ALEX

Alabama Learning Exchanges (ALEX) is a site that offers many benefits to teachers, administrators and students. It is an easy site to access because you do not have to search for the topics you need. All the information is available in one site. The site offers a course of study which is laid out by subject and grade level. All of Alabama's course standards are shown and can be used as a reference from this site. Web links are available which offer helpful sites for teachers, administrators and students. Teachers can access this site and create lesson plans or view lessons plans to use in the class. Professional learning provides development opportunities for teaching and learning tools. Educational podcasts are available for download to use in the class. ALEX was created by the Alabama department of education to provide quality for learning.

I think that ALEX is a great tool to use as a teacher. The site offers many references that can aid a teacher for the class. For example, the podcasts available could go right along with the lesson plan to help the student understand the lesson. The way the course of study was laid out will be very helpful in making sure that everything that needs to be taught is covered. The fact that it keeps you up to date with the latest news is awesome as well. This one website can be accessed to view many different subjects or topics that come to mind. It is a one stop site to use as a reference.

Dear Kaia

I enjoyed watching Kaia's photo essay and exploring the blogs. Jabiz Raisdana, Kaia's dad, believes that his daughter needs to be exposed to the outdoors. He felt guilty after he read the book, The Last Child in the Woods, because he did not feel he was allowing his daughter to explore nature. They simply went outside with their camaras and discovered the beauty of the outdoors. I thought it was creative how once they were finished they produced a photo essay. The fact that it was posted on the internet for family, but became viewed by many more amazed me. It shows how the internet works in society today.

I could not agree more with Mr. Raisdana on the importance of being outdoors. It never fails to amaze me how truly special God has made nature. There are so many things in nature that we take for granted and do not take time to acknowledge. A child can learn so much from being outdoors. I believe that children are spending too much time on video games and computers and not enough time outdoors. I know that society today is always on the go and there is just not enough time in the day. However, I truly believe that children are only young once and they need to be able to enjoy it. When I was a child I spent all my time outdoors, and still do. There is no other place I would rather be. The computer cannot give you the feeling of sitting in a tree stand and hearing the eight point buck that you've been wanting all season come strutting out right in front of you. The computer does not touch pulling in your first big fish and having the adrenaline pumping while he is fighting the line. Knowing that you set the hook and pulled him in feels amazing once you catch a glimpse of him! Nature is truly full of beauty and children should not be denied the chance to explore it.



I realize that technology has also made a positive effect in society as well. Without technology we would not be able to learn about different cultures around the world. The internet opens so many doors that allow us to learn in ways some never thought possible. Sometimes when I think about it the advancements seem overwhelming, but technology is the future and that is not changing. I believe there needs to be a line that seperates technology and the outdoors. The outdoors cannot and should not be replaced by technology. As a comment on a blog said,"There is so much to learn from the outdoors, it is a chance to view the extraordinary in the ordinary."

The New Media Literacies by the NML Staff

The New Media Literacies introduced a set of skills that everybody needs to use in society today. We are moving at a different pace in life due to technology. Forty years ago no one knew what a cell phone was, and today people can't live without them. Technology has changed tremendously over the past ten years. While I was in grade school we use to go to the library to find books to do our reports on. Now all one has to do is look up the topic on the internet and plenty of results will show. Society today is use to everything being at the push of a button. We are a fast-paced world, so we need the technology that can keep up with us.

Judgement, negotiation, appropriation, play, transmedia navigation, simulation, collective intelligence, performance, distributed cognition, visualization, and multitasking are the new media skills needed in the 21st century. These skills are useful in everyday life. I believe I possess some skills more so than others. Multitasking would be my best skill. I have always been good at multitasking. I think I get that trait from my mom, she has always been good at doing more than one thing at a time. The practice of these skills will allow me to become more familiar with them. I can relate to how these skills are useful in the world today.

The Networked Student

The Networked Student is all about using technology in his psychology class. His whole class revolves around using the computer. The teacher never lectures and there is no textbook required. The class is taught through connectivism, which is the theory that learning is part of a social network with diverse connections and ties. This process allows the student to have more control in the way they are learning. The student has the power to lead themselves in understanding the material.

The student uses google scholar to look up articles for his post. He finds an article that is worthy of a post and shares the article. He also views other blogs to learn about psychology that other people have posted. I thought it was neat that he can look up mp3's and podcasts that supported his learning and download them to his ipod. Now that they are on his ipod he can listen to the information anytime he wants. By gathering all this information, he is able to create a virtual textbook. Now, his knowledge can be shared with the rest of the world. So why does he even need a teacher? The teacher shows the student how to use the network. The teacher shows the student how to differentiate good and bad information. The student acquires skills for the 21st century.

I thought the networked student was an interesting video. However, I do not know how much I agree with what technology is coming to. I cannot imagine an eighth grader performing all of their work from the computer, and not even using a textbook. It seems to me that the computers are becoming the teachers. I do not believe that all students are going to be able to learn like the networked student. Some students need a teacher to explain and teach the information. I do not see how all students are going to be able to teach themselves on the computer. In my opinion not all students would enjoy this new form of teaching.

Richard Miller: This Is How We Dream

Richard Miller:This Is How We Dream Part 1 discusses the capability of communicating globally. Working towards making incremental changes. He discusses going on a whole different level of collaborating from the computer. The computer is the world at our fingertips. Everything you want to know can be researched on the web. Research papers can now be written without stepping into a library. Collaboration can be used through network technology with text, image, and film. Technology makes it possible to combine experiences into a document. Educators around the world can communicate learning ideas without leaving their classroom.

Richard Miller:This Is How We Dream Part 2 discusses the digital environment we live in. He lectures on the idea that all writing should be done on the computer. This process allows the writing to be there forever. We need to be able to share our work so that ideas can be gained. Ideas don't belong to us individually, but as a culture. He discusses moving to a digital composing material instead of word processor. He believes that writing is changing. The goal is to articulate dreams and share with others. Idea driven documents are needed to show the world.

Eliminating writing on paper and moving to multimedia writing does not interest me. I have always liked being able to use pen and paper instead of the computer. I understand that the computer is everything one needs to complete a paper, but I do not feel I am ready for that step. Maybe over time if it comes into effect my views will change, but for right now I am not crazy about the idea. I do not feel that students will be able to write with multimedia at first, but with practice they will become adjusted to it. If you have to adjust to a standard as part of the curriculum it is human nature that you will.

The Use of iPods

I think iPod usage in the classroom is a great step in educating students. It is a way of learning that can be used anywhere. iPods are no longer just being used for music downloads, they have taken on a more complex role...aiding in education. This link is a great site in explaining how iPods are being used in the classroom. Duke University gave out free iPods to students who enroll in the classes that require them. iPods are being used to enhance classroom materials, lectures, and assignments.

iPods are an awesome way to help students learn materials. They can become study aids for students. They can be used as a review before an exam. Having all this information available right from your iPod is amazing. Being able to have the lectures on audio will allow students to be able to listen to their iPod while they are doing other things. Having the information available on the iPod is conventient because you can take it anywhere you go. Down the road textbooks could possibly be replaced by the iPod.

iTunesU

.iTunesU

This was the first time I have ever heard anything about iTunesU. I think it is an awesome tool that can be helpful to anyone who uses it. The information is coming straight from the universities, museums, PBS stations, and cultural institutions. You can also make audio and visual content available for download and subscription. It seems simple and easy to use.

I think iTunesU can be very helpful to teachers and students. For example, a teacher can download a lecture and if the student was absent or did not understand everything taught, the student can listen to it online. There is all kinds of educational information on this site. Educational resources are available free at hand. I thought the fact that you can get information about universities on there was pretty neat. iTunesU will become more known once the word gets out about all it has to offer.

Alice Christie: Rubric

Dr.Alice Christie Teaching Class

I chose to write my blog on the effectiveness of the rubric. I was first introduced to the rubric this semester in my Education in Diverse Society class. We had to make a rubric to take into the schools to use as a guideline for events we are looking for. At first I was not into the project, but once I started composing my rubric it started to make sense to me. A rubric is a chart that can guide students in completing a task. It contains a set of criteria and descriptions to evaluate student work.

A rubric can be very helpful in the classroom. They can be used to guide students in completion of an assignment. It can act as a set of guidelines that the teacher expects. They can be used as tools to develop the students' abilities. In the classroom, a rubric can also set a clear line for achievement levels. Rubrics are not used as much in the south, however, they are becoming more popular. I think that in the future the rubric will be a more commonly used tool for teachers.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia

Can Wikipedia be trusted? I have always used Wikipedia as a source in my reports for school. I never realized that it could be altered by any individual. However, when you use more than one source the facts should be the same from source to source. Wikipedia has one-hundred times the information of a regular encyclopedia, with 85-90 percent accuracy. Therefore, any information one needs can be found there. I think it is fine to use Wikipedia, just make sure to have other sources as well to make sure the facts are correct.

The Wikipedia Scanner will be a tool used to make Wikipedia more accurate. The fact that it can trace the comments and edits on Wikipedia entries back to their source IP address is really awesome. In the future, I think Wikipedia will become more accurate now that the scanner has come along. But for now I would not trust everything that you read on there because someone could have easily went in and changed parts to it.