Category Archives: Tech Tasks
Tech Task #10
Learning Management System Evaluation
For this tech task we put ourselves into groups of 4 people. Sarah, Kelsey, Melissa, and myself joined together to complete this task. Sarah and I toured the Schoology site and Melissa and Kelsey toured the Edmodo site. We took on all three roles teacher, parent, student to see how each site functioned. Here is some notes on our findings. Overall we all agreed that the Schoology site was the most user-friendly and could see ourselves using it in the future.
Tech Task #9
In response to the video called “RIP!: A Remix Manifesto,” I chose to answer the following question:
When you write an essay or paper you may quote other authors and cite
those references. Do you believe we should be allowed to do the same with music
and video?
Why not?…when you think about all the papers you write throughout your schooling on other people’s ideas and findings and that you can do this as long as you cite and reference the original work your paper is seen as successful. Not one of my papers have been an original thought; when I start my paper I research my topic and see what information I can find then choose where I’m going to take my paper. Papers that are written and not backed up with reliable sources are not seen as well written work. Citations prove ideas to be true and help persuade readers which benefit written papers because there is valid proof that it isn’t just made up.
So when creating a music mash-up why couldn’t the creator list all the songs he/she used to create it? When listening to Girl Talk’s work I could recognize almost every song he used and I knew what artist sang the song. To me most people know the songs that are used in music mash-ups and we know that the creator is not trying to say that they created the whole thing themselves. If there was reference to the songs they used it would also maybe encourage others to go check out the original songs that were used in the creation giving both artists credit.
When I created my first stop motion video using my pixstop app it asked if I wanted to add music to my film. I figured sure that would be nice. When I picked a song from my iTunes library it warned me that 99% of music was copyright and to be careful. I ended up not adding music because I didn’t want to do anything wrong but it would have been nice to able to add a song and then make a note at the end of my video what song was playing.
Tech Task #3
This task had us enter costs a student may have in one semester of school. Totals of each expense and monthly expenses were calculated using the spreadsheet.
Here is my spreadsheet http://goo.gl/XVKdO
Tech Task #2
After watching Michael’s presentation I am uncertain as to whether or not I believe YouTube to be completely anonymous. If you are not disguised you take the risk of people recognizing you. Making personal or controversal videos is something I would rather not share with the world due to the fact of someone recognizing me. The fear of future employers discovering an unprofessional video or fellow community member could create bad impressions of yourself and embarrassment. Who is to say that in a few years while teaching a student doesn’t come across a video that you posted doing inappropriate things. In this sense I do not feel more courageous to make a video of something that I would not normally do like express myself publicly. Instead it influences me to be conscious of the videos I post so that I will not get into trouble down the road. Maybe if I had another career and it didn’t matter what was out there of me on the net I would overlook the contents of my videos. As for right now maybe even ever posting personal videos of my life and trying to connect with others in the world will be thoroughly thought through before it is done. I will always be concerned with being recognized and what impression I am leaving on the net. Is anything on the web anonymous or do you always risk the chance of someone finding out the creator? Once it is identified or labeled yours is it not with you forever on the web? Personally I’m not willing to risk the anonymity of YouTube videos, anytype of video could come back to haunt you later in life.
Tech Task #1
Hi! My name is Tanya Turner and I grew up in the small community of Shamrock. For 6 years I was an Educational Assistant at the Gravelbourg Elementary School which is part of the Prairie South School Division. During my 6 years of assisting I had the opportunity to work with many inspirational teachers. The experiences I acquired from assisting children and teachers in classrooms encouraged me to move to Regina and attend the U of R. I am in my second year of the Elementary Education Program and I am enjoying everything about it! I competitively show reining horses across Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Montana. I promote the sport of reining throughout Saskatchewan as I am the President of Saskatchewan Reining Horse Association. My brother also travels the provinces rodeoing as he is a competitive team roper. Agriculture has always been an active part of my life and my families.
My experience with technology is not very extensive. I up graded to a Black Berry last year and now everyone has iPhones! To try and stay in time with things I did get an iPad for Christmas. I am finding now that I live in Regina the opportunity to enhance my skills are greater because in the country the internet quality/speed is still very slow. The city has excellent internet! I noticed through the years of being an assistant the changes that have happened in schools in regards to enhancing the technology pieces in it. Most schools are gaining more equipment and updating it on a regular basis. Even in my experience as a student at the U of R teachers are using video clips, smartboards and wikispaces to teach. When I went to high school the big change was from chalk boards to white boards.
I feel teachers need to embrace the changes technology offers them in their classrooms. This is why I enrolled myself into this class. So many teachers are concerned with banning devices instead of trying to teach the proper ways they could be used. Most teachers don’t realize the benefits technology has to offer and that students will be more engaged if they started to utilize various forms of technology in their classrooms. However, teachers will need to balance the use of technology in their classrooms. Teaching entirely with computers and videos can have limitations for students. It is important that students still interact with each other and learn people skills. New technologies such as YouTube create opportunities for students to learn things with less cost (can learn guitar without paying for lessons). The internet and YouTube also gives students more access to resources that are free. Access to new technologies and low costs make learning and achieving easier for students.
In ECMP 355 I hope to gain ideas of incorporating new technologies in classrooms and therefore I hope this class provides me with the knowledge on how to use some of these resources. This class has already shown me that I am not up to date with whats new in technology and I hope the class will bring me up to date so that I can be on a higher level or same level as present students. Overall I want to learn in a fun and encouraging way and I can’t wait to see my accomplishments at the end of the semester!
