Fun with Wordle

iTunes U

I just watched a presentation on iTunes U done by David Hopkins. Upon reviewing the presentation, I immediately accessed iTunes U on my laptop. I am happy that it is very simple to use. I instantly found 11 different Podcast topics each containing at least 5 Podcasts each; and that was ONLY on the Holocaust!

This will be a vital teaching tool once it increases in popularity. Instead of just homework out of the book, for instance, I can assign a Podcast to view. I can tell them to reflect on it and post their comment on the class blog. I like the idea of being able to assign something different. Hopefully it will spark some creativity in their work.

After doing some searching on iTunes U Duke, I noticed that they had an area called "Student Showcase". I watched a Vodcast that interviewed a graduate student, Liangbo Hu, in the College of Engineering. He described his thoughts about Duke, the engineering program, what his contributions are and what he wants to leave Duke with. His interview was one of many for just the College of Engineering. It allows for future students to get a good general idea of what that program is like. I think this would be fantastic to have for the University of South Alabama. I know I would have loved to have found out, from a student's perspective, about the different departments before going to school here.

Dr. Alice Christie's Website

I really enjoyed looking over this website. It is very simple in design and easy to navigate. It contains a wide range of different tools and tips to aid teachers. Everything from in-class project ideas to outdoor exercises, this website is extremely informational!

The one part I looked into was the virtual field trips, or VFT. Since I want to teach European History, this would be a fantastic tool to use! Obviously, being able to send my class to the Reichstag in Berlin is almost 100% unlikely, an interactive, virtual tour of it would be the next best thing! I was only able to read a brief description of it, but apparently these VFTs can be found everywhere. I think that would probably be one of my favorite teaching tools. I can see it now, "This is the Reichstag, Germany's Parliament building. You guys want to go see it?"

I started browsing via Google to locate one of these VFTs. I found a great website for teachers that is full of different trips to exhibits, museums and even the planets! Here is the link.

Meine Vorstellung

Mr. McClung's blog: "What I've Learned This Year"

Mr. McClung's post was very humbling. It took a great deal of personal reflection to be as thorough as he was in his blog, "What I've Learned This Year". I think it is difficult to go into anything you are new to, and perform perfectly on the first try. I believe it is how you react after that first experience that characterizes your performance. Mr. McClung is definitely on the right track from what I can tell. He has had to make changes in everything to his policies to how he delivers the lessons to help things run smoother.

That being said, I think the most important things on his list are: Read the Crowd, Be Flexible, Be Reasonable and Listen to Your Students. These portions of the post hit home the most for me. In my extremely limited experience in front of a class I know how caught up in your own expectations you can get.

Let's face it. I am not a teacher yet. I also have not had any formal training that would help me plan and deliver a lecture. But I have given a lecture. I can relate to Mr. McClung in the fact that I wanted my presentation to be perfect. I spent days rewriting and reciting it to make sure it flowed smoothly and covered everything I wanted it too in enough detail. When it came time to deliver it, I found myself very nervous. Not because of stage fright, but because I thought that people would be very judgmental over something I had worked so hard on! After all, it was my peers that would grade my delivery. Our professor simply graded content. I received an A on my delivery, but with one side note: "Your presentation was good but where's your personality?" I was giving a presentation on something that I loved but didn't show any character or personality in my delivery.

NPR and Wikipedia

Ah Wikipedia. A massive website with tons of information about virtually anything imaginable. But, due to the fact that anyone can change or delete information put on it, you can't trust it. It becomes a website full of hot air. Wal-Mart can make changes so that they do not seem as greedy as they are. The Democratic and Republican parties can make changes to each others' pages. Ridiculous.

Virgil Griffith created a data mining software called the "Wikipedia Scanner". This finds and tracks the locations of users who anonymously change articles on Wikipedia through their IP address. I think it is great that we can openly view who makes changes to Wikipedia entries. I will stick with my current stance on Wikipedia. Use it to locate REAL sources.

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

Inspiring. Motivating. Amazing. These are just a few words to describe Randy Pausch's Last Lecture. Besides his talk of following your childhood dreams and embracing what you are good at, Randy also tells us about a very interesting teaching method he used in his computer science classes at MIT. I found the method to be very interesting. It is the concept of learning something indirectly, or a "head fake" as Randy puts it.

Randy uses football as an example of a "head fake". While learning how to form tackle and master the three-point stance, we also learn teamwork, dedication, and heart, to name a few. The idea is to get someone to learn something through an activity. That made me think about how I could implement this concept into my own classroom one day.

I have already had this technique used on me before. In German class, we read short stories. All of which contain sentence forms and vocabulary we have NEVER seen before. We read the title, then look at the pictures and try to figure out what the story is about, sort of like a game. Then we read the story with our class' brainstorming session in mind. Believe it or not, the story makes sense and we learn the new vocabulary much faster!

I would like to do something similar in my own classroom, maybe with technology in mind. I know I have learned many new German words and phrases just by watching foreign films without subtitles. It forces your mind to connect body language, context clues, and the tone of the speaker with the words being spoken. Usually, with enough practice, someone can get the gist of what is being said without understanding every word.

How could I implement a "head fake" in a History class though? Any thoughts?
Visit Randy's website.

Response to Karl Fisch's Post

Karl Fisch, in my opinion, has brought technology and teaching into perspective with this post. He has a very strong argument about people being technologically illiterate and how this should NOT be acceptable. What stuck out to me the most was his comment, "If a teacher today is not technologically literate - and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more - it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write." And to answer your question Mr. Fisch: No! It is certainly not extreme!

This passage in particular is what really made the use of technology in the classroom hit home for me. I think it is important that we think of technology this way. I agree with Mr. Fisch when I say that anyone involved in the educational system, from administrators to librarians, who are not willing to grow, learn and adapt to the new technology, should indeed find a new career path. We must break the cycle that the educational system is in right now. This is Karl Fisch's post:click here.