My EDM 310 Blog Assignments are Now Complete!!

To my fellow classmates the time we shared together is now at a end I wish everyone success and a great teaching career. Some of y'all I will see again and some i will not but keep pushing forward dont let anyone say you cant you made it to far to turn back much love to you guys. see you when I see you holla.

What I wish I would have learned

I really can not think of anything more I could have learned in this class. I thought we were doing simple stuff but the things we did was difficult but I couldn't imagine having a better teacher to go through this class with thanks Mr. strange you are amazing.

What I learned in this class

1. How to create and manage a blog
2. How to do ALT and TITLE modifiers so that someone visually impaired can "see" my pictures
3. All the free tools Google has to offer (I thought it was simply a search engine)
4. Wikipedia isn't always a trustworthy sight
5. How to create an IGoogle page
6. How to use ITunes
7. How to find educational podcasts and videos on Itunes
8. How to make a podcast (and what they were)
9. About ALEX and ACCESS

I also learned that computer are not that bad if you learn how to properly work them Mr. Strange opened my mind a lot when it comes to computers. I learned how to do a power point on my own that was pretty cool.

Access lab visit

I really enjoyed visiting and learning about the ACCESS lab at Daphne High. I met with Mr. Roh who talked to me about the pros and cons of the ACCESS program then gave me a tour of the lab. The concepts of the programs are great and once all of the logistics and kinks are worked out I think it will be a program that will really benefit the state of Alabama. 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!

Blogging

After taking this class, I am convinced that teachers should use blogs in their classrooms. There are limitations to that statement though. A lot of students don't have regular access to the internet at their homes, so blogs should not be used as a primary way of giving information. They should act as a reinforcement for material covered in class. You could supply links to websites that might help the students figure out their homework. An idea that would appeal to parents is blog for the parents to read about what their children are doing in class and how they're doing.

Older students will enjoy participating in creating blogs. They can include their ideas on books, have a message board for peer help with homework or even display projects on a blog. There has to be a block on computers in the classroom in order for students to stay on track. If you allow them to freely surf the net, the blog will never have any attention paid to it. Some entries that I encountered this year are time consuming, so the teacher must keep that in mind when giving students a blog topic.