Online Video Resources for Educators

I checked out the open source music website. I really like the fact some of the artists include their websites where you can access additional information about them. What I wonder is if you use additional music form their websites are they open source as well? The songs once, chosen open automatically into windows media player.
The website provides additional resources in relationship to music; talks, your own participation and more. All the music that is available through this website is categorized by several categories which includes genre etc. I want to explore this website further once back at my school district to see that students can access the website. If they can it would be a great benefit for their future projects in order to keep in compliance with copyright and fair use.
If teachers have the access at their individual school districts they will be able to utilize easily the music for multiple projects. This would really provide teachers ways to create projects for classroom use without having to worry about copyright infringement.
Pros VS Cons: Easy to use and allows for teachers to freely use the music to create without worry of copyright infringement. The only con I see is that it’s not geared just for teachers or the education system. It would be great if there were categories that are focused on educational use. For example a patriotic category, young children appropriate category etc.

A day in the life of a 21st century teacher

A day in the life of a 21st classroom as a teacher

This teacher will be a facilitator of students learning skills and knowledge. Each student has their own wireless laptop which they enter the classroom with. As class starts all students have logged into their laptops and accessed the class website for the day’s lesson. Each student is able to work at their own pace, guided by a web quest with the tasks needed to be completed utilizing rubrics as they work as well as internet sources. The teacher is able to monitor student computer activity through her own computer. The teacher is able to roam among the students helping those who need it. As students complete their lesson’s tasks they submit them online to the teacher’s inbox for grading, as well as to their peers for peer review. There are very few books, paper or pencils in the classroom, although there is an interactive white board and projection station.
Since students are able to complete their work at their own pace their daily schedule is completely dependent upon their speed of completing their lessons. Each student’s school day is different for some they may only be at school for a couple of hours and other may be there all day. Some students work at such rates that they are able to graduate high school in a much faster time frame than other students and move on to college courses. Students are able to pick and choose from a huge choice of courses to take in order to earn their high school diploma. As the teacher, she is merely a facilitator, guider of skills and knowledge that is present for students aid.

Technology policy

The Renton school district technology policy is rather broad in what is written referring mainly to the use of technology to be for educational purposes only. This is a duh! What I have found is that to log into our school computers we have to agree to a user agreement every single time we log in. This seems a bit much. Over the spring break the schools were updated resulting in more censorship of Internet use within the school district computer. This has already resulted in issues for teachers who are trying to incorporate technology use into their classroom. For me I had a unit I had designed using Internet resources to look up real world data to complete math problems. Now students are unable to access the sites needed that before the upgrade they were able to access. Many of us feel that the school district is hindering our teaching especially the technology specific classrooms. It's a god syndrome, to control everything not allowing the teachers to monitor technology inn their classrooms. I for one am very irritated at how restricted it has become, when our students need to be technology educated for the future.

Visual Learning

Visual Learning is the best form of learning for students in today’s world. Everything around them is visual; technology continues to grow incorporating more and more visuals. In the article the author discusses the importance of incorporating more visual learning for today’s students. I used to be that photography was more of a record documentary and journalistic form, now everyone seems to either have a camera phone or digital camera. It only makes sense to incorporate photography more into student learning. The author stated how we use 30% of our brain to process imagery, if we use so much of our brain in such a way it seems that would be a good thing to tap into in regards to learning. Students tend to remember, learn better when what they are learning has visual representations associated with them. As a photographer myself I am a very visual person and would like to incorporate visual learning more in my classroom. I have noticed that students pay more attention, and recall information more when what they are learning is connected to visuals. When I have asked them to complete assignments with visuals they are much more apt to complete the assignments than ones that do not ask for visuals.
I completely agree with the articles author, that we as teachers need to teach our students question what they see on the World Wide Web. To use those questions to assess what they are viewing. I see this as potentially a great learning tool for my students. To not just look at images that are bombarding them on the web and all around them in their lives but to evaluate the importance of what they are seeing. I can see this as a tool for any classroom to incorporate into the learning process. I will be utilizing this particle article for planning future lessons for my classroom as well as sharing it with colleagues.

Action Research in schools!

One of my favorite instructors had a quote “In education we often mistake motion for movement"

I both understand and believe this statement. You can not assume that by purely physically moving that that means there have been changes made. As teachers our union may ask for a motion to be made (in other words vote for something) yet this alone does not create movement, it is one of many steps towards movement.In light of Action Research does this make sense to you?

It’s has been proven, action research works the article is one example of the success that can come from it. As teachers we constantly evaluate how, what and why we teach what we teach. We may not evaluate to the level of an action research. Maybe the question is that we should be. It would be great if we could do action research every year in order to positively affect student learning. Is it reasonable to do? That would depend on how much time it takes, how many are involved and how much you focus on. For my teaching this would be very time consuming to do every year. I teach three subjects to ninth through twelfth graders. The population is very transient so it would probably work best to focus on one small area to study over as short of time frame as possible. For other teachers it could be much easier for them to put into action their action research.
I find at times, overwhelmed with the amount of work I already have on my plate. Being a special education teacher action research could really benefit my teaching. Yet I feel as though I don’t have enough time to do everything and through an action research into the mix. Maybe in a couple of years I will have things flowing smoother in my teaching I could work action research into the mix.
There definitely is a place a benefit to both the students and the teacher when action research can be done. In some ways, our school has had outside agencies do the research for us as teachers to do the action. For instance we have been working on reading improvement. The Berc group completed the research to show where our reading needs are. We made the plans and have started putting them into action. Our school district has results from the Berc group that has started the district on plans for action.

Digital Ethics to teach or not to teach?

I think we tend to forget about ethics when we are using the internet. Yet we can’t completely forget or it could really cause a lot of problems. Since I am a photographer and not just a teacher I think about photos on the internet and misuses of copyright all the time. I haven’t put very many photos on the internet because I worry that someone would misuse the photo not following proper ethics. This article really makes a point that we need to pay attention to what is proper ethics when using the internet. As teachers we need to do our best to check student work that they are following proper ethics.
Is it the teachers’ responsibility to teacher digital ethics? I believe it is partly the schools responsibility as well as the parents to teach students proper ethics. This is a topic that I have been thinking about. Our school should have a beginning computer/technology course that all freshmen should be required to take. In that course ethics could be addressed. This way, students would get the basics technology skills that they would need for the rest of high school and life. As it is now it is hard for all teachers to stop what they are teaching in order to focus on ethics. This really can slow down the learning process when teachers have to stop students to make sure there are using proper technology ethics.
Is it important that students have digital ethics? Why?
Yes, students need to have proper digital ethics. They will need these skills for the rest of their lives. They need to have the right ethics now so that they don’t get themselves in trouble later. I would hate to hear that a former student has been jailed or sued etc because they broke digital ethics.

Web Publishing

I chose to create a webquest "a short story review".

http://sites.google.com/site/milnerssite/

At first I created the webquest using Zunal.com. Zunal really made it an easy process for a beginner in creating webquesting. What I found is that Zunal requires you to use their rubric as an evaluation tool. They do not allow for different font or size of font. As a result I switched over to google sites and created my webquest there. This allowed for more creativity, change in font style, size etc.
I picked a topic where students were asked to write short story reviews as a reporter for the Renton Reporter. They will explore the qualities are for good short stories, what a column looks like, and what needs to be included in a reivew of a story. This assignment hopefully will be a way to keep students engaged in their class work, where they can use technology to guide their learning. I have noticed that they stay more focused on their work when using the laptops to complete class work. So this should be a great way to get them to do their writing and stay engaged.

Best of web 2.0 in Education:

http://www.graspr.com/
this site is very interesting how they provide how to videos that can be viewed online. What makes it different from other sites where you would view videos such as you tube, is that it allows you to take notes about the video while watching. You are required to sign in order to take notes. Viewing the video without taking notes can be done without having to sign in. I think I will try a lesson with my students. Having them watch a video and take notes while watching. This could engage them in learning while they work on note taking skills. Not all of the videos are available to take notes while watching directly from the website graspar. Some of them require that you go to that persons website. The website has a search box so that you can search for the how to video that you are most interested in. I can see man possibilities for using this site in the classroom!