Finale Reflection:

This is my final reflection journal entry for my EDU 7666 class.

When I first started blogging as an assignment I didn’t realize how useful blogging could be as a teacher. I discovered there are many blog sites dedicated to education. Some sites lead to discussion and others are a great form of information. I have learned a great deal about technology and education through blogging. I would highly recommend blogging to other teachers. I will definitely continue using blogging to enhance my teaching technology skills.

Subject: Ed Galaxy Blog:

April 16, 2010

Once again Kevin Cummins the author of Ed Galaxy has been busy blogging. He posted around 2 blogs a week. Here is a list of a few of his blogs for the month of April: Best War History Websites for Students, Lookah - The Best Software Tutorials on the Web, Adobe CS5 Education Solutions, Excellent chart design tool for any classroom or office , and Top 5 iPad apps for Educators.

My Participation: I visited my favorite Ed Galaxy Blog site and was taken to the most fascinating video tutorial site on how to use technology in the classroom: http://www.lookah.tv/media.cfm?cid=&id=122
Lookah TV has an endless amount of videos that have all been screened to insure quality. I watched Using Inspiration with Smart Board – Part 1 video. I found this video very informative since I have no experience with the Smart Board technology. The video shows the viewer how useful Smart Boards can be when forming concept maps. The site has a variety of tutorial videos: Adobe, Animoto, Apple, Cam Studio, EasiTeach, Facebook, Game Maker and Wiki are a few videos.

My Learning: I learned how initiative and interactive Smart Boards can be in the classroom. The technology should be in every classroom. I look forward to the day when I can use this technology in my own classroom.

Subject: Hope Foundation Blog:

April 16, 2010

Hope Foundation Blog is one of my favorite blogs to have meaningful discussions on education. This month they had an article about how schools are now taking away recess from children and replacing it with structured play activities. Hope Foundation wanted to know what educators thought about this article.

My Participation: I posted my comments on April 16, 2010 about how I felt about recess; children should have free time at school away from structured activities and recess should not be taken away. On April 17, 2010 I received a response to my comment agreeing with my opinions. The commentator also suggested that research should be conducted to determine which theory was most affective in promoting academic success. Another blogger left a comment on April 20, 2010 regarding my comment. She is a counselor and has become concerned with the early diagnoses of ADHD (attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder). She believes that children are no longer allowed to be children anymore and adults expect them to be little grownups. She agreed that free play and unstructured social time is important in a child’s development to learn how to manage their own behavior.

On March 31, 2010 Alan Blankstein comment on the Hope Foundation Blog about the firing of an entire staff of teachers. He had very valid points on how administrators and teachers should work together. He illustrated that firing entire staff was a cowards approach and that hard work and cooperation is the answer. Additionally, he commented on how only two states received top honors in education. What happen to the other 48 states? On April 16, 2010 I decided to leave a commit of support, and emphasize the importance of working together to achieve higher academic standards.

My Learning: Hope Foundation has been an extremely informative blog bringing major issues in education up for discussion. Through conversations with other educators I have been able to learn about important issues affecting education today. This information will enhance my teaching experience with students and working relationship with co-workers.

Subject: Ozge Karaoglu Blog

Ozge Karaoglu Blog is always filled with great technology information however this last month there was not as many postings. Ozge usually has a blog a week filled with her favorite technology items. This last month however she was a way on the IATEFL (International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language) conference which she posted about. During the week of March 18, 2010 Ozge posted her favorites on 100 Web Tools to Enhance Collaboration (Part 3). This posting was filled with great sites that promoted collaboration within the classroom.

My Participation:

On April 10, 2010 I decided to check out the WorldTV.com site that Ozge recommended. To my disappointment the site did not load for me. It looked like it would be a very interesting teaching tool and I was curious to see how it worked.

Since World TV did not work I switched my focus to Metanotes. This site gives the user an ability to create post it notes on their computer. After registering for this free service the website went down.

My Learning:

I learned sometimes technology doesn’t work the way you want it to. It was very disappointing not to be able to check out these sites that Ozge recommended.

Reflection Journal 2

The Subject: Ed Galaxy
Ed Galaxy is one of the most active blogs that I am currently following. The author Kevin Cummins updates his site almost every day with the latest technology information. In the Month of March there have been eight posts already. Ed Galaxy has a wide variety of information posted on the site from whiteboard activities, games, intelligent test, and create your own on-line picture books. The white board activities are from a wonderful website called White Board Resources at http://www.philipcrammond.com/closediwb/. At this site readers learn how to teach a variety of subjects using white board technology. Another topic posted March 10, 2010 discussed a Multiple Intelligent Test offered on the site BGFL Multiple Intelligences at http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks3/ict/multiple_int/index.htm. Readers can take the test and discover how they learn best. I took the test and found it very interesting.

My Participation:
Most of the information on Ed Galaxy was straight forward and did not leave much room to make comments except for thank you for providing this information. I did choose to leave a comment on the article about Magic Studios, www.magicstudio.com. This site gave users the opportunity to create educational games for their classes; however, I found this site difficult to manage and was not free as stated. I left a comment March 8, 2010 asking if I was creating my game in the wrong category, since every topic I wanted to use seem to have a fee. Currently, I have not received a response.

My Learning:
One of the most interesting sites discussed on Ed Galaxy was create your own on-line picture book. I visited this site on March 2, 2010. This site was fun to use and full of creativity for students. I learned how to create my own picture book that could be used in the classroom with children. I created a pattern book similar to Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See by Eric Carle. My book was called Alien, Alien What Do You See. The website URL is http://www.storyjumper.com. In the future this would be a great site for beginning reading and writing students.

The Subject: Hope Foundation
Hope Foundation Blog promotes discussion on a wide variety of topics: Administrators, Announcements, Assessments, Collective Bargaining, Educational Policy, Parents, Pedagogy, Politics, Social Issues, and several more. They have a blog comment on each topic at least once a month and sometimes more. The information on the Hope Foundation Blog was very useful and informative for a teacher or soon to be teacher.

My Participation:
I have been checking into Hope Foundation periodically throughout the last month and was most interested in the following blogs: Has the classroom environment changed, and Teaching the Next Generation. The Has the Classroom Environment Changed is about the problems teachers face with the mainstream of children in the classroom. This particular article commented on the case of a six year old girl that was put into handcuffs because she had a tantrum at school and the teachers could not control her. One blogger felt like mainstreaming these types of students was difficult and teachers were not given the proper assistance in the classroom to handle them. On March 8, 2010 I commented that the handcuffing seemed to be a bit extreme for a six year old and ask what other solutions could be done. Once I placed my comment I received an email from the administrating staff stating that they would comment on it if no one else did. As of right now, I have not received an answer to my question on this topic.

The other article that intrigued me was Teaching the Next Generation. This article was about the importance of introducing the latest technology advancements into the classroom. I found the article inspiring, since I am just figuring out most of this technology myself. I was the first to comment on the article and posed a question on how to implement technology when your students know more than you. I received two inspiring answers about how important it is for students’ self-esteem to be-able to demonstrate their skills to the teacher and actually teach the instructor.

My Learning:
This site has been extremely enlightening on the world of education. The site gave users hope, hence the name Hope Foundation. I have learned there are great resource sites that can be useful for future teaching advisement. As a future teacher, it is important to be informed about the latest news and technology in education to provide the most cohesive teaching environment.

Subject: Ozge Karaoglu http://ozgekaraoglu.edublogs.org
Ozge Karaoglu Blog is full of technology information. The author updates her blog once a week with a topic of the week. Her most current blog was about tools that help you build and create websites. She posted it on March 11, 2010. She gives the reader links to sites that will enhance your teaching lessons. One recommended site was the Alpha Edemy; which helps users create an online course for their students. In another blog, Ozge wrote about how you can add Widgets to your blog on March 2, 2010. This blog gave the users sites that would allow them to add widgets to their own blogs.

My Participation:
When I checked Ozge Karaoglu Blog on March 6 and found the article about widgets I was excited to learn more about them. Ozge assumes that the reader already knows what widgets are; however, I was not very clear on what they are. I decided to create some widgets on my blog, like she suggested and followed her directions to install them. After I finished my widget addition to my blog I decided to comment on Ozge Karaoglu’s site about her article. I commented that her article was even useful to a new blogger like me, and I appreciated the information. Just look at the bottom of my blog for my new widgets!

My Learning:
Ozge Karaoglu’s blog gave me the right tools to learn how to post widgets on my blog. It is an extremely useful blog that has amazing resource information on it. As a beginner blogger, I was able to find information on how to enhance my blog, website and my teaching abilities with the latest technology. Technology is important for teaching the next generation, and I will definitely be using Ozge's information in the future.

Subject: National Geographic
The National Geographic website is a fantastic site for the latest news in science. This site has an Environment section that provides several informational subjects such as Environmental Home, Green Guide, Global Warming, Natural Disasters, Habitats, and Freshwater. The site is updated every day and can be a great resource for teaching science.

My Participation:
I have been using the National Geographic site as a learning tool and resource for my Global Warming Web Quest. The site has a Global Warming section: http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/gw-causes. The Global Warming topics are Causes, Effects, Science, and Solutions. I have been reading and collecting information from this site for future teaching assignments. The site does have an area to buzz up an article, but it did not have a place to put comments and discuss topics. There is a blog section on the site called Green Living. This blog discussed ways to live green and it has about 5 postings a month; however for the month of March there has not been any new post. The last blog posted was on Feb. 22, 2010 about how Google can buy and sell energy now. The topics did not lead to a discussion yet for me, but I am hoping they will be an article of interest for me to post a comment in the future.

My Learning:
I have learned a great deal of information on Global Warming and the causes of it. The National Geographic webpage is a great site for student learning. The site contains games and quizzes on it that will be useful for my future students. I also liked that the site offers solutions to fixing the global warming problem. I think it is important to have students learn about what can be done to fix the problem. In the future, I would like my students to come up with their own solutions to fixing the Global Warming problem.

Delicious Website

Social bookmarking is the latest technology in organizing ones websites on the internet and is currently replacing the old “favorite” bookmarking technology. Social bookmarking has several useful features that benefit students and teachers in education. To start with; users can create their own personal social bookmarking site that can be access through the internet allowing users to use the site wherever they are. Additionally, there are several features of social bookmarking that are useful in teaching many subjects in education. Social bookmarking allows the user to categorize websites and internet tools by subject matter by utilizing the tag feature. This feature stores useful web resources and makes searching a simpler task. These features combined allow for a more cohesive learning environment for students.

Social bookmarking can be a very a useful tool primarily for science research, especially for the fifth grade level. Students at that level are able to research the internet through the use of social bookmarking. Moreover, students can create their own social bookmarking site to help them organize their own science research on the internet. Science resources on the internet are infinite and highly informative for students and teachers. Technically, students can utilize their access to websites through the internet, as long as the school permits it through proper filtering.

Students are able to access a variety of web resources that are age appropriate and interesting. The internet has a wide range of websites and web tools that are specially created for students especially for the fifth grade science. Students can access science videos, science websites, science games, and science activities through the use of social bookmarking. These sites make learning fun and interesting to students of all ages and levels.

Additionally, a social bookmarker can choose to share their bookmarks or keep their bookmarks private. Users benefit by being able to access a wide selection of shared information about a given topic with a collaborative network of people. Through the use of collaborative work on the social bookmarking sites, teachers and students can benefit greatly by being able to find quality resources that will help in the teaching and learning process. Furthermore, students can benefit from the organization gained through social bookmarking to help them research topics by subject matter. The internet is also a very useful tool that can help students of all abilities by providing opportunities for differentiated instruction.
Social bookmarking is a useful tool that allows students to meet national technological standards. Teachers that use this technology in their classroom demonstrate how helpful technology can be in the learning process, in addition to helping students learn to organize useful resources.

Check out my delicious account:

http://delicious.com/shanon.farsak08

Introduction: Today I am entering a new realm: Blogging. I never imagined myself doing anything remotely like this in my entire life. I’m like a fish out of water. However, here I am trying to keep up with the times. As an elementary educational graduate student, I am required to learn how to blog and to use the advancement of technology in my classroom. I am hoping this experience will teach me how to be more internet savvy and inform me on how the internet can help in teaching.

I will gladly take any positive feedback, on how I am doing in my efforts to explore new territories. My journey begins with posting Blogs that I find interesting to me. Below is my list of adventurous blogs:

Blog 1
Name: National Geographic Website

URL:http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/01/100126-tigers-greater-mekong-video/

Description:
National Geographic is an informational magazine that focuses on culture, geography and science. They have videos and an educational link for children. It has games and fact sheets about ancient civilizations, endangered species, and much more. It is a wonderful educational tool for students.

Reasons:
I chose National Geographic because I find the information on the site fascinating. The site has a variety of topics: ancient civilization, global warming, and endangered species to name a few. The way the site exhibits photos and information is interesting to all. Additionally, the information on this site is appropriate to have on a web quest for students to learn from.

Blog 2:
Name: Hope Foundation

URL:http://www.hopefoundation.org/start/

Description: Hope Foundation is a teaching network set up to help students to succeed in schools. Their motto is “Failure is Not an Option!” for any student. The site is extremely informative for educational purposes and provides useful teaching practices and methods.

Reason: I chose Hope Foundation because it was an educational source that would advance my teaching abilities. I am looking forward to learning more about “Failure is Not an Option!” because I strongly agree with the motto. I think that when children are expected to succeed then they do. Also, I am a strong believer that as teachers we need to give our students every opportunity to succeed.

Blog 3:
Name: Ozge Karaoglu’s Blog

URL: http://ozgekaraoglu.edublogs.org/

Description: Ozge Karaoglu’s Blog is about being a “21st century teacher and learner”. The site is filled with information regarding education and technology. It is considered to be one of the top 50 blog sites for education.

Reason: I was instantly drawn to this site from the moment I opened it. Visually, Ozge Karaoglu’s Blog is the best I have seen. In addition to its esthetics, the blog has an abundant amount of information about technology and how to use it in your classroom to enhance education. This is going to be a fantastic tool to learn more about technology in the classroom.

Blog 4:
Name: Edgalaxy

URL: http://www.edgalaxy.com/

Description: Edgalaxy was designed by Kevin Cummins to help educators find the latest technology tools and lesson plans to help keep teachers ahead of the revolutionizing world of technology education.

Reason: “Cool site for nerdy teachers” is the logo of Edgalaxy and I love it! Additionally, Kevin approaches technology as a toy and I liked that idea. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like playing with toys. Additionally, I found this page interesting, informative, and easy to read. I am ready to play with some new toys! Let’s play.

5th grade science blog test

This is a test of how to blog..... It's my very first blog.