By far my favorite pages are the ones with my videos on them. I made two videos that took a lot of time and effort. Creating a Colour Wheel and String Paint. String Paint was my favorite video because it was so much fun to make. I also took lots of pictures myself which I added throughout the pages on the wiki. I also have to give a big thank you to my two ‘students for the day’, Jordan and Taylor, who starred in my String Paint Video. Thanks girls.

For someone who is as computer challenged as myself, I think I’ve come a long way from where I was at the beginning of the semester. I don’t just isolate myself to email, Facebook, and word documents anymore. I’m sure there will be other final projects that put mine to shame, but I did the very best I could and I’m quite alright with that. I plan on expanding on it in the future hopefully, adding new pages, videos, and pictures. So keep checking back on my blog for updates.

Enjoy! http://jhines.wikispaces.com/

So I know the Media Literacy presentation was a while ago but it still has to be blogged about so here I go… 

What I got from the presentation was that media literacy is basically media awareness. As future teachers we ourselves need to be aware and critically analyze what is going on in the media, because our students will be inundated with media messages themselves as well. As teacher’s we will need to inform our students on how to be wary of what goes on in the media. For young girls and boys this may be images they see in the media, in terms of what is beautiful and attractive. We need to build students self efficacy by teaching them what they see splashed in the media isn’t real life, and they don’t need all the things the media tells them they need to feel good about themselves. Another thing that we need to inform our students of is teaching them how to use technology safely. It seems that children are getting Facebook younger and younger, and it seems almost impossible to tell them to stay away from it if that’s the trend right now. Teaching them how to use these programs safely, by being careful what they post and who they become friends with is much more reasonable then telling them to not use it at all. It’s like telling teens not to have sex, chances are there are still going to be those who will do it, and so if you provide them with the right information, than at least they are [hopefully] being safe. I know I ventured a bit off topic, but it’s still relevant nonetheless.

So for our final Tech Task we had to write a response to a video about Education. For mine I watched a Ted Talk Video from Sir Ken Robinson.  The video was about how current education systems don’t value creativity, and why it’s important to start making the move toward embracing creativity in schools instead of undermining it. 

Robinson explains that creativity is just as important as literacy and we should treat it with the same status. The thing about children is that they have this capacity whereby they’re not scared to be wrong, or make mistakes. But as we grow up it’s as if mistakes are the worst thing we can make, and we grow out of creativity. 

In school there is a hierarchy of subjects, and at the bottom of the hierarchy are the arts. The subjects that are the most valued in schools are the maths and sciences, then history and language, last are the arts. And even more discouraging is the hierarchy within the arts in school. Music is usually more focused on, visual art like drawing and colouring is somewhere in the middle, and theatre and dance are often ignored.  

Robinson says that we are often steered away from subjects we like based on the fact that it wouldn’t gear us towards a job. Think of all the creative people out there, actors, dancers, singers, musicians, and artists etc, who have all been discouraged from doing what they love because it’s not enough to make a living. So kids are stigmatized at a young age to believe they aren’t creative, and they shouldn’t be creative. 

It used to be that if you got a University degree you were guaranteed a job. But suddenly degrees are hardly worth anything. What’s this telling our children? You can’t be creative, and you have to be highly intelligent just to survive. Robinson reminds us that there are multiple intelligences, and that not everyone is strong in their mathematical intelligence for example, some people are kinaesthetically intelligent, and actually need to move to think. Take for example the choreographer of Cats and Phantom of the Opera, a man who after a long career in choreography is now a millionaire. Imagine if his creativity had been suppressed. 

So if children all learn from the multiple intelligences then why is the most of the time spent in classrooms focused on language arts an average of 300 minutes a week and math 200 minutes per week, versus dance and visual art which receives a bleak 50 minutes a week each. Robinson goes even further to argue that teaching crafts isn’t art, and there is a huge difference between arts and crafts. Art begins with an idea and has more to do with the process of exploring the idea. Craft begins with outcome of the project already in mind. Sorry to tell you, those traced hand Turkey’s you made for Thanksgiving in Grade 1 weren’t art.  

As a creative person myself, I would have to agree with Robinson whole-heartedly. But as pre-service teachers we shouldn’t be isolating ourselves to creative content and creative lessons in the classroom. Let’s encourage art, not craft and creativity will thrive.

I couldn’t embed it so here’s the link:
 http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

#1 USB Mini Fridge and Heater
It’s the size of a pop can so it’s big enough to keep your drink cold or keep your pizza pop hot. All you do is plug it into your computer. How cool is that?

#2 PB Teen Roll N’ Go Keyboard
So for those of you who are clumsy like myself, I tend to be not so gentle with my keyboard. This keyboard is made of silicone and is flexible and forgiving if you drop it. Not to mention it’s super portable so you can take it wherever you would need to take a keyboard.

#3 Fred Flare USB Flash Drive
Basically it’s just a plain old flash drive shaped like a cassette tape. So for any of those people out there who miss making mixed tapes for that special someone, go ahead and load it up with MP3′s. Just as much thought as a mixed tape, but probably half the effort.

#4 Pop-Up Hot Dog Toaster
Not so much “techy” but I thought it was pretty cool. A toaster that cooks the hot dog and the bun at the same time, and not just one but two. I’m sure my fellow students will appreciate this one. 
 

#5 Mini Robo Vacuum
So if you have family or friends who are messy eaters consider this vacuum. It’s tiny and glides automatically over your table or counter top to clean up your mess for you. Clean up after Christmas supper has never been easier.

Merry almost Christmas everyone!

We watched this video a really long time ago, and I took an abundance of notes on the video but never put it into action with a blog post. I’m a terrible procrastinator but at least I get it all done. So here are my thoughts on the video. 

The movie was a documentary called RIP: A Remix Manifesto and it was all about the copyright laws, censorship and the media. The documentary was divided up into four main points: 

1) Culture builds on the past
2) The past tries to control the future
3) Our future is becoming less free
4) In order to build free societies you must limit the control of the past 

Girl Talk was one of the individuals the documentary focused on. He’s not a traditional musician, in the sense that he doesn’t sing, or play an instrument. What Girl Talk does is take songs from other artists in the past and using a computer program completely alters the beats, rhythms, and arrangements of the songs, mixing a bunch of different songs together, and comes up with something completely original and different. The problem that Girl Talk faces when creating his music is copyright infringement. Should this really be such a big deal? I mean Girl Talks music is completely one of a kind, and his huge fan base would sure argue that as well. 

I believe copyright issues have some validity up to a point. I think people should give credit where credit is due of course. If culture builds on the past, but the past is so locked-up with copyright laws to even build on it at all, then our future is looking bleak for culture. Maybe all these big companies, big CEO’s, big lawyers, and corporate goons, should stop being so money hungry and give our culture some freedom to grow. Because that’s really the issue here isn’t it? Money and greed? Walt Disney [the person] isn’t even alive, yet when someone replicates Mickey Mouse, Disney cracks out their lawyers and their lawsuits. Really corporate America? Give it a rest already.

It’s unfortunate though that when I graduate I’ll probably be teaching primary grades and not senior grades, so it’s hard to tell what I’ve learned from this class that I can actually incorporate into my teaching routine. Maybe that’s just me being a little closed minded, but it’s hard to imagine primary students using some of this stuff that I can’t even figure out for myself. I definitely think it’s important to incorporate some aspects of technology into younger classrooms, but in my opinion younger children should be more encouraged to explore the natural world, before they embark on the high-tech world.

I’m more than welcoming to the idea of a class blog, because I think that would benefit students, parents, and many other teachers. And although we weren’t really exposed to Smart Boards, I would love to have one in my class because I think they would make a fantastic tool for teaching and learning.

I think what I’ve learned most from this class is that I have a digital identity, and as teachers we no longer have to isolate ourselves. As I build my digital identity I can connect to teachers across the world easier than ever. The idea that there’s this huge network of teachers happy and willing to share resources with me and all other teachers is a great feeling. As teachers we no longer have to worry about not having enough content, it’s knowing what content to focus on, and the most engaging and innovative ways to teach it.

Although I haven’t jumped on the Twitter bandwagon just yet, I fully expect to start building up my social network of teachers who tweet very soon. Another tool I hope to keep building on is my social bookmarking account on Delicious. I can bookmark everything I need, and it’s available to me on any computer I use, and other people that I am connected to can check out my bookmarks and I can check out theirs. A plethora of interesting, educational websites right at my finger tips.  

Google has also served as a great tool this semester. What used to be just a search engine to me is now so much more. As I discover more and more blogs from other teachers and educators, Google Reader has been a great tool to have to keep me updated on other bloggers I’m interested in, and it will continue to be something I’ll use into my teaching career. Another program that I’ve found incredibly useful this semester was Google Docs. Any document I am working on I can put onto Google Docs and share it with whoever I want, and then they can edit and add to it as well. This is a great tool if you have a group project that needs to be done and there isn’t time to meet, or if you’re writing a paper and want someone’s input. Both great tools for teachers.

So maybe some of what I learned isn’t necessarily meant for application in the classroom or for students themselves to use, although sometimes that may be the case. So much of what I’ve learned will serve in making me a better teacher by broadening my horizons, opening my mind to new ideas, and connecting with other teachers available to help me whenever I need teaching assistance. It’s reassuring to know as I venture into my teaching career, I am not alone; I have an entire network behind me to help.

#1 Smart Phones

Phones are getting smarter and much more practical. Some people seem to think that phones are going to see a rapid increase in technology and use, and that our desktop computers are going to see a rapid decline in use and practicality. Google, which was once known to us as a simple search engine, has now embarked in the cell phone market, and they are succeeding. Google phones are one of the ’smartest’ phones on the market right now. One of the more interesting applications is the Google maps navigation, or  ‘Google street view’ which is like a GPS/navigation system for your car but it actually shows you the street that your driving on by connecting to a magnet on the cars phone dock. Maybe if I were tech savvy enough to figure out how to use the Google phone (and rich enough to afford it), I may actually try to use it someday. Who knows it may very well come in handy.

While I’m on the topic of phones I’d like to enlighten everyone to something cool I discovered this weekend. There’s an anonymous person in the city of Regina who is doing a service to its citizens by notifying people about stop checks, police radar, backed up traffic, car accidents etc. Everything that may inconvenience your driving in the city, this anonymous tipper let’s you know almost as soon as something happens. You text your name and number to this 306 number, and you are added to their ‘list’ and will receive notifications right away. Definitely saved me some inconvenience this weekend.

#2 ‘Cloud’ Computing/Technology

Basically the ‘cloud’ is space on the web where we store our stuff (for lack of a better word). When something isn’t stored or saved on your computer it’s up in “the cloud”.  One such example of this technology is dropbox.com, where you can have the same file across all the computers you are using to work or share this file. Again, neat stuff.

#3 Geo Tagging

Sorry to say I didn’t fully grasp this concept. I think it’s something along the lines of, if your posting something on a website you are able to tag yourself geographically so that people know where you’re posting from (don’t quote me on that one). I look forward to seeing how this technology could be used in the classroom someday.

# 4 Open Content /Open Courseware

Favourite topic of interest for the day right here! The concept behind open content is no textbooks. That’s right students, NO TEXTBOOKS! Instead of textbooks, all the course content is put online, and for free. FREE! MIT is one of the University’s ahead of the game for using open content. Stanford on iTunes is another example. Basically you can download class lectures from your professors on iTunes, so if you miss a class it’s available to you there. Even people who aren’t students can download entire courses worth of classes. I truly wish the U of R had something like this. How much do I spend on textbooks each semester? Hundreds of dollars, and so by the time I graduate I will have thousands of dollars worth of textbooks and little to no use for them. Not to mention, how many textbooks I bought and seldom used. If more University’s had this technology, more people could afford to attend [at least some] classes. Students have enough expenses as is, if we eliminated the cost of textbooks, that would relieve at least one added stress off our shoulders. Can I get a Hallelujah for open courseware?

#5 eBooks

eBooks, such as Kindle are turning books into technology. Basically, you read books on a computer-like device the size of a book. You buy your books online for cheaper than an actual book, and your eBook stores them all, saving you money and space. This would be fantastic technology to incorporate into the classroom. There would never be a limited number of textbooks.  If textbooks are digital, you can have as many copies as you need and you don’t have to worry about losing copies etc. In a perfect world all schools would have eBooks.

#6 Augmented Reality 

By far, the coolest thing I learned in this lecture. I’m not sure how well I will be at explaining this technology but I’ll do my best. Augmented reality is to “superimpose a virtual reality on top of another reality”. In the video we watched in class it was described as “simple technology that will change the way we see the world”. For instance, Books in 3d where images leap off the page; storytelling will never be the same again. I mean not just books, but whole classrooms are could be transformed with this kind of technology. Augmented Reality has all kinds of interactive tools (revolutionized computers) that could in essence, change the way children learn. As teachers we are learning that children learn in different ways. It’s fair to say that if children are engaged, and maybe even having fun, they are more apt to learn. Let’s get this technology in our classrooms NOW! Again, only in a perfect world right? Will augmented reality ever be a part of the everyday real world? In Regina, probably not for a long time.

#7 Gesture Based Technology/Computing

Gesture based technology is best described as hands on technology, like computers you touch such as the Microsoft Light Table, which is a computer screen table (i.e. Microsoft Second Light) which responds to multiple points of interaction, and can be touched [with two fingers for example] to rotate and expand. It allows projection through the screen, which means it can magnify the digital screen so that you can actually view a different image than is being projected by the computer. Another great tool we could use in the classroom, absolutely.

#8 Personal Web

Personal Web is the whole idea of your digital footprint and because we have personalized our web (i.e. through Twitter and Facebook) we can also search the all of what is happening, right now. We can now do a search that deals with what’s happening at any particular moment or “Real Time Search”, as opposed to news that happened hours ago. Real time news may not be as ‘nice’ to read, but it can be superior to actual news in many other ways. Check out Spezify, see for yourself.

#9 Virtual Worlds (Second Life)

Second life is a 3D virtual world, where people create Avatars and interact in this other world. There are definitely some people who use this technology for reasons that are un-educational, so if you’re going to use it, use Teen Second Life, a much safer version of the technology. How could we use this in education? Well Regina public has their own island they are developing, for example. Even NASA has their own island where people can actually learn educational things. It’s tough to know if this kind of technology is actually safe to use with children. It raises some ethical issues, such as adults who use the program to dress up as children, and can engage in perverse fantasies. As a teacher, I would be sceptical to introduce my students to such a program. The barrier between the perverse world and educational world can be very close, so you’d just have to use it with extreme caution.  However, one thing I learnt about this technology that I found really inspiring was how people with impaired motor skills can make use of it. For example, there’s a man who doesn’t have use of his fine motor skills, that created a bar on Second Life called “wheelies”. The bar is place where he and others with handicaps can dance. For many individuals with the desire to dance, but who physically cannot dance, Second Life is a place where they can possibly feel more themselves than in real life. So the lesson learned here is that technologies like Second Life, which at a glance may seem unsafe and impractical aren’t without their benefits.

Thanks for reading.

I remember having silent reading periods in Elementary school and instead of reading actual books, I read teen magazines like Seventeen and CosmoGirl, as young as grade 4. I would never read any of those magazines now, but back then, that was what interested me, or at least interested me only because they were what was appealing at the time. Actual meaningful literature didn’t interest me one bit, and I wonder why. I realize that reading is important, but is reading that garbage better than not reading at all?

First of all, why were those magazines available to me in my Elementary school library? But I guess what I want to stress was why my teachers did nothing about it? The articles published in those magazines are FLUFF. Can we even really call them articles? Not to mention instead of broadening my vocabulary or expanding my imagination I was learning about what was “HOT”, what was “IN” right now. So whether teachers know it or not, media and advertising is in their classrooms, and it is taking away from potential learning.

Eating disorders are one of the most common chronic illnesses among teen girls, and yet they are preventable. We focus so much on what causes things like eating disorders, and low self-esteem, but not enough on how they can be avoided. Students spend a large part of their day at school, so as teachers don’t you think school should be a place where girls, and boy both, don’t have to feel poorly about themselves, and hopefully even feel good about themselves. That’s part of the solution I think; teaching our students to be comfortable in their own skin, and to be confident learners. Teaching students that their self worth should mean more than what the media portrays should be paramount, don’t you think?