Thing #20

I enjoyed the tutorial on evaluating sites and will show it before my first research project.

I really do NOT like Vision of Today's students. I am going to sound like an old foggie here but this video reeks of self-indulgent and spoiled kids (not young adults). The mark of being an adult is that you take responsibility for your own circumstances (my opinion). The kids is this video keep saying "I grew up on video games and the internet I'm different its YOUR responsibility to reach ME" I agree that we as teachers should use best practices and the new tools that available clearly have some advantages over the traditional lecture and socratic methods BUT students share some of the responsibility of meeting us in the middle. Ultimately it is their responsibility to meet the social norms of the country until they are significant enough to change the social norms. I will always try to reach every student I can using multiple angles but after reading Daniel Willingham's book and numerous cognitive research articles learning, memory, and brain function I will only use tools that are going to be effective. I am sure that the tools in this presentation can be used effectively (I plan on using a lot of them) but I won't pander to them

The Machine is Us is a great way to get teachers on board with the idea of using this technology in the classroom. A lot of teachers see technology as this mysterious terminator that is out to destroy the safe environment that they have established. This video clearly demonstrates that the Web 2.0 tools are only what they and others put into it.

In my opinion youtube is far superior to teacher tube. Youtube moves much faster and has more server space. Yes you have to wade through a lot of stupid irrelevant videos but if you are embedding them you students won't have to. I also don't like that teacher tube is ad supported and puts 30-60 ads in front of the videos. I have a hard time getting the students to stay on task on the computers when it is immediate but give them an extra 60 seconds and they will find something else to do.

I have used a great deal of video in lecture presentation and recently began linking it in my wiki for students to review. Does embedding the video reduce the space the file takes up (I assume that it does)as opposed to downloading it converting it and reposting for the students to view? Does embedding the video increase the bandwith of the district servers (Does it slow the rest of the district down?)?

Hey look I can embed video. I never knew how to do this until this class.