Blogging Through Classroom Technology

I guess I would define myself as a digital native. I grew up throughout a time where technology was advancing quickly and I believe I was one of the first classrooms that had new technology. As a teacher, I think I am more advanced with technology than others but I do still struggle with some new classroom technologies. This can be frustrating for me since I have not had proper training on most of the technologies in my classroom. Being younger and used to technology, I can struggle through learning it on my own, but it tends to be a tedious task. I also tend to be frustrated with the limitations that schools put on the technology we use. We are spending money to update our classrooms but with the limitations we tend to still be behind the times. " I believe, in fact, that what teachers need to do is best described not as "changing," but rather as "adapting" to the new context and environment we all find ourselves in... Yet even as teachers become motivated t...

This podcast is about achieving digital wisdom and how Khan Academy is a great example of it.  Khan Academy Ted Talk  and Marc Prensky: Learning 2.0

So many times we hear a song and say " that sounds just like" fill in the blank. My students have also picked up on this, especially when we go listen to music throughout the decades. Once we learn music throughout the 1990s, we explore how sampling works, including copyright and what's considered stealing. Samples, Loops and Thieves from Turned Up This podcast would be great to introduce sampling to the students. Most do not know the term "sampling" before learning it class. This podcast discusses how easy it is to sample songs and how that has evolved over time. I think this podcast would interest students because it pulls in music that the students listen to now, and connects it to music of the decades. We only discuss sampling for a day towards the end of a unit so I would use this as a homework assignment before we learn sampling in class. It gives a great idea of what sampling is, so we could focus more on different examples we have foun d in cla...