Project 2

I don't know what happened, or what this really is, but here it is anyways :)

THE FILM

Reflection

This class stressed me out a lot and often, but upon reaching the end of it all I realize that it was largely in a good way. I need to become more techno-proficient if I am going to get ahead in life. And although it they were stress-inducing, they were lessons I needed to learn.

In effect, pretty much everything we covered in this class was new to me. Every project took me a long time to do even a halfway decent job on because each step of the process was something difficult I had never seen before. Afterwards I would have a decent understanding of the new technology and could, in a life or death situation, probably replicate what I had created. I believe this was one of the objectives of the class. I believe it was met for me.

I have many questions about technology still. I don't think all of the connections have been made in my head to give me that big picture yet. I was born more towards the beginning of the "millenial generation", so maybe technological ability wasn't hard-wired into my genetic make-up as effectively as the younger kids. I do have a good grasp of how to find answers though. I have gained the ability to use technology, what limited skills I have gained, to communicate, teach, and understand better and more clearly. Plus, blogging is fun!

In conclusion, I know how important technology is becoming in this day and age. I cannot be oblivious or resistant to that if I want to be successful. This class has started a solid techno-foundation for my life that I can build on to succeed.

Project 3

I preface by saying that I am still not the most technologically-sound student here at BYU, and especially not in this class. Even powerpoint is mostly foreign to me... Thus, my original project idea proved almost impossible for me to do. It took me a lot of brainstorming (and stressing) to figure out an alternative. I'm happy to say that I am satisfied with the result.

The project I would have my students complete is outlined in this google document:

Biology Presentation Project

This is an example of the project that I did:

Torpor Presentation

I am still not a master at creating powerpoint presentations, but making a presentation on google documents is even harder. I still don't know how to animate any of the texts or images or set the timing or anything... I have a lot to learn. I am hoping that the students learn a lot through this project. The truth is, google documents is a very useful program to learn.

3rd Project

I am doing Option 1- the student assignment.

Target Audience: Biology Students
Technology: Google Sketch up
Learning Activities: I will create a written assignment for my students to do using Google Sketch-up. I will then do the assignment myself. I will post both the assignment and the product on my blog.

As far as what the assignment will actually be, I am not completely sure yet. Something to do with evolution or genetics I'm sure.

Anchor Lessons by Asynchronous Video

Television Telephone

Haha, that's what video chatting seems like... to me, at least. My girlfriend video chats on skype with her family and friends back in Sacramento all the time (like seriously every other day or something) so it is always really easy for me to just join in on her conversations. I usually avoid the crazy new technology, but today I decided to see what it was all about.

Skype is pretty unreal. My biggest problem was not knowing where to look! I always wanted to look at the screen but then my eyes were obviously not looking at the person I was talking to. But if you look at the camera you can't tell if you are really looking straight into the picture, because you are looking at the camera... Very unsettling. Other than that, skype was effective and pretty awesome. You get to see the faces and emotions of those you are communicating with. I think this can help keep your mind from wandering too much (at least it helps me). Plus, they can show you things instead of having to just try and describe it sufficiently, which can be difficult.

There are definite advantages to video communication of this manner. As an educator, you could more effectively present information to students who miss valuable instruction in the classroom. Or, you could have a sort of live-action video podcast thing going on. In conclusion, television telephones are a great invention.

Fair Use...

... to the rescue! Haha, so I just posted a negative little blurb on how lame copyright can be sometimes- well, there is hope! Fair use is a "loophole" which allows educators (and friends) to use material that has been copyrighted so long as it is not for commercial purposes or for stealing purposes. This is great news for teachers- we don't need to suffer our hands tied any more by the ineptitudes of law and politics. We just need to be careful that when the capitalist copyrighters come calling we can back up our innocent reasons for using their work.

Copywrong!

Okay, I'm going to play devil's advocate because I don't think anybody ever speaks for the little guy- the people who want to use things other people have copyrighted and can't... because they are copyrighted! It is right in line with a capitalist society to copyright words, own the earth, and have patents on genes. Enough is enough! Words should be free for everybody. Do you really think you are the first person in the world, ever, to say something a certain way... Anyways, I've got a great sentence for people to steal and not give me any credit for (which is fine, by the way): Copyrighting has no place in moral society.

"I Love the Movies"

Hopefully my sister and I aren't the only people that think the Great Movie Ride at MGM Studios in Disney World is freaking hilarious! Haha, seriously, "I love the movies."

But seriously, video media in the classroom- I'm for it! I definitely think it can be pretty distracting, and even ineffective if used too often, but everybody loves a good flick! If the video clip is short and engaging I think it can be monumental in getting the students excited about a topic. I even believe in a movie day or two each semester as a reward for good behavior- I loved those as a kid... when they weren't rated R and I didn't have to leave the classroom and go sit in with the ESL kids... that wasn't much fun...

Anyways, I used to make movies ALL the time when I was a kid. We used my dad's super old-school VHS camcorder that weighed about 20 pounds! Me and my friends made all sorts of crazy cool movies (and my sister was literally EVERY girl character in EVERY movie, haha) Those were the days!

the Jtrain Biology Class Website

Here it is, my website. Hopefully it is cool and done right.

http://sites.google.com/site/biologyjtrain/home

2.0 Exploring

Okay, the PLN video titled "Building a PLN with Web 2.o Tools" was pretty hard for me to follow. The analogy of a PLN being like a buffet made me pretty hungry, but didn't really give me much information. I liked the reference to 'second life', which I remember Dwight Schrute playing in an episode of The Office...

Anyways, I was of the misunderstanding that a PLN was another Google Reader type thing that gathered, condensed, and organized everything for you. Now I know that it is pretty much just the accumulation of everything that I do to connect, share, and learn with other people across the globe. I already have a pretty good handle on personal networking sites like facebook and other things we have covered in class (blogs, RSS feeds, etc), so I decided to take a look at some of the links on the Creating a PLN website.

I think the education communities like

http://teachershare.scholastic.com and http://www.pbs.org/teachers/connect/

could be incredibly useful for teachers like us who are just getting started. There are a whole ton of "mentor" teachers out there who have lots of experience and lots of great teaching ideas. We can use the resources and information to become effective and insightful teachers. Then, when we're old and gray, we can give back to the community the way we were given. It's like the teaching circle of technological life!

L3

Okay, we're talking about Life-Long Learning, or what I affectionately refer to as L3. I think those of us who are members of the LDS church already have quite the leg-up on the rest of the world when it comes to L3. We understand that we are expected to study the scriptures, learn spiritual truths, and strengthen our testimonies our whole lives. If you're not moving forward, you're moving backwards they say (which only really makes sense if your moving against a conveyor belt or moving sidewalk, but I guess we're not supposed to take it so literally). We can't just rest on our laurels and think that the knowledge we have gained will hold us over until kingdom come. Life is continual journey! Intelligence and knowledge (particularly of a spiritual nature) are some of our biggest rewards for progressing in this journey.

L3 is just as important in our fields of academic study as it is for us spiritually. If my physician wasn't continually reading up about his field and learning the new theories and procedures that could protect me from malpractice, disease, injury, or death, I don't know what I'd do... probably die, I guess... So, RSS feeds and other ways of collecting streaming information from the internet are incredibly useful tools for accomplishing L3. Plus, now I don't have to visit all the various websites I usually do, which saves me some time. This is a good thing because I don't have a computer and the computers at the public library are usually a little sketch...

Project Proposal

I will do the projects outlined on the website. I will complete them by the marked due dates on the calendar.

Project #1	February 10th
Project #2	March 17th
Project #3	April 7th

Video Introduction

This is a video clip I took on my bright green ipod nano.

In it I introduce myself, tell where I'm from, and say what I high school courses I plan to teach.

What is a Satellite Blog?

Well, my first blog is my favorite blog. Therefore, everything that isn't so personal and must be blogged for either credit or class will be on this satellite blog. That doesn't mean this blog won't be incredibly fascinating, because it definitely might.

I am not completely sure what to expect from this class. I think that I will be learning about multimedia "enhancements" that I could use in lesson planning, but I'm not sure. What I gathered from the introduction and class syllabus is that I will be "developing knowledge and skills related to the use of technology inside and outside of the classroom" (taken directly from the syllabus).

So, the bottom line is that I will be learning how to integrate technology into the classroom to enhance student learning. Didn't BYU do a study about this...