iRLO Scratch Project

I had a lot of fun working with Scratch. There were times when it was frustrating, but I am very proud of my accomplishments. I can now say I made my own mini video game. I don't know if I will use Scratch in the future because it is very time consuming, but I may use pre-made videos from the internet to promote interaction. I spent hours on my project. I wanted to make it look professional. I also recorded my own voice and used music to make it apply to Early Childhood aged children the best. It impacts my future teaching due to the fact that I now have a new resource to use in my classroom and a new way to engage my students in lessons.

PSA-Security Theft

It was a lot of fun working on our Public Service Announcement about Security Theft. This was a video made by Bryan Ratz, Elizabeth Sommer, Lynsey Carlson and myself. We met twice to work on this project. Each time we met for at least 2 hours. We met once to plan it, and film it, and once to edit/upload it. We tried to make it like an old fashioned PSA commercial from the 90s. We did it in black and white, and referenced people like Nancy Grace. This was a great way to apply the technology we learned in the class and apply it to a project. I wish there was a more advanced rubric for it, since we didn't know what kind of effects were wanted, but I still had fun doing it. Here it is. Let me know what you think!

May 5th Exit Slip/Peer Led Discussion Post

Today in class, Lynsey and I presented. I was weirdly nervous even though we were well prepared. It's hard to have a 20 minute discussion on anything. I'm really looking forward to next week when we can spend the majority of the time on one main discussion. I wish we could have gotten feedback, but sometime we run out of time. It was a worthwhile discussion and I'm glad I got to give it. We put a lot of work into our lesson. We met beforehand to decide what we were going to teach, and then I worked individually on the Prezi and she worked on the discussion questions. I also found a video to engage the students. This lesson helped me to create an interesting discussion from a chapter that had many choices of what to focus on. This lesson helped me to evaluate the reading and to have the class evaluate it and learn it to a greater extent as well.

Chapter 8 and 9 in Rethinking Education of Technology

Chapter 8 talked about specified learning. It talked about using tests similar to the GRE to allow children to learn about their interests. It would be a different kind of test taking. The test would customize to what each student is best in and focus strongly and teaching them those skills. It would allow students to learn subjects at their own pace. Each question would be given in response to another question. If a question was too easy, it would give you a harder question. If the question was too hard, it would be easier. While this is a great process in order to become proficient in a subject, would it be limiting since the student is only picking out what they want to learn? If students only focus on their original interests, they would no longer be well rounded individuals. While it might not be fun to learn about History if that's not what you're into, it's still important to learn about it. This chapter brought me back to the age old question: Is it better to be sorta good at a lot of things or be able to excel and one thing and one thing only? It's definitely a question to be pondered.

Lynsey and I are presenting Chapter 9 in class. It talks about how to connect to your children through education. If your child likes video games, ask them to teach you how to play. If they like Dinosaurs, show them an interactive website where they can use them. One of the websites talked about using a program called Second Life to get them interested. For my teaching topic, I am going to download Second life so I can show the class how to use it and we can talk about the pros and cons as a class.

April 28th Exit Slip

Today we talked about different kinds of learning. I think the people who taught today had the right idea, but I think they could've taught the lesson a little differently. It was hard to hear them, and they seemed bored and uninterested in what they were teaching. It was hard to have deep conversation since they tried to cover multiple things in such a short amount of time. I think next week when I'm in charge of teaching I will be able to take these ideas to make a more exciting lesson. I plan to use the computer in some way and create strong discussion with the rest of the time. I will talk to Lynsey however to add her input. Dr. Boyer also talked about backgrounds and how display tends to be different on the projected image than it is on the computer screen. The colors are darker and the contrast is much less. Something to be aware of when creating your lesson. Today was long but interesting. I think I will add more enthusiasm and exciting to Lynsey's and I's lesson.

We also talked about our portfolio homework. We can either provide evidence for each of the standards or we can state what we will do in order to gain the development we need. Evidence can include a link to something we have previously done or it can be a statement of what we have done.

Chapters 6 & 7 in Rethinking Education Book

Chapter 6 talks about how some of the subjects students learn are no longer given to them by the teachers. Students choose what they want to learn and explore it on their own through the internet. More and more students are interested in jobs where they are Web designers or mix videos for a living. Most jobs now a days must include skills in resources, interpersonal, information, systems and technology. The role of the teacher has changed as well. In the olden days, Parents were the teachers of their children. Then it was Teachers, strangers implementing them with the knowledge they choose, and now technology is added into the mix. The subjects learned have changed dramatically due to these changes.

Chapter 7 talks about the possibility of different groups taking over the education system. Whether it be more conservative or liberal, environmentalists or different races. If this were to happen it would delete diversity and less culture would be taught. People would be more isolated into their different groups and everything the world has learned about differences will be undone. It ruins the vision of different types of people being able to work together to share experiences and to explore each others' differences. There are advantages as well though. Students will be able to have a deeper focus on one or two specific subjects instead of a little bit of everything. They will get to choose what they want to learn and not learn. The question is, is that really better?

April 21, Exit Slip

Today in class, we discussed chapter 4 and 5 of Rethinking Education in the classroom. Both groups did a great job of keeping our attention and keeping us engaged. Dr. Boyer expressed how important it is to introduce new ways of teaching tops. Routine gets boring. That's something to use in this classroom as well as in my own future classroom. We also rated them in class, and talked about our homework expectations.