Edutopia

I just finished watching the Edutopia videos of " The Edible School Yard" and " A Night in the Global Village". I was very impressed with both of these videos. The edible school yard is such a fascinating concept. It is a a middle school that has their own garden and through this garden the teachers teach them about Math, Science, Geography ect. While learning all of these subjects they are learning even more important lessons such as doing projects together, learning to cooperate and functioning as a community. They also are taught life lessons such as cooking their own food from their garden, setting tables, and learning generosity. The kids are enjoying this so much that they often forget they are even learning.
The other video A night in the Global Village is a very life changing experience for these young privileges children of Denver Colorado. They give up one night of their lives to go and spend the night to get a global gateway experience. They are several small huts set up representing countries such as Guatemala, Thailand, ect. Then there is even a refugee camp. Each child is assigned a village and a family which includes on adult. Each village is assigned a basic need so you have to barter for the rest of your needs. If you are a refugee you have to try to get everything and you are not even able to speak. It really opened the children's eyes up to see how different parts of the world live.
I think in both of these assignment that they are such huge life lessons that the children are learning. The amount of knowledge that they will take from this will stick with them for a life time. I love watching these videos and getting ideas of what I could implement in my classroom one day. what amazing programs these are for children to get a true hands on experience. I feel that it is the best way for them to learn, not through a text book but to truly live it and learn it.

ACCESS visit

I spoke in a previous blog about the program in Alabama state schools called ACCESS. I had the privilege to visit an ACCESS here locally at Daphne high school in Daphne Alabama a few weeks ago. Mr. Roh is in charge of the lab and was very gracious to give me more of an hour of his time in order to explain how the lab works and even let me try out some of the video conferencing tools. As of right now they are the only one that is fully working and running in the Baldwin County school system but a few other schools have the equipment but have yet to have it in use yet.. I believe that all the schools will have it up and running by next year. But with this technology Daphne high school is able to offer a vast variety of courses that they would not otherwise be able to offer. They can even take foreign language classes like Chinese, because there is a high school teacher in Northern Alabama who is offering the class online. So the student just has to sign up for the online course and are able to take the class with other classmates all over the state of Alabama. I think that is so incredible!
The conferencing tool that they can turn on is called IVC ( interactive video conferencing) It is a video recorder that records the teacher in charge teaching the course and then displays it on big screens around the state of Alabama where ever the students have tuned into that class. So it is a little more interactive then an online course. Mr Roh said that most of their classes are based on advanced courses but they do have a fifth period put aside for student to also catch up so they do not fall behind. They are able to take the courses online if they have not passed it so they can try and graduate on time. He did say that the online classes do take more discipline so if the student is determined enough it is good. but if they do not have self discipline that it is not always beneficial. It was very neat to see this system in action and as the years go on they will have even more possibilities. You will see in this blog where I was able to stand in front of the access lab as if I was the teacher giving the lesson and he was able to capture my picture on the big screen so I was able to see what the students around Alabama would be seeing. He also showed me a little about the touch pad and how you can pull up to eight different classrooms. The technology is so amazing! I am excited to have learned about this system and I would love to get trained to be able to teach some classes across the state to help students that are in school systems that may not have the teachers at their schools to teach the course.

Podcasts

The first podcast I listened to is Smartboard lessons podcasts. It basically is like talk radio. They give out different links and websites that you can go to for information for technology teaching. It seems as if this podcast is going to becoming to an end after three years. They were recapping on what there favorite sites and moments. Another podcast I listened to was kidcast. It was podcasting for the classroom. The guy who does this podcast is in a new location in Texas and is doing his first broadcast since Nebraska. He is a teacher in the district to teach technology teaching as well. He promotes teachers and students using podcasts in learning.
The podcasts which I have listened to so far are promoting similar types of teaching in which we are learning in our Edm310 class. It is giving different ways this technology can be utilized to help with teaching. I am enjoying listening to these podcasts and getting different ideas for myself that I can use when i am out in the field. It really gives you a fire for wanting to know more and learn more. And I am excited because i know the kids love to learn in these different ways besides just a standard textbook.

Randy Pauch's last Lecture

For those of you that are not familiar with the Name Randy Pauch. He was a computer Science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He gave a lecture called the "last lecture". The concept behind the lecture was to give a lecture if it was the last one you would ever give and ironically, at the time he was dying of cancer and it was truly his last lecture. It has become such a national phenomenon because of the powerfulness of his speech.
In his lecture he talks about his life. He goes through his dreams one by one and told about how he either attained them or gave it a good valiant effort throughout his life. He is a man of great strength and wisdom. He had away of looking at the world differently then most people would and continued that outlook even as he was dying and living his last couple of months. What I love about him is that he loves to learn and even more loves to teach.
I enjoyed listening to Randy talk about his students and teachers that he had throughout the years and the amount of things that he took in and learned from them. He had a life in which he took advantage of every opportunity to make it the best he could make it. It is so inspirational. It helps me to see things like that as a future educator. He makes me want to strive to be more like him.
A quote from Randy Pauch is " Experience is what you get when you don't get what you wanted". What a way to look at the world. Another great quote from him is "Brick walls are not to keep us out, but to show how much you want it". He really was a man of dream making and fulfilling dreams. He knew how to live life to the fullest. I truly feel he has been one of the best role models as an educator that I have seen. I want to strive to teach like him, and live my life like his. He truly is missed now that he is gone, but he has definitely left his thumb print on many lives in this world!