My EDM310 Blog Assignments are now complete

I wanted to thank anyone and everyone who took the time to look around my little piece of the Internet. I hope that my posts and topics (while mandatory for this class) did not bore you but informed you or motivated you in some way or another. If you could learn anything from my blogs I hope it is that there is always a lot to learn and always new developments out there to learn from. I most likely will not keep this blog up once the class is over with next week because I have so much going on in my life.However, Please, if you feel you would like to leave me comments. I would love to hear what you or anyone has to say, good or bad!!


Thanks for stopping by and have a GREAT summer!!!!!

What I learned this Semester......ALOT!!!

This semester I learned a lot! So much in fact that I was surprised by it. I am one of those types of people who learns technology by sitting myself down and playing around until I get how to maximize the usage of the technology. I learned how to calculate a payout table, do an organized address book, make a website using Google, how to use blogger, and all the amazing things that are FREE on Google such as blogger, IGoogle, and reader. I liked how much there is for teachers that is FREE!!! Although the spreadsheets were a bit headache inducing at first, once I got in the "rhythm" they were easy. I can easy see how I can use these things on an almost daily basis. I can definitely see how I can use these things in my classroom to help my students.

I can not think of anything that I wished we had learned this semester.I am glad that we did learn what we did because there are many things that even I, "Miss Technologically savvy" did not know or was intimidated by. Spreadsheet and I used to be enemies but using Google spreadsheets and having everything in a convenient and easy format really changed my opinion on spreadsheets and spreadsheet programs.

Wikipedia Is it a good resource or not?

We all use Wikipedia (Commonly known as Wiki) which totes itself as "the online encyclopedia" at one time or another. That being said, is it that great of a website to use for finding truth on the website? The answer is NO!! In fact, if you go on wiki and look it states "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." This mean if you put up an article about Wal-mart for example anyone..ANYONE can go on and change your words. They can edit what you said and if desired do it anonymously so that you don't know who they were. For example if you write "Wal-Mart is a facetious piece of crap store and no one should shop there let alone work there because they use sweat-shops to make their products labeled " Sam's Choice!". Someone from Wal-mart such as the CEO can go to wikipedia, see what your wrote and change your words to say "Wal-Mart is an amazing store and Everyone should shop there or work there because they use top quality resources to make their products labeled "Sam's Choice!". You as the editor and "Creator" of the entry has no authority over what the entries truly say.

There is something new called " wikipedia scanner" which tracks the changes made anonymously back to the IP (thus company) the changes came from as well as records what the original entry read compared to the "updated" entry. It was made by a computation and neural-systems Cal-Tech Grad student by the name of Virgil Griffith.

Below you will find helpful links to each of the articles I used to write this blog.

http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/08/wiki_tracker?currentPage=all

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12823729

http://www.npr.org/blogs/news/2007/08/whos_been_messin_with_my_wikip.html

Growth and Fixed Mindsets Video (ITunes)

This video talked about how some students have a "Fixed" mindset that they only have so much intelligence. these students are afraid that they will look dumb if the do something. other students believe intelligence is increased via learning. Dr. Dwyer who is a professor of psychology at Stanford university decided to do an experiment that was 6 weeks long of 8 sessions where she took two groups of students and taught one the growth mindset where the other group did not get the same teaching. at the end of the 6 weeks, it was easy to pick out the students whom had the growth mindset teachings. the non-growth mindset students were only taught how to study.

There was a famous stock car driving coach whom contacted Prof. Dwyer on how to apply the growth mindset to the drivers mindset. Prof Dwyer found that if the drivers can get in the "zone" they can succeed and win. She states at the end of the video that without the growth mindset you can not grow and learn through-out life.

I think this is an interesting idea. however, I do not think that a person's mindset is completely one or the other which is what Prof Dwyer more or less states. I think everyone has their "weak" moments when it comes to certain subject manner where they do not feel as confidant as they would otherwise. I think her overall idea is good but once it leaves "paper" per say it falls apart because of the fact that people are not black and white they are gray as far as mindsets.

Energy Flow in the coral Reef Ecosystem

This video, available on ITunes in the Teacher's domain section of Itunes U was very interesting. However i was saddened to see that the video quality was not good. It was very grainy. This may be just the monitor but I highly doubt it. I can use this video (and this type of video) in my classroom because my students will be needing to learn in various ways. this is a way to teach them but also allow them the time to learn on their own through watching the lessons. some of my students will simply enjoy it because of the colors, shapes and calming effects the ocean has on their senses. This is a great advantage for me as a teacher as sensory skills are huge.

The video talked about coral reefs and how the reefs help feed the fish which in turn feed other fish. the video explains how the reefs grow and how the sun helps as well. The coral feeds on plankton (as do some fish such as the spiny Blinny (a coral fish. The video also introduces things such as sea cucumbers, ruffled sea slug, plant eater fish, spined sea urchin, barracudas, moray eels, yellow tail snapper, and others.

I liked how the video explained the ecosystem but did it in a way that was easy to follow as well as entertaining. The video was aimed for k-5Th grades but I think the content is too high for a lower elementary student. The images are age appropriate, but the content moves too fast and there is too much going on for the lower elementary students to get everything they would need to for this video to be used in an actual lesson. It would however, be a good compliment to the lesson.