Web Quest

Web quest will help me communicate better with my students because it uses there kind of learning. If you want to find something out today you go online. Fifteen years ago if you wanted to find something out you looked in a book or asked someone that might know. Today’s students grew up with the internet and so using the web is natural to a lot of them. Web quest guides learning in a step by step kind way. It takes the filtering process out of learn because the web quest has already found the “Best” sites to teach that information. We spend a lot of time on the web filtering or narrowing down our searches to find the right sites. Parents would like that kind of clear direction and safety first thought behind the assignment. They wouldn’t need to worry about what sites their child might run it to. Students like having real hands on learning. Online learning means the latest information on the subject. In a way web quest holds you’re had all the way through the learning process. They can be used in large groups or one on one. Web quests are fun to make but will take some time to put together. Perhaps I’m odd, I find it relaxing to play around with photos and click around the web looking for stuff. Doing group projects will help me learn to collaborate with my colleagues as a teacher. I look forward to getting with my group and sharing the ideas we have for our group web quest.




Surface Computing
I couldn’t get the link to work so I Google it and there was lots of videos about it. Wow! Cool! I got the impression from the video clips that this is the “wave of the future” that the keyboard and mouse are going into retirement. I can see myself playing around with photos as if they were real on the coffee table or even showing off home video chips to friends. It’s amazing that you don’t have to plug it in for the table to know that is sitting on its surface. The potential of it to become useable (Needed) in the home is what makes it seem science fiction to me. Will we ever need walls to be computer screens? Will we as a society rely on computers that much that they will need to be built into every surface? I think that is going a bit too far. Surface computing is real cool thou. I showed the movie to my Dad who is a retired teacher he said he is sure glad he got his schooling in back in the Dark Ages were everyone carried around slid rulers. He feels like technology is moving along so fast that he can’t keep up with it. There are a lot of neat new gadgets out there. As a teacher I will need to keep up with the technology so that I can relate to my students changing world.

My Beliefs

It is my belief that with knowing comes an obligation to share what we know with others. Teaching with the idea in mind of making it meaningful to the students is will create lifelong learners. I believe that technology can make our lives better or worse; all depending on how we chose to use it. With the invention of the light bulb came a new kind of time frame and life style. Just because we have the technology doesn’t mean we need to always use it. We get so much sensory input from technology. Some teens cannot go anywhere without music on and cell phone to text. We need to go back to the basic sometimes and just listen to the world of natural occurrences sounds. Using technology equipment can only better us as a people if we are using it to become better not just faster. My sister lives in Canada, the stores all close at 6pm so that people can be home. We have used technology to make are days longer in America, yet we all still need to sleep.

It is my belief that the main goal of school is to help build students sense of awe for the world they live in; to teach them to ask and discover life. I believe that using technology in the classroom is key for preparing young minds- who will someday be create new technology. I believe that sitting in each of our classroom there is the tomorrow’s doctors that could put an end to cancer. They need to know what a cell looks like. I believe that sitting in today classrooms are the men and women of tomorrow that will see incredible changes in this world. They need to be equipment with all we can give them.

Lessons Learned

There is new wave of teaching with real life meaning rather than teach to test. It creates personalize thoughts and helps them interpret what they are really learning. Remembering facts is not as important today’s internet. If you really need to know it you can hop on the web and look it up. Being able to know how to find facts is more important. I remember doing research in a library world book- I thought it held everything there was to know about. Know days we are trying to teach students that Google doesn’t hold all the wealth of the world’s knowledge. As a teacher I will have to build upon lesions with real life applications. I will need someone so show me how before I can fly on my own, it is an overly yet exciting style of teaching. In the movie clip about the math class using the cheer leaders statics I thought it that was revolutionary. I always wonder where I would use the math I learned. Teaching this way will make learning needful and useful. School teachers would need to support each other and collaborate on lesion plans in order for this to work. It would be nice to go into a school where the net work is already up and running to start with. As the new person on the job creating nets will take extra charisma and skills.

My friend a sixth grade teacher shared with me how her student writing has changed with texting. She said they use short hand in there papers all the time. She also said that some of her students are unaware of what the short hand means when it is spelled all out. Small changes like this could change our English over time. It is more than just teenage slang words like groovy was. Those words fade in popularity over time as styles change. Short hand text is taking a being impact. Also the idea that there could someday be a paperless world is still unreal to me. I love the feel of a book in my hand but perhaps that same cozy feeling is how teens feel about their cell phones and i-pods. Technology equipment is always changing a looking for more ways to be more users friendly. Some day we may live in a paperless world.

Strengths and weaknesses

According to the UNI I am considered to be an apprentice in many technology equipment areas. This means I used technology in everyday life but I’m not an expert. In some ways I am average for my age in skills and knowledge level of running computers and software. I understand the basics of how to get around on the net and find out what I want to know about. If you show me how I can most likely find my way around devices. I am however limited in my understanding of how they work. I’m not like my brother; he is has knack for picking up a technology tools and just using them. He knows how to build computers from the bottom up. He works for a company that creates simulation units. These are used to teach police how to drive in high speed chases, military personal how to fly, truck drivers, and others. One week he watched movies on the latest plasma screen TVs to see what one really had the best color for their new simulation units. I count having someone in the family to turn to when I can’t trouble shoot on my own as strength.



In my work with students with disabilities I have been exposed to many forms of communication and technology equipment, I count this as one of my strengths. I have been trained on using “Eagle-eyed”- which is an electrodes based device for controlling the computer with your eyes. By hooking probes to your face, your eyes become the computers mouse and you can wonder around the computer using eyes. Most of the students who use the program have neurological disorders that cause them to be locked into their bodies without the ability to communicate. Special needs really mean amazing people. In the classroom there are ways to help people interacting with peers. It would be fun to put the electrodes on students and have them see what it is like to use only your eyes to talk.

As a teacher I will need to incorrupt technology into my classroom. According to the National Educational Technology Standard it is the teacher job to use technology to make plan lesions, do assessments, and understand the ethical/legal issues with using technology. Knowing someone will make me more likely to try technology because I know I can always turn to my brother if anything goes wrong. However he won’t be able to come help me at a drop of a hat so being able to do things on my own is very important. I would like to take a workshop on how to use podcast in the classroom. It seems that the new way of teaching is to make learning meaningful and personal to the students. I like that idea but, I am over whelmed by idea of me have to know so much. I think field will help me see how it all comes together.

The Creative Process

We started out with dividing up getting the songs, the pictures, and a storyline worked out. As we did I became aware of how daunting a tasks it was to put this movie together. We got together a showed each other what had done so far. This was the hardest meeting because we all had a different idea in our heads as to how it was going to look when we were done. As we got together and talked it out step by step I learned that Shelly is very assertive in what she says. I like that. I need to become more assertive; I tend to just step out of the way and avoid conflicted. In the next meetings we knew what we wanted but had a hard time figuring out how to work the program. That was hard because we all felt helpless or useless. Only one person could be the driver. In some ways it would be a lot essayer to do this project on our own. We are getting to the lasted stages now. We’ve have to cut down allot of text and trim down on the photos. I didn’t think we could have a “fun” story line and do the life cycle of the butterfly but as it turns out we did it. Erika missed her calling in life she could have been a Disney Voice artist. She is so funny, she makes the world that much rounder. The movie can to life as we started doing the voices (we laughed so hard it was like we were at a sleep over party). The Creative process can be both frustrating and hilariously comical. I’ve enjoyed getting to know the members in my group and gained a better understanding of how to run a group project.

Millennial Generation
Why can’t TV be wireless? Why can’t I talk to friends on the airplane? Why can’t… The answer is we probably will be able to in a few years. My grandpa is 93 years old. He remembers driving his brothers Model A (one step up from the Model T) car from Utah to Arizona to date Grandma. There was no heating in the car and he got really sick on the way, had to be in bed for three weeks. What a change he has seen from horse drawn buggy to the cars. My Dad remembers when phone numbers were only four digits long. He jokes that you could pick up the phone any old time and hear someone else conversation. Today the older generation is always asking the younger generation how to run new technology. There is a roll confusion happening. No longer do the old people know more than the younger. What will the world be like in ten or fifteen years, waited and see. It’s exciting to see how far we have come. In the 1970’s we thought we would be living on the moon, selling real state. It’s hard to know where we will be in time. The thought of credit card changing over to fingerprint technology is not so far out of reach. My brother’s laptop has a fingerprint pass code. The problem with it is that he works construction so his fingers are always getting cut and the computer doesn’t recognize his print. With all technology there will be basic problems to overcome.

Windows Moive Maker

My POD decided to make our short film with “windows movie maker”. At one time in my life I wanted to be a photo editor, I spent hours learning how to retouch pimples. I enjoyed it but over time it lost its glamour. From editing I learned how much work goes into the final product. It would be over whelming to making a film on our own. I wish there was a way that we could have more than one driver working on the project. My POD has been great about finding the time to met and work together so that no one gets left holding the bag. Doing this project in a group has helped me to keep things simple and avoiding hairy extra frills. Taking parts in a group seems to be the under line theme or lesion I am learning this semester. I can see me using movie maker as a teacher to share a final project, or tell our class story. I would record the student’s voices and play songs we used in class. This film could then be shared with parents, colleagues, and even students peers.

Video impressions
Those were some pretty neat statistics in those videos this week. Makes me want to ask what needs to change? With all the neat new bells and whistles we have in computers, cell phones, and i-pods are we becoming a better people? Are we helping solve world problems? What kind of world are we handing over to the next generation? I just finished a book called Three Cups of Tea, in it talks about Greg Mortenson’s vision to build schools for children in Pakistan. “One Man’s mission to promote peace…one school at a time.” He talks about the poverty of villages that lead to extremist groups because they (Taliban) offer an education. “By replacing guns with pencils, rhetoric with reading,” Greg Mortenson has given the children tools to build themselves. I don’t think we prize learning enough.