Webinars+and+Reflections

**Mobile Motivation- Real World Learning (Webinar 1)** We are currently in an age where digital natives (the students) have access to various mobile devices and the digital immigrants (the teachers) are reluctant to take advantage of it. Several key points were discussed ranging from why to use mobile learning in a classroom, updating our acceptable use policies to include usage of mobile devices, and examples of several apps that can be utilized by students on mobile devices. Though the benefits seemed to show promise of excitement while learning, we have to focus on the drawbacks; the use of messaging during test taking, students who abuse mobile devices in classroom settings, and a dependency on mobile devices. The use of mobile phones, while seeming to be an excellent idea to integrate more technology, is not ready to be mainstreamed into our classrooms at this time. **Discovery Eduation (Webinar 2)** The discovery education topic was rather interesting as I suspected it would discuss streaming discovery videos. Staring off with Kathy Schrock was a fabulous choice as most educators are familiar with her research and resources. Many of the links discussed were interesting and would seem to encourage students to learn. ASL hit home for me as I have two deaf children, this is a site that I can use at home. What makes this so appealing is the ease for educators to use, create, and share material that will engage students to want to learn. The HUB for educators is a great way to attract students with cartoons that they watch and keep them interested in a topic. Overall, discovery education should be used in class because of the usability and technology integration of core subjects such as reading and science. Differentiated Instruction (Video 1) As I was watching the video on differentiated instruction, I was starting to compare the use of technology in the school district from the film to the technology usage in our school. I was amazed at how much the seemingly younger students were producing in their school news broadcast. That being said, I work in an elementary/middle school level and we have recently relocated into a brand new, state of the art school. We went from a small, run-down building to a school where we have four mobile labs, a career lab and my technology lab equipped with a media studio. ** Digital Youth Portrait-Cameron ** I was interested in the video //Digital Youth Portrait: Cameron// because my district has a brand new media center which we record, edit and publish daily announcements. The video surprised me that this eleven year old boy had the amount of knowledge and motivation to build his own green screen and use it to his advantage. He is an example of a child that can be given a topic and take off with it, using technology for a positive purpose. It was astonishing to see how he seemed to be the inspiration behind a school getting green paint and creating a green screen. Talk about digital natives. Cameron is the definition of digital native and one thing to take out of this video is don’t be afraid to have the children teach the adults about current technology, they were born into this environment and we need to adapt to it. We see an unhealthy competitive nature from students. Students seem to not play just for the sport of playing; they want to dominate the opposing team. This video had some valid points that centered on dedication and team work. Students had to collaborate in several ways from untying a human knot, to working with a cheerleading team to take blood pressures and use that information to calculate math questions. This kind of hands on, non-competitive physical education seems to be a win, win situation. With obesity being a concern of our youth, we need to find new ways that deviate from the traditional physical education class and try to improve the students’ knowledge of health, well-being, and physical fitness. I give kudos to the school districts in this video for being innovative with their physical education classes and think other school districts need to follow this model as well.
 * The new PE runs on fitness, not competition **