Mrs. Wiley's Space

In general, I very much appreciated and enjoyed my using technology in the classroom course. I felt like the course greatly enhanced my knowledge of available technologies and the utilities of said technologies.

I think that such knowledge is essential when teaching in this time period. As many people know, now is the technological age, and more than ever it is essential to equip our youth with appropriate knowledge of technology. Curriculums surrounding Internet/Technology usage and particularly Internet Safety are used more frequently in schools, and therefore knowledge of said technology prior to such curriculums will certainly increase our marketability in a world where teachers are less than desired. Additionally, our students will be actively engaged in a technological world that if we don’t tap into, we will not tap into them. In order to engage our students, we must engage in technology ourselves so that we are up to date and aware of the issues they face. This will not only help us to engage with our students but will help to direct our teaching so that we teach them things that are relevant, and so we can be aware of the problems they face.

I am glad that the BYU Education Program has developed this course, and plan on continually using the information I learned here.

I found Diigo to be an excellent resources as a student, and as a future teacher. Diigo is a bookmarking site, similar to Pinterest, but is not grounded in the use of images, so it is actually more functional than Pinterest. Diigo provides highlighting and note-taking tools, as well as a tagging system so bookmarks can be organized.

When assigning research projects to students, the students can often find the projects to be overwhelming and have trouble organizing their thoughts, and namely resources. I feel like Diigo can help the student organize their research in a better manner. I personally used Diigo this semester to mark the various sources I used for a project in my Shakespeare class. The project required well over twenty sources, and I was able maintain said sources by book marking them. The highlighting tool was also helpful in that I didn’t have to write everything down, nor read through articles more than once for important information. I feel like other students can benefit. I would likely assign my students to have at least ten sources marked in their diigo accounts.

Diigo is also a great tool for collaboration. If I created a group for my class, my students could contribute information and help each other find resources. One such assignment could be if the class had to read a novel such as The Outsiders and needed to explore the background of the time period the novel is set in, the sixties, then I could take my kids to the library and have them each find one resource about the sixties online and then post it to their diigo account. The only challenge I see with using the diigo groups in this manner is that some students aren’t familiar with the computer or the processes of  a website, so we would have to take extensive time to demonstrate the function of diigo; however, I feel that such time would be well spent.

I also think that Diigo is an excellent resource for teachers, as they can form groups themselves and share personal websites or online lesson plans that will help them in their assignment.

Once again, I really feel like Diigo is an excellent resource for students and teachers regardless of the grade level.

Here is a link to my Diigo account: http://www.diigo.com/user/emmasawiley

Mindmeister is a site for “mind-mapping” – a way to visually represent ideas and thought processes. I have never used such a tool before, but I found it to be quite useful. The ability to visually represent ideas helps a lot with clarity, especially when working on involved or detailed projects.

I found a lot of the features of Mindmeister to be particularly helpful. I liked the notes and the ability to add links, images, and attachments. These features not only allow me to visually organize my thoughts but have a very utilitarian functions, so I can keep everything associated with my ideas together in one place.

Beyond the simple features to the site, this site could be very useful to students. I chose to use Mindmeister to organize my thoughts over an adaptation of a play I am writing for my Shakespeare class. If I were to assign my students a large project, I could assign my students to create a Mind Map in order to show their thought processes, and assist them. Also, the Mind Map could be used to visually represent parts of a story, like the climax, rising action, etc. Mind Maps could also be used to show connections between texts. Also, features of Mindmeister that allow collaborations means that I can start a topic, and each student can figure add their particular thoughts as a homework assignment.

I think that if I have the resources, I will use Mindmeister in the classroom, because it truly does have organizational benefits.

Here is a link to my Mindmeister Mind Map: http://www.mindmeister.com/124147809

For my IP&T 286 class we were asked to make a movie as a class assignment that we would assign our students. The assignment I created was the students had to make a movie trailer for the play that pointed out a number of essential themes to the play.

The play I chose to demonstrate the assignment with was King Henry VIII by William Shakespeare.

Check it out here: http://youtu.be/bmgzQNw8VLg

This post is mainly intended for CS 404 students, but I recommend the Internet Safety Project to all viewers, especially fellow educators and education majors.

Now, CS 404 students, here are a couple of tips when you are working on the Internet Safety Project website. This will help you as a contributor and me as an editor to more effective help the Internet Safety community.

Please, please, please, do these things below:

1) Include citations in your articles – we need to know where you got your information from. If you are writing from personal experience, then you do not need to cite yourself; however, if you writer particular facts or statistics please find a reputable source to cite.

2) Write the article before posting it on the site. Rather than posting an article mid-process, with empty sections and incomplete sentences, please write the article in a word document, and then post to the site so we do not have messy wiki pages for viewers to see.

3) Add new content! While we completely appreciate any attempts made at editing the articles for poor spelling and grammar, we do have a person hired to do exactly that. What we are interested in is your particular are of expertise. As computer science majors, you likely have a keen perspective or knowledge of subjects that the average viewer would not have. We would love for you to post “How-To” articles, email me screencasts, or try to explain a subject of particular technical difficulty. Use your own expertise when writing for the wiki.

4) When writing articles, please include as much information as your can find – not only will this make the article better, but it will make your time for the assignment just fly by. While short articles are definitely purposeful, the more information is always better.

5) Look at other wiki articles before posting. Try to follow the established format we have created. The more uniform you make your contributions to our already established style, the easier you make it for me later. Make sure you check out the style guide on the site for tips.

Once again, I want to thank all of you guys for your contributions so far on the site, especially given the little instruction you had prior as to what working on the site entailed. Hopefully these pointers can help direct you for the next two wiki reports.

Below are two movies from which we can analyze the significance and impact of copyright law.

Taylor Swift Youtube Video

There are a number of copyright concerns from this video. First, the purposes behind this video are unclear – likely, the main purpose is entertainment which therefore invalidates the use of song, images, and lyrics for publication. Additionally, the user uses a number of images of Taylor Swift without citing the source of said pictures. Also, the pictures are of such as nature that it is doubtful of their ability for fair use; they are most likely protected by copyright law. However, midst other copyright infringement, the user does attribute the song and voice to Taylor Swift, a proper practice under copyright law.

Batman and Robin 1960s

This second video is interesting in that I actually saw a teacher use this video in a classroom setting. This teacher’s use of the video falls under  fair use, in that it is for educational purposes and is under 3:00. However, the posting of this video has no citation and therefore it is unsure whether this video is posted correctly or not – therefore the teacher would have better followed the copyright laws if she had found the same video clip through a more legitimate posting or from the original source.

My name is Emma Wiley.

This is my professional blog, for the time dedicated to my life as a student in the English Education department, and job as a Teaching Assistant for a Computer Sciences class.

Posts will be dedicated to lesson plans, grammar rules, and professional ideas.

Enjoy!