Blog Post #8

This is How We Dream: Dr. Richard Miller

In the set of videos I watched today (Part One and Part Two), Dr. Miller talks about how we no longer work in libraries with pen and paper. Today, we work on laptops or desktops with a multitude of programs at our fingertips. Books are written, published, put in libraries, and basically forgotten about. You can buy books online for virtual readers at such cheap prices, that print is almost useless. Due to technology, we are able to skip going to the library. All we have to do is press the power button on our computers, and we can basically find whatever we need. For example, Dr. Miller wrote an entire informative paper on the anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings without stepping foot in a library. Today, we are able to do these things easily due to how far our world has come technologically.

Technology has also affected how we work together in groups. Collaboration is so much easier because we can simply video chat with each other, or email each other. There are many ways to communicate through the internet; this helps us get things done because our world is so busy on a day to day basis. The internet is limitless, and we need to learn that. Dr. Miller says that we put limitations on ourselves when in reality, we have no restrictions as to what we can do or discover. Dr. Richard Miller made his videos, put them on YouTube, and within three months, had 9,000 views. Had he published a book with the same ideas, there is no way he would have gotten the same reaction. Technology allows us to put our ideas into our culture and get almost instant feedback.

At this moment, I am not prepared to write with multimedia, but I feel that I am learning how everyday. By the time I become a teacher, I hope to have learned how to do this so that I can pass it on the my students. They will be able to do this, so that they can learn in new, fresh, creative ways!

Blog Post #12: Carly Pugh

I loved reading Carly's Blog Post #12! I can really tell that she worked hard on researching and gathering all of the videos together to get her point across. The Disability Means Possibility video was my favorite; I feel that we need to teach our students to think differently, especially when it comes to each other. In the short 45 seconds of this video, that is portrayed greatly. Another one of my favorite videos Carly shared was Creativity to the Rescue; I think that this video reminds us of the importance of creativity and that we need to embrace it!

Carly did a great job writing with multimedia in my opinion. I feel that she did awesome explaining everything she wanted to do through the videos that she found. Her class should be very interesting, and I know that she will keep her students having fun!

Creating Videos

The Chipper Series and EDM310 for Dummies are two videos created by EDM310 students about working hard. In The Chipper Series, a student speaks with Dr. Strange about how she feels that she doesn't have to do the work needed to pass the class. After quitting the class, and having many other problems, Chipper (the student) decides that school is really what she needs to pursue. She learns that procrastination isn't the way to go, and that she really needs to get her education. In EDM310 for Dummies, two women talk about the things that you will learn in EDM310 and how doing your work on time is important.

I think that I would like to create a video teaching students about responsibilities of a college student in any class. If we want to become professionals, we have to act like professionals. Maybe in the video, I could have dos and dont's of certain situations: interviews, classroom ettiquette, etc. I could also talk about how procrastination gets you nowhere but Stressville. I could brainstorm a few other tips as well, so that I could help aspiring college students make their way through skill as smoothly as possible!

Learn to Change, Change to Learn

I definitely agree with the arguments about schools in this video. One of the points I loved was that technology is not a choice. We have to deal with technology because it is so prevalent in our society. We need to embrace it and use it daily in our classroom. A second point that stood out to me was that applying standardized testing to our schools is foolish. I agree 100%. I loathe standardized testing and what it takes away from teaching and learning. Teachers are not allowed to be creative anymore because they have to make sure they teach what will be tested; it is unfair to the teacher and to the students that schools are this way today! Students should not be memorizing things for tests only to let that information slip out of their mind later. We have to teach our students to find information and evaluate it! Learning is not spitting back facts; learning is comprehension, and we have to get our schools back to that!

Web 2.0 Scavenger Hunt

2.) Prezi is an amazing tool that students and teachers can use to create interesting presentations for free/cheap. On this site, they offer different profile prices. For students and teachers, there are two different price packages. The first is free, and it comes with 500 MB of storage space, private Prezis (if you want them to be private), and you can make your own logo to use instead of Prezi’s logo. The second offers a little more for $4.92 a month; you get all of the features of the free package, but you get 2 GB of storage, Prezi desktop (used for offline editing), and 24 hour support. Great deals for such a great tool!

4.) Animoto is a cool video creation program; you can create a profile for free and produce 30 second videos, or you can pay for a subscription and create longer presentations. I created a profile and linked it to my Facebook; this way, I was able to use my pictures straight from there! It lets you rearrange pictures and add text slides as well. You can set the video to music too! Here is the video I created about the birth of my son, Bryson!

Try our video maker at Animoto.

5.) There is also a program to create polls on Web 2.0!