My EDM310 Blog Assignments Are Now Completed

To all my fellow classmates, I enjoyed taking this class with everyone and having the opportunity to view your blogs and learn more about you. GOod luck to everyone next semester!!!

Technology used in EDM310

My experience with technology whilr in EDM310, was very exciting, interesting, and educational. Many things I learned, I plan to use in my futre taechings. Google docs and spreadsheet are vey helpful. I had never used either of them befor now. One of my favorite programs learning about was the igoogle page. I enjoyed exploring the contents and making a page of my own. Teitter was another program that I plan to use more often. It is not just a waste of my time like I thought it was going to be at first. There are several things that you can learn by twitting whether it's eductional or pure entertainment. Picasa was fun to know about, but I'm not a big picture taker so I personally might not used it. The one thing that surprised me was google earth. I've heard people talk about google earth, but i never used it before. It was interesting to see how you can type in a location or addreess and shown images from above where the place is. Several things that were taught to use was very helpful to us as future teachers. I enjoyed my time in this class and will use several of them in the future.

Podacst Suggestions

There were several things that I had not been introduced to or even heard about before I took the EDM 310 class, and pod casting was one of them. To be honest I was nervous, not knowing what to do or expect from this podcast. There were several topics that we could choose from. The topics ranged from "Technology used in the classrooms at USA" to an interview with the Dean. All the topics were very interesting and I personally learned alot.

In listening the podcast, I thought that every one did a good job, being that it was several of our first time. Although they were good, there was also some things that needed to be improved on. One thing that was noticeable in several podcast was the use of the word Um. Using this word alot in a sentence can make a person loose interest in what someone is talking about. Besides using that word, there were pauses in some podcast where no one said anything. In other podcast it seemed like people stated things more than once while they were talking, just in a different way; I guess they were just really trying to get a point across.I know we were all nervous and in some you could tell more than others, but overall nice job.

This semester in EDM 310 has been very enlightening. I've been fortunate enough to learn about several things that I never knew existed until know.In learning about these programs and tools,I feel that i will use them in my future teaching and it will give my students a different insight on things.I enjoyed participating in a podcast and watching others do their podcast.

Twitter

While in EDM 310, I learned about an intersting program called "Twitter". At first I thought it was just another program like Myspace that was goiun to take up more of my time. To my surprise it is much more educational than I thought. It is similar to Myspace in that you can find people to foolw and see their post and other things that are made available for you to see. I also had a chance to look at some articles in twitt.
One particlar article that I look at recently was about "Earth Day". It was a very intersting article. There are several articles about differnt subject of interst that are available to view on twitter.I have only been using twitter for a month or two now, but haven't used it as often as I should have. I often explore twitter twice a week depending on how my week is going. There is also an option that allow you to direct a message to a person in public or private in which I've only used once or twice. Twitter can be a helpful tool to a instructor or anybody who is intersted in technology.
For a teacher, it can serve as a form of communication between the teacher and the students if they were absent and need to knnow what was done that day or other important & fun information.Besides serving as a form communication it can also be a way to search topic ideas and see how others view of a topiic may be diffferent from yours. I have saw several teachers that are twitting on twitter talking about activities that they are doing in the classroom. As a future, I plan to use twitter often to communicate with students and also to see what other teachers are doing in theri classrooms.

Blogging Plusses and Minuses

When I first began taking this class, I had never heard of a blog befor. The more we talked about it tin class the more interesting it seemed. This is a great way to get students involved in discussions of the class through posting messages to their blogs. Teachers all around the world are blogging and also getting their studnet involved in bloging.
In my exoerience of viewing one of my classmates blog, I learned that many people are waiting to the last minute to post their blogs. I know that my blog has not been up to date, but i'm not too far behind. There were several good blog enteries that were posted in this particular blog. The blog that I view had several interesting things in the way they view something was different from the way I did.
In participating in blogging, I learned some interesting facts about topics that were discussed. I also liked the fact that you could leave a comment on a blog post that you had read.Reading other students blogsallows you to see how others may view a topic in a differnt way than you did.
I feel that blogging is a wonderful tool. Teachers should encourage their students to participate in bloigging because you can learn about thing that you would have never knoen about. ALthough blogging is a good tool, i feel that there is a negative side to it. That negative side is the negative comments that some peoople may leave on others blogs. We should keep in mind hat everyone has an opinion whether we agree with it or not.

"Growth vs. Fixed" minds

In the video, "Growth vs. Fixed" minds, the author conducted a research on the differences between fixed and growth mindsets in learning. The video was brief. She explained how the ideas worked and how research was conducted. In the study a class is divided into groups. One group was given study skills and a growth mindset skills, while the other was only given study skills.
During the experiment, there was a significant difference between the two groups outcome. The group with just study skills declined, while the other group benefited. I feel that if we teach students the concept of material it will stick in their minds longer and they will get a better understanding. Teachers should also make activities fun and interesting for students, so that they will be more interested in learning.
As a future teacher, this video was very helpful to me.
It allowed me to realize that by just giving students the tools to improve is not as helpful as giving them the concept behind the tools that have been presented.In my future teachings, I will twach my students the concepts along with the neccessary tools they will need to succeed in school.