Save Our Music

Hello everyone! I have just finish creating my very own movie. I would like to share it with you. I think you will find it both educational and fun. Click on the link below and sit back and enjoy. I hope you all have had as much fun as I did with this assignment!
www.xtranormal.com/watch/6834701

Technolgy and Education

I often wonder if we are losing our ability to relate to other human beings because of some technology. I do feel that we are relying more and more on technology to help educate us. As a future educator I have learned to be very careful about what technology to use to educate students. I feel that we have moved away from general education. The video Do Schools Kill Creativity speaks volumes. I feel we are teaching our children to do away with their creativity. There is no right or wrong way to incorporate technology in the classrooms but we have to be very careful on how we do it. The quality of a classroom will depends on the quality of the teacher and not the presence of the technology. The purpose of education is the window to our imagination and our curiosity into the unknown while enhancing our creativity. Technology should be used as a tool to promote learning not to become depending upon it. Sir Ken Robinson also touched on the subject of diagnosing our children with ADHD and medicating them to calm them down. A child not being able to sit still for a long period of time is nothing new to classrooms. I think that the medical and pharmaceutical communities are to eager too medicate what I think is just a child trying to be creative and figure out who they are. I do understand with the classrooms being overcrowded it is a challenge to deal with children who are more active than others. I am not against medication but I do wonder are we diagnoising and medicating our children too soon.

Podcast

I enjoyed listening to some of the podcast. I took a class last spring online and had a difficult time passing tests because there was so much material to read and I could not get an idea on what material was going to be on the test. Once the teacher decided to put the lectures from his classroom on online I was able to pass the test after failing two of them before the instructor put the podcast online. That was when I discovered that I learn at my best by listening along with some visual. If you think about it before there was tv we had radio and people found listening educational and entertaining. A number of professors are now recording their lectures and using podcast as an educational tool. I like it because how many of us have missed class and relyed on classmates to relate the lecture? With podcast you have the oppurtunity to go and listen to the lecture and take notes. Being an old schooler podcast is one of the technologies that I have been able to embrace.

Wanted: Creative Kids

The three videos were very enlightening for me. I have always felt that our education system needed some improvement but I did not know how it could be improved. The Creating Design In The Making video with Sir Ken Robinson was a real eye opener for me. This was my favorite video out of the three although all of them were informative. I am one of those who is guilty for thinking creativity and intelligence were the same thing. Can you imagine what the world would be if we had not had those before us that was allowed creativity?

Mind Mapping

Let me start by saying that this assignment was very challenging for me at first. I like doing things the old fashion way. I like the idea of putting your thoughts down on paper in an organized way. This does seem to make life a little bit easier. Our ability to process and manage information can be the difference between success and failure.I chose the subject Taiwan because I hope to visit there some day. I learned some interesting things about Taiwan and by mind mapping the subject I was able to organize the research I had done. I was able to put my thoughts on paper and plan a vacation at the same time. The digital mind map was a little complicated at first but it all made sense as I started to complete it. There is no right or wrong way to do a mind map they are just your thoughts taken from your mind and made visual. The benefits of mind mapping is: (1) Plan and organize things (2) Decision making (3) Problem solving (4) Prepare and deliver presentations (5) Use as a learning tool.

Designing for Learners

There has been a lot of research done on how people learn. Learning is greater when a person sees the potential benefits from the subject. Effective teaching means creating an effective environment where students are actively participating and is engaged in the material are critical to a students learning. Many teachers tend to teach to their learning style which puts most students at a disadvantage. All teachers should incorporate different strategies to get their students to learn at their highest potential. Some examples could be role playing, case studies, debates and group work as we did with module four learning. Good teachers create learning tasks appropriate to the student's level of understanding so some of these strategies works well for different age groups and this is why it is important for a teacher to know her audience. Teachers should not only set goals for thier students but also for themselves. When goals are set and the teacher sees that the goals are not being met it is then when they can revise the teaching and learning strategy. As one of my group members stated a teachers professional dress gives off a professional vibe. When you look the the part students students will have more respect for their teacher and is more willing to respect their authority. Students need a chance to build up a confidence in an instructor's grading and having a rubric for each assignment the student will know what to expect. These are just a few things that my group members and myself discussed as we designed a better learning environment.

Blogging and Twittering

Blogging and twittering can be used effectively to help with learning and also assist in teaching. I do feel that blogging is more beneficial than twittering. Very few things can be taught or learned from twittering because you are limited to only 140 characters. Twittering was designed to keep up with what someone is doing during through out the day. Blogging is more beneficial because you are not limited to what you want to say. Teachers can use blogging as a way of stay connected with his/her students outside the classroom. As we have done with this class blogging and twittering has become a part of our class and it has been beneficial to my learning.