My Adventures in Technology

These past few days I have been focusing on improving my blog and course wiki. I have been adding pictures and links. This has been much easier than I had anticipated. Today I also listened to my first podcast - The EdTech Posse 5.3 from Winston's Pub. I really enjoyed it. It was as if I was sitting right there at the table listening to the conversation. (It probably helps that I have been to Winston's a time or two so it was easy to imagine the setting). I learned a lot so I will likely listen to more podcasts in the future.

P.S. I cannot wait to have an excuse and a little time to try out Skype.

March 30 - Media

I watched the TeacherTube video Pay Attention. Here is the link:
http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=40c570a322f1b0b65909 .
This video really had an impact on me. Students are growing up in a different world than I did. I am 28 years old and like to consider myself "current", but in many ways I am not. I have previously thought that the way I learned was the "right" way. It now seems apparent that some of those ways need to be discarded if I truly want to engage students. Technology is here to stay and nothing I do in my classroom is going to change that. If I do not want to be left behind I will have to embrace technology.

March 29 - Media

I just watched the video The Machine is Us/ing Us http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g. In the first scene someone is writing and erasing with a paper and pencil. They are trying to edit their writing and re-arrange words. I could not help but think they should be using a computer. Then I started thinking of how often I have students write out assignments by hand. The inefficiency of it struck me at that moment. Unfortunately a computer is not available for every student at all times but in the future I believe it will be. The video went on to show that a computer is so much more than just a word processor. The Internet is more than just a research tool. Technology links us together as citizens of the world. By collaborating on-line we will redefine the world. This is web 2.0.

My Adventures in Technology

I continue to have a love hate relationship with technology. I am learning more about Twitter. My husband set up Tweetdeck on my computer which is neat. It really helps manage my Twitter account. When I was on Twitter Alec emailed a u-stream video link and I got to watch his experience at Chuck E. Cheese which was very funny. I continued to work on my digital project using Wikispaces. It really went well yesterday, but today I ran into a few problems. I somehow started redirecting pages and ended up losing some information and had to delete some pages. Then I started accidentally combining links. After some time I solved my problem by redoing some work. I know all of these problems are operator errors but they still frustrate me.

P.S. Tweetdeck is like an intercom system in our house. My husband works on his paper downstairs while I work on mine upstairs. If we need to talk while we are working we just Twitter back and forth.

P.P.S. I helped my husband set up his wiki and was amazed that he was teaching me things about the program only minutes later. He showed me how to customize the text and link videos.

March 28 - Twitter Video

I was reading my husband's blog and watched an excellent video about Twitter he had found on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN2HAroA12w. It is called Twouble with Twitters. It is hilarious and right on the money when it describes people's addiction to social networking sights like Twitter (or Facebook). Some people are obsessed with having people know what they are doing at all times via status updating. These sights seem to bring out people's exhibitionist side. I thought it was funny when Craig, the character in the video, stated that he did not care what other people were doing he just wanted everyone else to know what he was doing. In my case I am also curious about what other people are doing, although I really cannot explain why. Perhaps I am a lurker after all. For the most part, the people on my social networking accounts are not really close friends, rather they are just acquaintances. How trivial I have made these sites. Oh well, as the video shows, I am definitely not alone.

My Adventures in Technology

I am currently working on my digital project, which is developing a course wiki for the grade 5 health unit nutrition. Wikispaces is a fairly user friendly sight. I find it easy to edit and I have successfully incorporated many links to my page. What I appreciate most about this project is that I am actually going to use it in my classroom. Many times throughout this Masters course I have found projects interesting but wondered how I would incorporate them into my teaching. I really believe that my students are going to enjoy this wiki. Using it will also help me incorporate technology into my unit in a meaningful way. I am going to get the students to develop their own blogs to complete a variety of assignments. Here is a link to my wiki http://gradefivenutrition.wikispaces.com/. Keep in mind it is a work in progress.

March 24 Lecture

We watched the EdTech Talk program Women and Web 2.0. Frankly, it made me appreciate our weekly sessions with Dr. Couros. To begin with it took me over ten minutes to get sound. Once we could hear the discussion the amount of information that was presented was overwhelming. There were so many links popping up that after one or two we decided to give up on following them and just listen to the dialogue. The main speaker Jackie Gerstein seemed quite arrogant and I found her "expertise" in every area a little irritating. I appreciate that I learned about a new way of Internet communication but I prefer our Tuesday Illuminate sessions.