Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

Randy Pausch lecture was actually more interesting then I thought it would be. I really enjoyed listening to him. He opened his message by telling the audience why he was giving his "last" lecture. Which is very important because if he didn't the audience would not have know why he titled it his last lecture. He told the audience what he was going to talking about and what he was not going to talk about. He did not want to go on and on about his condition.

He talked about the lessons he learned, what others taught him, his accomplishments, and enabling others. He discussed his experiences in college and in teaching. He explain the courses he taught in detail, painting a picture for the audience to see what his students could expect from his class and what he expected from his students. He enabled the dreams of others.

I really enjoyed the world video he showed the audience. It is really cool to know that as a student you are capable and able to do anything including video production. Although the virtual world was sort of scary, being that it was able to tell the students when it wanted to be turned off, it was pretty cool to see and I'm sure it was extremely cool to play.

I really like his methods of teaching. Its all about experience. He taught his students from his experiences. A few things he said that stuck out to me as a teacher are help others, enable the dreams of others, you can't go far without any help from others, brick walls are there for a reason: to show how bad you want something; and lastly, the best way to teach someone something is to make them think they are learning something else.

My Presentation

Best? Posts of 2007 - July

I readed the best post of 2007, which was published in July. It is titled NECC Reflection #1: Where were the students? In this post Karl talked about a trip to a NECC conference in which he didn't see many students. He notes that he knew students were there and that he just didn't see any. He also states how he would have loved to hear the students opinions on some of the topics. I agree this is good because how could a person know what someone else's wants with out asking the source.

Since he wasn't able to hear the desires of other students, he plans to take a few students along with him and others to the next NECC conference. This will eliminate the issue of not knowing what the students want. The students will also be able to sit in and listen to what the teachers planned to teach them and the different ways. I agree that this is a wonderful idea and I like what Karl is doing.

Peers' Podcasts

First, I will like to say that I really enjoyed listening to the podcasts of my peers. They showed me what to do and what not to do. The first podcast I listened to was titled Lessons from Life: The Last Lecture of Randy Pausch by Kele Volz and Crystal Powell. By listening to their podcast I could tell the young ladies had a lot of valuable information they want to speak about. They did their research, which is good. But there are some things I felt they could have done better on and some things I will try not to do when I do my podcast. One of the students sounded like she was reading the material directly off the page. I feel like she need to practice what she planned to say before they started to record. I could here pages flipping so I will suggest to use flashcards or have everything laid out in order before starting. They could have sound a little more excited and confident. They should make the listener want to listen to the rest of the message. They should have greeted their listeners and introduced themselves. And maybe they should or could have had some water near by just in case their mouths became dry and maybe have more than 2 speakers with so much material.

The second podcast I listen to was titled Possibilities for Using Facebook in an Educational Setting by Allison Midgette and Shaundretta Bethel. I really enjoyed listening to their podcast. It was great! I like how they introduced themselves even though Dr. Strange introduced them as well. I like how they defined facebook before starting the message, they sounded excited and knew what they were going to say. They even related the material to the listener. If you are not a education major, I believe you could still gain valuable information form this podcast. I founded out a lot of information by listening to this podcast.

When I do my podcast with my classmates, I will invite them to listen to both podcasts if they haven't done so already. We can learn something from both podcasts.

Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?

Karl Fisch, a teacher and technology education specialist at Arapahoe High School in Littleton, Colorado, won an award form EduBlog Awards for his blog post "Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?" It was nominated as "The Most Influential Post of 2007". Fisch said he didn't expected to win a thing, not even did he expect to be nominated. He was actually responding to a post written by Terry Freedman. Freedman wrote a post about 'is it acceptable for a teacher to be technology illiterate?' And Freedman also proposed a set standards for teachers.

I really enjoyed reading Fisch's post. It was very enlightening to me. I totally agree with Fisch. I agree that teachers should and need to be very familiar with today's technology and so the technology that is to come, because there will be more, better, and faster technology. If teachers aren't educated upon technology, I don't believe teachers(we) will not be able to grasp the attention of most students, let alone teach them a lesson. Teachers have to be able to win students over form video games, ipods, mp3 players, myspace, and there are so many others that I could name but they will probably take up my entire blog. As teachers, we have to be knowledgeable about the latest technology available and we desire to educate our students about the technology and the different ways to use them.

Podcasts Part 2

In addition to the other podcasts, I went back to listen to some more podcasts. One was Keep It Real. They're topic was "What if you ask the students what they think?" TTT125 - 10.15.08 Teachers Teaching Teachers by Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, and Thomas (Teb) Locke. I did enjoy this podcast because it had students actually speaking about a topic. They were actually discussing podcasts. The other podcast I listen to was 107.9-FM WWPH in Princeton Junction. This is a student ran radio station. The title of the podcast I listen to by 107.9 was "The Great 108 Morning Roundup". Within this podcast, the students reported the news, recent sports events, weather, and also did commercials. And the last one I listened to was Aesop's Fables Podcast by LearnoutLoud.com. I listened to "The Swan and the Goose" and "The Boy Hunting Locust". This podcast consist of someone reading stories.

Podcasts

Although, I had a lot of problems with learning how to find the podcasts, I still managed to listen to a few. The ones I was able to listen to were SMARTBoard Lessons, KidCast, and MacBreak Weekly. They were all pretty interesting but I have my favorite out of the three and my reasons. I will describe the few I was able to listen to in the following paragraphs.

First, the SMARTBoard Lessons' podcast was interesting. I listened to episode 150: Links You Can Use:K-12 Finally the Future. The speakers talked about helpful links teachers may want to use. They also talked about the top five ways to misuse your smartboard. They identified that they were not going to focus on wrongful things but on helpful tips. Even though, it was directed at the ways you may misuse your smartboard, they had positive things to say and said things positive.

Second, I listen to the KidCast's podcast. I listen to the one titled "The Medium is Not the Message". I have to say this one was my favorite out of the three. The author was Dan Schmit. I loved his message, it was very helpful to me. Being a student that plans to do a podcast in the future, he really gave some good advice. He discussed how students are doing podcasts just to do a podcast and not delivering the message through the podcast correctly. Basically, I feel like he is saying, instead of using the podcast as a way of communication and delivering a message, students are just recording their voices. By listening to his message, I have a different understanding upon the way I am and will view the assignment when we do our podcasts. I will deliver the message and use the podcast as "an extended idea of communication" (Dan Schmit), instead of just recording my voice.

Lastly, I listen to the MacBreak Weekly's podcast titled la la leo. I really did not enjoy this one at all. It sounded more like a radio station, which they are all similar to. Upon listening to these podcasts, I definitely plan to listen to more and I am excited about recording podcasts in class.