What I've Learned this Year

Mr. McClung has really grasped the art of taking it all in and that's what he did. he took the negatives that he saw and learned to make them positive. As I get closer to embarking on my career as a teacher any advice is helpful, and Mr. McClung has really shined a bright light on my hopes and expectations for my first year as a teacher.

Last Lecture

To start off I found it very heartbreaking to know that Prof Randy Pausch was dying from the tumors in his lungs. But as I watched the lecture I begin to understand that this man has really lived a fulfilling life and is really leaving a huge impact on his students.

I think that MIT has really made a breakthrough in teacher -student relations by allowing their professors to have more control over their lectures and classroom settings. I loved how he started his lecture by saying what he wasn't going to be talking about in his lecture and he didn't talk about those things. And I also loved how he only talked about what he said he would. I have had my share of professors who say they are only going to talk about certain things and end up spending twenty minutes on something completely off the text.

Professor Pausch's lecture was not only an interesting lecture but it also included specific events from his life that got him to where he was. From that I gathered how my own life experiences can be used in the classroom setting to help push my point even further and it also made the lecture a bit humorous. I really found the use of props can aid in waking up the lecture even more and keeps the students interested and eager to see what direction the lecture is headed.

It was very unfortunate that he passed away, but I think he left us with very vital information that will help many of us in our future careers. I now have a better understanding of being an innovative teacher, by using what I already know I can help others make it to where they are trying to get to.

Thank you Professor Pausch.

Kelly Hines

Kelly Hines has taken a very broad subject and summed it up in a very easy to follow post. I totally agree with her in the fact that teachers need to be able to teach and learn at the same time. How can they expect students to follow something they've taught the same way for a period of years. We should take her comments to heart and use them in our futures.
Kids are the future and many of them spend countless numbers of hours on the computer and have obtained knowledge on how to do things that we may find difficult. Yes technology is the future but the way it is taught depends on how willing we are to learn new ways of presenting it to the students.

Michael Wesch

I think that movie captured the average college students experience very well. I related to the majority of the students in the movie. Right now in my classes this semester alone there are empty desks that belong to a student who's at home, and I know that my student loans will top more than 20k.
on thing that I have had a difference experience with is that most if not all of my teachers knew me by name because I made myself very familiar to them. On average most college teachers see over 500 students a year and can't remember every student by face or name that's why it's very important that the student introduces them self known to the teacher.
Seeing that this movie was made in 2007 there are several different technological approaches that one could take. pretty much every student owns a laptop now, so instead of having them write down their responses on notebook paper I would just use laptops, and a smart board. There were several times when the camera person had to zoom in to see what was on the paper and then sometimes the response was cut off.
Overall it was a pretty accurate account of the average college student's daily life cycle.

Podcasts

After visiting several different podcasts, I found similarities as well as differences. First and foremost you should have a good introduction to grab or capture your audiences attention like in the Smartboard Lessons Podcast. As soon as it started it had my attention because it was lively in its intro.
Secondly, you want to make sure your speech or topic is lively like the one in the Kidcast podcast. It was very lively, and in an informal setting. It was entertaining for the majority of the podcast. There were a few times where it seemed that there were just alot of people talking all at once.
And that leads to the third thing, you want to make sure that you are prepared voice wise. Make sure that you are speaking clearly, and that the mic you are using is static free. In the Edtechtalk podcast, it was very dull and the guy was speaking in a very low voice, or his mic was on low setting. I was immediately bored and find it hard to follow from that standpoint.
Lastly, you want to combine these things throughout the segment from the intro to the outro. Use the energy flow to conduct the podcast. Be lively and creative, captivate from start to finish like they did in the KidCast podcast. Make full use of all the technology we have and make it great.

Creating Podcasts

After visiting www.langwitches.org, I got a better understanding of how I should go about planning and creating my own podcast. You want to make sure that you have all the necessary documents of events, summary of any research that was done,and you should work on speaking clearly and work on the pronunciation of words that are difficult to you.
I think that I will be able to produce a good podcast based on the knowledge that I gained from this site. It helps to have sites such as this one that breaks things down in a very simple manner.