Media and Its influence on...everyone!

So Christmas is just around the corner...And you defiantly would know it if you have been watching television. They are bombarding our tubes with tons of commercials for electronics, clothes, gadgets, toys, the Dog Snuggie and anything else imaginable. Lately I have been noticing these commercials and how influential they could be on adults and kids alike. One particular company I have noticed that really is promoting their products this year is Gap. Their commericals bother me, and I think it is becuase of the message they are conveying to people...I know lots of commercials are like this, but for some reason these Gap commericals are really getting under my skin this year...Here are the two that I am having issues with...Let me know what your opinion is on these commercials.


2,4,6,8 tis the time to liberate...I don't get it..



This one is for kids...I think this one bothers me the most...

photo blog for November 19th

Photo of an interactive 3-D map made for a second grade social studies unit on African countries. Our country was Zambia..

Photo of me holding my tribal mask made to resemble the masks of the Bembe Tribe in Zambia

Using technology to teach Social Studies

I have been thinking about this topic due to my enrollment in a methods of social studies class. As I have been going through the class I have been learning a couple new ways to integrate social studies with technology, and I have some other great ideas that I have learned along the way..

One thing that I have learned recently is that many websites that are social studies related are very interactive for students. I guess I had a misconception that these sites would be mostly information text and that's about it, but I was wrong. There are some really awesome sites out there that will really intrigue students...Some good ones I have worked with recently include a underground railroad virtual tour and also a Ellis Island Virtual tour.


Another good way to learn about teaching geography can come from working with Google Earth. It is a fun, interactive way to get students working with technology and learning about other areas of the world.

Lisa B. talks about integrating technology into a math classroom, which is also great when looking for ways to use technology in your curriculum..

Esther Wojcicki also talks about using technology in the classroom, and how you can get your school on board.

Technology (or lack there of) in area classrooms

During the week of October 19th-23rd, I went out into a Waterloo school for a week for my level three field experience. I was in a fifth grade classroom in a school that is located in a middle-upper class part of Waterloo, Iowa. I was excited to see what kind of technology was being used in the classroom there, and I was unfortunately unpleasantly surprised.. The fifth grade students only used computers for one thing, which was a typing software program that taught them how to correctly use their fingers for typing. The teacher used power points in the classroom as well, but it was used for students to see notes and copy what was written on the power point into their notebooks. After seeing this, I really wanted to work with the students using some kind of technology. I asked the teacher if I could create a webquest on learning about the newspaper. She didn't really like the idea due to the fact that she would have to continue using the webquest while I was not there, so she didn't use my idea. I felt that she was uncomfortable using technology with students and that is why she didn't want to try the webquest. I think that there are many teachers out there that feel the same way as this particular teacher does, and I think that this needs to be addressed and changed.

Other bloggers tend to agree with what I am talking about..The Evolution of Technology in Schools

Oct. 29th blog..

I came across this video while browsing edutopia.org and it reminded me of the classroom that I was put in for my level three field experience a couple weeks ago. The kids in the classroom that I was in did interpretive dances to model different types of cells. The students thrived when they were asked to do this task and they seemed to really learn a lot about the specific cells they were assigned.



Here is another blog about this type of learning in the classroom..integrating dance, music, and art.

This article actually reminded me of something that one of the leaders of Iowa Island mentioned while we were learning about second life last week.

Solving Real World Problems in a Virtual World

Week of Oct 15th blog post

I thought this was interesting and very true...

Reasons to Contribute to Creative Commons on Flickr

Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds are a semi-new concept to me, but I have gradually learning about these programs. The virtual world that I am most familiar with is Second Life world. From some of the articles I have read, Second Life is becoming more and more popular with companies and organizations that want to have a spot on the web where people can come together. In addition, it is a place for people to show what they offer or what they are about. It is a good way for people to meet together in one place and be able to discuss what they want. It is convenient and easy.
In the classroom, Second Life could be used in many different ways in the classroom. One way to use it could be to collaborate and communicate with another school in another part of the world. All students would need is internet access and a Second Life avatar. This article about teachers transforming classrooms talks about some other ways how Second Life could also be used.

I didn't realize how many different virtual worlds were out there these days. I unfortunately don't know much about any of them, I did find an article that talks about many different virtual worlds and what they offer (virtual world hangouts).

I am planning on learning more about virtual worlds and how they can be used in my future classroom...To be continued..

Photo: pathfinderlinden

My Top Ten List

Here is my top ten list for things I have learned about technology this semester:


10. PLN's
9. How to build a ning
8. Twitter
7. Classroom 2.0 social network
6. Social Bookmarking and how much you can really do with it!
5. That the world is flat
4. Webspiration
3. Blog Seaching
2.Newsmap

and the number one thing I have learned so far this semester...


1. That there is so much about technology that I do not know!

Photo: 7son75

Building Skills and Student Discovery of Technology

I was reading the blog The 21st Century School House and came across a post about using different tools in technology in literacy programs. This person in particular is a high school school teacher and had been teaching about 21st century journalism. He used a number of tools to get students researching and understanding more about the world around them. The point that I really liked that he made was that students don't realize that there is a realm of information out there other than their social networking sites. I think that this is a great thing to teach students, even at a younger age. Many students may not realize the resources they are able to tap into, and as a future elementary school teacher, I plan on having students discover these many resources. I think that giving students the knowledge and understanding of setting up PLN's, looking at blogs, and using wikis to communicate is vital information and will help students highly succeed for years to come.

DJ Bloomie gives some really great example of what I mean when I talk about endless resources. Being able to access multiple libraries and many other types of information is just one way to show students that they are able to access any information that they need to know.

Seems like every week I am learning something new about how to organize information, and how to seek out information, which is making my life a lot easier, and I can't wait to share my knowledge with my future students.

Global Oppurtunities in Schools

When I think about the topic of global opportunities that could be used in the classroom, the first think I think of is cultural learning. With the technology that we poses today, it is possible to connect with other schools across the country and around the world. I think that this would advance students thinking. Rather than reading cultural information out of a book, or watching video, connecting to an actual culture would engage students and give them a unforgettable experience.





pic from www.flickr.com

I also think about global technology in terms of people being connect with each other, and that information is at anyone's fingertips. Students
can look up any kind of information and find an abundance of ideas and
facts about a particular topic. This shows how student learning is changed today due to technology. Even when I was in high school, we had the internet and it was able to give you information about certain topics, but today it is a totally different world of information..Its gigantic! Today students don't go to the encyclopedia to find out about a topic, they go online..and I don't blame them one bit. I love our technology and the way that it keeps us all connected globally.

My Social Networking Habits..

Social networking is pretty important to me. I love using Facebook because I am able to be connected to different friends and family that are scattered all around the world. From reading other blogs I see that many of my classmates agree with me (DJ Bloomie). I love being able to go to the Facebook homepage and read peoples status updates..It allows me to see how peoples days are going and see what my friends are up to. I also like Facebook because I am able to share pictures with others, and vise versa, which is much easier than emailing and then downloading on to the computer. pic from www.flickr.com

When myspace started, I also used that social networking site, but nowadays I feel as though it is obsolete. I used myspace for the same purposes as facebook, except I used it more to listen to music on myspace because thousands of famous and emerging artists have pages along with a couple songs to sample. I have since then been too busy to really mess with that anymore and so I hardly ever use myspace. In fact, I plan on deleting my account on myspace in the next couple days.


I love social networking because it keeps me up to date with my friends and family that I don't always see or talk to. Whenever I am at a computer I check my page, and even when I'm between classes I can access it from my phone and check it. It is defiantly my most visited website..

While reading some other blogs, I found this.. Social Networking..A help or harm that I thought was interesting because it brings up questions about being behind a computer to communicate and also about what we did before we had these social networks. It is a fairly interesting piece.

Blogging in Education

One of my favorite ways that blogging is being used in education is when teacher create blogs that students and parents alike can go read about what is going on in the class. As a future teacher, I plan on using this type of blog so parents can come to it everyday and see what students will be doing in class today. Also I will post homework assignments, permission slips, parent reminders, etc. so they will be readily available to students and parents.




Picture from www.flickr.com

Ed Tech Minor at UNI

Ideal Classroom Project

What: This project was about putting together a classroom and being able to choose what went into your classroom, what layout you wanted in your class, and also what subjects and lessons you wanted to teach to your students. We researched what kind of technologies we wanted in our classrooms for the particular lessons we were teaching. Also we came had to come up with a creative way to present the information we found to our CCA class. I worked in a group of three and we created a third grade science based classroom.

So What: This project was interesting and fun to do. We were able to look research many different aspects of the classroom to create one that was perfect to us. I thought that this project was also unique from others I had done in the past because I was working in a group and we all had to collaborate online with our information we gathered. It was nice to be able to do this rather than meet up every time we had information to give. Our group used Google docs for the most part, which was nice because we could post all of the info and have it saved one page so we were all able to access it. This project also gave me an idea of how expensive having the perfect classroom would be. It would be nice to have everything you wanted, but it seems unlikely it will ever happen.

Now What: From this project I have learned that its important to research what you want for your classroom and that it is pretty easy to do with the Internet. Anything you want to look up is accessible and also you can find out lots of information about anything you could want for your classroom. If I were to do this project again, I would get into a little more detail about what I wanted in my classroom. I also learned that group work is great over Google docs. With all of our busy schedules, it would have been tough to get together as often as needed, Google docs made the group work much easier and less stressful.

Ideal Classroom Project

Next Generation Teaching

This week we got the chance to be a part of a webinar in class. This webinar talked about how to incorporate social networking into teaching strategies. The presenter, Chris O'Neal looked at big social networks like myspace and facebook and talked about how students today are so interested in this type of computer use. He talked about how student like to use these social networks to post their works, like stories, poetry, and other writings. This way peers can read and critique what they have created and get a opinion from someone other than a teacher. I think that bringing this concept into the classroom would be a smart way to get students more interested in putting effort into school work. They will show not only their teachers but their peers what they have written, which could motivate students to try their best, and also they will be able to see others ideas which could help get their creative juices flowing. One concern that was talked about was that students would use the tool inappropriately by writing material not sutable for the classroom or for by posting negitive/hurtful comments on the page. I thought about these concerns and I think that if students are given an oppurtunity to do an activity like social networking, I think students may see it as an important and mature way of interacting and learning. Also if this idea of posting works on the internet to recieve feedback is as exciting and popular to students as it is claimed, inappropriate writing should'nt be a problem. Not only that but it is easy to monitor a wiki. If there is a problem the educator can take care of it.

A couple facts that stuck in my head from this webinar was the idea about how people under age thirty were primarily using the internet for their news and science. They said 44% said they used the net, where 3% said the newspaper. I thought about the comment that O'Neal mentioned about how when we were in grade school we were taught how to read a paper and how to find articles in the paper. We are going to have to teach skills to students today by taking them on the net and teaching them how to search properly for what they need. Also another comment that stuck out to me was that the computer used to be used as a reward for students that got done with their work early, where now the computer should be one of the main tools to use for learning.

One idea I thought would be a cool for sharing on a social network could be music compositions. You could have a site with the recordings of students compositons and a player so they would be able to be heard by other students. I think students would enjoy doing something like that.


I really enjoyed this webinar and thought that the ideas given to us were quality. These ideas can give any teacher an edge to help their students enjoy and stay interested in learning.

To Blog or Not to Blog, That is the Question...

The subject matter today is blogging. Whats so great about being able to write your thoughts, experiences, and discoveries and share them with the rest of the world? Its a way that you can express yourself and not feel self conscious or worried about who and what people are thinking. It's a way to find people that you have commonalities with, and its a way to be able to track people or subject matters you are that interested in knowing about. Blogging is a really fun idea if you know people that are into it. In reality though, I don't know a lot of people that blog regularly or even at all. That's the one problem that I have with it. I'm sure there are millions of people blogging but I just don't know very many of them. I guess that doesn't mean their blogs aren't interesting. I used to think that blogging was mostly just talking about what you did that day or whats going on in your life, but exploring a little bit on Dr. Z's blog and others, I see that isn't necessarily the case. I think by exploring what is out there anyone could find blogs that would be beneficial or entertaining to them.

I was thinking about how it could be neat for families that are far apart and don't communicate often to be able to have blogs to keep each other informed about happenings in their lives. Also I think it could be cool to use for education purposes, like a way of discussing text or lectures. or even summarizing what had been done in class that day.

There are endless possibilities blogging could be used for, I think that there are ideas for uses that aren't thought yet that could revolutionize blogging. Hopefully we will find out soon.

Music Technology

http://www.edutopia.org/beyond-band

This article that I read was about using technology for music programs in schools. When I first saw this article I wondered how technology could be used with something like music, but after reading it I think their ideas are really interesting. The article was based on a particular school district called Bay Shore. In the middle and high schools they use something called musical instrument digital interface which is a computer that is hooked up to a keyboard. The students can play different notes and different intrument sounds on the keyboard and the computer will copy what they have played and create pieces of music for the students. This to me sounds like something that I wished I could of had when I was in high school. Music is something that students should have in their education and this tool would make lots of people interested in playing music or at least trying their luck in creating a fantastic compositon.

I have an Idea

Ok. So while I have been looking at all these different articles about how technology can be helpful in learning and all that, I thought of an idea. I'm sure that this idea has already been used or is in the process of being created but if not well here my chance to tell the world of a great technological idea I guess. Well, I think that classrooms should put cameras into thier classrooms and have like a podcast type of deal so that kids that are home sick or unable to make it to class that day won't be missing out on anything. The student could be there through the computer on a messaging program if they had any questions or wanted to contribute to the discussion. I think in fact that it should be required that if you are home from school and are not unconcioius or something, you should have to at least do some work with the class that day. That maybe a little extreme I suppose but I still think that it would be nice to be able to be sick from school and still be able to do your work and not have to worry about making up assignments or anything like that. Just a thought...I think it would be neat.

Mobile Learning Institute

Today I read an article about a foundation called the Mobile Learning Institute. The MLI teaches students and teachers how to use digital media to use in presentations and other classroom activities. This article struck me because it pretty much talked about how they were going around and educating teachers to be more computer and technology saavy. I guess that I am saying that it is comforting that I will be going out in to the education world with some knowledge about this subject already. These ideas about creating lessons and objectives with media probably seem really foreign to many teachers out there today. It's also interesting to me that there are companies out there that are trying to teach people how to use these resources. I'm sure that has alot to do with selling thier products to create these media projects, however, these people are encouraging teachers to start using these applications in everyday lesson planning. I like the idea of this to some extent. As long as an application or a lesson is executed properly with technology I think that it is a good idea, but learning the good old fashioned way to me will not ever be ruled out in my book. http://www.mobilelearninginstitute.org/