The World of ACCESS

The Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators and Students Statewide is a program the state of Alabama created in order to created virtual classrooms for students. The goal is to provide equal access to education for all high school students in the state. In some smaller communities there might not be a need or demand for extremely rigorous coursed, but qualified students shouldn't have to succumb to a meager education just because the majority of the other students cannot handle it. Now they are able to take AP courses and other advanced learning courses online through ACCESS.

I really wish I would have had access to a program like this while I was in high school. Although I am from Alabama, I attended a private school so the ACCESS Program was not an option for me. I completely understand its benefits. No student should have to suffice to an non challenging education just because a tougher curriculum is not offered in his or her district. Each and every student should be challenged in the classroom.

Introducing ALEX

The Alabama Learning Exchange, better known as ALEX is a resource for both teachers and students. It provides links to virtual resources and tips for teaching and is a tool that allows everyone to further his or her education just by the click of the mouse.

I really like how ALEX provides so many resources for teachers and students to utilize in education. ALEX not only provides useful sources, but legitimate sources as well. For students writing a paper for an English class, they can easily access ALEX to help them find qualified resources that do not appear as the first link on a Google search. No matter what subject a student is looking for he is sure to find something useful on ALEX.

Kaia

Something that interested me about these posts is the concept of a 'Photo Essay.' I love how it works for all ages. Children can get involved with it at a very basic level, but older students can utilized it as well. As an Secondary English Language Arts major I can see me being able to use this as a project idea in the classroom. It would put a lot of students at ease as far as not having to give an oral speech goes, but it would also force them to use knowledge over many different areas. Ultimately it would probably be a more difficult assignment than just an oral speech, but students would probably learn more from this since it is something they would enjoy doing.

Interesting Things of New Media Literacies

As I was researching this project, I stumbled upon a blog that they post. One of the more recent postings on it came from a conference someone attended this summer. While there a ninth grader gave a five minute presentation on how video games can correctly be integrated into the classroom. First of let me mention how impressed I was with the young girl's professionalism, but I also was impressed with how well thought out all her points were. For a student to truly learn, please don't make it obvious that the video game is a learning experience. It won't work. Students have to be thoroughly engaged to enjoy the game. It has to be a game they would want to play anyways. As she said, kids are surprisingly smart. They are more than capable of applying their video game knowledge to the classroom.If you would like to view her video CLICK HERE.

Themes of The New Media Literacies Project.

This list of words does not surprise me in the least. To be honest, I don't even find them original. The general concept of all of them could have been used/taught many years before the NML was even though of. They have all been taught within the classroom in some way, shape or form before new technologies started running rampart throughout the world. It's just that now students have new ways of being engaged in the classroom through technology so they way to teach these things has to change.

In the video clip judgment was basically defined as deciding whether or not a source found electronically is legitimate or not. I think this has always been an issue for students. Finding and deciding if a source is reliable has always been apart of the learning experience. Before computers came about students still had to read things and analyze them in order to decide if certain sources were beneficial to their purpose. For example, if a high school student was trying to find a book at the library on outer space he/she would have to take the call number into account. The book in the junior non fiction section will not be as useful to them as the ones in the adult non fiction section.

Overall the most important question for me is 'What will all these words mean to me as a teacher twenty years from now?'

Networking in the Classroom

I think the ideas of networking in the classroom is a very remarkable concept. Honestly, the idea of it now it intimidating for me so I couldn't imagine myself trying to learn in that environment in high school, much less middle school. It teaches students to be independent, and that is a task needed in order to succeed in college.

In the end where the teacher's role was mentioned, I enjoyed how it pointed out that teachers would still be needed even with networking starting to appear in the classroom. Students will still need guidance, and motivation with teachers being the driving force behind these things. Networking is a complicated process and only that will not come easy for a lot of students. To be honest, I think a lot of them will be too lazy to truly benefit from this. I think it will work in honors classes, but not non-honors classes. In both groups I feel like students will find this to be an extravagant work load, but the honors students will care about their grade in the end and suck it up anyways.

I'm not sure how I would be able to motivate my students to truly give this their all. If the students aren't motivated, I don't feel like networking would be of any benefit to them at all. Most students want to be spoon fed everything they need to know. They refuse to work in order to find the answers to things. This is a cycle that needs to be broken while they are young in order to get networking to work.

As I write this, I can feel my opinion starting to change. I said earlier I couldn't imaging using networking when I was in middle school, but that's just it. That would seem impossible in my experience. If students were forced to start utilizing networking at a younger age, maybe they wouldn't be quite so lazy and feel the need to be spoon fed their knowledge.

Tecnological Advances

I like the concept that knowledge "belongs to us as a culture." It's so true. There have been many times in the past where knowledge has been restricted from some people. Now it is virtually impossible to hide knowledge from someone. With sources being more and more accessible the only thing truly holding people back from gaining a wealth of information maybe the fact that they lack the capacity to learn.

Dr. Miller started in Part 1 discussing how gone are the old ways of the library and printing books, but I'm starting to think that library databases will be obsolete soon as well. Typically there are huge databases containing a lot of useful information for students and people seeking out detailed, legitimate information, but it has been withheld from them. Databases are usually only accessible to students if they belong to a library and know how to access them. Now things like iTunesU are popping up making knowledge easier and easier to access.

I wouldn't necessarily say I am ready for the multimedia classroom. Honestly, I feel rather technologically illiterate at times myself, but I am more than willing to accept the challenge. No one can be 100% tech literate. There is just way too much technology out there to be familiar with it all. I hope that my students will be more than willing to learn about technology and figure out how they can apply it to the classroom themselves. Even if I don't end up being the most tech-savvy teacher ever, I hope I can drive my students to want to learn and to be able to cross over their tech knowledge into the classroom.

Integrating iPods in Education

Wow! I had NEVER heard of this before. At first when I was reading up on Duke University's use of iPods I wasn't totally convinced on its value. Everything I found was about its initial integration into the university so I was unsure of how exactly they were being used to benefit students (http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2005/12/ipodupdate.html). However after researching some other sources on the idea I began to realize that iPods can be extremely beneficial if used correctly.

I personally am an English Language Arts major so when I read the article found at http://www.schoolcio.com/ShowArticle/1014 I began to realize how easy it would be for me to use right now and later on in when I'm teaching in a classroom. I am a Spanish minor so I can see how an iPod could benefit me by allowing me to listen and practice Spanish skill. Also, I can see how it could be beneficial to teaching for me because I could utilize audio books to help illustrate a point to my future students.

iTunes U

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I think that iTunes U could be a very beneficial teaching tool. It could also be a very useful tool for those who choose to use it. However, I'm not so sure that is will benefit people who are not directly connected to a university that is utilizing iTunesU. Most students that use iTunes only use it for recreational purposes. They use it to download music or movies. Most of them are aware of pocasts, but rarely look at them, and I did not know anyone who uses iTunesU for anything before this class.

I must point out though that I do not think that it is a waste of time. For those who do use it, I am more than positive it is an extremely useful resource, but I think it would be more beneficial in some elementary or secondary classrooms unless a college class is directly creating something for iTunesU. This is the sort of tool that students need to know how to use and apply at a young age in order to appreciate its full potential. After learned at a younger age, its benefits can be transferred to college students, but I think it's a hard thing to try and teach college students to utilize right now.

Dr. Alice Chrisite: Explorer of Technology in Education

After examining Dr. Christie's sight for a while I came across a study she did in 1994 to examine how students can learn literacy through technology. At first when I looked at this publication, I thought it was a bit out dated. Needless to say it still is in a way, but it was still interesting for something else. In 1994 technology hadn't been readily available for everyone. There was no such thing as a family computer in ever house hold with internet connect so to be considering using computers as a learning tool for students was probably a major step. It kind of made me vew her as an explorer into a new frontier on teaching.

Just by viewing the one slide show it apparant that the students really enjoyed using the computer. Half the battle in teaching is engaging students. Once this occurs it's usually a lot easier to start the learning process. I really admire the woman for taking chances and exploring new methods of engaging students that hadn't been explored much at the time. Most people gather ideas from others a reuse them. It's only the minority that is willing to branch out on their own to find new ways to engage students. Teachers need to be constantly finding new ways to capture their students. No two classes will ever be the same so every year projects, and teaching methods need to be changed for each group. Teachers can't get stuck in a rut. They must be willng change and expand year after year.