Third Time's The Charm

ENGL 2120 Multi Culture Links

raeganhymel — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:55:34 +0000

Media Multi-Culture Links

The Daily Show on Nostalgia

Mardi Gras Indians video

Mardi Gras in Cajun Country video and Mardi Gras in Cajun Country photos

Websites for Multi-Cultural Studies

Folkstreams.net

Digital Video Project

raeganhymel — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 03:05:36 +0000

My digital video project is on Rime Of The Ancient Mariner In Pop Culture.

The Daily Show: A Media Literacy Project

raeganhymel — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:00:52 +0000

Our group’s media literacy project on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Using Museum Box in the Classroom

raeganhymel — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:49:57 +0000

Museum Box would work wonderfully in the language arts classroom. As stated on the Museum Box site, Museum Box “provides the tools for you to build up an argument or description of an event, person or historical period by placing items in a virtual box.” Here is an example of a Museum Box on the novel The Giver by Lois Lowry. This is a great example of how this technological site can be used in the classroom. I’m sure you can imagine how it could also work for Science, Social Studies, Health and other classes.

I believe that by using Museum Box, I would be following the Visions of the Cobb County Technology Plan. The following items would gained by the students using this technology:

2. As they learn, students will develop and practice information literacy. They will use technology and critical thinking to efficiently seek out information, critically evaluate the information they find, and use information effectively to solve problems and generate new knowledge.

4. Student learning will be further enhanced through open access to other online communication tools and information
resources, including engaging, participatory tools such as wikis, blogs, and social networking.

6. Students and teachers will use technology to extend learning beyond the classroom and the school day, including
consistent, reliable access to learning tools throughout their day—at home, in class, and everywhere in between.

7. Students will learn through collaboration, both with their classmates and with others around the world.

The NCTE guidelines also support the use of this wonderful site:

Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally
Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes
Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information
Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts

Please be aware that the Museum Box website is aware of its use by schools. They have a special section for teachers! A school would register at Museum Box and then a teacher registers and gets a password. She then can assign “boxes” to students with passwords by groups or individually. Through teacher passwords, the teacher moderates the work of students from her class. Teachers have the option to approve-reject-edit-delete the work her classes have done. Once the work is approved it appears on the site. It is the respsonsiblity of the teachers and students to ensure that all work posted on Museum Box does not infringe on copyrights, that information taken from other areas such as websites and books is sited properly. These are all things that we strive to teach our students in the classroom.

To answer the question that I know is coming, Museum Box takes down any work that would be deemed offensive. They even have a web address to report offensive postings in the event they have missed them. As the teacher, I would be responsible to ensure that my students would not post anything inappropriate.

The Museum Box website allows students to be creative and use several different technologies as they “create” their box. Because these boxes are posted, the students can take ownership of their work on a national and international level. There are safeguards in place to protect students from anything that might be deemed inappropriate. Additionally, as stated above, the use of this wonderful resource, fulfills many of the technological requirements outlined by Cobb County and the NCTE.

When you have a moment, please take the time to look at some of the projects other students at other schools have done on Museum Box. Once you see this great resource, you will be sold on it’s use in the classroom as I have been.

How Schools Stifle Creativity

raeganhymel — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:07:04 +0000

I just found this at cnn, it’s by Sir KenRobinson an expert on creativiey and innovation.

Voice Thread – Antoni Gaudi’s Casa Batllo

raeganhymel — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:00:19 +0000

This is my voicethread on Spanish Architect Antoni Gaudi’s Casa Batllo. Casa Batllo is located in Barcelona, Spain.

Dr. Tyson’s Keynote

raeganhymel — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:07:52 +0000

I did things in reverse order. I watched the movies at the old Mabry Middle site and then watched Dr. Tyson’s keynote address. I loved the student videos. To hear the students talk about the videos, you know they put a lot of thought and brainstorming into making them and coming up with topics. The students also learned more about their topics. The students of today will be the innovators of tomorrow and these students are ahead of the curve with technology in the classroom.

He offered his students a reward, posting their videos on the internet and they ran with it. I loved the story about the student who made an A on a project and still wanted to come to school and make it better. I also think it’s important for principals and other school administrators to be active with the students. They become human beings and not fear factors which is often the case.

There is obviously a lot of media literacy in these video projects. The students picked music, fonts for the videos and did the editing. They learned more than they realized.

I also went to the current Mabry Middle School site and was happy to see that the school has continued the video projects even though Dr. Tyson has left and there is a new principal at the school. Sadly, I’m certain there are other innovations, that the students loved, that have been dropped from the school curriculum.

My children have attended schools where the principal was in front of the school every morning welcoming the students by name and they have had the opposite. A principal who hid in her office all day and knew no ones name or any of the parents. My son attended this school for two years and I did not see the principal once. And guess what, I was not very happy with what my son got out of that school when compared with the others. A great and caring principal helps to make a great school. Dr. Tyson is a great example to us all.

Will Apple’s Tablet Computer Revolutionize the Internet?

raeganhymel — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:15:04 +0000

I just read an article from Newsweek on the Tablet Computer that Apple is working on. Much of the article is on innovation. The author talks about how when TV first came on the scene, when they took radio shows and filmed them as the original TV shows. The internet started with taking stories from magazines, the internet and books and putting them on the internet. We’re in what the author calls “Phase Two” where the content is being created. I like what the article has to say about technology and the inventors of tomorrow will be the children of today growing up with this technology.

Digital Dirt and Your Job Search

raeganhymel — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:49:04 +0000

I just found this article at CNN.com, “Digital Dirt Can Harm Your Job Search”. It gives strategies for sweeping those embarrassing photos under the digital carpet. The article has some great pointers on what you should do BEFORE the interview process.

Bloggers Beware The FTC Is Watching You!

raeganhymel — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:25:52 +0000

The FTC has just come out with new guidelines regarding blogging and endorsements. If you receive free products or service from a company and then write about these products or services on your blog without revealing that you received free these items free, you may be subject to a fine by the FTC. Facebook and Twitter posts are also subject to these new rules. The question is, are these rules supposed to protect consumers or is Big Brother watching you and your Facebook page?