Remember overhead projectors that your teachers used in elementary school? Light projectors that projected transparencies up onto the board so that you could follow along with what the teacher was doing. Document cameras are the new and improved overhead projectors. Basically, they are mini cameras that a teacher can put anything under to enlarge onto the board. Now, instead of having to make transparent copies of every worksheet to use on the overhead, a teacher can simply put anything (books, regular paper, objects, hands, pencils, anything!) under the document camera and it is enlarged and shown on the board. Document cameras are just another new and convenient technology in the classroom making lessons far easier then ever before.
Document Camera
Check out this YouTube video that gives you the 101 about document cameras. Enjoy!
We Feel Fine is an exploration of human emotion on a global scale.
For Intro to Writing Arts, we were asked to explore a website called We Feel Fine. In August 2005 Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar created this website that takes every single weblog post that includes the words “I feel” or “I am feeling” and puts them into one huge database. When the website finds a phrase with these words, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the “feeling” expressed in that sentence. You are able to sort these posts by the emotion, age, gender and location of the blogger as well as the weather condition at the time of post. All of this information is saved.
This website is basically a database of human emotion that gets bigger every minute. If one wants to find out when women in their 20′s in Europe feel most stressed, they are able to. Does the weather effect how people feel? Do women feel certain emotions more than men? Do people in Africa feel happier more often than people in Sweden? This website helps others to research and explore different human emotion over time. They can read each others blogs and connect, communicate and interact with people who they probably would never meet in real life.
People are also able to search blogs through this website. By clicking on the sentence, you are brought to the weblog that the sentence was taken from. Another great thing about this website is that it is fun to look at and play with. The interface is colorful, bright and interactive. According to the creators, ”at its core, We Feel Fine is an artwork authored by everyone. It will grow and change as we grow and change, reflecting what’s on our blogs, what’s in our hearts, what’s in our minds. We hope it makes the world seem a little smaller, and we hope it helps people see beauty in the everyday ups and downs of life.”
Recently, I have found a very useful Twitter application that helps you keep in touch and communicate with not only YOUR friends, but your friends friends, your friends friends friends, your friends friends friends friends and so on. This application is called Twitter Friends Network Browser. To use it, you simply type in a Twitter user name and an icon for their Twitter page comes up along with icons for a number of their friends Twitter pages. Each icon has their Twitter profile picture, their name and their latest tweet. You are able to click on any of these icons, go to their twitter page and begin following them.
This Twitter application comes in handy because it gives Twitter users the opportunity to find their friends faster and easier. If you are already following a few of your friends but know that there are many more of your friends that you want to follow, you can find them through the friends that you are already following. Rather than search for friends by name one at a time through “Find People,” you can find numerous people in less time.
This Twitter Application is useful for people in the Education profession because it gives them the opportunity to find and follow more people in their field. This can lead to professional opportunities such as collaboration, team teaching and simply the ability to share technology, classroom management techniques, lesson plans, activities etc. Educators could also use this application to keep in touch with fellow teachers to keep their teaching communities close and friendly.
I enjoy using this application to find my friends from high school and college who I otherwise probably would not be able to find unless I went through my yearbook and searched each person. This application helps people to reconnect and communicate with others faster and easier everyday.
This video is a really neat example of one of the really cool things that Smartboards are able to do in aiding classroom instruction. The below video is a demonstration on how you are able to dissect a frog by only using the Smartboard no live specimens needed. I think this is really a good alternative for students who need to perform dissections for a grade without having to actually cut into a real animal.
I chose to follow Deborah J. Stewart on twitter. She is very active on both twitter and Facebook. She is very technologically advanced when it comes to posting things in the education field. All of her blogs are interesting and fun to read. The best way to enhance your classroom and teaching skills is through other people’s trial and errors. She also puts funny things on there in between her links to useful information.
Although I am not as involved in these online spaces as Stewert, I wish her style would rub off on me. She describes herself as interested in early childhood education teacher trainer, speaker, and freelance writer. She has been in the field for over 20 years. Her main goal is to make a difference in the professional development in many schools. She has many classroom management ideas which I find to be very useful when I have my own classroom.
Here is her homepage so you can see if you find her as interesting as i do.
I think that technology will bring a change in the traditional student and teacher roles. Most of us were taught in the traditional method of having the teacher dispense information to the students. The teacher was the center of attention who set the goals for the classroom and provided the structure by which we all abided. The student on the other hand sat passively listening to the teacher trying to absorb everything that was being said with little or no input into the way things are done.
When technology is brought into the classroom the students suddenly get to play a more active rather than passive role in how things are done. The student is actively making choices about how to generate, obtain and display information. The teacher on the other hand is no longer the center of attention but a facilitator for the class room. It is the teachers job to provide support for the students and make suggestions as he/she rotates through the classroom looking over the shoulders of the students who are independently working on their technology based projects.
I absolutely love Miranda’s music! For everyone who does not know of her music she is a country music star. What i enjoy about her twitter page is that she is real about what she says. she does not just talk about her up coming shows and tours. She tweets about what she is doing that day how she is feeling etc.. just like us non-music superstars do. In the one post she talks about how it was opening day of deer season back at home for her. Also she talks about how cold it is in Chicago. It is really refreshing to know that some one of her status uses twitter for the same types of things i do as a normal run of the mill college student does. For anyone who wants to have a taste of who she is check this out.
This very is very interesting. It shows how a district in Colorodo uses technology to enhance communication and learning. It shows how a techer changed the whole dynamic of the classroom by videotaping his class. Now children have to veiw the lecture before class for homework, and do what used to be homework in class. Technology has changed the classroom for the better in this case. Enjoy!
Since no one I know outside of class uses twitter I decided that Oprah would be someone worth while to follow. Much of the tweets that are on her page some how refer to her show. Many explain up coming events that will be taking placeand new guests that will be appearing on the show. Although I did find out that she went to maui before her new season started. Also i thought that it was nice to see that she took time to tweet in remeberance of the victims of september 11th. I am a faithful watcher of her show and a devoted fan so i will continue to follow her and track her different tweets even after this couse is over.
Michael Ian Black is a popular comedian who currently stars in a show on Comedy Central called Michael and Michael Have Issues. I follow him because his tweets are hilarious. For example, today he tweeted this…”Sometimes when I floss I pretend the floss is a thong and my teeth are all tiny butt cracks.” I also follow Michael Ian Black because he uses a verified account and I know it’s actually him. I love that he tweets numerous times a day and each tweet is witty and interesting, even if they are sometimes ridiculous. Whenever I am stressed out or having a rough day, reading his tweets never fails to brighten my mood even the slightest bit.
Michael Ian Black follows many other comedians and actors such as Demetri Martin, Daniel Tosh and Sarah Silverman who all also have shows on Comedy Central. This says that he uses his twitter account to keep in touch with colleagues/friends (maybe to also make them laugh and brighten their day) and for his professional career as a comedian (to promote his show Michael and Michael Have Issues). It obviously says that he is interested in comedy and acting. I also think that he may be interested in communication through technology because he tweets many times throughout the day/on a daily basis. He also follows The Onion, which is a website that makes fun of politics, news stories and popular/controversial issues. This says that he may be interested in news and politics…or interested in using them as the subject of jokes in his stand-up comedy act.
The layout of Michael Ian Black’s twitter page is a sort of collage picture of the following…a dragon, Princess Leia, a unicorn, a taco, a pretty blonde girl in pink , a ping-pong paddle and him shooting a rainbow beam out of his hand. I find this very amusing and it gives me a little insight into some of his interests…maybe Star Wars, ping-pong, Mexican food, mythical creatures, and pretty blonde girls. Who knows? But it’s still funny.
I leave you with some of my favorite tweets that I have found on Michael Ian Black’s twitter page…Enjoy =)
Slogan for birds: Fuck you, dickhead, we can fly!
New slogan for that show: “Kate plus eight plus her enormous vagina.”
Do pilgrim-style shoe buckles count as bling-bling?
If animals could read maps we wouldn’t be so impressed when they find their way home. We’d be like “So what? You can read maps.”
My first book, “My Custom Van,” now in paperback. Foreword by Abe Lincoln. “Best book ever written” – God.
Gravity is like nature giving you a hug. And never letting go. Like a crazy person
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