Petcha Kutcha

For my Petcha Kutcha I chose to talk about dance. I have been dancing for 19 years and it is without a doubt my one true love in life. Dance is one thing in the world that has never let me down and has made me who I am today. Dance is a world of freedom and expression for me. The feeling of performing and dancing to a song that touches your soul is an overwhelming feeling that cannot be expressed in words, it must be felt through dance. Dance is my strongest passion, I hope to share that passion with you through my presentation.

Finally! =)

Finally...the link to my voicethread! =)

I barely have time for one life...

...let alone a second life.


I find the virtual world such as second life fascinating and kind of crazy at the same time, however, I don't understand how someone can have enough time to do such things as second life when I find that I barely have time for what is going on in my real life. I have never been one for things such as avatars, wiki's, etc so it seems a bit hard for me to get into something such as second life. The only reason I am able to check facebook lately is becasue it's available on my phone. If it weren't for my iPhone I'd probably never use the internet or check my email.

I do find things such as avatars and games such as The Sims to be pretty neat, I just don't have time for them. It seems kinda of that you can create another character or yourself or a character or whoever you want and create a life for that character, it's like a sense of fairytale that you can control. Being able to do and create such things and use them to communicate with people around the world shows how far we have come with technology, it's unreal sometimes. I find that this would be a good and different educational method. I find that since we have the ability to let people communicate with others everywhere we should take advantage of that, especially in the classroom. It teaches are kids to be much more open minded to people "different" then they are, it might be a great way to introduce and teach topics on race and gender biases. I also found that this orientation was a bit much and very loaded. This might be something a student in junior high or high school finds a bit more simple however, it might not be visable for my 2nd graders.

This orientation video was rather boring too. It continuely talked about how there is just too much information people need to be informed of before proceeding in second life, so much information to the point if I actually had time to do something like second life I would not want to sit through countless directions just to learn how it works. Things like this are difficlult for me because I HATE listening to directions, call me stubborn but I like to figure things out like this for myself and just play with things until I have figured out what I need to know. I would probably learn things like this much faster if I were to watch/listen to directions but I can't seem to do it. I found this video hard to focus on and the voices were very monotone which reminded me of my 9th grade History teacher that never really sounded excited about anything.

Favorites!

I did my survey over favorite sports!

Take my survey so I can see what your favorite sport and sports team is!!!

Here are the results I have so far....

My answers:
My favorite sport is: Football
My favorite team: The Oklahoma State Cowboys and The Chicago Cubs
I prefer college football and pro baseball!

13 Going on 30!

It's a little hard to believe that Sam is only 13 years old. Her knowledge of technology is unreal, especially considering she taught herself most of what she knows. Sam uses technology for school, to interact and communicate with friends, play games, and also to help others. Whatever problem Sam comes across she finds a way to solve by using technology. Sam's digital portrait is amazing for any age, especially a young teen. Though I do not claim to be any type of technically savy person, I do have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing when it comes to the use of technology. On numerous occasisons I have had to help my mom or MeMa with something on the computer, I even showed them how to open a facebook account, they now have their own farm and town! :) When it comes to technology I most certainly have the most knowledge in my family. Sam is such a knowledgable young teen and if more kids were to have her knowledge and understanding of technology they could open doors to new forms of education.

When in my own classroom one day in the near future, I will have assignments and activties that will encourage my children to think outside of the box and not be limited in their educational experiences. I believe this will allow my kids to explore endless possibilities. I want my students to passionate about what we do in the classroom and be able to take what they have learned and use it outside of the classroom. I want my class to be able to express themselves creatively as well.

Mrs. White's Wiki's...

Paralley Play or Collaboration.

I personally thought Mrs. Whites video about using wiki spaces was very informative and a great video to be shared in the classroom. She touched base on numerous ways that students can post their thoughts and ideas, and even questions about certain subjects they may be struggling with or are just simply interested in knowing. Wiki pages can be used for education, as well as entertainment purposes. Mrs. White's knowledge of wikis and such sites is very appearent and it something that s benefical to students.





Having the access to the supporting wiki, WikiThink available was nice since the video was a bit hard to see. I really enjoyed and could connect with this video. I have in several cases attempted to use new forms of technology and found myself confused and a bit overwhelmed. This video offered so many different options and information that it would seem impossible not to have comments or blog topics to discuss. I would love to use a video such as this one in my classroom to help students to use their voices in a different and exciting way. I believe kids would enjoy using something such as wiki pages because it's somewhat looked at as a 'grown up' thing and kids alway want to do what the 'big kids' are doing, so to speak. I think that Wiki sites and other sites like the Parallel Play or Collaboration have loads of potiential to serve as educational outlets for both students and teachers. I do hope to share things like this with my own classroom.

There's no place like home....

Thank goodness for the slides that corresponded to this video or I would have been a bit lost. Though this video was rather lengthy and overwhelming it had some good information available. It was a carefully planned and creatively thought out video. When gathering, sharing, and organizing information on the web it can be rather stressful if you do not know how to do certain things or aren't sure of what you are looking for, this video helps you to approach situations such as that in a calmly manner without feeling overwhelmed.




The idea of using the Wizard of Oz the musical to explain the ways of the web was very creative. I personally love the Wizard of Oz. However, I found that this video was entirely too long. Someone wanting to learn about applications and blogging might not want to watch an hour long video, plus by the time the video starts and end there is so much in between I found that I was forgetting what happened before. Though the idea was a different approach, it was hard for me to stay focused for that long. The message being potrayed is great and I like the thought behind it but I think it could have been cut down in length.


I do hope that I am able to have the oppertunity to use such applications and the web in my future classroom, using a song to teach kids is always a great way to gain their attention. However, I will be teaching kids who are still learning to tie their shoes so using an hour long video would not be an option for their attention span would more than likely be shot before the first song. Kids at that age may not be capable of understanding the terminology nor will they have as much access to computers as the teens in this video. Overall, I liked the general idea and message of this video but wouldn't have minded if it was a bit shorter.