Prezi

Could someone tell me how Prezi can look so simple on all of the teaching videos and so incredibly frustrating when it comes to creating a Prezi yourself? One day when I have nothing better to do I am going to go back and master some of the sites I have visited during this class and MASTER THEM!

Educ 675 masterpiece

I have read all of the postings in comments and discussions and I am really still not clear on what the masterpiece outcome is meant to be.

Many of my classmates appear to be discussing plans in terms of looking at 'the story/timeline of technology in the classroom' but there are so many vidoes on youtube that cover that so well I am not sure what the point would be of doing it again. That is not meant to be critical, I am just trying to figure out what it is that would be an acceptable masterpiece.

As I understand it...we need to discuss education in the light of emerging technologies and then we are to decide what our own masterpiece is to consist of...

What we have learned and how we are going to use this knowledge as we continue to teach children and teachers. Is that what the task consists of and what format should this be submitted in?

Thanks.

Presentation

I have submitted my presentation through the link on the educational cloud but have to say it was a nightmare. I found it impossible to complete in terms of accessing the websites from my presentation without help. I would love to have time to take this class again.....as my overview of what we are doing is still not as clear as I would like. I like to have a picture in my head that allows me to imagine the routes taken more clearly.....I think that would have helped.

new smart phone!!!

I do find it ironic that at the same time as I am taking this class my company has decided to upgrade my phone. I had a perfectly good phone on which I could receive emails etc and had just really figured out how to use it! Now I have this thing that I have to scroll on, turns the touch screen which ever way I hold it and constantly informs me of things that I did not think I needed to know! I need to buy it a rubbery case as I am terrified of dropping it.

I just don't think technology and I will ever be on the same page!

The Khan Academy

I was just watching/ listening to David Gates and Salman Khan talking about the Khan academy and I have to say that videos and ideas like that worry me and I am not sure why. It's all very clever but in many ways sad. I think that while Salman advocates some good ideas I do have this image of children having less contact/interaction with peers and moving towards learning from the screen. When I think of children in class rooms I don't have the image he has...I always hear giggling.

Voki

I moved this Voki from my website as I did not think it 'suited' the feel of the rest of the information but I wanted it to be available as part of the course work. I thought it was fun and would certainly be keen to use it with children, even as young as Pre K and K.

The outcome of the website creation was amusing as my boss in TN has a google system that alerts him whenever 'The Gardner School' is mention on the WWW. He got an alert when my web site was published and wanted to know if I was looking for a job!

I just made a new Voki. See it here:

Sir Ken Robinson

I just listened to Sir Ken Robinson speaking to whether 'Schools are Killing Creativity'. He has a very good way of keeping the audience amused despite delivering some hard, cold facts at the same time. He is a great speaker and if younhave time, certainly worth listening to. A great speech!

wordle family

I just made a wordle entitled 'family' but cannot now figure out how to get it to my blog. It was fun to do though. Another fun site that you could just play all day on if only we had time:)

Voki

Voki was fun and very simple. I am sure that Pre school children would enjoy bringing a character to life on this site. Mine was very short and sweet as I am heading to my website now as I feel that I need to spend a lot of time there. Hopefully the Voki and the Xtranormal will both end up on the menu.

Xtranormal

I have just spent a couple of hours on Xtranormal making a 'video' about myself (ugh) which although I thought would take me all day, was actually very user friendly and a lot of fun I got into the rhythm of how things worked. I am now waiting for it to be sent to me in its entirety and then I will attempt to add it to the menu on my website.

I am now heading to Voki.....

TED videos

I watched two TED videos, the Michelle Obama one where she was speaking at a girl's school in London, England and the Jaimee Oliver TED award speech.

I am a great Jaimee Oliver fan and could listen to him for hours. I have no idea why people fight him so hard when he obviously is simply working for the good of people all over the world.

The Michelle Obama speech was good and quite inspirational. I think she speaks well whcih cannot be said for a great many people that deliver politicxal speeches these days.

I could not get to google Docs and find where to put in my listened to speeches.

Sunday...

So I now have a website....for what it is worth and I am seriously struggling to get beyond the very basics. Where many of you out there are no doubt dragging, dropping, inserting and all that good stuff, it takes me several attempts at each stage. Mine is plodding along at a very basic level, but I will get there in the end.

I seriously hope that all my class mates are moving along at a better rate than I am. Happy Sunday!

Still struggling.

I still don't truly get the point of blogs....surely the only point of blogs is if you think that you have something to say that you are pretty sure someone else would want to read.

If that's the case why is it so different to emails? The idea of a blog being a journal makes sense if I feel the need to record something as it continues....my lack of progress in the class at this time for instance! I don't however really feel the need to comment on my frustration as it is rather unproductive. What am I missing?

Look what the stress has done to my hair!