Kyle's Blogger

         Social learning is a great way to share ideas and knowledge through the internet. Some of the contributions that I’ve made are my final project (that I posted on YouTube), teaching basic differentiation techniques, I commented on some student blogs to encourage their own social learning as well. 

         I can’t begin to explain how much I’ve learned in this class all because of social learning. Every class Dean would show us something new and interesting. Not only did I learn stuff from Dean but everyone in class was able to help if I was having difficulties or I was unsure what to do. This class made me realize how useful recent technology is and it taught me how to apply some of it to teaching methods.

         My mentors and I started off great. I was able to Skype with Valerie Becker, this was interesting because it was the first time I have ever made a video call using my computer. Bill Chamberlain and his students took the time to fill out my google survey and then they sent me the results, I really enjoyed reading them. As well I found their class website and I was able to read and comment on some of the students blogs. After a couple of weeks both my mentors and myself seemed to get caught up in other work and we lost contact, but overall I had a very good experience with my mentors and I would like to thank them for providing me with this new experience.

 While watching T.V. I stumbled on a show called “my sweet sixteen”, and basically it’s about spoiled teenagers throwing their “perfect” party. To be quite honest the only reason I finished watching it was so that I could blog about how horrible a program this is. The spoiled teen in this epoisode honestly made me feel a little sick. Before her party her parents take her shopping and buy her a $100,000 necklace, because she thought it was “sparkly”, and a brand new motorcycle only to be used to make her grand entrance to the her party. In the show she quotes “I just want everyone to know what a superstar I am”. Televising these kind of people should damn near be illegal. The kind of message that this sends to the viewer is a disgusting one. This type of show encourages people to act like they are more important than anybody around them.
           Another thing that really grinded my gears about this show is the amount of people that show up to the party that are actually in support of these spoiled teens. They look at her as if she is their role model and thats exactly what spoiled teens crave, followers. If it was up to me this show would be brought to a screaching hault and never be spoke of again. I’m sorry for being so up front but it is what I believe. Should we be glamorizing these teens because of how much money they have access to? Does it make it ok because it’s on television?

For my final project I added a video on basic differentiation and the product rule to the wide collection of videos on nestvista.org. Making this video involved a lot procrastination and technical difficulties with the camera I had, but in the end the video turned out ok. I was amazed at how fast and easy somebody can make a video and put it on the internet. Being able to do this is an astonishing advancement in technology, that you are able to record yourself doing something/teaching something and twenty minutes later anyone in the world is able to view it. If you have any questions or comments on my video, don’t hesitate to leave a comment.

          TED is an academic confrence that is held annually. Basically people and/or researchers are invited to present a topic in front of a the rest of the invite only audience. This non-profit organization explores new ideas and concepts and rationalizes their theory on the topic. I found that this is just an amazing site for anyone looking to be engaged in “out of the box” theories and ideas. I found TED talks to be really interesting since I was able to search the database of TED talks for any topic I was interested in learning about.

             To begin with I was a little skeptical as to how google earth could possibly help with teaching and learning math. Google earth can be an amazing visual tool in the classroom.  While exploring Jen’s site I found this site that directly relates google earth to math teaching concepts.

     Google Earth can help reinforce mathematical concepts and ideas as well as give a visual to what you are working with. Google Earth would be most useful I believe in the elementary grades where in which they study measurement and distance. It would also be helpful in higher level math as well when studing velocity and rate of change.

      Google Earth is a very useful tool whether you are using it as a visual example, trying to find a specific area, and it’s even interesting just to play around on.

               The first blog I subscribed to was “A Day In The Life“, I subscribed to this blog because I thought it would be interesting to hear of some of the stories and experiences from other teachers in their day to day life. As well I also subscribed to Alan’s “CogDogBlog“. I subscirbed to this blog because some of his blog’s are really interesting and well thought out.  Another blog I subscribed to was “Future of Eucation“, I think this blog was a very good choice. I believe that some great ideas and techniques can come from teachers blogging about how to improve the education system. Also I subscribed to a blog about literay called “literacy is priceless“, I added this blog to my reader because sometimes I simply like literacy and I might be able to pick up a couple tips to help me in my english class. The final blog I subscribed to was “Random Ramblings“. I subscrbed to this blog because I like random facts that aren’t nessesarily relevent to anything.

             You might be wondering why I would be writing about a band. There is just something about Our Lady Peace that makes them stand apart from everyone else. First of all the extremely unique way they play and sing their music. But aside from sounding amazing they also do a lot of community work with all types of help organizations. In the photo to the left you see Raine Maida (lead singer) playing guitar on the street to raise funds for war children. Raine Maida writes or co-writes every our lady peace song. 

          Another interesting thing about Our Lady Peace that I find is that their lyrics normally have a message or they actually mean something. When Raine is writing lyrics I know he likes to incorporate poetry in a sense. Some of his lyrics can be witty and some can be downright ridiculous.

        So now that I’ve told you about my favourite band and what kind of music I like to listen to, I would like to hear about some of your favourites. If you would like to share just leave a comment of who is your favourite artist/band and why you like them.