Blog Post # 8

This Is How We Dream Parts 1 and 2 (Richard Miller)

In the video, This Is How We Dream, Richard Miller discuss writing and multimedia. The questions asked in the blog, were am I prepared to write with multimedia and will my students be able to do this? I would have to say yes on both questions. As a student at the University of South Alabama, I write using multimedia all the time. As for my future students, I'm sure they have been writing using some sort of multimedia since elementary school. I do believe we will have better multimedia to choose from in the future.

In the video, Mr. Miller discuss the incremental changes that have taken place in writing and research through multimedia. He made a profound statement at the beginning of the video, that states, "We are living in the greatest change in human communication, in human history". Well said. Who would have ever thought we would be able to communicate with someone overseas by the click of a button, or turn a class assignment in to a teacher who is vacationing in Paris. As I reflect on my childhood, I remember my parents buying me a Leap Frog. To be honest, I can remember always having some form of technology to learn and write stories on. However, in the past five years, multimedia has taken off and advancing so fast, that it's hard to keep up with. People/genius' like Mr. Miller are making dreams come true.

Mr. Miller said we have made incremental changes by leaving the paper, pencil and library to working in word documents on our laptops. He also says that having a book as a web based document, and something that will always be out there, is also considered an incremental change. Writing with multimedia, boy have we come a long way. I laugh at my parents when they say they had to use a typewriter when they first began college; and said they were glad/proud to have it. They said that when they finally were able to purchase and electric typewriter, with erasing capabilities, it was like hitting the lottery; I just laugh. I truly believe I live in the best era in history. Because of all our advanced multimedia, we have any tool to write and research with, at our hands. Creating a dynamic presentation or writing a good research paper, is now a cinch. It is so much information out there to choose from. My generation is able to get help from people all over the world. A 'Culture' helps me to write my papers and create my projects. My generation is like the title of my video "Living the Life".

As I watched the video, my mind just went to sci-fi television. It just does not seem possible to have such technology. However, when I look at old Star Trek shows, I'm sure people of that generation did not believe some of the 'tools' they had on the show either. However, some of them did come to realization, and advanced far beyond the show itself. I wonder, could Mr. Miller and his friend be creating a 'Beam Me Up Machine? You never know; he is WAY out there.

Mr. Miller seems to be a man who is always on the cutting edge of technology. I believe Mr. Miller is the most knowledgeable person, on technology, we have studies so far in our EDM 310 class. Some of his ideas are unexplainable; they are really out of this world, or at least not able to be seen or understood by anyone in this world. Many of his ideas are still in his head, only a dream, that one day he hopes to come true. Mr. Miller will always be a man to push the buttons on technology. However, he does believe that a culture, (the world), is what makes today's multimedia a success. I do believe Mr. Miller wants all of us to get on board and be a part of his magnificent dream.


Blog Post #12 by Carly Pugh

Carly's post was outstanding! I believe Carly would be considered a prize pupil of Mr. Millers. I think she exemplifies the proper way to use multimedia in writing. Carly's blog shows the reader and the watcher of the videos, that she will be a teacher who will always ask for more from her students. Carly will not accept less than her student's very best. She will make learning meaningful and fun, allowing her students to search the web and problem solve by using multimedia tools. I do not believe Carly will criticize her student's writing, I believe she will encourage them to try new things and embrace new ideas.

This is an assignment, because as future educators, we have to continue to push the envelope for ourselves and our students. We have learned in this class that technology never ends; there should be and will always be something new around the corner, when it comes to technology. I guess it's an assignment to make us explore all the multimedia possibilities out there. I believe the assignment is to help make our writing and projects more meaningful, thought-provoking and interesting. In return, it is our responsibility to teach our students these useful skills. Wonderful assignment.Student VideosFirst of all, I must say what a good job the students and Dr. Strange did on the videos. I absolutely loved Chipper's part. Her excuses are as bad as 'My dog ate my homework'. Why don't Chipper just do her work and study up on her vocabulary. Thanks for making me laugh. Also, ladies, I have gotten through a lot of hard times with ? for Dummies; you did a great job too.



As for my own creation, I would like to show two very different types of teachers. I would like to create a video showing a teacher who has been left behind, we will call her Ms. Oldway. The second teacher is a teacher who has made her a 21st Century classroom we will call her Ms. GotItTogether. My video would have Ms. Oldway's classroom in straight desk lines, students sitting quietly waiting for Ms. Oldway to start HER lecture. There is a book on Ms. Oldway's students desk and they would not be able to open it until she gives them permission and the page number. Ms. Oldway will be the only person who is able to talk in her old classroom. She would Shhhhhs the students who want to speak or talks out. Students will not be allowed to communicate or collaborate with their peers and the teacher will ask the questions and answer them herself. The answers for a quiz or test will be a,b,c and d, or yes or no (y or n). We might see worksheets to be handed out or vocabulary words on the board. Teacher uses a red marker to mark the one choice answer wrong. Lastly, the children are drained from being so bored and they simply do not look happy. In fact, the students are all the color of grey.



On the other hand, we have Ms. GotItTogether. Ms. GotItTogher's classroom looks much different than Ms. Oldways. When you walk into Ms. GotItTogether's classroom, you don't even see her because she is sitting on the floor with a group of her students. In this classroom, the students are in groups of four or sitting in a corner working on their laptops. A perfect class would have all students with computers, but this class has two students per one computer. While observing this class, you will see students sitting and talking; when you listen closely, you see that they are collaborating and communicating over a problems that has to be solved. In this room, Ms. GotItTogether encourages this type of learning; in fact, she insists on it. While viewing student's work, you will see that the students are on all different websites. You hear noise from videos playing, you see students blogging with other students around the world, about the topic they may be studying. You will also see all sorts of of technology being used. Most of all, you see happy students and meaningful learning taking place. I chose this to be my video, because all semester, we have been learning what an effective class should look like and what an ineffective class looks like.

Learn to Change, Change to Learn

The video Learn to Change, Change to Learn did appear to hit schools today pretty hard. However, I believe most of the attacks were valid. I believe the speakers in the video were simply trying to emphasize or yell out the need of change in today's schools. They are really passionate about incorporating technology in every part of teaching. The people speaking in the video are really saying that we have to give students more of an opportunity, than just meeting some state standards. Real world situations have to be taught for students to attain meaningful learning. Students have to be able to do certain things, such as: find their own information, be able to communicate and collaborate the information, synthesize the information and validate the information. I believe the man who listed these characteristics is saying exactly what educators need to hear.

I do believe however, they did not give teachers justice in their roles. I believe teachers will always be a crucial and needed part of education. Will their roles have to change as we move to a 21st Century classroom, absolutely! Will their roles need to be any less important, I do not think so. Teachers in our new technology world will have to be skilled in the most updated technology possible. Teachers will then have to be good facilitators in showing our students how to properly use all the new tools available. I believe our best teachers will be teachers who will allow our students the opportunities listed by the speakers on the video. What I did not hear on the video a lot, was a road-map for putting their plan in action. People were giving their opinion, but they did not give ways of helping the process get started.

Again, their arguments were valid, we as future educators and people on the local, state and federal levels, have to come to grips with the times, digital times. For our students not to fall behind, we have to allow them the challenges of today's technology.

Scavenger Hunt-Web 2.0 Tools

#1 The tool in Discovery Education that most similar to Twitter/Facebook and provides a social platform for teachers, parents and students, is Community Tools. As a future teacher, I will use Discovery Web 2.0 in many ways in my classroom. It looks like a site that a person can find any type of information they are looking for. I will use the Community Tool, to communicate with faculty, students, parents and other educators around the world. I will use it to list websites found on Discovery Education as a resource for my students. I will also list assignments and due dates so parents and students can stay up on 'the happenings' in my class. It will also be helpful in allowing student independence, to begin an assignment when it is posted.

#2 Presentations

The tool that most likely created the Discovery Education video is Presentation. Presentation is a tool that allows anyone to add life to something they are presenting. The Presentation tool has features such as Slide Share, 280 Slides, Prezi and Picsviewr. Prezi is a feature that uses Canvas to present instead of slides. I was unable to locate the button for pricing, but I did look at the bottom. Discovery Education gives many great deals to teachers and students. Most of these deals appears to be in the form of free resources. Some of the free resources available for teachers are: Puzzlemaker, lesson plans, Discovery Student Adeventure, Brain Boosters, Clip Art, Learning Adventure and WebMath, to name a few. Some of these same resources are available to students. It appears that pricing is free if the school or district has purchased Discover Education. The only thing required of a teacher and student would be a passcode and a login name.

#4 Related Links

Related Links is a tool that I have never used. It contains the Best of the Rest in Discovery Education. Some of the features in this tool are: wordle.net, which is a "word cloud" generator. Related Links also has Glogster, which I have heard of but never used. Glogster is a feature where you can use multimedia to "Poster yourself". Other features include a Smilebox, which is online scrap-booking. MakeBeliefsComic is a feature I definitely plan to explore. This feature allows a person to create their own comics. Related Links is a tool that I will definitely explore more in depth.