Thanksgiving Break

It was great while it lasted but now we're back on the grind for a few weeks before we get to go on the big break! I was actually in Warrensburg over the whole break because we had a game Friday and Saturday so we had practice on thanksgiving morning. It kind of ruins the "break" part of thanksgiving, but I DID take the whole week off from doing anything associated with educational technology, not gonna lie! Well, I guess that's not even entirely true, because I did have a good conversation with my mom, who is a gifted education instructor at an elementary and middle school, during break about using digital cameras in the classroom. Being a gifted instructor, she deals with many students who are very technology savvy, some even knowing more than her. Since they express such an interest in new technologies, my mom says she tries to nurture that fascination by giving her students as much opportunity to use technology as possible. My mom says she has really started using digital cameras in her classroom quite a bit and for different things. This was really the first time I had talked to an educator who had started using digital cameras in their classroom and then I turn around and one of the other groups in my online class used digital cameras in education as their topic for their presentation. I guess this means that digital cameras are becoming very prevelant in classrooms everywhere. I think this is a really good thing, there just seems to be so many possiblities for their use in education. In a history class, I think I would love to try to do some kind of project where the students work in groups and somehow recreate an important event in history and take pictures/video of their recreation to share with the class. I would love to hear from a veteran teacher who had tried something like this, if there are any. I'm sure there has been something like this done before and I would love to hear/learn about it.

Online Class Group Project

Yes, an online group project. Haha. I had no idea that those were even done but, after some early complications, we got ours completed and turned in and I think it is pretty well done. When I first saw that we were going to have to do a group project in an online class, I will admit, I was really worried. I knew it would be hard to decide on a topic, what to do with that topic, and to get organized. At first, it seemed as if I would be proven right. However, there was one person in our group that did a really good job of getting everybody organized and on the same page. She even set a time for us to get on a chat room provided by blackboard so that we could talk in real time about what we were all supposed to do for our project. That was really a great idea becuase as great as email is for communication it is still not in real time and talking on the chat room really helped clear some things up for me. So, it actually turned out that this project was a really good thing, I think. It made us use the internet for serious communication and we found out that it really is possible to get organized online and effectively complete a project. So there you have it, the internet really can be used for SERIOUS WORK and not just facebook and myspace!

That Disney youtube copyright video....

I just got done watching that video, from the link on our course documents for this week and man....that thing is crazy! It was pretty cool though, somebody really took some time to put that together. It was pretty informative too, once I got the hang of it and was able to keep up with it. I guess I need to go read some more of this week's chapter in the book but I found it interesting that after 14 years (according to the video) copyrighted material becomes "public property". I think that is what it was saying at least! I wonder if that happens all the time or if people can renew their copyrights on that material. I'm not sure if it said that or not in the video. Oh well, I'll go look more into the book and see if it says something about it or just go look it up on my own. I know one thing, that "Disney" video took a lot of work and somebody deserves an award for that!

Last week, I interviewed Shawn Jones, who is the Associate Athletic Director for External Operations at The University of Central Missouri. I really actually enjoyed this assignment. I learned a lot from the interview about a lot of different things. Shawn is not only the Associate A.D. but is also the radio voice of the mules. It was really interesting to listen to him talk about the inisides of the Athletic department and what all goes on. I went in with a list of questions but as he began to talk, I learned a lot more than I had planned and I had more questions that I just kept coming up with along the way. I found myself a lot more interested in what he did than I thought. I've always known that a career in Athletics, whether it be coaching or the administration side, but during this interview I learned so much more about what goes on and I actually feel even more excited about possibly getting into Athletics Administration than before. One highlight of the interview that was particularly interesting to me was when Shawn talked about the significance of facebook. At first, he says that he saw it as a possible major problem (which it has proven to be in some instances at other educational institutions) but now he actually uses it to advertise for sporting events. Either way, it is something that has been a very significant issue since its conception. People in Shawn's position have to look out for things like this and must stay on top of new technology devices.