Blog Reflection #6 - Can you hear me now?

          The purpose of my podcast was to give interview tips for students who are preparing to enter the work force.  I have a background in Human Resource, a minor in Human Resources and am interested in helping prepare students for interviews.  To add a second voice to the podcast I had my husband, Ben Crites, ask me a series of interview questions that are commonly asked in an interview.  Click here , to listen to my podcast.

             I do see ways that podcasts can enhance learning both in the classroom and in life.  I love music and would also enjoy creating a podcast that teaches vocal training techniques.  Podcast research could be useful in the classroom in that it would enable a student to research a topic and get info not just from the teacher or peers and then report back to the classroom on the information that was learned.  Podcasts could also be used in elementary schools for teachers to make announcements to parents.

            The technology I used was screencast.com .  I found it to be fairly simple and very user friendly.  I used the recorder on my laptop, saved the file, uploaded the file to screencast.com and embedded it into this blog.    I definitely see using podcasts in the future, both in my personal and professional life.

Blog Reflection #5 - Week 5

            After completing the MAPping information activity I was not surprised at many of the results.  I have been reasonably aware of how I must be very deliberate in choosing information to read and study on the web.  I did really like the easywhoisit.com website and was unaware until now that you could find out who created a website and the additional details that were included.  I will use this when researching information for school.  I was surprised at how low my score was when I took the online quiz.  There were many extensions of which I was not aware of there meanings.

            There are endless negative implications if students do not learn to properly research the validity of website information they read.   They will have false assumptions and a foundation of misguidance that will be hard to overcome.  They may become completely distrustful of internet news/education if they do not understand how to determine the soundness of it. 

My delicious account is http://delicious.com/dochlp .  I am so happy that I learned about this tool.  I have favorites saved on my personal laptop, iphone, and work computer.  It is very obnoxious to have a favorite on one and not the other and this is the perfect solution for me.  For example, if I am working on a project at home and want to finish it while I’m on lunch at work I will have the information at my fingertips rather than racking my brain wasting time trying to remember what websites I should go to.  I would like to use this tool in the future by connecting with people of like interests in nutrition, fitness, home keeping and spirituality.  Here is a handy youtube video that demonstrates how to maneuver through delicious.com

Reflective Blog Positing # 4

       When I read the article Electronic Portfolios as Digital Stories of Deep Learning, I most related to the  “AFL learning should focus on how students learn”.  I connected to this the most because it concerns me that as much progress as education has made, many teachers still focus on one type of learning and do not take the time to individualize teaching/learning as much possible.  Students learn in different ways, visually, hands on, auditory etch.  Teachers who ONLY teach by lecturing are doing a disservice to some students.  I think that one should consider determining the different personality types of  students because personality types can correlate with how  students learn. While searching for information coorelationg personality types and types of learning, I found the article located here  to be quite interesting.  I was a SEVERLY shy student.  Just the thought of having to speak up in class made my stomach sink and my heart race.  If my teacher had been more aware of my introverted, melancholy personality perhaps some teaching methods could have be tailored to help me overcome the fear of speaking in front of others.  Since I never got over that fear, I still have problems speaking in front of others.  I completely understand that there are 25-30 student’s in a classroom and only one teacher but I do believe progress can be made to evaluate how students learn on an individual basis.

I see a huge potential in using portfolio assessment.  It allows the student to have a “voice” and “create a story” of what they have learned – not just circle A B C or D on a test.  As a teacher, I will enjoy grading and assessing portfolio’s rather than a standard test.  I feel that most students will love to be creative.  A few years ago, I taught high school students in Botswana Africa for three months and I was amazed at the difficulty of their tests.  All of their tests were essay tests.  I have no doubt that most of the student’s had more of an in depth knowledge of the learning material than they would had they been allowed to take true/false or multiple choice type tests.  If student’s have portfolios they will have to have an in depth knowledge of what they are learning.    

The creation of a portfolio will do a great deal for my learning and will also enable me to have a portfolio for future teaching job interviews.  I absolutely LOVE this type of learning versus text book type learning only.  The portfolio will also give me something to go review what I have learned in the past and how I created a wiki/blog/ in case it has been awhile and I forget what it took to create it.  I am also excited to show this to my husband who owns a contacting business.  This will be a fantastic way for him to show the type of work he has done and can do for his customers.  There is an unlimited use for e-portfolios.

Reflective Blog Positing # 3 - Wiki Week

           First of all, I really enjoyed learning about and creating a wiki! I created a wiki (http://healthyfoodhealthymoveshealthylife.wikispaces.com ) so that my friends and family can post healthy recipes, workouts, and list their weight loss journey progress. I have several close friends and family members who are making lifestyle changes and this will be a very helpful tool for all of us to keep each other motivated. It may even turn into a weight loss competition! I have already posted a few healthy recipes, and started journaling my weight loss journey.
          I see several advantages in using wikis. As the video we were instructed to watch discussed, when you are planning an event with several people emails can be very impractical because so much information is flowing back and forth, people read their emails at different times, and some may forget to “reply to all”. With the use if wikis updates are made instantly. Disadvantages are that once a change is made and saved there is no going back. This could be very bad if the wiki is left open to the public – anyone could change what has been added to the wiki or even go so far as to delete it. People also need to realize that anyone can update a wiki so they should not expect everything that the read on a wiki to be factual and true. As far as “digital natives” I believe giving student’s the ability to use creativity when working with wiki’s will engage the students. For example, rather than requiring each student take notes the entire length of a discussion, they could have they option to take notes for one portion of the class and then post them to wiki and share class notes.
          In exploring the eLearning Tools Wiki, I uncovered the “how to create a podcast” that was very interesting to me. It would be very useful for our church to put our services on a podcast. I also am the music minister at my church and I think it would be very beneficial to get area music ministers together to create a podcast to introduce new worship songs, and explain the chords for each song so folks will be able to learn new worship song lyrics as well as how to play them. It seems like it will not be too difficult to create.