Time is tick, tick, ticking away....

Well, my group is frantically trying to get prepared for this presentation and it's so hard for me not to try to take control and do everyones work for them. Not that they're not capable it's just me and my brain, working overtime. My husband Neil starts working in Moncton tomorrow, doing construction and demolition at a Sobey's store so it's going to be a little difficult for me to get to class on time. Thursday I also have a funeral to attend in the afternoon so hopefully it'll all work out and I'll be there in time, if not we might have to go last. I am learning alot about wikipedia & citizendium. There are alot of opinions out there about whether students should be able to use wikipedia as a resource reference and I think that students in the k-12 grades should be able to use it with some limits but University level students should not. Student's at a university level need to learn good researching skills and wikipedia seems like such a short cut, it is a good starting point though. I'm really glad that we're taking these classes because sometime I feel out of the loop when it comes to some of today's new technologies but this class gave us a great overview of what's out there & what's availiable to students and teachers. I find the whole wikispace thing facinating, they could be used on so many levels, help people do their jobs better & give them a place to work collaboritivly, awesome. I'm such a reader, writer that assignments that require me to do research and write a paper doesn't faze me. Researching and applying this new technology intimidates me and if I don't know how to do something I get easily frustrated. I can't wait to show my family this new technology, once I get my internet hooked up anyway. lol. Anyway Jeff, I think you did a good job of educating us in today's new technologies.

Life...

Well, what's new with me? Well I finished my response paper, saved it to my (my sisters) memory stick and left it sitting on my computer desk, where my little girl happened upon it right before I left for class. When I was finally ready to leave and went for the memory stick, it was gone, my husband and I searched everywhere and he finally found it in the cupboard under the kitchen sink. I grabbed the keys to the truck, my purse and ran out the door. Half way to town my husband called and said that I left it sitting on the counter. Aaugh! So I kept on going, no sense in going back for it since I was already late for class. I'm tired and have a headache and I feel like going home.

What do YOU think?

Well, I've been kind of slacking when it comes to my personal blog but oh well, I'll try to make up for it this week. I'm going to start my response paper today I guess, finally watched that epic 2015 movie and was able to take some notes. I'm thinking of doing my group project on Wikipedia, trash or treasure, sounds like a good and interesting topic. I really enjoyed David Warlick's presentation but I guess I'm a little more old fashioned than he is, even though I'm younger. I just don't think computers should be the end all be all of today's educational world. Sure it's exciting and interesting and the resource out there are infinate but there is a down side to children being "online" all the time. Repetative stress injuries, once they happen could bother you for life, the obesity epidemic facing today's youth can't be fixed with computers, children need to spend more time on their physical fitness and overall health. Believe me, I know how hard it is to be young and overweight. It seems like today's educators focus so much on computer technology and so very little time on the general health and well being of their students. I'm not a teacher yet so I don't have the experience of being in front of a class but I do have experience being a student and staring out the window just wishing I could be out there enjoying the sunshine. I know that education is all about funding and what classes should get what money but I don't see the benifit of having a school full of overweight, vitamen D deficient, physically unfit children. Well I know when I'm rambling? What do you girls out there think about the amount of time today's youth spend "online" and what type of limits do you think should be applied?

A fresh start

Well, here's to a fresh start in a new class. I am so glad that we have an actual book to read. I'm going to try really hard to do well in this class and up the ante a bit. In the "Text book" it talks about student portfolio's and how they can archive years and years of a student's work and progress which is pretty amazing. It does make me wonder about plagerism and how teachers prevent it. I hear that there are computer programs designed to check people's work and detect plagerism. Cool! I downloaded this game call word twist off the internet yesterday where you have to make as many words as you can out of a random bunch of letters, it was really fun and kind of hard. Makes you realize that your vocabulary isn't as good as you might have thought. I'm really interested in finding out more of what type of resources are out there for teachers and students.

A fresh start

Well, here's to a fresh start in a new class. I am so glad that we have an actual book to read. I'm going to try really hard to do well in this class and up the ante a bit. In the "Text book" it talks about student portfolio's and how they can archive years and years of a student's work and progress which is pretty amazing. It does make me wonder about plagerism and how teachers prevent it. I hear that there are computer programs designed to check people's work and detect plagerism. Cool! I downloaded this game call word twist off the internet yesterday where you have to make as many words as you can out of a random bunch of letters, it was really fun and kind of hard. Makes you realize that your vocabulary isn't as good as you might have thought. I'm really interested in finding out more of what type of resources are out there for teachers and students.

Farewell

Well Jeff, I enjoyed your class, it's to bad that you couldn't come down to teach at our site at least once. It's hard to develop a rapport with someone you've never met. I feel as thought I did well, that B+ will knock my mark down quite a bit but oh well, group projects never were my forte. I did learn alot about what resources are out there for teachers and students and they will be important for us in the long run. The technology out there today is amazing, so many resources to help people with exceptionalities learn and excell. The educational world is a much different place than it was when I was a child. The math resources out there are great, I was terrible at math as a child and as a teenager, if I had these resources then I might have enjoyed learning math more. I'm sure I will use these resources, if not for teaching then I'll use them for helping my children in school.

No complaints today Jeff.

Today I don't have any complaints, I finished my lesson plan and I think I did fairly good. Writing these lesson plans is good experience because it makes you think like a teacher. I really do find technology these days exciting, I wish I had time to play around on these websites more often so I can learn more about them. I'm trying to think of an example of technology that I saw or read this week that's new to me.....thinking....thinking. I did hear about tumble books, what are they exactly? Are they computer book that you can download for children? I'll have to pay closer attention and maybe read the paper this week to see if I can find something new. I'll post again this week with something.