GoAnimate.com: The Endocrine System by iAddict
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Check out my 4th emerging technology!
I decided to explore GoAnimate for my 4th emerging technology. It is a very interesting website with lots of information about animation. I found an animation about the endocrine system that I decided to place in my blog since I have insulin dependent diabetes. I have been a diabetic for nearly 29 years and wear an insulin pump that gives me insulin 24/7. There are all sorts of animations about "causes" on the website. I watched a neat one on OCD and saw all sorts of others about various medical condidtions, treatments, etc. The website was easy to use. I would like to create my own characters when I have more time and put them into my own animated segments. That would be fun!
Emerging Technology 4 GoAnimate
GoAnimate.com: The Endocrine System by iAddict
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
Emerging Technology 3: Widget!!
I decided to try a Widget for my 3rd Emerging Technology. I went to http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/ to check out what was available. I decided to look at Widgets because I just liked the sound of the name! A widget sounded like something that would be fun to use. There were tons of different widgets to choose from, but I really liked the one entitled "Quote of the Day." It had all these neat quotes from famous people (I knew who the person was!) and from not so famous people (I had no clue who the person was!). I thought that would be a fun and interesting thing to add to my blog. It was super easy to choose a color, a size, and to add it to my blog. So, now people, including me, can go to my blog and find some really neat quotes to read and use for other things, too! Enjoy!!
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Module 4-2 Digital Literacy/Jan Meyer
This is a link to the blog that I read: http://www.edutopia.org/tech-savvy-summer. The title of the blog was How to Become More Tech Savvy This Summer by Jim Moulton. The title caught my eye because I really would like to spend some time this summer becoming more tech savvy. The author suggested that a good way to bring digital tools into your classroom is to first explore them and use them at home in your personal life. Once you discover how useful, fun, and easy they are, you will be more likely to find a way to use them within your education setting, whatever that may be.
Mr. Moulton shared his top ten suggestions for using technology. He suggested creating your own video vault by using Miro a website that allows you to download videos from sites like YouTube and TeacherTube and save them on your local hard drive. You load them on your flash drive and then it's "have videos, will travel" when you go to visit your friends and family!
Another thing that you can do is have fun with photos. Use BigHugeLabs.com to make posters, badges, trading cards and lots of other cool stuff. You can pass your creations on to family and friends and then use this tool as a way for your students to make content projects back at school in the fall.
Mr. Moulton shared many more great ideas, such as creating comics, whipping up a Wiki, forming a questionnaire, sharing snapshots, surveying situations, and even creating an audiobook to listen to while you are traveling in the car to your vacation destination! He shared ideas for personal use with each digital possibility, as well as how to transfer it to classroom use at the start of the school year. I can't wait to try out and explore these digital suggestions when summer gets here. They all sound like something that I would be able to use and also like something that would be alot of fun, too!
Mr. Moulton shared his top ten suggestions for using technology. He suggested creating your own video vault by using Miro a website that allows you to download videos from sites like YouTube and TeacherTube and save them on your local hard drive. You load them on your flash drive and then it's "have videos, will travel" when you go to visit your friends and family!
Another thing that you can do is have fun with photos. Use BigHugeLabs.com to make posters, badges, trading cards and lots of other cool stuff. You can pass your creations on to family and friends and then use this tool as a way for your students to make content projects back at school in the fall.
Mr. Moulton shared many more great ideas, such as creating comics, whipping up a Wiki, forming a questionnaire, sharing snapshots, surveying situations, and even creating an audiobook to listen to while you are traveling in the car to your vacation destination! He shared ideas for personal use with each digital possibility, as well as how to transfer it to classroom use at the start of the school year. I can't wait to try out and explore these digital suggestions when summer gets here. They all sound like something that I would be able to use and also like something that would be alot of fun, too!
Monday, February 22, 2010
Changes!!
I watched the YouTube video about the Medieval Help Desk and found it to be hilarious, but I could really relate to that poor guy that felt like he didn't know what he was doing! I cannot express the times that I have been terrified that what I had just written would disappear! Why did I feel that way? Well, because things had "disappeared" before, never to be seen again! I do feel a little more comfortable in my computer abilities than I used to, but I feel that I have a long, long way to go.
I loved the video about the Piano Stairs and they way it was titled "The Fun Theory." It made perfect sense to me that 66% more people than usual chose the stairs once the piano keys and sounds had been added. The piano keys just made it more interesting to use the stairs. I can't imagine anyone passing up the stairs when they had the opportunity to try them out. I believe that making something fun can change behavior for the better. My grandson and granddaughter go to a daycare when their moms are working. Miss Cathy used to have trouble getting the children to pick up the toys before lunch time. She started a new "game" with them and they sing the "clean up" song while they do it. It's fun, and now all the kids clean up with no problem as soon as she starts singing the song!
The third video "Pay Attention" was very interesting. The statistics alone were mind-boggling! I loved the statement, "If you're not using technology to teach, you should be." I thought to myself, "AMEN!" Our students today know so much about technology and they love to use it. They are great about explaining all the new gadgets that they have and how to use them. Many of them are all too willing to assist their teachers in the classroom when they need some help. Technology does provide richness to learning. It makes learning more fun and more interesting. I think that educators need to get over their fear of technology and do whatever they have to, to become comfortable with using it in the classroom. Schools need to have a more open mind to the opportunities that technology can provide for students to learn more in a way that is meaningful and useful to them.
On Edutopia's Technology Integration website, I watched a video called "Big Thinkers: Henry Jenkins on New Media and Implications for Learning and Teaching. He talked about how schools are failing in two ways because technology is not being used as it should be because so many things are blocked from students being able to view them. For example, students were reading the book "Moby Dick" but couldn't access any web information about it from school because the title contained the word "Dick"! Students often cannot access YouTube, even though it is full of rich materials that can be used in many different ways to promote learning in the classroom. A second way that schools fail is that they don't always provide ample time for students to use technology and many students do not have access to the technology outside of the school environment. Mr. Jenkins believes that what you learn at school needs to carry over and have effect on your life outside of school, as well. Students who learn how to use the technology in meaningful ways will carry that over into their personal lives. He believes that we need to create a paradigm shift in the way that we teach everything in order to be more effective. Students and teachers need to be collaborative and work together using the technology. The support of principals and parents needs to be sought out to get everyone on the same page. Teachers can learn from their students just as the students will learn from their teachers. It is everyone's responsibility to share information with everyone else.
My goal is to eventually work with my e-board to post a "Counselor's Corner" newsletter that students and their parents will be able to access. I want to put information about what is going on in the guidance office on there, but I also want to put some specific information about various topics such as eating disorder, cutting, etc. I would love to have a blogsite that students could access and post to, but my school corporation doesn't allow that type of thing at this time. I need to talk to Mr. Bujarski, our tech guru, to see whether he thinks that type of thing will ever be a possibility or not!
This is my embedded video:
I loved the video about the Piano Stairs and they way it was titled "The Fun Theory." It made perfect sense to me that 66% more people than usual chose the stairs once the piano keys and sounds had been added. The piano keys just made it more interesting to use the stairs. I can't imagine anyone passing up the stairs when they had the opportunity to try them out. I believe that making something fun can change behavior for the better. My grandson and granddaughter go to a daycare when their moms are working. Miss Cathy used to have trouble getting the children to pick up the toys before lunch time. She started a new "game" with them and they sing the "clean up" song while they do it. It's fun, and now all the kids clean up with no problem as soon as she starts singing the song!
The third video "Pay Attention" was very interesting. The statistics alone were mind-boggling! I loved the statement, "If you're not using technology to teach, you should be." I thought to myself, "AMEN!" Our students today know so much about technology and they love to use it. They are great about explaining all the new gadgets that they have and how to use them. Many of them are all too willing to assist their teachers in the classroom when they need some help. Technology does provide richness to learning. It makes learning more fun and more interesting. I think that educators need to get over their fear of technology and do whatever they have to, to become comfortable with using it in the classroom. Schools need to have a more open mind to the opportunities that technology can provide for students to learn more in a way that is meaningful and useful to them.
On Edutopia's Technology Integration website, I watched a video called "Big Thinkers: Henry Jenkins on New Media and Implications for Learning and Teaching. He talked about how schools are failing in two ways because technology is not being used as it should be because so many things are blocked from students being able to view them. For example, students were reading the book "Moby Dick" but couldn't access any web information about it from school because the title contained the word "Dick"! Students often cannot access YouTube, even though it is full of rich materials that can be used in many different ways to promote learning in the classroom. A second way that schools fail is that they don't always provide ample time for students to use technology and many students do not have access to the technology outside of the school environment. Mr. Jenkins believes that what you learn at school needs to carry over and have effect on your life outside of school, as well. Students who learn how to use the technology in meaningful ways will carry that over into their personal lives. He believes that we need to create a paradigm shift in the way that we teach everything in order to be more effective. Students and teachers need to be collaborative and work together using the technology. The support of principals and parents needs to be sought out to get everyone on the same page. Teachers can learn from their students just as the students will learn from their teachers. It is everyone's responsibility to share information with everyone else.
My goal is to eventually work with my e-board to post a "Counselor's Corner" newsletter that students and their parents will be able to access. I want to put information about what is going on in the guidance office on there, but I also want to put some specific information about various topics such as eating disorder, cutting, etc. I would love to have a blogsite that students could access and post to, but my school corporation doesn't allow that type of thing at this time. I need to talk to Mr. Bujarski, our tech guru, to see whether he thinks that type of thing will ever be a possibility or not!
This is my embedded video:
Monday, February 8, 2010
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