My EDM 310 Blog Assignments are Now Complete

I have to say I am sad that my adventure in EDM 310 is coming to a close. When I started this class, I hadn't been in school for over 30 years and I had little knowledge of computers which all my classmates soon found out. I want to thank all of you for putting up with my loud comments of frustration and exclamations of joy when I finally figured out how to do something on the computer. It has been great taking a class with you. I don't know how I will ever be able to repay Bre back for all her kindness and patience in helping me get through this class. It is a true sign of the great teacher she will be in the future. Last and certainly not least, I want to thank Mr. Sullivan for taking the time to help everyone in the class. You are one of the best teachers I have ever had and I have had quite a few. If South Alabama doesn't give you a professorship in the future then it will be a terrible lost to the school. Good luck to everyone in their next adventures in life. It has been fun and totally rewarding. May God Bless All of You and Keep You Safe.

What I have learn and How I will use it.

I have learn so much from EDM 310. I doubt there are many students who have taken this class that have known less than me. When I began this journey in EDM 310, I barely knew how to turn on a computer. I certainly didn't know anything about blogs except to read my daughter's blog. I had no idea what podcasts, Google, Google Docs,spreadsheets,iTunes or Twitter were all about. After taking this class, I can successfully pull up www.Google.com and find out everything under the sun I need to know on any subject.

Blogging
I love blogging. I didn't realize how therapeutic writing could be for me. I have learned how to put pictures in my blog and how to use ALT modifier,Title modifier in an IMG tag to allow a blind person text when they encounter a picture in my blog. I know I will be using blogging in my classroom. It will be a great way to communicate weekly to my students and their parents. With blogging I can post homework assignments, and classroom events coming up. I will be teaching my students how to blog and have them creating their own blogs to share with their classmates. I can't think of a better way to express oneself.

Podcasting
I thoroughly enjoyed learning how to do a podcast. This will also will a useful to tool to use in the classroom. I would like to do weekly podcast with my students using it in learning centers where they would listen to a particular subject we might be studying. I would also want my students to create their own podcast. It would allow them to be creative on numerous subjects and share their own ideas with fellow classmates.

Delicious
I am sure Delicious will become a valuable tool in organizing websites that I will find useful for my school work. It will certainly become a method for shortcuts; linking me to lists of the most popular and useful bookmarks that I will need. I can't wait to add more to my present list and view other teachers and friends bookmarks.

iTunes
iTunes will be another helpful tool for me to use as a teacher. I found iTunes University to be one of the most exciting sites so far in the tech world of internet. This site will definitely help me as a teacher and help my students to collaborate in many new ways. It will also make web-based research easy and safe for younger students. The mobile learning aspect of iTunes will mean learning no longer has to happen at my desk but can happen any where if we have the right equipment. With iTunes, I will be able to give my students and their parents access to free educational content round the clock.

Access
Access means Alabama Connecting Classrooms. It allows Alabama High School students to have opportunities to receive advance placement electives and other courses they may not otherwise be able to get. As an educator it will provide me with many technological tools and added classroom multimedia to better my instructional resource for my students and me to use.

Alex
Alex means Alabama Learning Exchange and for someone who is trying to become a teacher or someone who has taught many years ago, this site is a wealth of information on the standards of Alabama education. It will be a site that will help me create lesson plans on whatever subject or age level I am teaching. It will also give me web links to other related subjects to expand my curricular guidelines. Alex will be a site that will save me a lot time in lesson planning.

Picasa
I am sure Picasa and power points will go hand and hand in my classroom. I love power points and what student doesn't like to see pictures that have a story with a message in it. I know I will use it in my classroom. I feel it is an effective way to teach and as the old saying goes "A picture is worth a thousand words" is very true.`

Google Tools
I know I will be using Google tools in the classroom. Spreadsheets, documents, form builders, and presentation creator are tools I have learn to use in this class and another class I have been taking. It has opened a whole new world of creativeness for me. Spreadsheets I will use in many different ways such as in record keeping, names and addresses of students,etc. The use of spreadsheets with my students will come in use with multiplication tables, currency tables and many other different ways in math, spelling, and history lessons. Document tool will allow my students to write stories, letters, poems, and book reports. Hopefully I will be able to teach them how to save their work to share with me and their classmates. Presentation creator would allow my students to be very creative and produce presentations for everyone to see. Google Tools has opened a whole new world for me. I will no longer have to draw my pictures by hand or write my stories on notebook paper, or use magic markers to make title pages. With Google Tools, I can go wild and make my work look really professional.

Using iPods in Instruction

I explored several different websites and found the Duke University Website most informative on the instructional use of iPods in the classroom. In August 2004, Duke University distributed 1600 Apple iPod devices each equipped with Belkin Voice Recorders to entering first year students. The Center for Instructional Technology(CIT) coordinated an evaluation of the academic use of iPods, drawing on course-level feedback from student and faculty and administrators and important campus stakeholders groups.

The findings from their evaluation came from 15 fall courses taken by 628 students and 33 spring courses with over 600 students involved with iPod use. Foreign language and music courses integrated the device but its use also extended to other social science and humanities courses. It was found that Audio-intensive courses reported that the iPod increased the frequency and depth of student interaction with audio course content through portable and flexible access offered by the iPod. Digital recording capabilities ultimately generated the highest level of student and faculty and recording was the most widely used feature for academic purposes. The iPod's music database and hard drive storage capabilities were widely used by the first-year students in academic contexts.

It was found that the academic uses of iPod devices by the faculty at Duke came under its use in course content as a dissemination tool, as a classroom recording tool, a field recording tool, a study support tool and as a file storage tool. The benefits of the iPod by the faculty and students was its portability of digital course content and independence from physical materials. Its flexibility to carry around reduced dependence on lab or library locations and hours. It also became and effective and easy-to-use tool for digital recording of interviews, field notes,small group discussions, and self-recording of oral assignments.

After reading about all the wonderful uses of iPod in the classroom, I couldn't help but reflect on my college school days when I would carry my 6 by 12 tape recorder to tape my classes. I lugged that tape recorder around for four years and now in this day and age I can simple take out my credit card size iPod and record. We've come a long way and I can't wait to see what's coming next.

Dr. Christie's GPS Technology

I was fascinated by Dr. Christie's website on the use of the GPS as teacher tool. I received a GPS for Christmas and have truly enjoyed using it on road trips but had never thought of using it in the classroom. With technology becoming an integral and growing part of our daily life, Dr. Christie has offered teachers another part of that technology through the world of GPS and teaching our students how to use it.

On this website Dr. Christie compares brands, prices and features of GPS receivers and what are the best GPS receiver we should chose for our classrooms. She also offers a Podcast on GPS and Geocaching which is most informative. She gives you steps in creating a GPS lesson in the classroom for all levels from K-5-12th grade. She has taken teacher-centered classrooms to an exciting exploratory environment for the students through the use of GPS technology. By using this technology 2nd grade students can go a trip to the fire station and find where the fire is located by using the GPS or Middle School students can go to the National Park and find many different trails in hiking by using their GPS. Who would have thought that a simple little GPS that I call Shirley that gets me to Jackson,MS might become my next geography lesson for 3rd graders.

Google,A New World A Coming

Google is designing the operating system primarily for netbooks that is becoming increasingly popular among budget conscious consumers that are primarily interested in surfing the web. The Google's Website will be based on the search giant's nine month-old Web browser called Chrome. The goal of Chrome is to create a simple yet powerful user experience with no interruptions.

What will this do for education and classroom use? For the classroom use it will be easy to bookmark pages in Chrome but not a necessity. Chrome maintains full text searches in its history so if you've already searched for something then it will take you back to the page you found the first time you ran that search. With Chrome what Google has done is built a browser that is right for today's Internet. It will make the education world of surfing the net for information quicker, cheaper and with a lot less hangups which is something for not very computer literate people like me need.

Randy Paush's Last Lecture

Writing my blog on Randy Paush’s Last Lecture has been the hardest one for me to write so far. Randy Paush’s philosophy on life and his impending death reminded me of my husband’s view on life and death. The lecture was so similar with my husband’s viewpoints that I found myself questioning why God takes such great men too quickly. At the end of the lecture, I realized that God has used Randy Paush’s lecture to reach out to all of us with a very special message just as he used my husband’s voice.

Randy Paush had three major thoughts to pass on to us. The first one was “Always follow your childhood dreams”, they may change but valuable lessons are to be learned along the way. By achieving these dreams Randy talks about how you will be face with brick walls but you can’t allow them to stop you from achieving you dreams. You should never give up because when one door closes another door will open for you.

His second words of wisdom were “Enable Childhood Dreams of Others.” One of the ways Randy achieve this belief with his students was through a class he taught called Building Virtual World. The first project his fifty students did was so good that it blew him away and he couldn’t imagine how they would ever be able to top it. His mentor advised him to tell his students that the project was pretty good but he knew that they could do better. Another one of his classes was The Dream Fulfillment Factory of the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC). The key to ETC success was the freedom it gave it students to create and to become self reflective.

The last thought Randy shares with us is “Lessons Learned.” The roles our parents, mentors, teachers, friends, colleagues all have an impact on our lives. They can be good or bad or positive and negative but we need to respect authority while questioning it. Learn from each other and have fun learning. Never lose your childlike wonder. Never give up and always help others. Be earnest with people. Tell the truth. Focus on others and if you do screw up always apologize. Show gratitude to others. Don’t complain; just work harder. Be good at something, it makes you valuable. Last but not least find the best in everyone.

Randy Paush’s Last Lecture on how to lead your life was a talk he was actually leaving to his children and God got a hold of it and share it with all of us and on that note I will close and shed some more tears for these great men that have left us far too soon but will never be forgotten because their messages live on in all of us.

The Fischbowl Blogspot

This video to me was a little bit scary. I know our world is progressing in technology but to see how quickly its progressing makes me question how the older generation is going to catch up. I am 55 years old and my children have been in the internet world at school and at home for ten years but I haven't been and neither have my parents. I know we have to move forward but it seems that technology is moving at such a fast rate of speed that I wonder how we ever going to keep up. Older teachers who are teaching our children will have to progress in order to help our children progress into this very fast world we are living in.
My other concern about the progression of modern technology is how are we going to be able to afford all this new technology in the classroom. Will the statement "No child will be left behind" come true. We are in the worse financial crisis in our lifetime, in order to survive will we be going back to the bare basics? Yes,"Shift Happens" but which way will we be able to go backwards or forwards?

iTunes University

I found iTunes University one of the most exciting sites I found so far on my adventure into the technological world of internet. This site will definitely get students collaborating in new ways. It makes web-based research easy and safe for younger kids.

Mobile learning is reshaping the educational experience. Learning no longer happens only at a desk it can happen anywhere if the student and teacher have the right equipment. With iTunes U, you can give students, parents and the rest of the world access to free educational content around the clock.
Mobile learning is changing education in a big way with the great popularity of iPod and iTunes. With iPod players, iPhone devices and portable computers, high school and college students already have mobile access. Slowly these mobile devices are being provided to K-12 students so they can access the Internet in the classroom. Soon teachers will be able to tap into that access. These mobile devices will allow teachers to teach their students anywhere, and by being able to put their lessons and lectures on engaging podcasts and slideshows students will be more willing access these new learning devices.

Students and teachers accessing into iTunes U. will find a new world library with one of largest and fastest growing sources of free educational content. Students can access over 150,000 lectures presentations, videos, reading, and podcasts from all over the world, and what a world we live in. Students and teachers can go to iTunes and select iTunes U. and find courses and podcasts they want to use.

Back when I taught in the 70’s I had learning centers which contain math games, spelling fun sheets, social studies fun quizzes for the children to work on when they finish their main activities. In this day and age the learning center could be iTunes U. accessing podcasts or videos that would allow the students to take a virtual tour of an art museum or a historical land site. It would also allow the students to interact with other students about the content of the programs being view or listened to via chats, email and social networking.

Response to Karl Fisch's blog

Karl Fisch writes in his blog about people of the 21st century need to be technological literate. He truly hates to hear people say they don't really get computers. To Karl Fisch this statement is like saying they aren't good at math. He feels that in order to be a teacher in the 21st century you must be technology literate and be willing to make the effort to learn more.
We cannot afford to be illiterate in this day and age. In order to teach we must become knowledgeably in technology or our students are going to suffer. I know that by taking this computer course it has open a whole new world in teaching methods for
me. By the time I finished this course I hope to be able to share with my students blogging,podcasting,and many other uses for the internet. We need to experience the technology world right along with our students. We need to demonstrate to them that we are continually learning and teaching them the tools of technology that will carry us all into the 21st century in order for all of us to be successful.

The Making of a Better Podcast

I listen to "The Last Lecture of Randy Pausch" BW0119W. The students who presented this podcast were Sean Caballos,Chip Curtis, and Heather Averette. I felt that Heather was reading her lines and this is an area where I would like to be more conversational and relaxed in my broadcast. I also felt they should have explained more about Randy Pausch's last lecture in the beginning of their podcast. I want to give an overall view in the beginning of my podcast, outline what the podcast is about and then summarize at the end.
In "Useful Websites for Educators" BW0414W presented by Keesha Miles,Emma Jones and Doris McManus, Ifound that they only mention their websites once for each website. I'm going to say each website at least twice so people will be sure to get them written down.
"Examing Dr. Strange's Thesis That Students Now Are LIstener/Watchers and Not Readers/Writers"BW0610W which was delivered by Melissa Zebracki and Amanda Williams. I felt one of the girls spoke too fast and not clearly. In my podcast I want to speak in a clear, slow and conversational form.

Podcasting

SmartBoard Lesson Podcast is delivered by teachers, Ben Hazzard and Joan Badger who give us fresh and engaging lessons ideas weekly.The lessons focus on using interactive whiteboards in the classrooms.These two teachers engage in normal conversation about where they live, the weather they are experiencing, what is going on in their daily life before they get into the lesson for the week. They converse with each other on how you can use different methods to teach the lesson to your classroom. Kidcast is a companion to the book,” Kidcast and Podcasting in the Classroom” by Dan Schmit.He introduces himself and talks about what’s going on in his life at the beginning of each podcast and then goes into the lesson for the week.I listen to #60 “The Mini Series of Podcasting.He gave tips on how to develop your own format, use of music and art to help you develop your own podcasting with your students. EdTech Talk is a community of educators interested in discussing and learning about the uses of technology.It webcast several live shows each week.During the shows, listeners can use any common media player to listen to the discussion and use the chatroom to make comments and ask questions. EdTech Talk uses homegrown webcasting and other new media technologies to help people connect, learn and collaborate.You can listen, watch and participate by finding webcast venue details on the event calendar. Connected Learning Network is a web-based distance learning center that works directly with corporate trainers, technology training centers, college faculty, K-12 teachers and administrators. An example in this network would be Connect e/learning solution which delivers engaging contact between tutor/student interaction in an innovated and easy to use interface. The Connect Learning virtual classroom extends education and training to students wherever they may be. Online classes connect student/tutor with real live audio and video while delivering interactive exercises in an exciting learning environment. MacBreak Weekly gets the latest on Mac news and views from top journalists covering Apple today. This round table discussion is audio only and complements the video only by MacBreak. In This Week in Photography you listen to Alex Lindsay, Frederick Van Johnson and friends each week as they discuss camera techniques, technology and news. With in depth question interviews and discussion around everything from taking family photos to understanding how state of the art cameras work, you’ll hear it all on This Week in Photography.

Trio World School, Bangalor

Trio World School,Bangalor

Trio World School is accredited by the University of Cambridge International Examinations(CTE) for IGCSE, AS and A level examinations. It is fast becoming one the most reputed international school in Bangalore. Its global curriculum integrates well with the rest of the world making it easy for students to transfer anywhere in the world.
Trio World School has low teacher/student ratio with the teachers being highly qualified and dedicated. It offers world class infrastructure by having Wi-Fi Campus, state-of-the art laboratories and computer center, and a comprehensive library. It also offers other language such as Hindi, French, and Spanish.

International School Bangkok (ISB)

International School of Bangkok
Thailand Premier
International School of Bangkok

International School of Bangkok is in Thailand and serves over l850 students from 50 countries in grades Pre-K to 12.It follows a North American teaching style with standards-based curriculum by international practices. Its instructional approach is centered on the students. Students benefit from outstanding teachers, a challenging curriculum, small class ratio, the latest technology and facilities and a wide choice of extra curriculum activities. The International teaching staff comes from over 20 countries and work together at all levels to evaluate and improve student learning. The head master of the school is Bill Gerritz who has a blog called “Head of School’s Blog.” Every week he puts out a blog about different topics of interest. They range from “Environmentally Greener Schools” to “Nerds at ISB”.

My Presentation

Blog Reviews

Mrs. Grover’s Fourth Grade Class
West Elementary School
Independence, IA.

Mrs. Grover has created a blog that has the classroom on the web. The site was created to keep families updated on their children’s accomplishments and important information about the classroom’s activities.
She has created for you to and find out what is going on the classroom. The books are divided into 5 different areas.
1. Home which tells about the school, the district area and about Mrs. Grover.
2. Parent’s Corner gives parents information about supply list, newsletters, and schedules.
3. Curriculum which goes over new math, science, social studies, language arts, and health and physical educations courses taught by Independence School District.
4. Students Links is where the students can link onto the site and find daily activities in spelling, homework assignments, computer projects, geography, math, science, reading and language arts. There are all kinds of work sheets, activities on the related subjects, projects and events for the children to master.
5. Teachers is the last book where you can find teaching forms, internet tools, data collection and interaction resources. It even shows you how to create your own website for the classroom.
Mrs. Grove’s website is an excellent source on creating your own classroom blog site for parents, children and teachers.





Mrs. Renz’s 4th Grade Class
Tom McCall Elementary School
Redmond, Oregon

Mrs. Renz’s has created a file cabinet blog for teachers where she found some great Internet websites. She has organized them into 3 different groups.
1. Educational Sites which gives educators scoring guides, rubic makers, graphics organizers, award makers and resources for teachers and administrators.
2. Subject Matters ,Unit and Lesson Plan Sites which allows you to go to many different sites for the subject you may need a lesson plan on. For example if you were going to do an Art project you would go to this site and you could chose from 20 different areas that would allow you to teach lessons from each area of its expertise.
3. Graphics,Textmakers and Websites are the third drawer’s contents. This drawer has some of Mrs. Renz’s favorite graphics and animations sites. It allows you to find any subject on line and gives you ideas for bulletin boards, coloring pages, work sheets and clip art.
Overall Mrs. Renz’s blog space is a site where you can find everything you would need to teach a fourth grade class. It is a excellent resource website for a new or old teacher.

What is ACCESS?

Access means Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators and Students statewide. It allows Alabama High School students to have opportunities and in advance placement electives and other courses that they may not have otherwise. It also provides students the ability to gain advance diploma courses, remediation, and supplemental resources. Some reasons they may not have access to these courses would be that they live in a rural or low income area. They can gain access to this diverse curriculum by Internet based courses taught by Alabama certified teachers who are trained to teach online.
Access also provides teachers, school administrators, guidance counselors, and other school personnel with many technological tools and added multimedia to better their instructional resources. It allows teachers all over professional development through the use of Access. Teachers are able to interact with students in many effective ways thus broadening the scope of teacher and student relationships in an upper level of learning via internet and video classrooms.

Picture Test

My University

Take a look at the University I attend
click here

What is ALEX?

ALEX means Alabama Learning Exchange and for someone who is trying to become a teacher or is someone who has taught many years ago, this site is wealth of information on the standards of Alabama education. It helps student teachers and new teachers along with the old ones to create lesson plans on whatever subject and age level you need. ALEX covers all curriculum from K-12th. It also gives you web links to related subjects (such as Language Arts 4th grade) that help you find sources on this subject to expand your curriculum guide lines. Professional Learning areas help teachers to find websites that can enhance their own career choices.
I wish that I had ALEX back in the '70's when I began my teaching career. It would have made finding resources for teaching different subjects so much easier. It holds a wealth of knowledge at the click of a mouse. Just make sure you know how to click that mouse correctly.

Conquering My Fear Of The Big Bad Computer

When I began college you had tickets to get the classes you wanted. Each quarter (note I said quarters not semesters) you took your tickets for your classes and stood in long lines praying you would get the class you wanted and needed. Now you do it all on that wonderful fast thing that I call the BIG BAD COMPUTER which is great if you know how to use it. I have used in my past life a specific program on the computer in my husband’s business that allowed me to print out bills, log in patients’ information, look up records but if anything went slightly wrong I’d yell for my husband to fix that darn computer thing. My minute knowledge of computers was fine until my husband passed away and my children thought I should graduate into the 2lst century and open my very own email account. The problem with this great idea is that my children are busy with their own lives and want me to know how to do it after showing me how in one or two sittings. Now I thought that by having 6 children that surely I had a guarantee that they would be there to fix the VCR to record, burn CD’s for me, and look up my email when I wanted them to but those kids of mine that I had taught multiplication tables, reading, writing and arithmetic wanted me to do it by myself. Suddenly it dawned on me that my children were just like me and it was time for me to take out my big girl panties, pull them on and conquer that dreadful machine called the computer. My computer teacher Mr. Sullivan is legally blind and he told us that he has taught blind people how to successfully use the computer so if he can teach blind people surely he can teach a half deaf, half dumb person like me the computer. I will have to say after the first night of class I came home and cried. I decided I would just quit and take something else, but I realized I couldn’t let my children down and most of all I couldn’t let myself down. So here I am writing in my blog for the third time. Yes, I manage to lose the one. I am beginning to conquer my fear of the BIG BAD COMPUTER and hopefully I won’t press the wrong key and lose everything again. I guess the moral of this blog is practice makes you a little less dumb, oh wait a minute isn’t that suppose to be perfect. I guess that will come.

This is a short version of my adult life.

My name is Jackie Reynolds and I am 55 years old. I graduated from Auburn in 1976 with a degree in elementary education. I taught 2nd and 3rd grade for 6 years while my husband went to veterinary school. We moved back to Mobile where we opened Reynolds' Veterinary Hospital. I helped my husband run the hospital for 26 years and gave up my teaching career to raise our 6 children. We had 5 girls and our last child was our only boy. It was a great life working in the hospital which was behind our home and having the children right there to share in all those great life experiences which come with helping animals and their owners. My husband and I thought our work was our ministry to mankind then suddenly that life ended when my husband passed away. I had to sell the business and decide what to do with the next 50 years of my life. After taking some time off while babysitting grandchildren I decided to renew my teaching certificate and go back to my first love of teaching.

welcome to my blog.

I FINALLY GOT INTO MY ACCOUNT AND ITS WORKING.