180 days?

For the best of 2007 on Fischbowl, i decided to read 180 Days?. I liked that the teacher talked about used the did you know? video to start a class discussion because I think that would really work and you would get a great response.

This blog talked about how the 180 days of school were not enough and out of those 180 days, he wondered how much was used for actual teaching. He said that things like movies were not a necessary part of teaching but other teachers dissagreed. They said they showed their students movies when they needed a break or when the students deserved a reward. He talks about how he thinks the curriculum needs to be changed to incorporate more of the "necessary" things and take out the not to necessary.

Out of the 180 days of school, only about 120 are actually being used to teach. That leaves 60 days of "wasted?" time. Some of those days are things that I feelare necessary. Those include days taken for your classroom tests and days that you review for the tests. It also includes things like final exams when you do not go to every class and state testing when classes are shortened. I believe that those are good things to take time out of teaching for. I think that the creator of the power point would agree.

Some of the other things that were taking away from teaching days were things like parties, pep ralleys, scheduling classes for the next year, and days before vacation. He said that the days before a school break were "wasted" days because many students are absent, leaving for vacation early, and the students that are there are to distracted to consentrate. I don't think that just because christmas break starts the next day or in two days that you can not do anything in your class. It is still a school day, so teachers should still be able to plan on teaching that day. If a student is absent, they will just have to make up the work when they return.

Last Semesters Blogs

I listened to two podcats from last semesters EDM310 class. The first one I listened to was "Possibilities for using Facebook in an Educational Setting" by Allison Midgette and Shaundretta Bethel. Both girls started by telling what their views on the pros of using facebook were. Allison had actually even used facebook in a classroom before. I think they should have spoke a little more on what the different applications available on facebook were. They were also talking pretty fast, so I thought it was kind of hard to keep up with what they were talking about. One other thing I noticed was that they used the words umm and uhh a lot which I found very distracting.

The second podcast I listened to was the ALEX/ACCESS podcast. I decided to listen to this one since I am going to be a kindergarten teacher and those websites may be useful to me. I saw when I wrote my first blogs about ALEX and ACCESS that they had links to other sites and useful information that I will probably end up using at some point. I thought this podcast was very good. I felt it was a lot easier to listen to and follow than the first one I listened to. One of the speakers did sound like she was very nervous while she was talking. I felt for her because I'm sure I will sound the same way, but that is one thing that I did notice about this podcast.

Fischbowl

It is hard to believe that in todays day and age, there are still some poeple that do not know how to use the internet and other forms of technology. By not knowing how to use a computer, you will have a hard time finding a job. Many jobs today require the use of computers. One profession that definitly has a technology requirement is teaching.

I agree with Karl Fisch, the creator of fischbowl, when he said you will have a hard time being a teacher without knowing a bit about computers. With the amount of computer work necessary to run a classroom, I do not know how a teacher could run an effective classroom being technologically illiterate. Teachers need to put forth the effort and time to continue their education and become computer literate, if they are not already, if they are expecting their students to put forth the time and effort to be willing to learn in their classroom. Teachers must lead by example. If you expect your students to learn, you also must be willing to learn.

Podcasts

The SmartBoard Lessons Podcast is the podcast that I started with. This poscast was titled Teachers Connecting 3 IWB and Smartboarding for Community Partners. This podcast focused on the use of smartboards in the classroom. By using a smartboard, students have a way of interacting with the teacher during lessons. The thing that I thought was so cool about this podcast was the fact that the two hosts were actually thousands of miles away from eachother but you would never be able to tell by listening.
The next podcast I listened to was Kidcast, episode number 58. This one was titled "The Median is not the Message". In this, the host talked about diferent ways to teach children/students how to use technology. He thought it would be great if students and teachers would use this in the classrooms to extend learning.
I also listened to the Connect Learning podcast. This was an educational podcast. The host of this one, David Warlick, goes to different conferences to interview people and uses those interviews for his podcasts. Something different about this podcast was the use of Skype, which allows people to actively participate in the podcasts.
In all, I think podcasts are very interesting and can be a great addition to a classroom. I am excited to make our podcasts in class.

International K-12 Blogs

Not only did I come across blogs from schools in the United States, but I also found some from other countries as well. The first website I used to find these was Australian Blogs The teacher made this blog to try and move her English class into "the digital age". On her blog, she talks about things such as how to podcast, the best ways to study, how to decifer a political cartoon, and a list of 1000 novels she thinks her students should read in their lifetime. This blog is different from the other blogs I found because it is not specifically to her students. She uses her blog to give information to anyone that wants it, be it her students or someone just looking to find out the easiest way to make a podcast.

The other international blog I looked at was from a school in Indonesia I specifically looked at the blog for the Kindergarten classroom, because thats the grade I want to teach. The kindergarten teacher also uses her blog to keep in touch with the paretns of her studetns and let them know what is going on in the classroom. She talks about the field trips they took and gives instructions on how the parents can recreate some of the art projects at home that the children really enjoyed makign in class. I really liked how she posted the Monday was one of the students birthdays and wished him a happy birthday. I think that probably made that child feel very special to see their name on the computer. I think this is a good way of reminding parents of upcomming events in the school as well as the classroom.

K-12 Blogs

The first school that I found that uses blogs is Grandview Elementary School. I was looking at the blogs of some of the students in the 4th grade. You can read their blogs by clicking on this site Grandview Student Blogs On these blogs, the teacher has the students write messages to her telling her about what is going on in their lives. The students are able to ask the teacher questions and tell her about anything they want. One of the students talked about living in the Bronx and one talked about hurting their finger with a stapler.

The other blog I found was for Ms.Sanborn's class at Willowdale Elementary School in Omaha, Nebraska. If you want to look at this blog, you can see it here: Willowdale School Blog This blog is set up a little bit different than the first one. The teacher uses this blog in her classroom for the parents. The parents can go onto the teachers blog to find out what their children did in class that day. The teacher updates the blog dialy telling about what they did in each class and any classwide behavior problems. I think that this is a very effective way to stay in touch with the paretns and I think that I will probably use this when I start teaching.