My Final Reflection

C4T #4 Mr. Miguel Guhlin

For my final C4T I had “Mr. Miguel Guhlin”. The first post I read by him was entitled “Podcasting Tool for K-3 Students with the Easi-Speak Microphone”. This post was about Learning Resources Easi-Speak digital audio recorder.
Here's a quick video overview of the device from Mr. Guhlin’s blog…
• Has 4 hours of "battery" power stored up by connecting to USB.
• You have 128 megabytes of storage space on the onboard USB drive
• Records directly to MP3 instead of WMA like other digital audio recorders, eliminating the need for audio conversion.
• The microphone comes with an introductory audio file and
• Includes the Windows version of Audacity free open source software
• You can get an Easi-Speak charging hub for multiple microphones
• Audio-playback immediately lets you hear what the recording was like
• Easy recording and playback buttons make it easy for 5 year olds to use

This new technology seems like a great tool to use in a classroom. It is a great way to get kids interacting and learning more. It is also great for kids to be introduced to kids at a young age.


The second post a read was entitled “Demotivating Staff-How to Avoid it”. In this post Mr. Guhlin posted a “video” by Mr. Jim Collins that outlined three ways to avoid de-motivating workers. But What demotivates workers? Mr. Collins says:
“Hype: a failure to acknowledge the real difficulties the organization faces.
Futurism: Always “pointing down the road” at distant goals and not at the tangible results of employees’ recent efforts.
False democracy: Inviting people’s input when you’ve already made up your mind.”

Mr. Guhlin states three ways to avoid demotivating your staff:
“1) Confront the brutal facts.
2) Disagree and Commit prior to making the decision
3) Show people what's working as it's happening.”

Even though this post and video was driven towards employers and employees, I feel it could also be used for a classroom setting. If a problem arises in your classroom, you should confront it when it happens. Teachers should stick to their first decisions and not change them, if possible. Also, as a teacher it is always important to let your students know they are doing a good job.

C4K Summary for November

1. My first C4K for November was “Amelie” and her post was entitled Coops Shot Tower-Melbourne Central. In it she talked about traveling to Melbourne Central on a train and visiting the tower there. I want to visit Melbourne so bad. I will definitely add Melbourne Central to my list of places to see now.

2. My second C4K was by “Mrs. Yollis” and was entitled Rock Collection. I loved her collection of rocks that look like hearts. I also collected rocks at one point in time. I also found her class blog very useful and fun.

3. My last C4K was by “Rocky V.” and was entitled One Trill Hill. In his post he talked about how he was playing outside on a big hill and fell. He mentioned that he also got some bruises. He also had a great picture of himself playing with his friend on the post too.

I really like the comments for kid’s assignments. I think it is great to see how children around the world are using technology and get a feel for how other people around the world live. I really enjoy reading about what kids are doing around the world through their education. In the wordle above, I combined all my C4Ks for the semester and the titles for their post.

My Final PLN

I have added a few more tiles to my Symbaloo since my first post. I have noticed how much more organized I am now that I have Symbaloo. I think being organized is very important, especially if you are a student. I love to be organized. Being organized and knowing where everything is is a good thing. I feel like I’m less stressed when I can just go to one site and see what I need to look at for the day. It is hard to have all of the sites I need saved up in my memory, but with Symbaloo they are all save in one convenient place.

On my "Amanda’s Webmix” through Symbaloo I have my basics like the EDM class blog, Blogger, my emails, Facebook, YouTube, Google news, Twitter, USA’s Homepage, and other miscellaneous sites I enjoy visiting. I also have a few educational sites like Mr. Scott McLeod’s blog, ALEX, Educational News, TimeToast, and iTunes U. I also added a calendar, weather, music, movies and TV, and holiday title for fun. My webmix may be small but it is constantly growing as the days go on.

Final Project #16

This is my groups Final Project for EDM 310. We chose to create a video in a classroom setting showing different technologies we have used in EDM 310 this semester. A main source we used was Blogger. We used Blogger to create the “High Speed History class blog” created by Lindsey Gipson. On that blog we uploaded assignments, notes and a “World War II Video” we got from YouTube just like a teacher would do. We also used “TimeToast” for the time line used created by Jill Lazzari and I.

I had a lot of fun with this project. I was never a 'tecky' person. I have never rerecorded something on a video camera, and it was great to do that and combine the clips in to a whole video. Now that I know how to do this I think I will definitely do some more videos in the future.

Blog #14

I really enjoyed watching Joe Picardo's “Top Ten Tips for Using Technology in the Classroom” I was familiar with all but two of the tips he gave. I liked his tips about using podcasts and interactive whiteboards in the classroom. I personally think podcasts are great. I also liked how he had a tip about music. I love music and I know that music is one of the greatest arts forms to learn from and I agree that it is important to use it in the classroom. Mr. Picardo's last tip is another to consider for your classroom. I think incorporating personal devices, like cell phones or iPods, is really great idea and important. I think that everyone should follow Mr. Picardo's tips. They are all useful to the classroom.

There were two tips that Mr. Picardo mentioned that I was not familiar with. The first one was Tip #4. I have never heard of the websites he listed. I also never thought about creating interactive exercises, but I can see how they can be helpful especially when used with an interactive whiteboard. The second tip I was unfamiliar with was Tip #9. I thought I was familiar with the Internet, but I had no idea there are so many educational sites at my finger tips. I see myself using all of his tips in my classroom.