Randy Paush Last Lecture

Randy Paush was born in 1960 and died in 2008 of liver tumors. He lived an amazing and adventurous life. As a child, he had several childhood dreams in which he accomplished several of them. In his lecture, he talked about topics such as his childhood dreams, enabling others, and lessons learned. In the begging of the lecture, he introduced a question to the audience and asked, "If you had one last lecture to give before dying, what would it be?"
Randy was a professor at MIT. He put together a team of students to compete in a competition for a chance to win a ride on NASA Comet Vomit. Mr. Paush group won the competition and got the chance of a life time experience of ridding on the Comet Vomit. This was a first class hands on experience for both him and his students. In his teaching methods, first hand experiences seemed top be very important. I feel that some students learn better through hands on experiences and that's exactly how Mr. Paush taught.
He came up with a program called Building Virtual Worlds, which allowed students to experience things of the virtual world while learning harder concepts. He called this the "head fake" approach. I thought that was a clever idea. He also show cased students projects through exhibitions to encourage them to work harder. He listened to his students and tried to turn them on to following their childhood dreams.
The lecture was very interesting and informational. There was one thing that stuck with me the entire time I watched the video, which was the quote about the brick wall. The quote stated: " Brick walls are there for us so that we can prove how badly we want something." He ended the lecture using the head fake approach, in which he told the real reason for this lecture. That reason was to show the audience how to lead their life and for his children. I enjoyed the entire lecture and learned a lot from it.

EDM 310 Podcast Response

Listening to the podcast from the other EDM 310 classes was very interesting. It gave me a better idea of how the podcast would be presented. The first podcast that I listened to was from Allison & Shaundretta. The group did a good job on presenting the information. They not only told about their experiences with face book, but they also interviewed others who were face book users also. I've never used face book before, but after listening to all the things that it has to offer I am more interested in joining. The only thing I would try to improve on is adding more people to the group if possible. My second podcast was about the use of technology in the classroom by Kathryn's group.In this podcast they gave an incite on the different types of technology that was being used in classes they had taken. They talked about Folitec, which was a big surprise to me when one of my teachers told me that me had to uses it because I had no idea what Foliotec was. They included what they were used for along with the downfalls & advantages of the sites. The group seemed to be very prepared. In some cases they told how to get to the site, but not in all of them. The only thing I would try to improve on is telling my listeners the websites for the ones that I neglected to tell them. The podcast was very organized & informational.

Fischbowl- October

In the fischbowl that I read, it was talking about a particular school that adopted wireless access & filters. The wireless access was also available to the staff, parents, and others who visited the school. To me the adoption of the program seemed to be a good idea.Of course, anything that will enhance students ability to learn is a good idea. Although the intensions were good,there were several problems that came along with the adoption of the new version.
Students were unable to view Youtube,Google and other sites that included video footage for classes. Teachers were the only ones' that were able to view video footage at school by signing in. They were also able to override sites that were blocked by the filter, even if they were approriate. Having a filter on schools' computers blocks inappropriate things that student, and in some cases staff members tend view. If i had a child i would definetly adopt a program that blocks inappropriate items that a child may come across. I would reccomend all schools to adopt a program that allows anyone to view inappropriate content through the internet.

Fischbowl Response

While reading the fischbowl blog for September, it was said that the person felt more honarble being nominated for an award than actually winning one. In a way I agree with that person. I would feel honored being nominated myself, but I would rather win. Being a technologically literate teacher for me, is highly reccomended. You have some students in school today that understand technology better than their teachers. It is great that students understand technology, but not in a way that makes the teacher look uneducated. That's why I feel that teachers should be required to take a computer class.
I strongly feel that ther is no reason for any teacher not to be technologically literate because there are several workshop that will teach them how to understand technology. While in High School, it was a requirement for me to take a basic computer class, and now that im in college it was also a reqiurement to take a computer class. The computer class that I am in is more advanced than the one I took in High School. I honestly believe that taking this class will allow me to enhance my students education through technology.

The Life of Brandi

Podcast Viewing

The pod casts that I viewed were very interesting. The Smart board podcast was very informational and comical. The pod cast was done on 2/01/09 by Ben Hazzard and Joan Badger. The reason for this particular podcast was to tell about teachers connecting and interacting with smart boards. It explained several different ways to use a smart board and also told why they were used in the schools. There was also links that were provided on lessons on the smart board. I would encourage any future teacher, who doesn't know how to use a smart board and will have to use one in the classroom to view the website. After viewing this podcast I viewed the podcast of " This Week in Photography.
Alex Lindsay along with others talked about the inauguration for the most part. Steve Simmons was one of the photographers that participated in the talk. Unfortunately, he was unable to get a clear pictures of the President because it was to crowded and he was to far back. Aaron was another photographer at the inauguration who was able to get a picture of the President. The photographers were only allowed to take certain size camera bags inside the courts. they also talked about a program called Photosenth which allows them to analyze how pictures relate to each other.In the third podcast,which was the EdTechtalk episode number 114,was the most interesting to me.
While listening it told about Bill Gates and his presentation stunt. He let several mosquitoes go out into a crowd of people and told them that the mosquitoes were infected with malaria but they actually weren't. I was surprised to hear about a professor that was a tenor teacher at a university who was banned from the campus. The professor refused to give his students anything less than an A+. i found this very interesting. The last podcast that I viewed was the Mac Break Weekly which was done on 02/08/09.
The topic was about all things Macintosh. Leo Laporte along with others talked about the iPod phones and the iPhone flashes. There was also talk about the iMac updated rumors and adobe and Apple partnering up on the iPhone flash. i thought that this podcast would be helpful to those who owned iPhone, Macintosh products or things of that sort. It was very comical and informative. Viewing podcast was an interesting experience and I would encourage anyone that hasn't viewed one before to do so.

ISB

Bill Gerritz is a teacher at The International School of Bangkok.Bill never thought about using a blog until someone advised him to use one. He uses his blog first of all to give an overview of ISB. Other things that his profile is used for is to communicate with other teachers and illustrate parent comments about the school.Now that he has a blog page setup, he is asking people to leave a comment on how he can improve his blogging skills and understanding of blogging.

Janice experience with blogger

Janice Friensen is an information Technologist from Austin, TX. She uses her blog to communicate with students who are home schooled. She recently took a trip to Greece and told her students to follow her trip through there blog. The student had to combine details from the trip with Reading and Writing components to meet Social Studies and English requirements. She also had her students to leave comments while viewing the blog.

Teachers using Blogs

Elona Hartjes is a teacher who was recently introduced to blogging. She uses the blog to communicate to her students to enhance their learning ability. Elona also uses tools such as voice thread and Voki on her blog page.She feels that blogging, podcast, etc are meaningful to a child's education. Elona has been blogging since 2006 and feels that because of technology, teachers are gradually headed toward becoming Networked Teachers.