Anthony Capps Blog

This blog is great, I am envious of Anthonys' talent. The subject matter is one that I have watched change for some time now. But the biggest change has been the last three years for me. Those are the years I have been in college and in that time I have written a few papers but not many. I have visited the school library a few times, but that was between classes and it was convenient, they have computers there.
In the last few months this new type of teaching and corresponding with others has really taken on a new light. For me it was actually having the chance to try this new technology and seeing the impact from it. Putting your thoughts, opinions, questions, ect. on the web and getting, sometimes instant, responses. While cruising the internet I came upon a young architect who was designing a building and he asked for input, which he was told by many to not do this, you will not get the credit for the design, but, he had hundreds of collobrators from all over the world give their input and the design was finished with the best ideas. Great stuff.
I am thankful that the Univ. has made this a mandotory class. To see Anthonys blogclick here

Landslide

This is awesome, singing a song at school and why not blog it, show your talent to the whole world and look what comes of it, onstage with Stevie Nicks. Can you just imagine the thrill of the students when they heard the news. Just think how fast the news of this will spread around.
My best example of this type of response is when I got a comment from Intrepid Teacher on my blog about the day he spent with his daughter when they took some pictures. To see this blog postclick here.
I think a great example of pod casting is when Rm.18 Pt. England School needs a part time teacher. To see this podcastclick here.
Another fine example is from one of my classmates Ryan Rogers who posted a comment on his blog about Ms. Kelly Hines and her opinion of the use of technology is the classroom and he got a personal response from Ms. Hines, to read his blogclick here

ACCESS Program

ACCESS stands for Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators and Students Statewide and their website shows that this is a highly organized group of people dedicated to making high quality learning accessiable is any student in the state of Alabama. One other acronym is used: CAST, Connecting ACCESS Staff and Teachers, so you can see these people are determined to see that all students have a chance at learning thru the ACCESS system.
But this is not a website just anyone can sign to, you have to have a councelor from your school go thru a training program and then they can request that a student be included in the ACCESS system. ACCESS is a high caliber system where teachers continue their developement training throuhout their carrers. Just to be a teacher for ACCESS requires a lot of work. Like I said, very high caliber and if you would like to visit ACCESSclick here

Alabama Learning Exchange

ALEX as it's known is a web site devoted to the indexing and sharing of information and educational materials. On the main page you will find links to a Podcast Treasury, Web Links, Courses of Study and more. By clicking on the Courses to Study you are at a page with many different subjects on it, and by clicking on a subject you can see different grade levels you can chose from. I chose fourth grade and then clicked on web links and then student links which gives you different choices of study.
Now once you pick a subject you have many links to choose from including math which shows many fun games to play with numbers to arts education where you can hear Carnegie Hall Listening Adventures to a website for kids which includes a digital tool to let children make their own movies and plays. So for a teacher, administrator or student, ALEX is a very useful tool to help yourself and your students learn.
As for using ALEX when I become a teacher, why not, I have seen quite a few sites since I started this class and all of them seem to be very useful. ALEX is another great tool for me to assign items to my students use. To visit ALEXclick here.

Kaia

This video and voicethread was such a wonderful idea, to share something so personal with a little girl they did not even know. The way Mr. C's class responded was a very touching gesture on their part. This just goes to show the capacity of the human heart, Mr. C's class response has probably added joy to Kaias' and her dads' day, and now Kaias' way of life and her new found look on things is spreading throughout the world. To see the voicethread click here
Kaias' blog had so many nice responses about her pictures from everyone. Being able to see things not as you might usually look at them, she's being taught something important at an early age. Kaia seems to be having much fun exploring her world with her dad and her camera. Adding her tales of what the pictures represented was a very nice touch. If you would like to see her blogclick here
Intrepid Teacher: Singing Hearts was beautifully written, I myself have experienced all the emotions he is feeling now. He hopes that parents will spend time with their young ones' outdoors, and I did just that when my daughter was growing up and I have many pictures and memories. This story stirred up so many memories that for a few minutes I just sat here and remembered, so many great times camping out and building fires to cook out.
I fully understand Interpid Teachers' reluctance to put his daughter out there for the world to see, my grandson is 3 and I, right now, do not want him out there so to speak. So, sir, I say contuine with the path you are taking and may the world be a better place for meeting your daughter.

MIT Comparative Media Study

The "White Paper" put out by MIT has a lot of useful tips on how to become active in the media and in the community. The outcome of all these young people communicating with each other on such a massive scale is yet to be determined. But I notice some things that make me feel uneasy, such as this: "Participatory culture shifts the focus of individual expression to community involvement". Personally, I like being an individual and I like having an expression, if mine is different than the communities then I vote different. If I vote different than you am I a bad citizen, or do you think I do not want to be involved?
If all of these higher thinkers would just leave these kids alone, I guarantee you they would learn to work together, but to believe that everyone is going to work with everyone else is just a pipe dream in an imperfect world. The paper also goes into how media shapes what people think or believe and that is so true. Look at how many people waste their time keeping up with Hollywood and believing HW shapes America, when to me they just make movies and I watch them, I don't live my life by them.
Here is how I am portrayed by our current federal government, I do not approve of the way our President is handling our country, so to the people in charge I am a white, racists, Nazi, bigot. I just cannot get behind all this mind control, I must think this way, I must think that way! And I do not want to adopt an alternative identity for the purpose of improvisation and discovery. Why can I not do that with the identity I posses now? Why must I change?If I do not change, am I a bad citizen? If you would like to read MITs paperclick here

New Media Literacies

One minute in to this video and I had that strange feeling again, and I knew I was watching a video with young people getting caught up in applying new terms to just everyday experience. Case in point, the young lady who talked about 'play: the capacity to experiment with your surroundings as a form of problem solving'. Okay, lets' say she had a problem in her office, is she going to rearrange her furniture to help her solve said problem? If I have a problem in my front yard, what do I experiment with? If I have a problem at work do I experiment with my coworkers?
Now negotiation: knowing how to enter different groups and how to understand what the different norms are? She said it as a question, as if she didn't know exactly what it meant. Negotiation: the process of coming to an agreement that is suitable to all parties. What she is talking about is life experience, when you are with a new group of people and you fit in or you do not. Do you honestly think everyone is going to like you? Different norms? everyone is different and like hangs with like, that's the way its always been, you work with people, you do not have to be their friend, just be sociable and polite and do your job.
And now multitasking, which has been proven to not be as efficient as focusing on one problem and getting it done, two things okay, but concentrating on many things while trying to be productive is a waste of your companies time.
And now the term 'citizen', is this the new catch phrase for someone who is involved with the community? Am I not a good citizen if I do not what? History is repeating itself again.
This is so close to a media transcendentalism that I don't what to say really. Logic seems to have gone out the window. Everyone be a good citizen and tell on your neighbor if they do something you do not like. If you would like to see the videoclick here