Disgusting Frustration

I feel like I am being sabotaged. I felt like I was going to have a great webquest trimmed with all the high tech applications we learned. I did my jing videos, my youtube, my picasa, my poll everywhere, custom search and so on. While I was able to create all those things, they refuse to embed in my webquest. Initially I just waited for my fiance, sure it was me doing something to make the internet hate me, but it hates him as well. After asking everyone I could via email, facebook, and phone, I felt nothing but more desperation. It's 11:00 right now and I have been working since 6am... I am not sure what to do. I really want to give up and tell myself I tried but it's just not meant to be but I know I won't do that. Tomorrow after work I will desperately try to make the webquest functional if nothing else. This blog was somewhat therapeutic, while I hope no one else feels like this I am happy I could vent with you. Okay I am going to sleep.

Technology really stinks.

I was so content in my little bubble of microsoft word and solitaire.

Poetry Webquest

I am in class with you all at the moment and needed a break from working on the webquest. I know that I am making my webquest way more difficult then need be but I am sticking to my guns. Do you ever get an idea and then can't stop thinking about it? That is me at the moment. I find it a little difficult in this class to find plausible ways to encorporate technology into the grade I plan to teach. I want to teach kindergarten, and although I know computers, smart boards, and blogs are becoming evermore present; I don't know how they will navigate through a webquest. Maybe my doubts just come from my own insequrities when it comes to technology. I never grew up with video games or computers. I honestly used one computer program up until my junior year of high school, microsoft word. In my attempt to involve technology into the lower elementary grades I will be having students analyze poetry in new and differenet ways. I want gets to go beyond reading and become involve and attached to a poem, and its then I feel that they will obtain a true understanding and appreciation for poetry.

My extra website

I tried very hard to get my website done this weekend so I would not be stressing about it during the week. Although I did work very hard at creating a website, it wasn't for me or my class. My mom was peeking over my shoulder when I began to start my website and then begged me to make her one for her classroom. My mother's kindergarten classroom now has there very own website, which I am quite proud of. I do not know if I will have as much material to add into my personal website but I enjoyed finding resources that both the parents and students could appreciate. I also helped my mother encorporate technology into her classroom! The kids love seeing their pictures on the website and seeing Mrs. Fabela's dog on the website as well.

Please take a look around....

http://sites.google.com/site/fabelaskinder/

The Headache of Copyright

I would really like to impress you all and say I have copyright laws down but judging by my test scores, I simply do not. I really tried to read the rules and apply them to the test; however when taking the test I thought more along the lines of she's doing it for good verses she's doing it for bad. I wish that mind set was simply enough however everyone wants credit for everything, some of which have not even yet to be created. The whole thing is absolutely bewildering to me. To be truthful I think the whole issue of copyright on the internet is not only confusing but frustrating. I would rather be told that I could not use anything from the internet ever than go through the headache of trying to memorize what is acceptable and what is not. I believe that the majority of "cheating" that occurs on the internet, is not cheating at all, rather a lack of effort or knowledge. Nothing in this world would posses me to ask someone for permission to use a picture of Elmo. Ever. While reading over the copyright laws, one major guideline technology uses is not even a law, only a suggestion. So what happens if you break that suggestion? Won't everyone do the same? And if so what is the point of the guideline? For the technological elite who take the time to invest in the proper steps of adding a picture to a slideshow for class? The only relief I feel is Creative Commons. Creative Commons provides a place where the rules are clearly stated and simplified. I can take a picture and that be the end of it, but if I want another picture, perhaps more desirable, I can simply write a name below the picture and I'm safe. Creative Commons is my heaven. I will try my best to follow the copyright laws my head has been able to retain, one of which it is legal for me to make back up disks in case one of my students breaks it (question from test), but aside from that I can truthfully say I will not be able to follow all the rules. Copyright laws ask to much of me. When I am creating a presentation on the art of deception I am concerned with the art of deception, not whether my picture will bring any new form of revenue that will not be directed to the creator. Internet, this is directed at you, let me have it all or let me have nothing. I do not want to go to jail for inserting "Let It Be" into a presentation but in this stage in my life I do not posses the energy it would take to memorize all the copyright laws and guidelines. I promise to make an effort, I promise to try and follow all the rules, I promise to incorporate legal technology into my classroom, but internet, please change. Creative Commons needs to take over the internet. The whole internet should be a replica of Creative Commons, that's a technological world I can thrive in!

Your favorite movie?

Crystal Ball

What do I see in the future of education? I see a computer at every student's desk. I believe that a computer will become as important as a pencil in the years to come. Children will be as familiar and comfortable with their computers as they are with their crayons. Technology is slowly creeping into education it is finding resistant at the elementary levels with teachers, who themselves don't know and are scared to use technology. While technology is making it's way into education many classrooms have one to four computers at most. Computers are used by students as an activity not a method of learning. Technology is growing so quickly educators will have no choice but to incorporate the diversity and practicability of technology into their classroom. Computers give students the opportunity to explore, create, and learn. The internet and certain education programs provide students ways to overcome problems they may have in a traditional classroom. A student that maybe surpassing the curriculum in class could move onto higher level material while still participating in the same action as the rest of the class. A student that may suffer from autism could be taught via internet with the countries top specialist. Technology enhances access, absorption, and attention to education. Children can now use computers as a primary source of education rather than an occasional treat. One fear I see is that teachers will lean too much on the computer programs children will be using. It is important that students still be stimulated in other methods of learning and are not stuck at a desk all day. Teachers must take active roles in technology and not be replaced by it. 

Did you know? Shift Happens.

Did you know this video scared me? Absorbing all the facts and statistics on everything from jobs to intelligence to population was overwhelming. I myself am technologically reserved; I learn what I need to know but everything else is far too intimidating. In our country jobs are a necessity for survival and with technology being more important in all professions, I am a bit worried. As someone studying to be a teacher I feel like my profession would be one of the last to be strongly changed by computers. My mother is a kindergarten teacher and just received the "smart board" as a test tool for her classroom. My mother is the first teacher in her school district to receive this form of technology. When she told me I asked if it would be better used with a higher grade level and she asked me to come in and watch how her kids used it. The kids did extremely well with it and because it is brand new, it holds their attention in a different way then an overhead or a computer. I enjoyed the statistics on other countries and how they somewhat brought America back to the ground. I love the idea of the Internet. Because of the Internet people are connected in a whole new way. The Internet is now much more than a channel for the technological elite; people find soul mates, people pay their credit card bills, people sell a tissue from Britney Spears, and people can talk and see family living in other countries. While the major changes of computers being smarter than the whole human race I can't say I am ready for; I can appreciate that shift happens and will try my best to learn how to incorporate technology into the classroom.