Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Response to Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture


In watching Randy’s video he noted three things, childhood dreams, enabling childhood dreams of others, and lessons learned. This was a very interesting video to watch and learn about. I was not too thrilled about the time length but it flew by due to the interest I had in it. I will discuss his topics in the next three paragraphs.

The first thing he talked about was his childhood dreams. He set them at a young age and was determine to achieve all of them.

1. Being in Zero Gravity-achieved
2. Playing in NFL-never achieved, but he learned a lot from this goal
3. Being a Author in World Encyclopedia-achieved
4. Meeting Captain Kirk-achieved
5. Winning Stuff Animals-achieved
6. Being an Imagineer at Disney-achieved
He achieved all but one goal. That is great for him to have done so, but it took a lot of work and dedication of him to achieve the goals. He got to experience zero gravity in the Comet Vomit with a team he created. He learned a lot from playing football that “Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted”. The encyclopedia did approve him as an author. He did get to meet Captain Kirk because he built a virtual reality center for Star Trek. He won lots of stuffed animals and even had pictures to prove it. He went through a hard time to actually become an imagineer at Disney, but he accomplished that goal as well. After he got to work on the Aladdin Virtual Reality, Disney wanted him to stay and he refused to work full-time, but he did help them for ten years.

The second thing he talked about was enabling the childhood dreams of others. He wanted it to be possible for others to achieve their dreams just as he did. He worked really hard to establish programs that would allow students to achieve their dreams. He created a course named Virtual Worlds. This allowed 50 student each semester to build their own virtual world and their work blew him away. The course was very popular and he had parents and other students coming to class to see what was going on. After creating that course, he created the Dream Fulfillment Factory. This allowed students to enter the Entertainment Technology Center. They could achieve a master’s degree with this program. It was referred to as Edutainment. It was video technology to teach the students and the students had written agreements to be hired before they graduated. He believed that this allowed the students to chase their dreams. Some of the students are the creators of popular video games and some movies.

The third thing he talked about was lessons learned. He looked at the roles of parents, mentors, and students. He learned from teachers, mentors, colleagues, and friends. He noted to respect authority but sometimes question it. He wants everyone to decide whether they are a Tigger or Eeyore. He noted that he is a Tigger. He noted to help others and loyalty is a two way street. Lessons he learned included never giving up, get people to help you, don’t bail, and brick walls are there to show your dedication. He also noted to do the right thing and good will come back, use feedback, show gratitude, don’t complain, just work hard, be prepared, and find the good in people.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Response to "180 Days"

When I returned to the "Best(?) of the Fischbowl 2007", I found a blog title named "180 Days". I guess being a math major numbers catch my eye. So I clicked on the link to find out that teachers/schools waste time during 180 days of the school year. Barry Bachenheimer showed the "Did you know?" video to his students and this prompted him to find out why there is not enough time to learn/teach about all of the new technology. He posted a presentation about wasted time and Karl Fisch decided that he agreed with Barry. Karl recreated Barry's power point presentation (with Barry's permission) that lists what schools do that waste time. The time that the teacher/school waste was counted in days. Some of the things that Karl said wasted days were tests, final exams, standardized testing, days before major vacations, and students and teachers being absent. There were many other things, but they didn't take up as much time. I agree with some, but the students have to tests and have to be out sometimes. He said that there are 60 of the 180 days wasted, but this is just estimates. I think at certain schools, there are probably more than 60 days wasted.

According to Karl the schools have 120 days to instruct. That really is not enough time to instruct all of the teachers and students how to use new technology. This presentation can help us to decide what to take out of school and what to add in. Meaning what would not hurt to remove and what could we fit in to teach the teachers and students about new technology. I think everyone should take this in and be thinking about it when we become teachers.

Click herefor Karl Fisch's power point presentation.

Barry's Video

Improvements to Podcasts

I watched "Blogging and Teaching" and "Possibilities for using Facebook in a Educational Setting". I downloaded them from itunes and they were both created by the students at University of South Alabama. I listened to these blogs to find ways to improve them and I will list the improvements in the next two paragraphs.

During the time I was listening to "Blogging and Teaching", I realized that the speakers was constantly saying um. I think that they should have tried to response without saying that repeatedly. I really think that they described the blog well, but I think they should have talked about creating I blog and where you could create one. This would help people that does not know what they are or how to create one.

On the second podcasts "Possibilities for Using Facebook in an Educational Setting", I noticed that the speakers were also repeating um. I think that they done a really good job, but they also needed to talk about how to go to Facebook and how to create it. They need to talked about when a teacher make a Facebook page, the teacher needs for it to only be about class and not to much personal information.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Response to Karl Fisch "Is It Okay To A Technoligically Illiterate Teacher?"

As I was reading Karl Fisch's posts I began to realize he is right. Teachers now need to be able to use the technology that is floating around. He compared teachers that don't know how to use technology today to teachers that could not read and write thirty years ago. In his classes he had expectations in terms of behavior. There were seven of them on his list and they were kind of guidelines that teachers should be using. I agree with his thoughts of educators.

If this is the case who do we have teaching our students. I think that all students should have teachers that know how to use the technology creations of today. If the teachers lack education of such maybe they should return to school to learn about new technology. Teachers should not act like they do not need to learn this new stuff. Our students need to be able to use technology just as the teachers.

Podcasts

I enjoyed listening to the podcasts that I chose. I know that they were all about technology today. People are now coming up with things that just blow my mind, technology wise. I think that some people know enough about technology just to get by, but others know to much for their own good. I listened to following podcasts.

Smart Board Lessons-Teachers Connecting #3

At the beginning of the podcasts there are two speakers discussing why we should use smart boards in schools. This is for teachers connecting and discussing white and smart boards. The speakers were talking about links to sites that could be used in the classrooms. They also were conducting an interview with a man by the name of Danny. Danny was explaining to them what BETT is. BETT is the world's largest educational technology event that takes place in London. It also allows information from class to be posted and allows parents, students, and teachers to interact.

EdTechTalk.com-SEEDlings
This certain podcast was about a created site a man named Clive and his wife started. He decided that it would be nice if the teachers, students, or possibly even parents could create comics for each other. These comics can be view by anyone in the world or the teachers can set it up so that only their students can see it. This is really good for young students because they don't have to setup an email address to stay in contact with their teachers. Teachers can create their students a pass key to access their comic. There is a lesson bank also and it is where teachers share their comics amongst one another. The speaker ask Clive what would he do in the future. He replied that he would make an effort to spreading the word and add more to the website. He wants it to be truely global and multilingual. It already has 44 different languages for its creators.

Kidcast Podcast-Episode 1
This podcast was created by Dan Schmit. It talks about podcasting from the classroom. Podcasting is for administrators, teachers, or students. Tools that we have now are greater and through these podcasts we can reach the world. Podcasting allows students to become consumers and producers of information to see and value what the internet has to offer. This allows classrooms to be a 21st century learning space.

MacBreak Weekly-La-la-la-Leo Episode 126
On this certain podcast there are a group of people discussing information on Apple. Not an apple you eat but the company Apple. They were discussing some of the plans of Apple and some of their new releases. They also said the desktop computers are not doing well and the laptops are doing great. It not just Apple products but all desktops are at risk. The Apple iPhone tops the other phones that are compared to it. The group also discuss Google Earth and some say not to use it. Google Earth is a huge gadget and some suggest to change the name to Google Universe.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

International Blog 2



I had a hard time trying to find international teacher blogs. I found this blog and thought it was just wonderful. The teacher name is Mr. Woody and he is from New Zealand. He named his blog Room5ian Rule! His blog was created for his 11 year old students. Mr. Woody believes that students should enjoy learning. His blog is laid out very nice and it is colorful. I bet the students enjoy looking at it as well as they like to listen to him. The students can also chat through Mr. Woody's blog.