Blog Post #8

Richard Miller: This Is How We Dream

The era that we are living in today requires the usage of technology. Not just for our personal purposes, but also for education. At the beginning of this video, Dr. Miller stated that we are living in the greatest time of communication (which is so true). Think about it. We have Facebook, Twitter, Skype, emails, and many other sources of communicating with one another. One source that Dr. Miller talks and demonstrates on is the usage of multimedia. Using multimedia enables the student to explore literature in such a magnificent, creative way by creating sound and visual documents.
I believe that I am ready to write with multimedia. As I was watching the video, I was amazed at the wonderful job Dr. Miller did with Dr. Martin Luther King's pictures and videos. Like any beginner at something new, I know that I will get used to using multimedia with constant usage of it.
I will make sure my students grab the concept of using multimedia. It will be my job to make sure that they gain as much information as possible. I also understand that for me to teach the usage of multimedia and for them to be confident while using it, that I must first try to master its concept.

Blog Post #12 Carly Pugh

Carly did an exceptional job on her blog post. As I read her post, I could see how passionate she was about doing this assignment. She put in time with this and I really enjoyed it. I absolutely love the creativeness she put into her playlist. It is obviously shown that she took her time with this assignment. Carly's assignment was the perfect example of what Dr. Miller was explaining about writing with multimedia. Carly demonstrated sound and visual documents by displaying a title before each video was shown. This type of assignment using multimedia can give the opportunity to create more than one video, and discussions of more than one topic. This can also help a teacher with the idea of creating lesson plans.

The Chipper Series and EDM 310 for Dummies

Allow me to start off by saying that the videos where hilarious and very entertaining. Naturally, I began taking notes in my head of how I wanted my videos to turn out. The sub-topics in "The Chipper Series" gave me some helpful ideas of how to create my movie. In my book trailer, I actually did create my own sub-topics. I also took note of how each cast member's name appeared before their picture. I applied that same technique in my book trailer. As I mentioned earlier, both videos were entertaining. Chipper really went through some tough life experiences before getting her priorities in order. In "EDM 310 For Dummies", the young ladies were going crazy at first, but I am glad both videos had happy endings! :)

Learn To Change, Change To Learn

Keith Krueger began this video by stating that education was ranked in the 55th place BELOW coal mining. Hearing that being said saddens me. As important as education is, it is placed at such a low ranking. Learning is beyond important and it is up to us, the future educators, to make a difference and to keep the interest of learning high. We have to provide the absolute best for our students. Just as one of the gentlemen in the video stated, technology is not a choice. It has become more of a necessity. It has emerge into a new way for communication in every possible way. School is not just a place where students have to be "glued" to their seats, or with a "bubble" in their mouths; being at school should give a student the opportunity to communicate effectively with their fellow peers. Obviously I would not recommend my students being disruptive, but I would give them that chance of interacting with one another. It is very vital for a child to learn how to communicate; they are going to be interacting with people for the rest of their lives.We have to connect them to many other fundamental resources. They will be better equipped for not only college, but life in general. It is impossible to memorize your way through life. You have to be able to find and figure certain situations out. Synthesizing and learning for yourself is what it is going to take to succeed.

Scavenger Hunt 2.0

I really enjoyed this educational scavenger hunt, which is located here. I found myself searching through this website like a kid in a candy store! I was coming up with so many ideas that I could use in my classroom, I guess I got beside myself! The first thing I did in this scavenger hunt was signing up for a network called "Edmodo". The setup of the profile puts you in the mind of Facebook, except its a social platform for students and teachers. My grade book is available on this site as well as the ability to search for my fellow (future) colleagues. This will be great for my classroom because I'm able to post current assignments as well as quizzes.

Prezi is the tool or one of the tools that created this presentation here. The deal that is offered to teachers and students are really good and affordable. The "Edu Enjoy" is free (which is my favorite price for anything) and the "Edu Pro" is $59.00 per year. The "Edu Enjoy" package offers storage space (500 MB), privacy contents, creation of your personal logo, and premium support in less than 24 hours. The "Edu Pro" package offers just about the same as the "Edu Enjoy" except the storage space is bigger (2 GB) and the use of Prezi desktop for offline editing is available.

I could not decide between the two video tools, so I chose both the Animoto tool and the Gizmoz tool. The Animoto video really interested me because I can actually bring my lessons to life for my students. Animoto analyzes music, video clips, and pictures. This tool also make it very easy to share videos or download for presentations. Gizmoz amazed me because I instantly reflected back to one of the previous blog assignments, where the teacher allowed her students to create their own avatars. Not only would this be fun for the students, but it also gives them another way to learn and communicate with their fellow classmate; not o mention this site just looks like so much fun!