Saturday, July 10, 2010

Five Advantages to Mind Maps

1. Great for visual learners
2. Great way to connect things
3. It allows the learner to make pathways
4. Looks great when you use software to create them
5. The learner can get expanding on the ideas the more they learn about it.

I think there is tons of great you can use these mind maps for. I had never seen a mind map used before this year. I think they are a great tool to help students learn new aterial and great way for the teacher to present the new material to the students.

My Digital Mind Map

I can not get mine to upload and I have tried many different things. I added it as an attachment on the group board for now.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

‘Designing for learners’

There are many things a teacher has to think about we designing the classroom and homework activities. It is very important to help the students to the high level learning. It is really important for the teacher to find a happy median on things. They do not want to be the students best friend or be the teacher in the case study we read about. If the students don't respect the it will be a long semester for both the teacher and the students.
Does this mean the teacher should not challenge the students? NO, they need to challenge the students. The teacher though must make it known from day one what they expect and spell everything out for the students. If the students understand why the are doing this assignment or paper the will get more out of it. When looking at the case study one of the complains is having to write papers and that they never have had to do it before they did it in english and got an A so why are we doing it now? Communicate is major for everything. In todays world we are always email, IM, twitter, or social networking and if you don't know how to do this well it will be hard to do your job well.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

blog and twitter

Blogs and twitter can be very valuable education tools. Back in the old days you it was slow to find out news and what the reader got was the writers depiction of what was happening. With blogs people can get news right away. It allows anyone to tell the world what is going on. Twitter is a great way to stay in touch with friends and family. It may not important enough to call or email and say I am going to the store but you can twitter it and they will fill more connected to you and know what is going on in your life.
When looking at blogs and twitter and how they relate to education and Bloom's Taxonomy they fit right in. Blogs fit into the evaluation and understanding parts of Bloom's. They allow the student to post something and get feedback from others which will help the student evaluate the material. Twittering helps the understand things better. It can be as simple as where are you? What ever the simple question is it allows the student to better understand something.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

My Own Myths

When I first signed up for online classes I thought they would be easy and take less time than normal classroom classes. I was very wrong. I have taken at least 19 hours of online classes already and am currently enrolled in 7 hour online as we speak. I have taken history, music, computer, and Spanish classes all online which have all been had very different set ups and expectations but all of them have at least required the same amount of time as I would have to spend in a traditional classroom. Most have way more assignments and a lot more work then traditional classes. I took a class this spring that only required one paper and the final exam. This teacher did expect her students to show up to class everyday and would pull the student aside if they missed a class and ask why they were not there? I really liked this class and it was nice to not have to do tons of extra work. Online classes tend to have lots of extra work to make sure the student understands everything since it is not traditional classroom setting. I have found that I really enjoy online classes. Most of my online classes has required discussion board work to get students involved. My Spanish class even requires you to call and leave a teacher a voicemail in Spanish to make sure that you are learning to speak it. I also like that I can do online class whenever and wherever I want to do them. Although online classes may not be for everyone I enjoy them and have learned a lot from them.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Legally Designed

I never really thought about copyright issues and education until my 3 week summer class. My professor said in his podcast that he often gets copyright police that will enroll in his class to make sure he is following the rules. Copyrights and education never crossed my mind before that. I found three really could articles when looking up information for this topic two of which have to do with education and 1 that had talks about You-tube and myspace. I don’t use myspace but I do often enjoy watching videos on You-tube.

What is a copyright? It gives the creator of the original work the rights of it to be copied, distribute, and perform there work for a limited period of time. This protects a lot of different pieces of works which included books, plays, music, movies, photographs, paintings, sculptures, digital files, and web pages along with other original works. What is fair use? It creates a balance between the developer and those who benefit from using the work. The exception this is the educational setting. They are allowed to use copyrighted work for purposes of teaching and research but fair use still requires balancing.

In 1998, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 was put in to effect. This Act incorporates the World Intellectual Property Treaty, which rule have to do with distance education and computer maintenance.

Before 2005 most copyright issues and education were handles by the ad hoc basic and did not answer everyday questions. University have very few policies that addressed things like illegal distribution of software. The United States now requires university to have a institution-wide policy on copyright. This is part of the US copyright law and is really covered in section 110 (the TEACH Act).

The University of Connecticut created a team of people to help with this. They look at professors websites and are there to answer question people may have on copyright issues. Universities are one of the largest providers of intellectual property and this is why copyright issues are so big for them.

Online or distance education is the property of the teacher that created the courses. They have the ownership rights to anything media they develop, which includes handouts, syllabi, and any digital media. These professor must make sure they follow the law when it come to copyrights of others too.

Here are a few court cases I came across when looking at this Issue. Wishol v Crow, has to do with a teacher who was short copies of music for band and made forty-eight more copies. The court ruled against the teacher. Another is Basic Books v. Kino’s Basic Books challenged Kinko’s for reproducing works. The court ruled against Kinko’s. Macmillan Co vs King. King who was a Harvard tutor produced multiple works for students from books and the court ruled against the tutor.

When looking at You-Tube and social networking site here is a common issue people run into. I person my post something they did on there cause they want people to hear it. They are not famous so they don’t care or thing about copyright issues and do not put a notice on there page as he just wants be to know how he is. This could become an issue later. Those how upload works to You-Tube give click they have read terms of use, and by doing so they agree not to submit copyrighted works but we all know it still happens.

Work Cited

Ardito, S. (2007). MySpace and YouTube Meet the Copyright Cops. Searcher, 15(5), 24-34. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.


Nemire, R. (2007). INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT AND USE FOR DISTANCE EDUCATION COURSES. College Teaching, 55(1), 26-30. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.


Oakley, B., Pittman, B., & Rudnick, T. (2007). Tackling Copyright in the Digital Age: An Initiative of the University of Connecticut Libraries. Journal of Access Services, 5(1/2), 265-283. doi:10.1080/15367960802199067.