My philosophy of teaching asserts that students are entitled to quality instruction in an active and stimulating learning environment. Students should experience frequent and repeated opportunities to act, react, and interact with each other and the professor. Curriculum materials should be timely and relevant. Standards of excellence—high, yet attainable—should be used to facilitate optimal student learning.
Another aspect of my teaching philosophy is "hands-on" learning through relevant activities that give the learner a first-hand experience in a "real-world" situation. In teaching a web page creation course I would allow for each student to work on their own "live" web site that could be edited and reached from any Internet connection. I often took web design courses that had you learn the software and create, but never do anything actually "online." Real situations can teach much more when utilized in a course.
Finally, as teaching is a process, not an activity, my teaching philosophy offers an invaluable reflective view on “how to” strive for instructional improvement.
What did we ever do without blogs? We did many things to get ourselves in print. Before computers we used hand written spirit masters and took them to the ditto machine to produce the purple-print hand-outs for our students. Ah... the smell of it! Moving ahead a few years brings us to the photo-copier days. We were excited to be allowed to use the copy machine which was reserved for administrative use only. Now we could use clip art to decorate our typed or hand written pages. The clip art was exactly that - images cut out from newspapers, coloring books, or even photo copies of pages from a book. I amassed a huge collection of clip art that I kept in three-ring binders and file folders. I first used an Apple IIe computer with PrintShop software to produce my first computerized publications. These were "print only" documents to be handed out to my students. I did not imagine then the possibilities that we now enjoy.
Electronic blogs or weblogs give us a new medium to express ourselves and share with our students, friends, family and the rest of the online world. Sometimes we might want to restrict who can view our blogs to maintain some privacy. Generally, most blogs are open to the public by default. What can you put in a blog? Anything that can be delivered through a personal computer such as text, audio, music, graphics and video. I have even heard of a system that will allow vibrations and smells to be relayed from a computer to the user. We'll have to make sure Barclay doesn't spend too much time in the Holo-graph!
Here is a list of blogs that I have created for various purposes, work, play and just trying things out.
The wiki that I have made will be used with the course I am teaching this fall for Yavapai College. It is CNT110 - A+ Computer Certification Preparation course that introduces students to Computer Software and Hardware repair as a career. They are prepared to progress toward their final certification requirement of passing two professional examinations. An introduction to hardware and software are included in the wiki along with networking and peripherals.
Students would be expected to contribute their ideas and experiences relating to these topics through several forms of input like narrative which may present a technical question and then responding to each others questions with advise and recommendations for a solution. Students could build a collection of links and images that would also relate to the course topics. A+ Computer Certification PrepWiki http://a-plus.wikispaces.com
Embedded Photo Gallery Reviews...
A Thousand pictures are worth...??? Where should you put those bushels of digital photos for you and your fiends to see? There are many sites that offer free or paid photo sharing and storage. It seems that all have something special going for them and all have something that rates a negative score. Here I will take a look at several of the main competitors.
WINDOWS LIVE does not appear to allow embedded slides shows even though their site gives an "embed" command for an album. The embed code allow you to place one of three generic links into your blog or web site that merely provides a link to their site to view the slide show from their site. Here is an example of the album link and an RSS link:
PICASAHow do I love Picasa...? Let me count the ways... Picasa is great. It is easy to use since it has an application that you can install locally and import your photos directly into. It will "watch" specified locations on your computer and add any images that you add into your local Picasa Library. You can edit and organize your photos and then upload them into your Picasa account to share. Their embedded slice shows are great and simple to use. Too bad their free accounts have a mere limit of One GB.
Embedded Audio files just don't turn me on. Maybe it is because you have to click the little play button... I am in search of something that presents itself in a smoother manner. I have looked into the tools found in the Mac OS, but have not had enough time to work through this process. I am distracted by Jing recordings which are really not the same as a video of yourself like you would make in YouTube. I guess they are videos, or are they audios???
Below is an audio review that I made reviewing a microphone. This was not too useful, except for teaching me how to embed an mp3 audio file into my site.
Logitech USB Microphone Review
Here are two Jing video recordings that I made for our business department at work. They were easy to make and will save me time by not having to repeat them individually to 25 people. Wow, I just saved myself a couple of hours. More time to go ride my bike!
Here is another video that I made on my Mac with a cool program called FotoMagico Pro. It allows you to build a sideshow with images and pin several tracks of audio and effects to the show. Unfortunately, the audio track that I used in the show was removed from the video since I included an entire song that was flagged by YouTube and removed. I added an alternative track that was offered by Youtube.
Here is the original with the correct music that has been uploaded to ScreenCast.com:
Finding just the right bit of worthwhile information requires great skill Grasshopper... I have collected a number of links to using blogs and video in education. Also included are a couple of extra links on filtering YouTube in K-12 schools.
Support Blogging! - Educational Blogging Educational Blogging is blogging by students, teachers, administrators, industry experts, and other involved entities that focus primarily ...
Education World ® Technology Center: Blogging?
Weblogg-ed: the read/write web in the classroom · Blogging Basics: Creating Student Journals on the Web. Article by Lorrie Jackson Education World® ...
Back to School with the Class of Web 2.0
The article covers: educational blogging, photo sharing, educational podcasting, wikis, video sharing, Web 2.0 courses, School 2.0, and more...
7 Things You Should Know About Videoblogging A videoblog, or vlog, is a Web log (blog) that primarily utilizes video rather than text or audio. Videoblogging offers a richer experience than text ...
YouTube EDU Brings Free Education to the Masses YouTube has just released a new sub-site called YouTube EDU, aggregating thousands of free lectures from over a hundred universities across ...
A History Teacher » YouTube Blocked? Cool Tool #1
I have mixed feelings about blocking the Internet in K-12 schools, .... there that would like to access youtube, here are 3 great ways to unblock youtube! ...
EdTech Gold Rush: YouTube in the K-12 Classroom
It's also been both tantalizing and frustrating for K-12 teachers. ... Most districts block YouTube – obviously for the unacceptable portion of videos, ...
YouTube, K12 web filtering & CIPA
K12 school districts are required by law to implement filtering to block adult .... fall outside CIPA guidelines forcing filters to block access to YouTube. ...
The final portfolio for EDU255 should be created in one of the environments we have used in class; a blog, a wiki, or a Ning site. You will need to create a new site, depending on the tool used in your portfolio. The portfolio should reflect the learning you have experienced in this class and the best work you have done. Not each and every assignment needs to be in the portfolio, though the portfolio should contain content you have created. These may be in the form of hyperlinks, embedded content and so forth. It is fine if some of the content will be copied and pasted from one place to another. Blog posts, other class assignments, or discussion board posts are all potential items that might demonstrate your learning. The portfolio should contain your thoughts about web 2.0 technologies we have seen, as well as demonstrations of your ability to use it.
