Thursday, September 29, 2011

Media Literacy

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  "The tools of visual, media, and information literacy must be taught in school because they will (or won't be) taught at home." ("A seven power," 2003)

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 I feel that I say this in a lot of my blog posts, but I have never before this class learned about media literacy. It was something that was never brought up in class or at home.. but I feel this is because my teachers had little or no knowledge or how to teach it if they knew anything about it to begin with. My parents know that I am not really one to pick up a newspaper and read it or even sit down and watch the news. I don't feel any need to because I know I won't get the whole story, or even lied to about something. If I wanted to be lied to I would go talk to my little brother. So media literacy was never anything I thought I would need. 
  But during class when we used this with an activity I found it very informative and I know that it's something I could teach my students and maybe get them involved. I'm not sure there is really anything in the math field that I could use, but if there is just something that catches my eye maybe I could use that. I never thought that you could look at a picture and infer so many things that leaves you wanting to know more. 


Related Resource 
Click here to view my related resource
  My related resource is a lesson plan that involves critical thinking and media literacy. It shows students that they need to use these skills everyday, because they see media messages while watching t.v., listening to the radio, or even just walking down the road.

Citations. 


(2003). A seven power lens on 21st century literacy. Retrieved from https://online.fairmontstate.edu/webct/urw/lc15057011.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct


Henry, L. (n.d.). Critical media literacy:comercial advertising. Retrieved from http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/critical-media-literacy-commercial-97.html

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Digital Story Telling

  This week we used a tool called digital story telling. With this we made up stories about different quotes on teaching. To tell these stories we used pictures from the web, used text, and even music. At first it was kind of hard to get the hang of but with time and effort I got the hang of it. It was a lot of fun and very useful for classroom use to have students use their imagination.
  Being a math teacher digital story telling would be a difficult thing to use all the time. However I could use it by having students tell a story of how certain theories came along, certain definitions, or how shapes came around. It's a good tool, and I think students would have a fun time with it. My Digital Story Diagram

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

The Four R's

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"And this wasn't an isolated incident. I watched it happen again and again- across grades and throughout the curriculum, from science to social studies, where term papers and reports yielded to Web pages and PowerPoint presentations." (Ohler, 2000)

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Throughout this whole essay I found myself a little confused. But I understood this quote completely and was a little amazed. Through this whole class I find myself amazed very many times. To think that this whole world one day will be based on technology, and we don't even know what to expect. I find myself not really knowing how to use a computer and all the new gadgets it comes with. All the different tools that we use in class to do projects and other things as well. Before intro to technology I had no idea what a blog even was!
Now I have to think about how I am going to use technology in my classroom to help do my students learn how to use technology. When I was in high school which wasn't really very long ago we never did anything on the computer. A little before the quote I used it explained how a 10th grade student didn't know how to put art in his work. He knew exactly how to use the computer just not to sure how to add art to make the video what it was. I would find this true in most cases now... I know from experience that younger kids and even older ones teach themselves how to play games on xbox or what ever kind of game system they have. With in a little time they know exactly how to use it, and exactly how beat this game in a matter of hours.
On day kids, our students, will be more technology savie then their teachers. I believe the only reason for this is, is because we weren't taught growing up like they were.

Related Resource
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_projects
Through this website you can find hundreds or different projects that can be done online with any kind of subject. It's just crazy how many different things you can do on the internet that will help you to teach your kids with a way they understand.

References
List of distributed computing projects. (19, 2011 09). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_projects

Ohler, J. (2000). Art becomes the next r. (2 ed., Vol. 58, pp. 16-19). Google Docs.Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vCKbHYY-gzXtLXnLak8i_hoV7TPAOfxNIamNrkWW3Pc/edit

Code of Best Practices.

Code of Best Practice

  According to the code ofbest practice teachers are allowed to use media based things and post them on youtube as long as these things are educational. They also have to follow the fair use practices. Teachers are protected to teach with multimedia tools. They do not need to get permition from the creator to use these works as long as it is used for education purposes and will not hurt the value of the copyrights work.. Teachers just need to make sure they are following all the guidelines that is set by their school system. They also need to again make sure they are using the fair use practices while using these works. When a teacher or student uses copyrighted material they need to make sure that they use it kindly. They can't use a whole work some else has done. They are only allowed to use little pieces and even then they need to make sure that they cite their sources.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Storytelling in the Classroom

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"Creating a digital story taps skills and talents- in art, media production, storytelling, projection development, and so on- that otherwise might be dormant..."

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  This quote struck me as crazy. I just can't get over how one program can involve all these different skills. We were working on digital story telling in class and I didn't even realize that I was using all these different things. All I knew is that I had no idea what I was doing and just getting confused. But after getting used to it it became more fun and went by really fast. These programs can really help kids learn things in a fun way. This would be a good tool to use in the classroom to help kids understand a certain subject area in something like history or science on a certain subject.
  This article also talked about younger kids using this to do homework assignments. When I was in 6th grade I didn't even know how to use a computer. Getting kids interesting in technology when they are younger is a good way to keep them interested and helping their skills on the computer. With this class we learned that one day most jobs will be on the computer using technology.
  Digital storytelling is a really good thing to learn to use. It just takes a little getting used to. But a very good way to get a point across or to help learn.

Related Resource
  In this video a teacher uses digital story telling in her classroom as not only a requirement but to help her students learn at the same time. She explains how she first got to using digital story telling and how it helps her in the classroom.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Spelling Reform?

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 "In fact, he said, with the exception of a few recent coinages like LOL, “virtually all the commonly used ones can be found in English a century ago.” For example, bn (been), btwn (between) and wd (would) can all be found in a 1942 dictionary of abbreviations." (Ammon,2010)


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  While reading this passage I came across many things that I found amazing. But this quote got me the most. I find it hard to believe that many of the words people use today in their text messages was actually once a way the word was actually spelled. These words were found in a 1942 dictionary, and are still commonly used today in a persons text message. But what this article really focused on was reforming the way words are spelled today. This was something else that really blew my mind. To think that we've been spelling these words since were in the 2nd and 3rd grade and now they want to change the way things are spelled! How is a teacher just gonna one day say we've been spelling these words this way for years but now we want to change them?
  We mentioned in class that different countries spell some common english words like color in many different ways, and some places like universities will except them, but if your in grade school they won't. How can a teacher tell their students that they way their parents taught them to spell is wrong? If a parent is from that country and thats all they know who is the teacher to mark their paper wrong when they spell it the way they are used to it being spelled. We as teachers need to be understanding of different countries and different cultures and help students to understand that their way is right, but there is also another way. 
  I think this conversation relates to this passage in many ways. To reform our spelling to maybe how it sounds, or the easiest way to spell it is how many other countries spell their words. But people don't think that we should change the way spelling is.. they understand that today's age with text messaging really is changing the way students write and spell but they don't want it to be changed. Even though thats how these words were once spelled centuries ago. 


Related Link


  The website I found is called Write101. On this page there is different ways that Australia spells common English words. It shows how both are spelled, and they are both pretty close. It just seems as though Australia picks the way the word sounds. Check it out it's pretty cool! 


http://www.write101.com/W.Tips83.htm


References


Ammon, S. (2010, january 22). The keypad solution. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/magazine/24FOB-onlanguage-t.html


Stewart, J. (2009). The write way. Retrieved from http://www.write101.com/W.Tips83.htm

What Kind of Learner am I?

  During class today I had to take a quiz on what kind of learner I am. I pretty much knew how I learned best and this test helped to prove that I was correct. The test told me that I am a reading/writing kind of learner. Although there was a close call between that kind of learner and Aural I do believe that I would prefer to learn by reading rather then being told how to do something and listening to discussions.




Friday, September 2, 2011

Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity

 This week during class we used two websites that were new to me. We used PollEverywhere and Wordle.These two websites were linked together where we were able to collaborate with the rest of the class. First we set up a Polleverythere account and let the rest of the class use their cell phones or their computer to answer specific questions we set up on our blog. Then from these responses we went to Wordle and inserted these answers in Wordle which then picked out the most common used words and made them the biggest followed by the other most used words that would get smaller and smaller with every other word used in the amount they were used from greatest to least. This enabled us to to get to know others in the class by their answers.

  My goal in life is to become a math teacher, but when I think about useing Wordle or PollEverywhere at first I thought how in the heck can I use either one of these? Thinking hard I remembered there are vocabulary words in math. Using PollEverywhere I could give my students a quiz or test using this tool. I could put a deffination up on the screen and using their cell phones or computers they could send me their anwer. I feel that this would be a good way to get students to study for their test or quiz and really keep them interested in math and not wanting to skip becuase they didn't study for their test. Then using Wordle I could use the answers I got to help me understand exactly how many of my students got the answer correctly. Then with that data I would be able to see from everything what students aren't really understanding and hit those words again.

Using the PollEverywhere tool could help me to get a feel for exactly how much my students are understanding. I could send a out a poll asking students what they don't get about the information we are going over. Then students could be crative and get together and make a Wordle telling me what they need help on. With this information I could see exactly what I need to go through and clarify for my students.