Blog Post 8

This Is How We Dream Part 1 and 2
In these two videos, Richard Miller explains how much things have changed when it comes to writing and researching. He describes our desktop as a workshop and we use Word Processing apps to write about our research. We no longer have to go to the library we can easily use the internet to find exactly what we are looking for.
While books in the library only have so many copies, the internet is full of different copies. We are now able to share our information and while 3 people could be looking at the same book in the library, millions can be looking online at the same book. Although the internet having these sources and information is so convenient and helpful, I hope the print copies will stay around. Internet is not always reliable and often crashes. In the case that a research paper is due in a week and my computer crashes I would go to the library.
I don’t think I am completely prepared to write with multimedia, but as I continue with my school and learn new things everyday about technology, I will be ready when the time is necessary. As an educator I must learn to do this because technology increases day to day and when I’m a teacher my students will already know what to do. I need to be able to do what they can do, but teach them and learn from them at the same time.

Chipper and EDM 310 for dummies
I thought both of these videos were well thought out and had extremely important points to them. The video about Chipper was pretty funny. The moral of it was that you have to always do your work and do it on time. You cannot rely on someone else to do it for you. If this is the case, you will never make it far in life. The EDM 310 video, I thought, was well produced as well as had a good point. The main idea was that this class is difficult and can make you go crazy if you do not know how to use the tools and websites. Once they learned how to use them they realized how beneficial this class will be for all classes. I haven’t had any great ideas for my video and after watching these two videos I feel I need to put much more thought into mine. I haven’t decided what I’m doing yet, but hopefully my video will be equally as great as theirs. This class really is so helpful for me in all my classes as well as life itself.

Smartboard critique
Michael Staton has given two interesting reason as to why he believes “Smartboards are A Dumb Initiative”. His first reason basically says that it doesn’t make anything more efficient or easier, but it makes it look better. As for his second reason, he says administrators just want to spend money and when asking for $200,000 for smartboards sounds better than saying they need the money to improve learning outcomes. He basically just says it’s a cop out when asking for money for technology. As for Bill Ferriter, he gives, in my opinion, more persuading reasons as to why he hates interactive white boards. The main reason I believe his reasons are more believable are because he experimented with a smartboard for a year. He goes on to say that even after time, they will become known as really expensive over head projectors. He also says that the idea of a perfect classroom would be to promote independent discovery and collaborative work so why are we spending so much money on tools that do not promote these two things. While I found it difficult searching for an argument to these approaches, one article titled “Using Smart Boards in K-12 Classroom”, gives both pros and cons to using smart boards. The main idea of the use of smart boards according to this article is that this world is becoming so technological and using smart boards for students helps them to become a part of the technology world. Introducing them to technology in the classroom is one way to help them in life. This article also says teachers need to decide for themselves if using a smart board would be helpful or not. I think this is the best thing because for some teachers smart boards might truly help them in a classroom while others, such as Michael Staton and Bill Ferriter, do not believe they are in any way helpful. I found this article very imformative: http://www.brighthub.com/education/k-12/reviews/9759.aspx