very positive rap and can be used for so many different reasons such as lesson plans, interactive sessions, teacher communication, and homework relativity.  This is a step forward in the technology side and therefore a step forward in the understanding of how to promote your own life to be better and to attain knowledge that is not only usable in a classroom experience bu be able to use it outside of the class with work related items.

Copy Right or Wrong

Talk about 100 different ways to make a good decision or a bad decision!  After reading and reading and reading about copy righting I am not surprised I am so confused and a little overwhelmed.  I feel as a teacher and future educator there are so many things we have to worry about.
1. lesson plans
2. student conduct
3. snow days
4. rules and regulations
5. privacy for and with students
6. being prepared
7. responsibility
8. adaptability
9. parent teacher conferences
AND NOW
10. Copy righting!!!!!
        I have never given much thought to this particular subject before, but after much deliberation I feel it is something that needs to be understood and sought after in the classroom environment.  For so long I only acossiated Copy righting with writing, school paper, research, and other such learning methods.  I never actually put it together with video games, movies, poetry, books, art, pictures, webpages, and the list goes on and on. There is so much more out there we need to be aware of beside plajarizim in the classroom.  I also feel as a future educator we need to be leaders in the classroom and outside of the classroom.  We have to consious of our Facebooks, Myspaces, Twitter, and Blog pages and make sure they represent us in a respectable manner and do not hint even a little bit to cyberbulling.  We are educators and professionals but most important we are role models for the hundreds of students.  I am thankful that I am more aware of the better education that is out there I can make available for my future learners and hope that I be fair in the using of that information.  And that is how I see it!

At the tip of my finger

          Life that is...it is at the tip of my fingers and for all you followers out there from school moms, tangerine pincher's, picture taking fools, friends, newly weds, single ole dames, and under age drinkers this is for you.  Life is worth living so lets get started shall we. 

          I find myself wanting to take dance lessons, drink wine, kiss some random guy, or bust out in show tones in my favorite neighborhood wal-mart. Well now I am!! I find comfort in these words I wrote such a long time ago about embracing who you are and all the beauties that come with it:

BEAUTIFUL

What does it take?

When the world calls you fake

Ask the heart that beats inside

Why you allow yourself to hide

Will you dress all the fads?

When all your heart feels is mad.

To one it is when the heart succumbs

To others when it overcomes

To some when you have that figure

Or when they ask for a signature

To get attention from those around

Trying so hard your run to the ground

Will it take a friendly voice?

Or will your hear heart make a choice?

Will you walk away from those fears?

The ones you’ve run from all these years

Inside and out, dirt and unclean

Sometimes that beauty is just unseen.

          I think we should all find the beauty within ourselves.  Yeah, yeah i totally know that is easier said then done but i think that by doing things we want to do and taking hold of our lives we will gain more than just a better out look on life we will gain a fondness of ourselves and a little self-confidence as well.  So go dancing at 9am, drink Dr Pepper for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, have a Harry Potter marathon, or drink a bottle of wine with your girl friends.  It doesn't matter what you do as long as you just get up and do it!