Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

Today I watched Randy Pausch's Last Lecture. Randy Pausch caught my attention from the very beginning of the lecture. He started off talking about his cancer but yet he was still so happy and energetic. He starts to make jokes about his disease he even states, "I am in good shape now," and then gets on the floor and does push ups. Not your typical lecture huh? That what caught my attention. Pausch has great stage presence and a knows how to capture an audience. In addition to his great stage presence, he caught my attention by using meaningful quotes. One that caught my attention was when he was talking about his disease and stated, "we cannont change the cards we are dealt but we can change how we deal them." He then stated what we were NOT going to talk about. This is a unique approach to a lecture, it allowed the audience to know that this wasnt going to be a lecture about his disease, his family, or about religion.

Randy Pausch then began to talk about his childhood dreams. These were: being in zero gravity, playing in the NFL, writing an article in the World Book Encyclopedia, being/meeting captain Kirk, and being an imagineer at Disney. He went on to explain how he got to be at zero gravity because of a project he worked on with his students. Then he told us that no, he never did play in the NFL. He played while he was younger and had a great coach. One of the most meaningful quotes I took from this lecture came from the story about his football coach. Pausch explained how his coach rode him hard one practice and Pausch was told that it was a good thing because, if someone rides you hard to do better its because they care about you but if you are doing something wrong and they do not push you to do better, its because they have given up. I think this is a great piece of advice for everyone, especially teachers. As teachers we need to realize that we are going to be pushing students everyday and maybe the same student the whole year but, we do not need to give up because as soon as we give up, we give the students the chance to give up on themselves.

Another great piece of advice I got from this lecture is this quote, "Experience is what you get when you didnt get what you wanted." I feel that this is a good life lesson for everyone and this needs to be taught to students as well. Randy Pausch also learned this lesson from his experience with football. After football his next goal was to be an imagineer. He went through many obstacles trying to get there and got shot down many times. He then stated that brick walls exist for a reason: "They are there to prove how badly you want something." I believe that teaching this to your students will make them work harder. Put up some brick walls, everything will be ok, and your students will learn more and you might just learn something from your students as well.

Pausch also talked about the course he taught, building virtual worlds. He showed a video and pictures from his time teaching this course. At first he told a story about giving a two week assignment and the students turned in amazing work. He was shocked and didnt know what to do so he called his mentor who told him to go back and tell his students they can do better. He told him this because he didnt know where to set the bar. Pausch then gave one of the best pieces of advice I think I could have as a teacher, dont set the bar anywhere because, if you dont set it your students will keep growing and getting better. I completely agree! If we as teachers do not set the bar then our students will be forced to do better and forced to learn more. This is what we want right? So lets take the advice from this lecture and use it to our benefit and to our students benefit.

At the end of the lecture he talks about getting people to help you. He mentions you have to get other people to help you! This is such good advice because many people do not like to get the help of others. Many people try to do things on their own and some are successful but many are not. Future teachers especially need to get the help of others. We need to listen and learn to the experiences of other teachers.

In conclusion, I absolutely loved this lecture. It was very moving and helpful to me and I feel that I learned many life lessons from Randy Pausch's last lecture. I will most definately take this advice into my future career as a teacher. "Dont complain, just work harder," a quote all teachers and everyone need to do!

Is It Okay To Be A Technology Illiterate Teacher?

Today I read the blog Is It Okay To Be A Technology Illiterate Teacher by Karl Fisch. He had some pretty powerful statements about teachers who are technology illiterate. He believes that there is no excuse for teachers now days to be illiterate in technology. He compares technology illiterate teachers to people who cannot read. Karl Fisch states, "If a teacher today is not technologically literate -and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more - it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write."I have to say that I agree with him on this. If you are illiterate with technology, then it is going to be hard to survive in the education field. Technology has grown so much and it definately is not slowing down. If we, as teachers, do not step it up and learn this technology then we are going to be completely useless to our students. I feel that it has gotten to a point where the students now know more than the teachers. In fact, I have a professor who is very technology illiterate. She cannot seem to figure out how to use the PWRS clickers in the classroom.She will spend 30 minutes of the classroom trying to figure it out and then she gives up.(we have still never used the clickers). Although this is a new technology, the students have to tell her how to use it. In a way, having a teacher who is clueless about the technology we use is a total turn off for me. I feel that she will not be able to teach me anything that I do not already know. Now, this may be a little extreme but technology is the backbone of most of my courses. I strongly believe that upcoming teachers need to be required to be literate in technology and forced to continue their education when new technology arises.
Karl Fisch also states that many teachers and people seem to be proud that they are technology illiterate. I see this happening everyday. For example, I have many teachers who state that they have no idea how to use the computer. Also, on a daily basis I hear employees state that they do not know how to work their registers. They try to use the technology as an excuse to not understand or do the task at hand. We all just need to grab ahold of technology and learn atleast the basics. After all, we all know technology is not getting any smaller, it is only growing. By the time the students we are teaching in elementary school graduate, technology is going to be so much more advanced. We need to take responsibility and be able to teach our students everything they need to know about technology. Karl Fisch states that in order to teach it we have to do it. We need to begin our education now and be committed to learning new things about technology. Everything we know is going to benefit our students and ourselves.

A Vision of Students Today

A Vision of Students Today
I watched the video called A Vision of Students Today and was blown away by some of the statistics. Although this video is much like my college life now, I didn't realize how much of this stuff was going on. It is amazing to me to think that we pay so much for college but yet many do not put in the effort. Also, we spend much more time on facebook than we do online for school work. One of the statistics from the video was, I complete 49% of the readings assigned to me. This is amazing and I wonder if students would be more inclind to read their assignments if they were on the computer?To me it seems that many students go to college for all the right reasons and have intentions to do the assignments. But I believe that students today need to be taught differently. We need to be taught with the growing technology because when we get out of school, we are going to need those skills to get a job.
In addition, another statistic caught my eye, 18% of my teachers know my name. This is crazy to me! Teachers need to know their students names but it is almost impossible due to the large classes. If we are going to continue with the classroom setting then colleges need to lower the student to teacher ratio. With large classrooms it makes it hard for the students to get one on one help from their teacher, which can be very important. Instead of having a one on one talk in person, you now have a one on one talk through e-mail. This just is not the same.
At the end of the video it is mentioned that some think technology can save us. I believe that in a way this is true. Our society has gotten to the point where everything revolves around the computer or their cell phones. If teachers start using the computer for their lessons then the students will benefit from it. I feel that college students are likely to learn more while in front of a computer rather than in front of a book. Now, this may be a scary thought to some of you but it is the truth. We are now a technology based society and its only getting worse. Its out with the old and in with the new. No more books and handouts, strictly e-mails, blogs, and podcasts. Now this change will be very helpful for some students but horrible for others. I am still a strong believer in having help from your teacher in person. But there are many students who are not stimulated to learn unless they are in front of their computer. Therefore, I do believe that technology alone may save us.

What I've Learned This Year

Today I read a very informative blog called, "What I've Learned This Year". This blog is written by Mr. McClung, a first year teacher. He goes into detail about the things he learned his first year of being and elementary school teacher. I found many of his suggestions and comments to be very helpful.
Mr. McClung mentioned that many teachers forget to make their lesson plans appropriate for their students. This is a huge problem, we as teachers need to make sure our plans are made with the students in mind. In addition, he says that teachers get so caught up in what their superiors think and seem to forget that their audience consists of children. I can see how and why many teachers would do this, but we need to keep the most important people in mind, and that is our students.
Another great teaching tip he gave was to be flexible. We need to remember that our plans are not always going to be perfect. In fact we may have to change our lesson plans completely due to unexpected events, you just never know in an elementary classroom.
The most valuable information I got from this blog was to be reasonable. He states that we as teachers need to be reasonable with our students. We do not need to expect them to be perfect. Most importantly we cannot expect every child to be able to accomplish the same task and receive the same grade. We as teachers are going to wish for all our students be make straight A's but we have to realize before we get into the classroom that it is not going to happen.
Overall, I learned a lot from Mr. McClung's blog. It was great to read feedback from someone who has experienced it.

The Technology Literate Teacher

Today I watched last semester's EDM 310 class videocast. The topic was Tech Literate Teacher. I found this to be a very interesting and informative topic and discussion. I strongly suggest that you watch this videocast. You can find it by clicking this link,Tech Literate Teacher.
Although I found this videocast to be very well constructed, I feel that there are some improvements that could be made. At the beginning of the video I felt that everyone should have been more energetic when introducing themselves. In addition, I feel that the students should have looked more at the camera when introducing themselves. I believe they should have done this even though it is a podcast because, there is still a video camera there and it makes the viewer feel more involved if they look at the camera. In addition to the occasional look at the camera, there was also a few times where the students needed to speak into the microphone and not hold their heads down and read their notes.
I felt that the topic was very well known by all students. I learned from watching this videocast that it may be beneficial for me to have some notes prepared for my podcast. Having notes will allow me to quickly access some of my thoughts and keep me from forgetting any important comments I would like to make. One other critique I have is that each student should have equal speaking time. I felt that two students imparticular talked the entire time. Each student needs to make an effort to voice their opinions. By having each student contribute, the conversation becomes more interesting and more beneficial to the viewer. Having four different responses may lead to the viewer gaining more knowledge about the topic.
Overall, this videocast was very good. I felt the students and teacher knew a lot about the topic and were very organized in their layout.

After visting the EDM 310 class blog, I then visited the Langwitches Blog. On this site I found some really amazing posts and ideas for podcasting. I found this site to be incredibly helpful to me. I read the first post on the page called "Producing A Podcast." This post is done by a teacher who gives ideas about doing podcast in elementary school. She mentioned that you could have the children do a podcast to get them interested in the subject they are studying. I feel that this is a great idea because children will have more fun producing something than just sitting and studying.
This blog also explained ways to prepare and plan a podcast. The post states that you should decide the theme or purpose of the podcast, prepare your students, give your students lessons in editing, give each student their own segment, have good musical transitions, and have closing credits listing the student's names. I feel that all of these steps are very important for creating a podcast. I will use some of these steps myself when preparing for my EDM 310 podcast. Also, I would like to separate my EDM 310 podcast into segments. By doing so, each student will have their time to speak. In addition to the other information, this post also lists the many ways you can record a podcast. This was very useful to me because some of them I never thought of to use.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed this post and the Langwitches Blog site. The information was very useful and the site was organized and easy to manage. I will most definately take this information into making my EDM 310 podcast.