21 February-Podcasts

Today we spent the class period writing and recording our Podcasts. I worked with Angelina Dulong as a team. We wrote our storyboard rather quickly and wanted to try to get everything recorded during the class period. We were able to record using my iPad by quickly downloading software capable of recording the Podcast on the spot. We downloaded a free tool called Audio Memos Free that made a clear and quality recording. It amazes me how fast and available technology makes assignments like this. When I was a little girl, one of my favorite games to play with my sister was "radio station." We used to spend hours recording ourselves talking on a small tape recorder, and we were always burning through batteries and recording over audio tapes so many times that the tape would wear out or break. Using my iPad was such a seamless and easy process! We had to re-record three times, and the whole thing still only took about five minutes. My biggest frustration has been that my iPad has been unwilling, thus far, to email the file to Angelina and me. I suppose I will have to go to my office computer and manually download the file to email it. But still, a minor obstacle in comparison to what this assignment would have been 10-15 years ago.

I think Podcasts are a very useful tool for my future classroom. I can see the capability for recording an assignment or lecture and posting it for my students to download. However, even more so, I can see the functionality for my students to record presentations and other parts of assignments to share with their classmates. This type of interactive media makes the classroom and learning resources more accessible than ever before.

14 February-UEN

UEN (Utah Education Network) has a wealth of information available for teachers, students, parents, and anyone else interested in education. It is a great website for conducting research, playing games, developing lesson plans, and finding resources. UEN is free to the educational community, making it an accessible resource for the masses.

In this age of information overload, it is critical for students to understand how to access and decipher high-quality information. Pioneer Library provides easy to follow links to many trusted and peer-reviewed resources that are appropriate for student assignments and research. One such resource available through the Pioneer Library is the Mountain West Digital Library. The MWDL is a collection that was put together by an academic library consortium in Utah, Nevada, and other neighboring western states. This collection contains many documents, photographs, and other historical artifacts unique to Utah and the western United States. I envision using a resource like this to fulfill the core curriculum standard on inquiry, research, and oral presentation, by utilizing the information to complete a research and writing project on local history.

Another resource on UEN that I found to have great application for teachers is the Lesson Plan Tool. This tool is located on the personal page once you have logged in to UEN. This tool assists the teacher in fulfilling all of the objectives in creating a lesson plan, while concurrently creating an archived record of the lesson plan. This is very helpful! Lesson plans will be available and easily accessible each time the teacher signs in to UEN. I intend to enter lesson plans that I have already created into this feature and continue using it in my future classroom.

Interactives are a great tool offered in many places on UEN. Interactives can include games, tutorials, homework helps, and various other means to assist students. Because I will be teaching Language Arts, I have been interested in the many interactives offered for writing, grammar, and other study topics related to language. One such application, readwritethink (http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/) has many beneficial interactives. There are interactive tools to create a Literary Elements Map, a Drama Map, interactive puzzles, and many, many more applications that give students a starting point and help them learn and develop their ideas into quality assignments. These tools are all developed with core curriculum in mind, and many of them support reading and writing standards as outlined by the state of Utah.

Students today, and in future generations, will increasingly go online to study and learn. If we teach them early in their education how to use safe and reliable internet sites, it will greatly improve their chances for success in the collegiate environment. Not only that, but it will also benefit them in every technological facet of their adult lives and careers.