Friday, October 10, 2008
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Digital Storybooks
Here are my digital storybooks:
My trip to poland
voicethread
Graphs
The first digital story I made was on scrapblog.com and it is about my trip to Poland this summer. I included pictures of places that I visited and what I did while I was there. I thought scrapblog was helpful because it allowed you to pick a theme and then edit it however you would like. It was much easier than creating the entire page from scratch. I was able to drop in photos and add text with little effort. One of the limitations of scrapblog is that it takes a long time to upload pictures and I could not figure out how to slow down the pages when it plays. It does not allow enough time to view all of my pictures and text on a page. Other than that, I could see how this could be interactive for students in a classroom. Teachers could put up pictures in a creative way and add music to help make a lesson more interesting.
The second digital story I made was about graphs. I used voicethread for my second digitail story. The video is meant to be an introducation to a graph unit for middle school aged students. I thought this program was very useful because it allows you to talk in it. Typing can be time consuming sometimes and if you are able to record your voice it makes it easier. I also like the fact that you can record yourself writing and then play it for students to demonstrate an idea. This is very useful in my content area because as a math teacher I will always be demonstrating how to do problems and by using this technology I can make lesssons more interesting for my students.
The third digital story I made was the same one as the second but on a program called Animoto. I thought this program was the most user friendly of all. It was very quick in uploading photos and adding music was easy too! It also put it all together very nicely and made it look like a lot of work when it wasn't all that hard. The only downfall I saw to this program was that it only allowed me to make a 30 sec. video. I said I had to pay for a full length video. I don't think 30 seconds is sufficient for a classroom assignment all the time, so I feel that this could be a problem. Other than that, it was a great tool and I enjoyed using it.
My trip to poland
voicethread
Graphs
The first digital story I made was on scrapblog.com and it is about my trip to Poland this summer. I included pictures of places that I visited and what I did while I was there. I thought scrapblog was helpful because it allowed you to pick a theme and then edit it however you would like. It was much easier than creating the entire page from scratch. I was able to drop in photos and add text with little effort. One of the limitations of scrapblog is that it takes a long time to upload pictures and I could not figure out how to slow down the pages when it plays. It does not allow enough time to view all of my pictures and text on a page. Other than that, I could see how this could be interactive for students in a classroom. Teachers could put up pictures in a creative way and add music to help make a lesson more interesting.
The second digital story I made was about graphs. I used voicethread for my second digitail story. The video is meant to be an introducation to a graph unit for middle school aged students. I thought this program was very useful because it allows you to talk in it. Typing can be time consuming sometimes and if you are able to record your voice it makes it easier. I also like the fact that you can record yourself writing and then play it for students to demonstrate an idea. This is very useful in my content area because as a math teacher I will always be demonstrating how to do problems and by using this technology I can make lesssons more interesting for my students.
The third digital story I made was the same one as the second but on a program called Animoto. I thought this program was the most user friendly of all. It was very quick in uploading photos and adding music was easy too! It also put it all together very nicely and made it look like a lot of work when it wasn't all that hard. The only downfall I saw to this program was that it only allowed me to make a 30 sec. video. I said I had to pay for a full length video. I don't think 30 seconds is sufficient for a classroom assignment all the time, so I feel that this could be a problem. Other than that, it was a great tool and I enjoyed using it.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
How do you view the Internet's impact on kids? Do you worry about it - or not? Do you have a story to share?
While I think that the internet is very beneficial for many reasons, I do agree that the internet can impact kids negatively. To begin, the internet can be a dangerous place for children. The number of sexual predators is increasing everyday, and many children and parents are not aware of this danger. To add to this, it is very difficult for parents to monitor their children's activity on the internet. In order to do so, parents would have to have a lot of time on their hands, so that they could be constantly checking up on their kids. Children probably spend a lot more time on the internet than their parents, and for this reason they are more skilled and aware of how to go around parental controls, like the boy in the video. Another reason that the internet can be negative on the lives of children is the loss of physical activity. Children are spending a lot of time on their computers instead of playing outside and being active with their friends. I know this is true with my brother Jeffrey. When he comes home from school the first thing he does is go on the interent to check his myspace and go on aim. He can sit their for hours without getting up and then do it all over again the next day. This lack of physical activity will create an unhealthy lifestyle that can lead to many different types of diseases in the future. One other example of the negative impact of the internet is the lack of academic motivation. For example, in the video one of the students described how he would read spark notes on the interent instead of reading books and got by in school that way. Even though the interent can be very beneficial in academic achievement, it can also create for cheating and academic dishonesty.
In summary, even though I believe in the internet and how it can be an aid in learning, after watching the video I can see how many negative effects the internet is having on your youth. With the internet being such a huge part of the lives of teenagers, I believe that it is important for parents to continue to monitor their children's activity and more importantly, they need to limit the time that their children are allowed to be on the internet.
In summary, even though I believe in the internet and how it can be an aid in learning, after watching the video I can see how many negative effects the internet is having on your youth. With the internet being such a huge part of the lives of teenagers, I believe that it is important for parents to continue to monitor their children's activity and more importantly, they need to limit the time that their children are allowed to be on the internet.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Should we pay students to do well in school?
Alli: noodle55.wordpress.com
Ryan: ryebread1414.wordpress.com
Angela: angeladodge.blogspot.com
When I first heard this idea the first thought that popped into my head was "Is this for real?" I can't believe that education has turned into a money business. While I can see why some people argue for this, I on the other hand am mostly against this idea. I read Ryan, Alli and Angela's blogs this week. Ryan was the only one out of these three that thought this was a good idea. He made a good point when he argued that with this program students would have money for college and it would give them a head start in their lives. While I agree that money would help students attend college, I also believe that without the intrinsic reward of learning students will fail in the long run. If they enter the real world only knowing to work hard for money they will eventually hit a brick wall and realize they are unhappy with their lives. Alli makes a good point when she says that students need to be motivated by their mastery goals rather than their ego goals. If students only work hard to make money we are teaching them that money is more important than learning and improvement. While I realize that many people get jobs for the money, there are a lot of people who choose their career based on what they are interested in and love doing. By implementing this program into schools, these students will no longer see the value in what they are learning. They will be taught to learn so that they can make money. Education is meant to help expand the human mind and learn and grow to be prepared for the future and life decisions. We can not expect children to discover the love of learning and self-improvement on their own. We need to enforce the power of happiness and self-fulfilment in learning rather than focus on grades and rewarding students with money. Angela brings up the fact that the money that students would be receiving for good grades would probably come from the taxes of citizens. I know that this would make me very unhappy as a United States citizen to know that I was supporting this cause. I really hope that this new policy does not become popular in schools today. In my opinion, we need to go back to the rewards of learning, self-fulfilment and the main purposes of education.
Ryan: ryebread1414.wordpress.com
Angela: angeladodge.blogspot.com
When I first heard this idea the first thought that popped into my head was "Is this for real?" I can't believe that education has turned into a money business. While I can see why some people argue for this, I on the other hand am mostly against this idea. I read Ryan, Alli and Angela's blogs this week. Ryan was the only one out of these three that thought this was a good idea. He made a good point when he argued that with this program students would have money for college and it would give them a head start in their lives. While I agree that money would help students attend college, I also believe that without the intrinsic reward of learning students will fail in the long run. If they enter the real world only knowing to work hard for money they will eventually hit a brick wall and realize they are unhappy with their lives. Alli makes a good point when she says that students need to be motivated by their mastery goals rather than their ego goals. If students only work hard to make money we are teaching them that money is more important than learning and improvement. While I realize that many people get jobs for the money, there are a lot of people who choose their career based on what they are interested in and love doing. By implementing this program into schools, these students will no longer see the value in what they are learning. They will be taught to learn so that they can make money. Education is meant to help expand the human mind and learn and grow to be prepared for the future and life decisions. We can not expect children to discover the love of learning and self-improvement on their own. We need to enforce the power of happiness and self-fulfilment in learning rather than focus on grades and rewarding students with money. Angela brings up the fact that the money that students would be receiving for good grades would probably come from the taxes of citizens. I know that this would make me very unhappy as a United States citizen to know that I was supporting this cause. I really hope that this new policy does not become popular in schools today. In my opinion, we need to go back to the rewards of learning, self-fulfilment and the main purposes of education.
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