July 2, 2012 Web Conference

After reading the July 2nd web conference I learned what exactly we were suppose to be doing on our 5.9 assignment.  I learned that we are suppose to be telling how many internship hours we have done.  We also need to report rather or not what we have done is beneficial to our school and how it is. 

Another thing discussed in this conference was the course embedded hours.  Some were not sure if they were for all classes and how we were suppose to do them.  It was explained that there were course embedded hours for only some classes.  One student also told where you could get an updated list of classes with course embedded hours.  The one thing I am unsure of after this conference is if those hours are suppose to be included in our week 5 assignment. 

There were also students who mentioned that their mentors had retired, moved, or quit.  They were discussing what they were suppose to do in these situations.  I think this may be a problem for several students.  When the end of the year comes around there seem to be several teachers who make changes in their career.

After reading this conference I felt a little less alone.  I have not done a large amount of my internship hours due to the fact that I had to spend most of my time this year student teaching.  I was unable to take days off so I have just had to wait on most of the internship requirements.  I hope to catch up quickly though. 

EDLD 5363 Week 4 Video

Animoto Podcast via youtube

Reflections of Making my Teaching Journey Video

I was confused when starting this project.  I was unsure what program to use and even more importantly how to get my voice in the video.  I have done this before using PowerPoint, but never using other programs.  It took me a couple of days just to determine what I was going to do this project on.  I finally decided on my teaching journey because I feel like it has been a big part of my life for the last three years.  I also choose it because I think the reason I choose to teach is special.  I will always have my children to thank for the career I have choosen.  My children are still young and yet they are proud that their mom has accomplished this task.  I feel like it is something that will make a difference in their lives.  I finally found a program to use.  Then I figured out how to use Audacity to record my voice.  Then I determined that I had to upload that file as a music file.  After doing that I then had to figure out how to fix the timing.  It took me several times of trying, but I eventually got the timing right.  I think it was a very interesting experience.  I feel like with practice I could become good at it.  I think that this would definately be something that students in school could use to do projects.  I can see students using this type of assignment to show what they did over summer vacation.  I am going to play with these programs over the summer and see if I can't get better at them. 

Teaching Journey Video EDLD 5363

Reflections of Course Embedded Internship Hours

This was the first college class where I have had to do a group assignment. It was fun see each person’s options and ideas. Our first task was to create a wiki and a Google doc. I only started using Google documents, wikis, and blogs when I started at Lamar. I have found it to be a fun way to do work. I attached our Google doc to our wiki and it was not a hard task. It only took me a few minutes. I have learned that wikis are good for collaborative writing and group assignments (Solomon, G & Schrum, L, 2007). I believe this is true because it was easy for us to type in our information and everyone immediately had access to it. I also found email to be a good form of communication. Posted our information on our wiki and then sent the link to our instructor. We then learned to use lessonbuilder.cast.org to create an e-book. Through this website I learned about UDL and how it recognizes that every student learns in a different way (cast.org, 2009). I had previously learned about different ways of learning in my teacher certification. According to some of the reading one way to reach students is to individualize your lessons (Rose, D. & Meyer, A, 2002). However, I never knew that there was an internet site where you could make your own e-book. I found this to be very interesting. Since I am not a working teacher I also learned from making our lesson plans how to use the state standards. I learned where to find these standards and also went through them to determine which ones would work well with my assignment.
References
Cast.org (2009). Cast UDL book builder. Center for Applied Special Technology. Retrieved March 31, 2012 from http://www.cast.org/udl/.
Rose, D & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age. Universal design for learning. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and curriculum Development. Retrieved March 31, 2012 from http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/chapter6.cfm

EDLD 5364 Week 5

When watching this week’s videos I came across some information I did not think about. It was said that a video game is basically just an assessment or test (Gee, J. nd). I found this to be very interesting. I had never looked at it this way. Gee said that it allows people to use problem solving skills and not just know facts (Goo, J. nd). Once he said it I started thinking about it and it really does make sense. He also spoke about how some students use games to learn English (Gee, J. nd). That is a unique way to learn English. I had never thought about someone using it that way.
In another video it showed how students could learn using video games. They state that they can make a game and the students will learn without ever even knowing they are learning (Youtube.com, nd). I found this to be a very interesting idea. I think it could really work. The truth is young children learn from video games. They learn about colors, shapes, etc. I think it makes sense that if older children like to play video games that they would learn from them. They learn how to play games while playing them so why wouldn’t they learn things that we have planned for them. They would have to learn it in order to win the game.

References
Edutopia.org (nd). Big Thinkers: James Paul Gee on grading with games. Retrieved March 31, 2012 from http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-james-gee-video
Youtube.com (nd). Vision for 21st Century Learning. Retrieved March 31, 2012 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mirxkzkxuf4