Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Blog Post #6 - What did you learn?

As I reflect back upon my experience taking this class, there are many things that come to mind that I know now that I did not know before. For example, I have always known what copyright meant but I have never understood the depth and complexity of copyright laws. Learning about copyright is truly important for life in general but especially for a teacher in a classroom setting. Copyright laws can cause a lot of grief and pain to those who violate them both consciously and unconsciously. After gaining a greater understanding of the copyright laws, I learned that I have violated them many times in my life. However, I now know how to avoid breaking copyright laws and this knowledge will help me in my future career.

Another important item of knowledge that I will take away from this course is how to utilize a blog in the classroom setting. Blogs can be used to keep both parents and students updated in regards to the assignments, lessons, and activities going on in the class. Often times children forget to give their parents important handouts and documents that need to be signed or read by their parents. A blog can fix these problems by allowing the teacher to post any of these important documents online for all pupils and parents to see and access.

1. Creating a blog was helpful because this skill can truly help teachers stay in touch with parents and children and it also provides a medium for students to experience different kinds of homework other than the basic textbook assignments. One thing that wasn't as helpful was perhaps the mini projects.

2. I would definitely use a blog in my classroom in the future and I would also probably use the movie making skills we learned to not only make movies myself but to give fun movie making assignments to students who can apply what they learn in a new setting. I probably wouldn't use twitter, one of the mini projects, with my students because I think it is more of a hassle than anything.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Diigo Mini-Project

1. I learned how to highlight, bookmark, and sticky note various sources online

2. This technology could help a lot with writing research papers while searching for information on the web

3. This activity could be used to link students with historical sites, to help them write papers, and to also help them correctly site their sources.

Twitter Mini Project

1. I learned that you can follow just about anybody and stay in touch with their thoughts and actions.

2. Twitter could help me better stay in touch with my students and their parents who might be avid users of such a site.

3. Twitter could be used for student learning in that I could recommend that students follow certain hashtags that apply to the class or certain political figures and news sources such as The New York Times that would apply to any government classes I might be teaching.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Blog Post #5 - Movie Reflection

1. In creating my movie I learned that technology can be used in a positive manner to teach difficult concepts in the classroom or to show students various areas in the world that pertain to the lesson.

2. The easiest aspect of this project was choosing a topic that would be relevant to the subject I will be teaching. The hardest part of the project was uploading a movie clip to the computer and selecting the right scenes.

3. Because I will be teaching History and Government, I could use video to show the students various historical areas throughout the world that we are learning about.

4. Yes I do think I would make videos for my classroom in the future because it really makes history come alive for the students. Sometimes Government and History are dull subjects to learn about for younger students but videos can make things much more interesting and much more easy to understand.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Blog Post #4 - Storyboard


Making a storyboard for the Movie project was actually quite enjoyable. I learned a lot as I pieced together the visual plans for my movie. I used powerpoint to make my storyboard and have tried to include it in this post.











Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Blog Post #3 - Internet Safety & Copyright

Internet Safety:

I learned the importance of internet safety not only in the home but in the classroom as well. There are online predators always out there looking for any information they can use from others. I learned it is important not to just download everything available to you on the internet. Offers that seem to good to be true often are and have viruses included in them that could cause serious damage to your computer. It is also important to be cautious in giving out personal information over the internet especially one's credit card number or social security number. There are certain sites where it is safe to disclose this private information and those sites should have a symbol at the top of their web address notifying you that they are in fact safe. As educators we can help our students remain safe on the internet by installing a reliable internet filter and including a password to that filter that only we have access to. We can also link the many computers in the classroom to our own where we can view all individual screens to ensure that students are remaining on task and receive the help that they need.

Copyright:

I learned that copyright is the government protected ownership of an individual or firm over the specific product they have created. In other words, individuals with copyrights have the exclusive rights to their products and have control over how their products are used and distributed by others. However, there are some government policies in place like fair use that allow individuals to use the works of others for various purposes like education or parody. Copyleft is like the opposite of copyright as it is an effort to make privately owned works and materials free for public use. Creative commons is a lot like this principle with individuals seeking to extend the use of copyrighted material to more people. Creative commons is just like a more flexible version of copyright as it allows more people to use private works for educational purposes. I thought a fun way to teach students about copyright was the Disney movie we watched in class. However, it could also be beneficial to show students examples of individuals who might have violated copyright laws and received serious punishments for their actions. That way students are better able to recognize the gravity of copyright laws and the implications they entail.