Digital Storytelling 2

Here is my reaction for this weeks activity.

I wasn't sure if we were supposed to have backing audio throughout the activity - mine i just have 30 seconds of my song fading in and out. Bassline by Mantronix is the song.


https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/pkarnst2/www/Milestone7.mp3

Digital Story Telling

Here is the first of my digital storytelling videos:




That's a slide show of when we piled newspaper up in my roommate's room last year. You may notice that the last few slides show newspaper in a new room. That is because the guy we originally pranked thought it was one of the other roommates, instead of the two of us who actually did it, and the newspaper got moved into his room. Looking back I would have probably chosen a prank that was a little more environmentally friendly afterwards since it took up a lot of recycling room.


Here is my second video:



I don't have a microphone for my computer and couldn't find one, so for now there is no commentary. Hopefully I get that sorted out soon.


Here is my third video:



This video is about the Outer Banks in North Carolina. When I was growing up I spent a week or two there every summer because my grandma lived there. She worked at the historical society in Beaufort, NC, which is a small town on the coast with a lot of history related to Pirates. It is where perhaps the most legendary pirate's, Captain Blackbeard, ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, is at. I haven't been there since she died , and I miss going there. If the graveyard picture shows up, that's a cemetery in Beaufort, NC where a lot of pirates were buried.

Growing Up Online

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kidsonline/

I must say this was an interesting video to watch, and at the same time I wasn't really that surprised. I remember when I was a junior in high school there was a site that started getting popular called Xanga, I think they included it on the program linked above. I had one myself, but I was always pretty cautious about what I put up online, however I was pretty surprised by all of the things my classmates would put up. It wasn't necessarily inappropriate as far as the content, but it just seemed like too much information was being posted. I look back on it now and am even more surprised, since I now have a greater appreciation for how easy it can be to obtain personal information on the internet, since we seem to be bombarded by those sort of stories on the news.

I think the internet is great for information and fast communication, and I think Facebook is a great networking tool, but I worry that many students are too quick to publish things they probably shouldn't on Facebook, MySpace, and so forth because they may not appreciate how available that information is. It also worries me that this generation will become to comfortable interacting on the internet and their personal skills will decline. One expression I like to use is "e-mail muscles", which I encounter much with my dysfunctional extended family. People are a lot more aggressive in what they say online and say things they probably wouldn't be able to say in person. This is how I feel about a lot of social networking sites and online conversations - many things may be said or done that the person may be unable to say or do in person.

I find it somewhat ironic I am sharing this viewpoint on a blog.

Money for Grades?

Here are the blogs I commented on:

http://jkrone2.blogspot.com/
http://illinoisscience.blogspot.com/

I guess even after reading everyone's opinions, I am still on the fence on this issue. I can see the benefits - it can keep kids in school who really shouldn't be dropping out, gives them a little extra cash that they hopefully spend on things they need, and can hopefully help them learn. It works on paper but I am a little skeptical if it would actually work. I also think that if all it takes is money to motivate the students, then there was probably something else that we could have done to motivate them without resorting to money. I would rather not have our schools leaving the impression on their students that money can help solve any problem ( I know that sounds like a slippery slope argument but I can't word it better).

Anyway I also felt bad about not embedding my videos last week, so here is a youtube video of a monkey washing a cat:

Vision of Students

Here are two youtube videos for this week:

A Vision of Students Today
A Vision of K-12 Students Today

I believe when we are in the classroom, it is definitely our responsibility to mold our class to meet student expectations. Both of these videos expressed students concerns over their education. The first one, at least from my interpretation, had more to do with how college students are forced to multi-task everything, while the second one really focused on incorporating technology to keep students engaged. When thinking of the use of technology in the classroom I only considered the technologies that would be available. I never thought about how my students might be used to that technology and would want to use it in the classroom.

It is our responsibility to accommodate our students if they would like to use the technology. I just think our responsibility as teachers is to find the most effective ways to teach our students and use them. If using technologies as shown in this video is the best way to teach them then we should use it.

When I am teaching I could do a survey of my students to see what kind of activities they think they can benefit from. If I make my own activities that are "mixing it up" from the norm I will make sure to gauge how my students are reacting to the lesson.

Thats all for now.

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

This week we viewed a video of Ken Robinson discussing how schools don't seem to encourage creativity enough. Here is a link to the video : http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

His discussion of the dancer at the end reminded me of my little brother. He is now going to school as a music education major. There is a famous family video in my family where he got a Mickey Mouse plastic guitar for Christmas one year and wouldn't stop "playing" it. Our whole family knew that music was going to be his thing, and sure enough he kept with it and enjoys it. He was a very accomplished saxophone player in high school, winning several state honors. However, he was never encouraged by his band director to pursue anything in music, it was more my parents. In fact, when he told the band director he wanted to go into music (he hadn't decided at that point in performing or teaching) the band director was surprised. I think this shows the lack of encouragement that students receive to take those sort of career paths, that even someone that talented (I'm not intentionally trying to talk my brother up I'm sorry) wasn't pushed to pursue that by educators.

Anyway, enough of my unnecessary rambling, here are some other reactions to this video (that I have responded to) :

http://johnatillinois.blogspot.com/2008/09/schools-kill-creativity-kenrobinson.html
http://jkrone2.blogspot.com/2008/09/blog-week-2-ken-robinson-and-creativity.html
http://2-o-hearts.blogspot.com/2008/09/ken-robinson-schools-vs-creativity.html

First milestone question

I apologize because I think I am posting this after it is due.

"Given the realities of our modern age and the demands of our children's future, is it really ok to allow teachers to choose whether or not they incorporate modern technologies into their instruction?"


I would usually say it is unfair to "force" new classroom technologies onto teachers, however as the question says, "given the reality of our age" I think is important that new technologies are incorporated into the classroom. There should be certain technologies that are required to be used, because when students move on to higher levels of education they will need to be familiar with it. I will use an example from high school to illustrate my feelings:

Despite coming from a relatively large high school, I had the same biology teacher my freshman and senior years. My freshman year we learned the "old-fashioned" way. We used worksheets, copied down outlines from the overhead, even copied notes off of the chalkboard. However my senior year for AP biology, all of our notes were in power point form. Oddly enough this was my first class that we had more than just a one day encounter with power point (I say oddly enough since all of my biology classes at U of I have used power point to present pretty much all material). Its humorous to think I had no idea how important it was for me to get used to power point presentations.

I am not actually sure if my teacher was forced to convert everything to power point, or he just realized that it was probably something that he should do. Some days he loved it because he didn't have to spend hours a day on the chalkboard. Others he seemed to dislike it since he had to convert 20 years of lessons into powerpoint form. I bring this up because some teachers that have been doing things for so long they may not want to use the new technology. With the right training teachers can learn to use this technology to benefit the students, and that is the ultimate goal.

Some technologies however may conflict with what teachers may regard as a better way of teaching a topic. For example, my biology teacher still had us fill out some of those primitive worksheets because he felt it was more effective than being lectured with power point the whole time.

In conclusion, I believe some technologies that students need to get used to (such as powerpoint 4 years ago) should be required for use, however if it is some new developing technology, or some sort of luxury, teachers should be able to choose what is the most effective way of teaching.