My Musical Presentation

Alice Christie's Technology Abundance

The Doctor has an abundance of resources for teachers. I definitely would try to implement some of her technology ideas. My favorite technological advance from the website was the podcasting. Students can get additional experience and help with the video and audio feeds of podcasting. Activities can be demonstrated in ways that the student may not get in the classroom. Another idea I liked was the Instant messaging. It can be useful for certain areas of classroom learning, although I am not sure how far it would be taken. Technology offers many perspectives in learning, and Dr. Christie's website is a good resource for that.

Wikipedia a Trusting Source?

After reading the required materials, I totally understand why Wikipedia is not allowed for sources for term papers or other serious researching. I would not use it for in-depth researching anyways. But, with that said, I do use it for everyday common knowledge on certain areas of study. I used it to get basic facts for my presentation. I also used Wikipedia to verify what I already knew about the subject I was presenting. In the future, I will still use Wikipedia for its easy accesibility. To be certain though, I will double check the source and maybe look elsewhere to confirm Wikipedia's information.

Ignorance Should Not Be Acceptable

I thouroughly enjoyed the blog about teachers being technologically illiterate. I agreed with everything he said. It is a part of life, not an 'add-on'. I do think they should be held responsible and ignorance to computers in the year 2008 should not be acceptable. Principals should be held accountable for their teachers and take action and get them involved. The computer is not only a tool, it's a surviving tool in today's world. He hit the nail on the head when he finally showed the part of the blog he left out in 2006. In my opinion, I think he should have left it in his blog in 2006.

"It seemed like there was a different standard for math - not knowing math was socially acceptable." That is very true. People seemed proud of their ignorance to math. And it is rubbing off for technology as well. Our society has become concerned only with themselves, instant gratification, and the "what is in it for me" attitude. Teachers technologically illiterate should be persuaded to taking computer classes to get the basics. It is discouraging to know this is still an issue in 2008. Hopefully, this discussion will be put to rest soon.

New Article

Ms. Averitt has located two very interesting articles about RSS feeds and Podcasting. I have posted them under Syllabus and handouts, but I am going to also put the links to them here.
Alaska Website

Blogs for Young Ones

I ran across this elementary blog at the webiste Areallydifferentplace.com and it was very cool. Technology has its good and bad, and this is definitely a good. This keeps kids interested about their school, and its a smart tool for them to learn about things they wouldn't normally discuss in class. They are 6th graders and each student has their own blog. The teacher posts topics and classroom news daily. It's very neat. I wish we did this back in grade school!

The other blog I found was quite interesting. The elementary blog was from Ontario at

http://elementary.ontarioblogs.com/. The final post on the front page was a bid goodbye as their blog had come to an end. It started in 2006, but they could no longer find someone to sponser it, so they had to shut it down. Students from 4th grade to 12th grade could blog. I never realized how the online community used blogging as such an educational tool. Technology has surely evolved.