In today’s world there are many different uses of technology. They can change our lives completely in many different ways. Technology can allow for people to connect with others from across the world, learn about languages, cultures and beliefs from other countries that they did not know that existed. And you can do things such as someone did with these videos:

Version 1:Original Version

Version 2: Dubbed Voices

In class we talked about the use of telecollaborative projects that are becoming more common in class projects. I think that these are really interesting because it involves kids to become more interactive with people around the world. These sites were extremely interesting and opened up many ideas of classroom projects that could be done at any grade level. These can be very important because they not only help students understand another culture and country but that the world beyond thier own city can be interesting and thought provoking.

1. Flat Classroom Project - This site is extremely intersting because it connects 7 different classrooms from different countries. This site provides lesson plans and resources for teachers but it also has topics, rubrics, awards and a calendar for the students to use.

2. Global Grocerry List - This is a unique site because it allows for students to look at the different prices of food from countries all around the world. This can be combined with multiple lessons in all different curriculum areas and allow for students to look at differences between their lives and the lives of other children around the world.

3. Monster Exchange - This is a great site for studnets to be able to connect with children their own age from different countries around the world. This site is interesting because it allows for students to express their creativity by drawing monsters and describing them to another student from somewhere else and then having that student draw a monster from the description. This is a very neat idea because it allows for students to be creative in their own ways and express themselves.

I thought this video was really thoughtful and nice! It makes you want to go out and hug someone today! = )

  In this task, we were asked to create a page about us and who we are. This actually took a lot of thought, and a good hour of looking through pictures to try and find some that somewhat define who I am. Also I had to harass my parents, sister, friends and boyfriend for ideas of how to define me. All of the descriptions that were used, were from them! Although there were a few comments which I did not put on because I thought my parents were being mean! This was really fun and could be used as a good classroom tool because it can give the kids a chance to express themselves as who they are. The program that we used for this Adobe Photo shop 4.0. I found it somewhat difficult to use and my classmate April can contest to this problem because she was beside me complaining about the computer.

Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it’s a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.
  – Al Franken

When I read this quote it made me smile because it is actually very true about life. This is funny for me because each “mistake” that I have made growing up has changed me in one way or another. Also its important to reflect on what happened because it can change your course of life in one way or another. Though if it is a fatal mistake then it could be by complete accident or just complete stupidity on behalf of the individual. The quote also makes me think of teaching and working with students. When teaching a lesson and it seems like you are doing something wrong, it is good to stop and see what happened and how you can change it to help not only the students you are teaching at that point but also students in the future. Also this quote is helpful for students, in understanding that though mistakes are considered to be bad, sometimes those mistakes can turn out to be unique and important. Everyone should stop seeing mistakes as something that is horribly bad and take a moment to laugh about the silly or was embarassing mistakes and see how they can help them later on in life. This quote also makes me think of history because one of the most interesting ways to learn is to look into the past and see what we considered to be “mistakes” of important people at that time and how it changed the course of history.

The use of technology in the classroom is becoming more and more important. Using a wiki provide us links to some very useful websites that can be used in the classroom to not only benefit us as teachers but also the students. This is important because it will not only make teaching for us just a little less hectic and crazy but it will making learning more unique and interesting for the students. I  have complied a list of the following tools I think that can be useful for the classroom.

1. Google Earth – This site is extremely interesting and very fun to play around on when you have a few minutes to spare. It is also very useful for the class room because it can students a chance to look at maps in 3-D. Also it can help students to gain knowledge about how maps work. Many lessons can be linked to the use of this site and help students to gain technology skills.

2. Bluedot – This site is extremely useful and I personally use it on a daily basis now. The idea behind this site is similar to the use of bookmarking particular sites but instead of only being able to access that from the computer that you saved it on. This site allows you to access all of the websites that you have saved and access them on the web from anywhere. Also you can share the websites that you have found with friends. This can be used in the classroom cause all the students can create accounts and connect with peers and the teacher. From this process, everyone can share websites that may be useful to doing research or part of a lesson.

3. Gliffy – The idea behind this site is to allow users to create things like flow charts and diagrams. This is useful for students because they can use this to plan out ideas or to have visual examples of what their ideas are. This is important for the classroom because not all students learn the same way and many students who learn visually can benefit from this website.

4. Youtube – Youtube can be used as an educational tool but discretion has to be used on what videos are being watched. This site allows for users to post video’s that they have created to the world wide web so anyone can see them. This can be useful in the classroom because it allows students to be creative and make their own video’s for certain assignments and then be able to share them not only with peers but family and friends. Also there are some useful video’s on the site that can be used in lessons.

In this assignment we were asked to create a video about an issue that we thought would be important to talk about. April, Sarah and I decided to get together and create this video about models and how the media perceives them and how what we thought real beauty is. This goes along with the two video’s from you tube that have the dove commercials and the evolution of what beautiful means. Have fun viewing this short movie!

It was another week of ESL tutoring for me and it was good as always. I was working with the students in the first class who have basic English. The teacher I was working with set up a fun activity for the class that day. The interesting thing about this was that it doesn’t have to be used just for ESL classes but for any class. The activity that was done, was we had the class pair up and had one student face away from the t.v and had the second student face the t.v. We then played sections of the Mr. Bean show. The reason that this was chosen was because their was no conversations going on so the students could concentrate on what was going on in. We then would stop the video and have the students who watched the video, explain to their partners what was going on. This was an interesting activity because the students found this to be extremely fun and had a great time explaining to their friends what was going on. I found this to be very important because it helped the students put actions into words and be able to express what they see. Also this activity can be adapted in different ways to accommodate for students.

This question stumped me for the longest time! Finally one day a friend gave me the answer! For some people this may be frustrating and hard to figure out and others its just a breeze!

Try to solve this:

When asked this riddle. 80% of kindergarten children got this compared to 17% of university students.

What is greater then God?

More evil then the Devil?

The poor have it.

The rich need it.

And if you eat it, you will die?

Watching these two Dove commercials makes a large impact on how many people look at how people see the beauty industry. I find these commercials to be extremely true and give the message that women and even men should look at how beauty is betrayed and can affect many people. In the first video, Onslaught, the images of what people will do to themselves to make themselves “beautiful” is sad but true. Many of the images show at how people will try to do anything just to force themselves to fit a stereotypical view of what a beautiful person should look like. I for one am against this idea that every person should be rail thin with a size 0 waist because if you really think about it, that means that you should not exist since 0 means nothing. As a teacher this is important to acknowledge in classrooms because it is important for students to understand that forcing themselves to look a certain way can actually hurt them. I think it is important for teachers and parents to bring up these issues because children are getting younger and younger and becoming more worried about how they look and eating disorders are becoming more of a problem. If teachers and parents talk to their kids earlier, some of these problems of eating disorders may be eliminated instead of letting them hurt themselves. These two commercials bring up the important point of understanding some of the problems behind what is considered beautiful and can be used to bring up class discussions of how to avoid falling for these stereotypes and letting them affect students lives.

In the commercial Onslaught, there are a few images that may harsh for younger students. Viewer Discretion is advised.

Onslaught

Evolution