Blog Post #8

#1 Dr. Richard Miller is a professor at Rutgers University who created a two part video titled, This is How We Dream. 
As I watched the video I began to understand what he was speaking about. Dr. Miller makes excellent points about technology advancements throughout the years and societies benefit from these advancements. Miller's main point is the impact that technology has had on writing.
In this two part video Miller communicates his belief that we are experiencing the greatest change in human communication. I agree with Dr. Miller because people are now writing and communicating quickly by the use of technology. Individuals are able to express themselves intellectually through multimedia. As an educator I can use multimedia to communicate with employers, students, parents, and other educators.
This type of writing is not traditional but it is beneficial.  Students are writing blogs, creating videos, and posting pictures while receiving feedback from other people in the world. In my classroom the students will be given the opportunity to communicate using multimedia. Students should be given the chance to write and receive feedback from others. I also believe that writing blogs and using media will teach students to be cautious of their writing technique. As a future educator I understand the need for using multimedia in the classroom.

#2
Carly Pugh's blog, number twelve is wonderfully written and extremely informative. This post is almost overwhelming because of the mass amount of information and insight she gives to teaching. She challenges educators to find their teaching philosophy and present it by creating their own playlist on YouTube. Carly creatively developed an idea to make educators pause and reflect on their teaching technique and how to constructively use multimedia.


#3
The videos The Chipper Series and EDM 310 for dummies were entertaining and creative. The first video depicts an individual who wasn't capable of keeping a job, arriving on time, or being respectful to those around her. This character is known to procrastinate and not finish the tasks started. The second video is humorous because it could be a potential commercial for edm310 to sell a book called edm310 for dummies. The two characters in this video illustrate how unhappy they are with the class and all of the work they are having to do. I enjoyed watching the videos because they have something to teach individuals who will be taking the class.  If I were to create a video for the class I would compare procrastinating students to students who finish their work on time. Before enrolling in edm310, many individuals warned me to not procrastinate and try to stay ahead. I knew the classwork would take a great deal of time to finish but as the semester started I began to understand this fully.

#4
The video Learn to Change, Change to Learn took my breath away because it had educators being completely honest about what needs to happen in a twenty first century classroom. The students are now learnin outside as well as inside of the classroom. They also made clear that students should bring what they learn to the classroom. There have been students in schools who have been handicapped by a school system which believes in a 'vending machine approach', which is an approach to learning that involves a student delivering information rather than processing information. This type of approach reminded me of how Dr.Strange spoke to our class about Burp Back Education, which is when a student is fed a tremendous amount of information then expected to recall the information. I am excited to hear about educators willingness to incorporate a new teaching method.

#5
Today I am participating in a scavenger hunt. In this scavenger hunt I am to fulfill five tasks through using Discovery Education's Web 2.0 Tools.
1. The first task is to create an account and social platform for other teachers, parents, and students to communicate with me and each other.  The website I signed into is Edmodo, which is an excellent resource for any educator. This website is filled with appropriate educational materials, and it is simple to use when communicating with other teachers, parents, and students.
2. The second task was to locate a website which has an amazing tool to create videos like Teaching in the 21st Century. The website with this feature is ANIMOTO,which allows people to create fascinating videos.  There are three different packages available for anyone who wants to create videos, as an educator I will be utilizing the free package. This package allows students and teachers to create thirty second videos with limited video styles and limited music tracks. This is wonderful for the classroom because it allows the students to be creative and gives them restrictions. 3. The third task was to create a comet strip on the website Make Beliefs Comix. This website challenged me to be creative by only providing a small amount of characters and backgrounds. This is the comic strip I created which tells students how to deal with bullying.

4. The fourth task is to find a video tool on the Discovery Education website. The website I found with a wonderful video tool is VoiceThread.  This tool has many features which will enhance your video perspective. This site provides ways to have conversations over the internet by using a variety of media options. VoiceThread also has the ability to hold a conversation. This allows the individual to leave and return to the conversation without losing any information. There are many aspects about this website that I really enjoy, and I plan this resource in my classroom.
5.  The final task is to create a poll at Polleverywhere.com. This site made it easy to create a poll but deciding on a question can be tricky.  Here is the poll I created, enjoy! poll