ITUNES UNIVERSITY

The iTunes University is a portion in the iTunes store directed towards education. The iTunes University has many sections of different topics , and several universities are subscribers and contributors. These universities include Duke University, Stanford University, and The University of South Alabama. These universities upload pod casts of lectures, student assignments, and announcements.

As a student and future teacher, iTunes University provides me with the information I need to educate myself in becoming a better educator. Also, I can not only use it for school, but it has many pod casts that offer teaching tips and how to handle situations in the classroom. As a teacher, I can use iTunes as class assignments for students. This not only gives them the opportunity to work on their own, but it makes them learn how to use computers and to become more aware of future in technology ahead.

Dr. Christie

Dr. Alice Christie received her Ph.D. in Educational Technology and Language and Literacy from Arizona State University. She currently goes around the country and gives workshops about education and teaching younger students. From reading her website it seems that many people have come to honor her wisdom and love going to her conferences and workshops. She seems to be a determined individual who has achieved much success.
This website could be very useful for me as well as any other aspiring teachers. The website Dr. Christie is designed to give all teachers insight on how to "mold" the students into future teachers themselves. One of the nicer things on this website that I enjoyed were her podcasts that she posted. Each podcast has a different teaching cue and are very simple to follow. And with Dr. Christie's open and somewhat funny delivery, it is easy to listen to as well.

Educational Ipod Use

According to Duke University, the first university to distribute ipods to incoming freshman as educational tools, ipods are a way to capture lessons, lectures, and other forms of educational media. Before reading this article, I was curious as to how an ipod can be used to learn rather than entertain. I understood that internet access can be helpful in the classroom. But these ipods were equipped with recorders and such to capture every conversation needed to assist students in the classroom. The ipods were said to be used for repeating needed items such as music, vocabulary lists, and audiobooks. This feature would come in handy during music literature when the students are required to match a composer with the work. This feature could also be acheived on a regular computer as well, minus the convience of a handheld device such as an ipod.

This approach to learning is still in testing and I believe that it depends on the operator rather than the equipment itself. Having an ipod to use in the classroom is more of a luxury rather than a necessity. It is not needed to perform daily assignments but can be used to expand availability to information.

Is Wikipedia Reliable?

Wikipedia is a well known source that cannot always be trusted. Just because it is one of the first reference websites to pop up on the internet when someone types it into a search engine doesn't mean that you will necessarily find accurate information there. Wikipedia, because it is a free reference source, has one huge drawback: anyone can make alterations to the articles, articles that too many people take as fact.

People who own specific companies, such as Walmart, can change things written about their business to make them seem too good to be true. In fact, they are. Changing or editing Wikipedia is not illegal. It was designed to be able to let anyone edit its content. Although some of the information found on Wikipedia is truthful, you can't ever completely trust what you read on this site. When referencing Wikipedia, it is good advice to check several other websites to make sure the information you are receiving is accurate. I would not recommend using Wikipedia when writing research papers, for instance. It is important that your sources for research or any other papers written for school are reliable, accurate, and non-debatable.

EDM Podcasts

The first podcast that I listened to was about “How technology is used in classes at South” by Mat Cline and Jill Ravette. I thought that they did a good job discussing how we use technology in the classrooms. They went over our online classes we offer, power points given by teacher, and how we use blogspot to communicate with other classmates. Matt talked about how he struggled in one class because the teacher did not have power points to give out which made it hard for him to study. Then Jill discussed all the perks of having an online class and the people it helps out like the ones that are to busy to fit class time into their schedule. Over all I think it was a good way to tell of South’s technology filled environment that we offer.
Things that I would have changed about Matt and Jills broadcast to improve its quality for there listeners would have been the way they talked throughout it. He should have collected his thoughts and then said something in a complete sentence with out using his connecter word. Then for Jill she was thinking of all the information she had written down that she had to get across. By her thinking to much caused her to speed up her speech which made it hard to follow what she was saying. The best thing for her to do is to have note cards make with bullets of what to talk about.

The second podcast that I listened to was “Burp Back Education” by Ashley Denson, Sandy Presley, and Robyn Terry. They did an excellent job with this one it was very informative and gave examples on how to prevent burp back education. Ashley started it of by telling what burp back education is and how it is pretty much just students hearing then repeating on the test what the teacher has taut. In this education there is no chance for the student to interact with what they are learning so they can not retain the information is what Sandy shares with us. Then all the women give examples on how to prevent it.
A few adjustments would be to try not to interrupt each other when speaking. . After Listening to both though it sounds pretty tough but now hearing them has given me some ideas on how to make my podcast a success.