Coming to an end…

Wow, I can’t believe that my classes (and the summer!) are coming to an end.  It seems like they went so quickly, and I can definitely see growth in my technological abilities.  I can’t wait to try out some of the things with my students.

I decided to work on my final on Monday because I knew that I would be setting up my classroom this week, and then meetings start next week.  I really put a lot of work into creating a WebQuest for the 2008 Election, and I am please with how it turned out.  I am so excited to use it with my students this year.  I even went back to what we did the first module and made a rubric to on rubistar.com to use for the WebQuest.  It seems like I pulled together a lot of things that I learned in this course.  Now I am off to read the November text and finish some other projects!

FTP Tears

Well since I have a lot going on next week I have been trying to get ahead on some of the work for my two courses.  Yesterday I did some work with WebQuests and researching how to use html, and today I planned to embark on my webpage.  I have designed webpages in the past, but I have very minimal experience with this, especially with html.  Needless to say that this made me hesitant to get started.  Once I did get started I was plugging things in and viewing them in Internet Explorer.  I was really proud of myself for what I was accomplishing, and things were not as difficult as I had been expecting.  Andy Carvin had a great tutorial or crash course as he called it.  I found it to be very helpful.  Then I got to the hard part, loading the webpage to a server.  I downloaded FTP Explorer without much difficulty and figured out how to upload things to the server.  Once I typed in my url and viewed them I began to have difficulty.  For some reason some of my pictures are not coming up properly even though it looks as though I have them saved correctly on the server.  I am so frustrated right now that I feel like I could cry, but since I am not 7, I will refrain.  Hopefully with the help of my professor I will get this straightened out and it will all work like I so had my heart set!  So this week, the challenge I am facing is with FTP!!!!!  And the growth that I saw was in how quickly I picked up the html, which to me the sound of those four letters is even intimidating! 

On a side note, last night I was putting together my portfolio for my other class (I had just been collecting things in a folder before).  Looking through it all I was proud of everything that I have accomplished this summer, and I can’t believe all that I have to show for it.  That was a great feeling!

Digital Discussion

Wow, I was surprised that so many people were commenting on my discussion about being a digital immigrant or native.  It is funny that those terms made such an impact on us that we are all going about town discussing them!  I think that there are so many things out there that people who are not in the education field don’t think about.  And I think that those in the education field are always thinking about current trends, new approaches, studies, etc.  It is nice to see that the two worlds can come together for a decent discussion.

I have to say that the two classes that I am taking this summer have kept me on my toes.  I thought that I was pretty good with technology, but still I am learning so much I cannot believe it!  I made a really cool Jeopardy game in my other class, and I am so excited to play it with my kids it is ridiculous.  I am really proud at all that I have accomplished during these courses, and excited to share them with my colleagues and students when school starts. 

Digital Living

The other night I was out to dinner with some friends for my sister’s birthday.  During dinner my conversation turned to one of the guests who has a website/blog on architecture in their city.  Since I know that this guy is on the Internet a lot and knows tons about technology, I decided to through out the terms digital native and digital immigrant that we have been talking about in our class.  No sooner had the words left my mouth than he said, “I love it!  I love those terms, they are great!” 

I began to explain a bit more about the Prensky article, how he says that out brain patterns are changing with the way that we learn best, etc.  This guy really agreed with things and said that his brain functions best with technology, and he feels that he can relate to the digital natives of our classrooms.  As the conversation progressed others were joining in, some with no clue on what we were talking about, and others that had their own opinions.  I was really glad to get these outside perspectives (you know, non-teachers), just to see what they think about education, especially in current times. 

Overcoming Virtual Fears

Well, I think (cross your fingers) that I am finally healed of computer illnesses!  I have to say that the past two weeks have not been pleasant, worrying about what is going wrong with both of my computers, and how they both got viruses at the same time.  I don’t feel like I am careless online, and I don’t know how they both got infected, except that the store that fixed them says it was a coincidence.  I have a hard time excepting that.

Now I have myself fearing the Internet, not knowing the cause of the viruses makes me even timid to check my email or log onto my school account. Everytime I click on something I am almost closing my eyes, thinking is something crazy is going to come up on the screen.  If the computer makes a noise, again I am holding  my breath.  I save so many things onto the computer, lesson plans, ideas, directions to places, and the fear of losing all of that is terrible.  I also don’t feel comfortable with the thought of someone out there seeing into my online activity and personal information.  Right now I am facing the challenge of being comfortable with using technology again.  I know all of the great things that it has to offer and I am trying to focus on that.  Each day I am becoming more brave, visiting an additional site that I frequently use.  Today is my first visit to my blog, so far so good.  My goal for this week is to conquer my virtual fears.

It was interesting that this week’s assignment was to research viruses and Internet safety.  I did this on a friend’s computer while both of mine were being healed, oh the irony!  I did find it interesting, as I always wondered what some of the differences were between various virus names and strains.  I didn’t realize that there were so many versions of the trojan, which I always thought was the same thing.  I also enjoyed reading about hoaxes.  We all get those emails from people, in fact I got one a few weeks ago about a Hallmark virus.  I have always wondered if those were real or not.  I didn’t think that they were, but then I also didn’t want to rule them out just in case. 

It seems to me that hoaxes usually come in the form of an email and viruses just happen to your computer and you don’t really know it at the time.  For instance, the virus that I got was a Malware Virus.  When I was online I got a pop-up to download this anti-virus protection program for like $34.99 or something.  Pop-ups happen, so I just X’d out of it.  Next thing I know all this stuff starts downloading, saying it is dowloading updates, again, my computer runs updates, so I still didn’t realize that something was funny.  I finished up, got off the Internet, and went to sleep.  Over night apparently things went crazy inside my computer, but I had no clue until I tried to get onto it in the morning.  Some of the other viruses appeared to be people viewing your personal information, or an infection in your boot sector, there are all kinds.

After I got my computer back I ran a scan to check potential vulnerabilities and the message came back saying that we are protected, thank goodness!  That was a relieving feeling, and perhaps part of what is making me feel more comfortable using the Internet this week.  I do feel like I will be able to get back to my comfort zone with the Internet, I feel better each day, but it will take time.  Like with any bad experience I learned a lesson.  I am definitely going to be more careful and make sure all of my protection is up to date. 

Technical Nightmare!

So it turns out that my computer did have a virus, now a fun thing to experience, let me tell you.  I finally got it back today, and found out that it was attacked pretty good.  But all seems well now.  I did manage to borrow a laptop and complete my research paper.  I ended up doing it on blogging.  I couldn’t find any differing points of view on my orginial topic which was cyber bullying.  In the end I found some good information on blogging, and really learned a lot about the benefits. 

I admit that I was a previous anti-blogger.  I am a pretty private person, so the thought of someone that I don’t know reading my thoughts, no thank you!  I reluctantly signed up for one for a course, and began to see the benefits.  I learned through my research that over 12 million American adults have a blog.  That was from 2006, so I am sure it is larger now.  That blew my mind!  I also saw some positives from both the educational blog and also from an occupational perspective.  I did learn that it can be risky in some instances to have a blog, but that would be primarily if you are writing risky or offensive things.  So I am more of a blog fan now, and I am really glad that I ended up with that topic.

Technical Scare!

This morning I logged onto my blog and wrote a post, and my computer started doing all kinds of funny things.  It came up that I had a virus, I was not happy about that, obviously it makes you nervous!  I frantically emailed my professor, thinking, what am I going to do?  I have to post on this for class and now mine has a virus!  Thankfully I just returned home to an email from him saying that it was on the site’s end, thank goodness!  And things are fixed.  So all is happy now  

What I was trying to write before was about search engine’s and my automatic default to Google on a regular basis.  I am guilty of this, and I place blame on the fact that I have a Google toolbar, and it is so easy to just click on there and search!  I also frequent ask.com.  In the past a classmate in college turned me onto dogpile.com because it gives you results from several search engines, but I have not used it in years I have to admit.  I enjoyed searching with other sites (most of which I had never heard of), and intend to give them some use in the future, however I can admit that I am a creature of habit, so I know that I will mostly use Google.  Also, I am usually quite satisfied with Google’s performance.  I do plan to introduce my students to other search engines though, this way they can find one that they like the best and use that.

I also enjoyed the writeboard document activity.  I loved how we could all manipulate the same document from our various locations.  I would love to do some kind of activity with my students using this program.  One classmate suggested using it for a calendar to sign up for writing conferences, I love that idea.  I had a discussion over the weekend with a friend of my sister’s who works in the marketing field.  I was talking about this assignment and she said that she uses a similar program at work.  She also commented that things get interesting when there is a lot of text and people are adding their information.  I think that it is great that companies can do this, especially when we are talking about big companies that may have offices in various cities or countries. 

Onto the next task of research.  I think I have decided on cyber bullying for my topic….

A del.icio.us launch!

Well I have to say that I am in love with del.icio.us!  I am addicted to tagging websites.  For one of the classes that I am taking I had to create a web launch pad.  I decided to make mine a cute frog pond with lily pads   Anyway, since I had tagged a lot of websites that I use, when I created my launch I just went to my del.icio.us account and looked through my bookmarks.  I also did some searches for websites to use and instead of doing my old standby routine, I just tagged the sites and added them, taking only seconds to do so! My old routine, I am embarassed to mention included opening my email, composing a message to myself with a subject line of writing links,  good websites, Plum Creek websites, something to that affect, then copying and pasting websites that I found relating to that topic in the email and sending it…to myself.  Then I would save it in a folder on my email marked websites.  That I tell you, did not take seconds!  How I came up with that I am not sure, but it was something that I could access from any computer that had internet and it worked for me.  Now that I have found del.icio.us (thank you Matthew!!!) I am hooked!

A new generation

Wow, after working like a wild woman last week I am actually going at a calm pace so far this week!  Between my two classes I am also trying to read a book about Guided Reading and Writing because my school is making some changes in our program for next year.  I know that if I read this it will make my life so much easier when school starts, but I seem to be in a bit of a vacation mode!  I am setting a goal of reading a chapter a day.  So far I am one and a half chapters in!

I just finished reading the article on Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants and found it really interesting.  The article talks about the students of current times being Digital Natives because they have learned through the digital world their whole life.  The rest of us fall into the Digital Immigrant category, although I think I might be somewhat on the fence of the two.  I can remember not having a computer as a child with my mother using a (gasp!) typewriter to type our papers for us.  We made too many mistake to do it ourselves, but she was so good, I am still amazed.  I would go to bed at night hearing the click clack of the keys.  I think about that now, and I take for granted the backspace key.  I am a fast typer, but I often make mistakes or change what I want to write, I have probably pressed the backspace key 30 times by now in this entry, how could I have made it in life if I hadn’t bought a computer?  This shows that I definitely know life without much technology, but on the other hand, I am also still in my 20’s which means that there was a lot of technology available to me at a relatively young age.  I have not become so “set in my ways” as the article describes most Digital Immigrants.  It is true that our students learn in a different way than we learned, I remember having a computer in my elementary classroom, one computer with no computer lab, and if you wanted to play it you begged the teacher to stay in from recess to play Oregon Trail.  The students in my elementary classroom use technology every day, and I definitely agree that they like things presented to them in a quick manner.  They are used to way of life, not just with learning, but I think that we, as a society in general, are moving at a much faster pace.  I am always in a hurry to do everything, and I hate being early for things (which makes me always late) because I spend those early moments thinking about what I could have been checking off my to do list during that time.  I don’t think technology is to blame for that, I think that it keeps that pace, it fits into our lifestyle.  I liked that this article discussed the importance of teaching to the learner that we have in front of us, not the one that we may wish that we have in front of us.  I am sure that this is much easier for me to say than some, I am preparing to enter my 2nd year of teaching, so I am not set in my ways by any means.  I am open to new ideas, because everything is new to me!  I will be interested to see how education changes in the next 20 years, and what that will mean for me as an educator.

Operation Overload and a little bit of Solitaire

After completing my first year of teaching I decided to begin work on my master’s degree.  I figured that it would be a good idea to start now before I have children and other distractions, or really things that I would rather be doing that classwork!  Not that I don’t like to learn, I love it, but I do find that I can be an over achiever of sorts and I am quite a perfectionist, so I end up diving headfirst into things like they are all that I have to do.  I can also be long winded!  So after saying all of that, here I am spending my first summer as a free bird taking two graduate courses.  Since they began two weeks ago I have been feeling quite overwhelmed with how I am going to balance the two classes along with everything else that I have going on this summer. 

Yesterday I finished the work for this week in one course.  I had a lot of fun designing my dream home and graffiting a pic of my prof and writing a creative story to go with it.  Creative writing was my first love, and will always have a special place in my heart.  You know how first loves go.  After finishing that work I immediately checked my new assignments for my other course, the one that I am creating this blog for, and dove right in.  I just couldn’t shake that feeling of being overwhelmed and figured the sooner I finished the assignments the sooner I would get that feeling of relief. 

For this course we have to explore blogs (something I have very little experience with) and find some that we like.  After looking at QUITE A FEW blogs I began to think, wow mine is so ammateur!  I found some that I really liked and got excited about it.  Although I still have no clue how to spice mine up quite like some of those.  Next I decided to tackle the RSS assignment.  I had no clue what that even meant!  After reading an article and exploring around (and I might add becoming insanely addicted to Solitaire in the process – yes I am easily distracted!) I figured out the RSS feeder somewhat and added three to my email homepage.  I was feeling quite good at this point but still had to tackle the del.icio.us (which I was really excited to learn was pronounced delicious) account.  This was the best part, after finally figuring out that I had to click TAG two times to get the box to pop up (I was beginning to get a complex on the thing) I just started going to town adding bookmarks.  My favorite list in my browser has tons of links that I find while doing lesson planning.  But like they say on the del.icio.us website, you can’t use them on every computer that you use.  I really wish that I had known about this website previously because it is just a genius idea!  I love it.  I now have 15 bookmarks saved on my account, and I found a lot of really cool sites and blogs by all of the clicking that I spent my day doing.

So in the long run, I was feeling very challenged by all of these assignments because things were so new to me.  However now I feel so good because I actually accomplished them!  Do I think that someone in class will do them a bit better, sure, I am admitting to being a novice here, but am I proud of what I have accomplished, DEFINITELY!  Before the past few weeks I had never heard of some of these things.  Now my goal is to spice up my blog a bit and figure out how to do some of the cool stuff that I have seen out there!