TED.com

I just watched 2 videos on TED.com. I'm still sort of unsure as to what this site is about, but the more I explore it, the more I will learn about it.  So far TED.com seems like a site that shows videos (like YouTube). However, this site is not filled with random thing people post about themselves. It is filled, instead, with videos about topics that are currently relevant in the world of technology.

The first video I saw was about a comedic robot. He had a list in his 'head" of thousands of jokes, theses funnies are categorized into topics so he can tell jokes in sequence that relate to each other. He can learn about you, the more you listen to him. Like other "learning" programs, he can take what you find funny (based upon your reactions to previous jokes) and then prepare his routine based upon your interests. At first I thought this was great! A funny robot, that can learn my sense of humor and tell me jokes that I would enjoy listening to, what could be better? In reality it is pretty cool, however for my taste, I prefer listening to human beings. I think Society relies too heavily on artificial technology, and then we wonder why we have no jobs. A comedian robot certainly won't be taking over for the Saturday Night Live cast anytime soon, but other people have been ousted by quicker, easier and cheaper so much so that people's jobs are being outsourced to robots. Every robot movie I have ever seem (I realize that movies and TV are completely unrealistic) has some sort of Dooms-Day even connected to it. Robots eventually "out thinking" people and so then they take over Earth and eradicate us lowly humans. This is unfair because the robot in the video only told jokes, but my theory is that the eventual robot apocalypse has to start somewhere, why not with a comedian? My feelings are that we need to back off building robots and spend the time and money cleaning up and caring for our planet and fellow humans who are sick and starving first.

The second video I watched was more on par with helping our fellow mankind rather that building a new type of "living" creature. This video featured a woman who is (or was) a governor of one of the United States. Her idea was to create jobs and help the environments as well. These jobs would consist of creating renewable energy sources and hire people to tap into each state's specific assets. What does each state have to offer (wind, sun, water, etc.) to create this renewable energy source? I love this idea, we need jobs and we need to help our planet, so why not do it at the same time? This reminded me of the story I had heard of the CCC (conservation, corporation, something). This organization, created a long time ago was deigned to clearing out forests to preserve them into parks, and other ways that they could help this world (and our community). This new program would offer a great solution for two great problems.

Moodle: advantages and disadvantages

Moodle. It's a funny word to say, but I am learning what a useful tool it can be when it comes to distance learning. Moodle is a tool that we use in our class. We are each creating our own specific class and adding resources to it to teach the lessons we want our participants to learn. As I am creating my Moodle, I am finding some aspects that I think are beneficial and some that are not.

The first advantage of the Moodle, for me at least, is its ease of use. I have not had any problems navigating it, adding resources, creating and uploading documents to it. The icons representing each action are clear and easy to understand. I can manipulate the materials which I have added by, for example, changing their order, making them visible or not, or by adding or taking away assignments. It is easy for a novice to edit their course to make it fit their needs and those of their students'. The tools that the Moodle provides are clear and simple, and for me that is its biggest benefit.

On the other hand, Moodle is not perfect. It does have some features that are disadvantageous. The first one, which luckily enough Dr. Sponder taught us a way to overcome, is the lack of a menu. As our own course, EDT 532, progressed, it got to be a pain in the neck to scroll up and down to find the section you wanted to be on. Sometimes I would scroll past it, miss it and have to start scrolling back up again. For me it was confusing because I want to be looking for, for example, this week's homework, but I will pass it.

Other than the lack of easily created menu, my biggest problem has nothing, specifically, to do with the Moodle. I am having difficulty changing my mindset from teaching children in person to teaching adults from a distance. However, I do think I am making progress in that area.

All in all, Moodle is a good program when it comes to creating online courses. I find it easy to naivigate and it is not hard to figure out how to add resources or make changes as you feel necessary. The biggest challenge with Moodle was that I was having to scroll down to find each specific lesson, but that has changed now that Dr. Sponder showed us how to create a menu. I just wish the menu was easier to figure out. I know I would not have been able to figure it out on my own.

Least Comfortable Topics in Educational Technology

I'm having a great time in the Educational Technology program. There are many aspects of this field that I have enjoyed and found helpful and useful. There are also some aspects that I am less comfortable with. One of those ideas is Distance Learning, another is ScreenCasts and other recording programs.

I realize that I am taking an entire course focused on Distance Learning, but it is still hard for me. The mind set of it is what I struggle with. I cannot see it being possible for preschoolers to participate in this field. I've been working with this age for about 5 years now, and have very much come to appreciate this particular age level. I earned my Bachelor's in Early Childhood Education and that is just where I feel most comfortable with. One of the aspects I enjoy most is that these children learn so much, so fast, especially because it is all hands on. For example, when teaching the alphabet, we can read books, write the letters (using pencils or in various sensory materials / textures), we can sing songs and practice  the sounds, create craft projects, etc. The list is almost endless, except when it comes to Distance Learning. I can't teach my kids if they do not come to school. Yes, I let them use the computer, we go online to look at pictures or various child-friendly websites, they play educational games, but I could not imagine doing the types of things that we talk about in class with my students. The struggle for me is to get out of the "preschool, hands-on" mindset and flip over to the "adult, far away" mindset.

My other concerns are with ScreenCasts and other recording programs. I have used ScreenCasts a few times for a class, but I did not feel very comfortable with it. For one thing (which I know is a personal issue) it felt weird talking to an audience that was not there. While recording ScreenCasts, I demonstrated a topic on the computer screen while simultaneously describing my actions. In my job, when we verbalize what we are doing we call it Mapping. That has always been a weak spot for me. I just feel kinda weird narrating my actions. I realize this is a useful skill because it helps my children to learn new vocabulary (in context) and I am modeling proper speech as well as explaining how to perform an action properly. However useful that is, i still struggle with talking out loud with what i am doing. This is why I have a hard time with ScreenCast, because I do not like to talk out loud about what I am doing. To me, it is obvious what I am doing, I know for other people it is not obvious, but I still don't enjoy hearing myself talk out loud (especially when no body else is around, like while recording ScreenCasts)

Both of these issue are personal issues that I am working on. I am extremely glad for the opportunity to gain new knowledge (especially in a field I am interested in) and I do feel like I have made improvements, slowly but surely. I just need to keep plugging away, and broaden my horizons.

Instructional Websites

My best instructional websites are http://www.first-school.ws and http://atozteacherstuff.com. these two websites are very useful for me. I do not use websites with my students, I used to use youTube, but that has since been blocked, so now I mainly just use the internet to help me find ideas when I am not feeling creative. these tow sites have a lot of material that I find helpful. They provide ideas and resources as well as links to other sites.

The thing I like best about First School is that it has many different activities that I could use within a specific topic. For example this year, we are starting to teach a letter a week. This can be more difficult than it would seem because some letters are easier to teach than others. A is pretty easy because its the first letter of the alphabet and many children have the letter A in their name, on the other hand Q is more difficult because it is not as common and there are less words that are familiar to the students that begin with or even contain a Q. Like I said, First School offers many activities and resources regardless of the letter or topic. This site does not only offer letter related ideas but has many broad themes that can be taught in a variety of settings using easily obtained materials. It offers ides for Fairy tales, Environmental sciences, Human Body, Community Helpers, etc. Sometimes I get stuck when it comes to thinking up new projects for the kids to participate in and First School offers a wide variety print outs, craft ideas, and links to related topics (within their website and external sites as well). Another way that First School is useful is because the themes are age related, I don't have to modify it to work with preschoolers. Many other sites offer good ideas, but I would have to change, which i don't mind doing, but sometimes it is easier to not have to reinvent everything.

A to Z is another website that I use when looking for ideas or resources to use in my classroom. This too, has many topic ideas which is never a bad thing. This site even offers book related themes for popular stories such as "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" by Eric Carle and "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" by Bill Martin Jr, John Archambault and Lois Ehlert as well as broader categories such as Character Education. This website offers links to other sites that have the topic you are interested in. It is like a search engine for preschool themes. Other benefits of A to Z is that it not only gives you resource for within the classroom to use with the student, it also has a page where you can look up articles related to important topics within the educational world. This site offers quick tips and tricks for topics such as Meal Count, Attention Getters, Classroom Decor. There are many useful aspects of this page that I use with the students and on my own. I highly suggest any teacher look here for ideas because while First School was aimed at preschoolers, A to Z is for anyone working in th educational field.

Best Experiences with Educational Technology

Technology is fun. I enjoy using my computer and other devises for personal use. I'm really excited to be in this program learning about different ways to incorporate technology into my professional life. I have had several great experiences with technology in my classroom. One of them being using google images to look up pictures of insects for my students, another was recording my students to make a video for my 522 class.

Over the summer, my class did a month long unit on insects. We read several Eric Carle books with insects for main characters. We read non-fiction books as well, but my students did not find those as interesting. In our Discovery center I added large, realistic looking insects and magnifying glasses for the children to explore. Two of my students were playing with the insects, and came up to me to ask what kind of insect they were. I knew what some of them were, for example the moth, and the lady bug, but I was not sure of the rest. To figure out this problem, we decided to look up types of beetles (I know enough to recognize that most of them were types of beetle) on google.com. We looked at the pictures and found some that closely resembled our insect toys. Several more of my students came over to watch and explore. I was so happy that my students were interested and excited about learning about this topic, and the fact that I could help find answers to their questions with them there. I think this teaches them that the world is at their fingertips. There is no question that cannot be answered, it's just a matter of looking.

Another great experience was last semester. I had to create a video for the 522 class. I knew that topic was going to be about inclined planes, and I had a lesson in mind to do with my students. The problem was that it is a difficult idea to get across to preschoolers, so I wanted to make it fun for them and also wanted to make use technology to help motivate students to focus and pay attention. I decided to record this lesson. I had a talk with the students before hand that I was going to use a camera to make a video about them. They needed to use their best listening ears and quiet voices so they can be in my video. The students were so excited! When it came time to actually do the lesson and record the class, they did a nice job. Many of them did show what good listeners they can be. I think the video camera was a good motivational tool to help the students focus more. I also think they liked the idea of being in a video!

Technology has many great benefits in the classroom. These two examples were my best experiences using different resources with my students. I liked it because it got my students excited about learning. This is something every educator struggles with, and I am glad to say on these two accessions my students were eager and interested in the topic at hand, thanks to the technological resources that I had available.

Best Instructional Resources

In my job, as a preschool teachers there are many resources I use. The biggest resources I have are (1) my imagination, (2) fellow co-workers and (3) the internet. I realize this does not fulfill the requirements for this blog about technology resources, but I figured I throw the first two out there anyway. After all, what kind of teacher doesn't consider their imagination as a resource? Or the other co-workers who have tried different ideas or who have been around longer?

Back to the topic, resource #3 is one of the biggest helps. When I'm tired and my brain just can't think of any new ideas or my co-workers are busy, I go straight to the internet. I realize that the internet is incredibly huge, so I will narrow down to my 3 favorite sites. Definitely, Google.com would be the first site I go to when I'm stuck. I type in my idea and Google brings my a list of sites that might help me. For example, this year my co-teacher and I have been doing a Letter of the Week theme. It's not always easy thinking of books and ideas related to specific letters. We read books that start with the Letter of the Week, we do activities relating to said letter (stamping for letter S, jellybeans for letter J, etc.). I do not have a list of pre-school appropriate books and ideas in my head, so usually I go to Google for help.

The next site I usually always go to is AtoZTeacherStuff.com. This site offers ideas for themes, and resources within those themes. I find it useful because when Do quick themes (within the Letter of the Week - for example O is for Ocean) this site offers different activities I can do with my students to help them better understand that theme. I like this site because the topics aren't too complicated, they can be manipulated to work on the pre-school level. At the very least, this site just gives me ideas as what I can teach my students.

Pre-kpages.com is site that I find useful as well. The reason I like this page is because it offers ideas on not only what to teach, but also how to teach. I really like the fact that it offers ideas on how to set up the classroom. When I first started this job, I didn't quite know what to expect. This site helped me with things that I now realize are obvious. Classroom set up and organization are essential, and pre-kpages.com helped me figure find ideas on how to better manage my classroom.

To summarize, I find the internet a wonderful tool. I often visit Google.com, AtoZTeacherstuff.com and Pre-KPages.com, for tips and ideas. Other than that I rely very heavily on my imagination and the imagination's of my co-workers.

Most pressing issue you see in educational technology today

The way I see it, there are many pressing issues concerning educational technology. Some of those topics include the lack of funding, lack of knowledge as to what is available and teachers not knowing how to use that which is available.  

In our current economic situation many schools are cutting "non-essential" programs such as art and music. My thinking is that if there is not enough money to pay for these wonderful subjects, then how are schools going to afford SMART Boards, computers, video cameras, photo editing software and other programs? Our job, as educators is to teach our children. But the question is, what do we teach them? Are we teaching them to take test, or are we teaching them life skills? We need to be teaching them how to read, write and think creatively and independently. We should be teaching them to be well-rounded individuals, and to do that they need to be exposed to as much as we possibly can. Technology is included in that. Educators can offer students a world of new techniques using a variety of programs such as Adobe Flash, Audacity, iMovie, etc. This is an important issue because these programs are not always available to use, because there is not always enough money for them.

My next concerns can be combined into one issue. Teachers do not know what technological advances are available  to use, and even if they did, they wouldn't know how to use that program in their classroom.  In my specific field many of my co-workers are computer illiterate. They do not even know how to use Microsoft Word or even how to check their emails. Over the past few years they have been "forced" to get to know it because our lesson plans are required to be typed and sent electronically to the Ed Coordinator.  This is one small step in the direction of teaching educators to become more technologically friendly, but it is just a very tiny step. Technology moves so fast and there are so many different programs and devices available that it is difficult for "newcomers" to keep up with it. Just as soon as you feel comfortable with one program, it becomes obsolete. To many people this is frustrating. I feel like one possible idea might be to expose educator to new programs and other technological options during a yearly in-service time. That way the teachers would at least be aware that this option is available to try in the classroom. Things that are more familiar are less scary, and therefore more likely to be availed of.