Following II

There have been several recent posts on Lee Lefever's blog site. One of the most interesting, was the addition of two new companies who make 'how to' movies similar to what Lee does. I investigated further, by going to http://www.animatedexplanations.com, which is a company based in Belgium and focuses on the European and global market. Their site is very easy to navigate and there is even a search engine that allows a person to see if there are videos pertaining to their subject. I looked up internet security, and found a cool video on how to create a secure password. I found this video to be a nice reminder on how to create a password that will protect my personal information. This video would also be good to use with students at an early age, to help them understand the importance of securing their information and how to do it. I recommend checking out this site for anyone who enjoyed Lee's videos. :)

My Online Presence

Well, my online presence was nil, as far as I could see. I tried Ashley Tomlinson, adding my middle name/initial, but nothing for myself came up. I did find out that there are several other in this world that share the same name as myself, but found nothing in the first few pages of my search that dealt with myself. While I do use a social network and have this blog, I could not find anything.

Tech Tool

One tech tool that I have learned to use within the last year, is called shelfari.com. It is a free site that allows you to catalog books within your profile and then create a library of books you have read and want to read, own and not own. The site provides a search engine which includes millions of books for people of all ages and genres. I find it to be very useful for keeping track of the books that I own personally and a record of the titles and authors of children's books for a wish list to use to create my own personal classroom library. The site is easy to use and perfect for the avid or beginning book collector or anyone who wishes to keep an accurate inventory of the novels they are interested in.

Following

After watching the two videos by Lee Lefever, I decided to look him up to see if he had a blog that I could follow. I liked his voice and the creative, simple, straightforward way of explaining a topic. The search was quick and easy; after only one try, I was rewarded with a link to his blog called http://www.commoncraft.com/blog. On his blog, he was several other videos describing the stock market, sharepoint, and other topics of interest in simply, easy to understand, and later apply, language. His last login was earlier this month, so I am hoping to read and watch more of his videos. Although his information is not strictly geared towards teachers of young children, I think that the information he provides will be helpful to increase my own understanding of how certain things work.

Technology website

I actually ended up looking at two different websites. The first was the Wordle one, which was interesting, because you could type in a variety of words, with no limit, and the site would creatively arrange them in the viewing area and from there you can edit layout, color, and so on. The application didn't hold my attention for very long, because I found myself thinking, 'this is all it does?' Overall, there wasn't much you could do with it.
After Wordle, I decided to check out starfall.com, which is an interactive website geared towards reading and grades PreK-second or third grade. I liked how most of the reading and other dialogues were the voices of children rather than adults. For a child who might be homeschooled, I think it would be nice to listen to other children read, since you are most likely spending time listening to adults. It was also neat to read the different stories and myths. I was thinking that I might suggest this website to the families in the after school program I work at, as a technology and reading aid. The best part of this class, is that it's practical and hands on learning that we can take to the families we work with even now.

Comparing the new and old NETS-T standards, in just eight years, one can see how the times and technology have changed. Thinking back to 2000, I was in seventh grade and computers were still a new technology found in schools and digital cameras and cell phones were as readily available to the general public as they are now. With all the new technology that has emerged in just eight years, teachers have to now constantly keep updated on how to use them in the classroom and encourage children to explore a variety of technologies as seen throughout the 2008 standards. Although the standards NETS has supplied sounds appealing, I wonder if teachers even know these exist and if so, do they know how to implement them in their own classroom? Just as important, I wonder if students know that they have their own responsibilities as well when it comes to learning about and using technology; I agree with a fellow classmate, who said in small group discussion last week, that we should be teaching the dos and donts of technology in the younger grades, rather than waiting until student's are older and have formed their own 'way' of doing things. To conclude, the NETS, whether old or new are helpful to teachers and students and one must question how soon will they have to update the NETS to reflect new changes to technology?

Images

After reviewing the 2008 NETS-T, I would have to say that images fit into all five categories of the new standards. WIthin the first standard, they discuss enhancing and allowing for student's creativity, which may include teh use of digital imaging in a powerpoint for the case study of a child. In the second standard, teachers are needed to create digital learnign experiences and assessments, which would include the use of digital cameras for both movies and still images. Standards 3, 4, and 5 all can apply to the use of images that are either your own, or found on the internet. Teachers need to model how to appropriately use and cite the images found on the internet, along with how to modify them for later use, as we did in class last week. Overall, images fit nicely into the new NETS-T.