Podcast Reflection #8 - Tech Chicks - It's not that much shorter

The first link that was shared was the new Diigo, version 5.0.  It has new features including a capture option.  You can capture an area on the screen and are no longer limited to just text.  You are also able to add notes.  They also talked about the web highlighter that is available for the iPad.  You are able to highlight areas with your own finger.  The next resource was 10 ways to discover new music online, such as map roamer, music match, and one-track-mind.  At the site one-track-mind, new artists are able to post their music and leave blog posts.  All of these sites are focused on new talent and new artists.  Another link was oneframeoffame.com.  One frame of frame is a site that will give you a pose to make and your webcam will snap it.  In the next hour your picture will be put into a stop motion animation video along with other people’s photos.  It is a very creative and fun website to check out.  Open clip art was the next topic, and it is a site to find open source clip art.  Another link is digitalfilms.com.  At this site you are able to make your own video online.

Podcast Reflection #7 - Moving at the Speed of Creativity-Using iWeb for Blogging & Publishing

This podcast teaches you how to get started using iWeb for blogging and publishing.  iWeb lets you choose from many different themes.  You will have six sites to choose from, for example, the Blog page.  You can rename your folders, add new pages, and add new entries to any of your named folders that you have created.  This will create several pages to each of your folders.  As I have learned in my Teaching Educational Technology class, there are many different things that you can do with the iWeb application.  You can create links to different websites, write reflections and post from the different podcasts (three types-audio only, enhanced, and video) that you listened to, add photos, videos, widgets, digital stories, avatars, iMovies, photobooth podcasts, lesson plans, a Google presentation which is similar to a PowerPoint, and a voice thread project.  I am sure there are more creative things that you can do with iWeb, which I am eager and willing to learn throughout my journey of becoming a teacher.

Teachers can use the iWeb application to create a blog and share the content which they have created or put in to the iLife applications, such as, iPhoto, Garage band, and iMovie.  They can share with either a global or local audience with or without being password protected.  Podcasting and blogging enables us to share our information online and lets us fundamentally address the students’ perceptions about our teaching and writing.  

Podcast Reflection #6 - THe heroic Journey Project

This sixth podcast caught my attention because in my Children’s Literature class we read several heroic stories and discussed their adventures. This podcast gives teachers an idea of how to have a lesson over specific books such as “The Lightning Thief”.  Students can create their own creatures and heroes for their own stories. This would be a fun writing activity for your students to experience as a class. It also incorporates using technology. Once the students are done post them to their own website.

Podcast Reflection #5 - Teachers Teaching Teachers

For this podcast I listened to they speak with Carolyn Kirk, Tasha Whitton, Ellen Steigman, and a couple other teachers. These teachers are discussing how our students are reacting and voicing how they feel about the disasters that are happening in our country. They touch on 9/11 and the most recent Gulf Oil Disaster. How can we get our students to understand what is really going on and understand how it is affecting real people in that area? They also talk about what we can do now in our schools to help maybe prevent these types of things from happening.

Podcast Reflection #4 - Ed Tech Weekly—The Death of the Open Web

This podcast discussed an article from the New York Times entitled, “The Death of the Open Web.”  The article talked about the idea that Apple has complete controls over everything and the days where freedom to post whatever you want is gone.  All of the members on the Ed Tech Weekly show concluded that this article was definitely false.  They discussed that there are still plenty of ways to post whatever you want on the web, stating that there are a number of ways to post information on the web without even having to deal with Apple.  I agree that there are various ways to post things to the web without dealing with Apple because I do it all of the time. (Or at least I think I do!)  I think this article was just worried about Apple becoming some sort of monopoly.  All in all, I agree with the cast of EdTech weekly in that the article “Death of the Open Web” is a little ridiculous and false.

Podcast Reflection #3 - EdTechWeekly--Facebook, privacy, and social networking

I agree that it is difficult to follow Facebook’s constantly changing privacy settings.  I have the same mentality that the guy on the podcast does; anything that I put on Facebook might as well be public.  When I was younger I didn’t understand the severity of how public all of my information on Facebook was.  When the younger girl was talking about her number of friends on Facebook; I learned that I would benefit by thinning out my friends list.   However I would still not post anything that I wouldn’t want other people to know.  It’s called “Facebook stalking” because it truly is that invasive.  I don’t believe that educators should communicate with students, especially in K-12.  That can potentially lead to an inappropriate relationship between teacher and student.  I think it is different once you enter college because after a course you may remain friends and in contact with them.  I think social networking is very important and students should be taught how to properly use social networking and the dangers and problems, which accompany it.

Reflection #2 - CDK’s Education Technology Place

I really like the class website.  There is a ton of useful links and information.  It is easy to navigate and find what you are looking for.  I like that we can go to one website and find all the information we need for the class.  You would think with so much wording, pictures, and blogs that the website would be clutter; it is not at all.  It is very well designed to where it does not seem cluttered.  I really like being able to access all the information I need in one place!