Copyright (blogpost 7)

After doing the readings for tomorrow, I feel like a lot of educators are either ignorant of copyright laws or care to ignore them. I, personally, was ignorant. I'm very glad that we took a brief detour into the world of copyrighting, so I can feel as though I'm making good decisions about "fair use" and the use of copyrighted material.


All of these copyright laws make me rather nervous. It makes me want to create everything I need and not rely on copyrighted material, which, of course, is insane. The implication this has for me as an educator is that I need to become familiar with the copyright laws and legislation so I can feel comfortable and secure when using copyrighted material in the classroom. I should not have to want to rely on my own creations (photography, for example) and take advantages of all of the resources that are out there. There are tons of websites that collect different kinds of things that can be used free and clear, like


magnatune
or creative commons


These sorts of sites should give the educator piece of mind when it comes to using resources that won't cause a stir.

udl and the power of digital media (blogpost 5b)

In our readings for this weekend, we read a chapter from an online textbook called Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age. In our two assigned chapters 3 & 4, the power of digital media was broken down into its advantages, and its implications for teachers in the classroom along with a detailed definition of UDL and how to implement it.

This reading made the advantages of digital media very clear in chapter three, even if those advantages were rather obvious at times. I found the implications for educators to be somewhat vague, and it left me wanting more. I did appreciate its attempt to encourage educators to use digital media to assist the learning of every student. The text made the reader aware of changing culture, the move away from a text driven society to a more multimedia environment, and encouraged educators to follow that change and adapt the classroom to make it a more multimedia learning environment. However, it does make me wonder if something might be lost if we more away from text and into multimedia. What does it mean to abandon text? I don't know.

I found our second reading, Why Won't More Teachers Set up a UDL Classroom, to give a good definition of UDL, and to give more concrete examples of what it means to create a UDL classroom. Her blog made it clear that educators have the responsibility to adapt their teaching and their classrooms to the individual needs of every student. To link this to the first reading, that adaptation could, and should, include the use of digital media.

I've created concept maps for the first reading, shown below.

Chapter 3 concept map




Chapter 4 concept map

stand up for standards (blogpost 6)

My content area is English, grades 9-12. The standard I choose to use this month is the following:

Producing Texts
Content Standard 2: Students will produce written, oral and visual texts to express, develop and substantiate ideas and experiences.
	a. select from the complete variety of text structures (essay, short story, poetry, academic essay, report, research paper, response to literature, documentary, etc.) the appropriate organizational pattern for addressing audience, purpose and point of view
	b. identify and use effectively the salient features of all appropriate oral, visual and written discourse
	c. determine which primary and secondary sources are appropriate to the task (research paper, fiction, school newspaper, video) and integrate and elaborate upon information effectively in the final product
	d. identify and use the most effective process for them to create and present a written, oral or visual piece
	e. maintain a multimedia portfolio which, along with providing a means for collecting their work, provides opportunities for student reflection and teacher/student dialogue regarding the students’ creative processes

This standard links to visual media with b. d. and e.. Students can use both digital manipulation and inspiration to help them (b.) identify and use visual discourse effectively, (d.) create and present a visual piece or project, and (e.) help them maintain a multimedia portfolio to allow for reflection and dialogue.

digital manipulation (blogpost 4)

Yesterday in class, we worked with photoshop, fotoflexer, or gimp, to alter photos we took of key scenes in different texts.

The scene to the left is supposed to be from Lord of the Flies, at the point where Piggy dies and Ralph is speared and runs away. I added weapons, water and a pig's head to make it a little more interesting.

How could photo manipulation enhance students' learning in the classroom? They could alter pictures to better represent their thoughts more accurately. Creating images represented in texts would help them practice visualizing techniques and give them a chance to be creative as well as analytical. It would also be a good introduction to programs that are not as easy to familiarize yourself with as Facebook or Word.

eTips concept map via Inspiration (blogpost 5a)

In class today we created concept maps with the program, inspiration. I love the idea of being able to create a normal outline, and have a program transform it into a map like the one to the left.

I can see the value in this program for students trying to plan out a paper, think through a project, or map out different elements of a story. I would love to use this particular program in mapping out one of Shakespeare's plays by breaking it down by act, scene, characters, etc.

teddy bears and the net (blogpost 3b)

The Teddy Bears Go Blogging article is a great example of integrating technology into the classroom in a real, meaningful way that enhances learning as well as understanding of technology. Blogging gave the elementary students the opportunity to communicate and learn from peers across the globe. The teacher in this story admitted that the blog format became just as easy to use as email, allowed for comment moderation, and made sharing photos simple.

I have heard that some schools do not allow teachers to use public blogs in schools because of difficulty in moderating comments and content. I wonder how wide spread this restriction is, and how educators could create a similar communicative experience from which they can learn.

Conversely, I have heard of high school teachers creating a class blog and requiring students to post a certain number of times. I wonder if 'forcing' students to participate in that way is an effective way to engage them with technology. Does it just become another mindless task? The second graders in the article seemed to love their blogs, but I wonder how much of that kind of passion/interest can be generated on the high school level. They're already so fluent in this sort of technological medium - would they be bored by it? Would it enhance their understanding of technology or of the content being taught in class? Perhaps if done right, but what is 'right'?

reflecting on the old and on the new (blogpost 2)

Technology has been a part of my life for quite a while. My family bought their first computer when I was 11 years old, and I have been on computers ever since. I become fiercely attached to my computers of the moment, until they die and are replaced.

I'd say I'm rather comfortable with technology, and I'm not scared of trying out new stuff. I use my computer for storing music and photos, personal writing projects, gaming, reading the news, working on school work, and much more. I started exploring forums when I was probably in 8^th grade, and was only really active on one forum that belonged to a band I liked. Nowadays, I’m active on facebook, and have used Flikr, Blogger, Skype, etc. to keep in touch with different people in different ways. When it comes to other technology, I am very fond of my first gaming console, an Atari, which I still have and can use if I can find an old enough T.V.

Professionally, I don’t interface with technology a ton at the moment. As an intern I do a lot of substitute teaching, so my interfacing with technology in the classroom is very limited. I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do with technology in my future classroom. Good thing I’m in an ed tech class to help me figure that out!

In my past jobs, I’ve had to use technology quite a bit. At a car rental company where I was for almost 2 years (kill me now, I hated it so much) they had a lot of different programs that one would have to adapt to rather quickly in order to survive. Also, at my first job right out of high school, I worked in a poster store with a boss who was (and still is) a professional photographer. He introduced me to a lot of information of digital photography, how to store it, how to manipulate it, etc. That was a pretty wonderful experience.

I'm excited for this course. I'm always eager to learn new ways to interact with technology on a personal and professional basis. I feel that this class will help enhance and elaborate my goals as a future educator.