Virtual Graduation

University of Hawaii plans Internet graduation for education technology students :: The Republic

(Image from this Tech Xav Article)

The University of Hawaii is planning an internet graduation for it's students that will be taking place virtually in Second Life. The article mentions that even some students are planning parties with family and friends. What do you think about this? I have never heard of something like this happening. I think it is definitely different, but there is a part of me that would still want the traditional graduation and receive an actual diploma. Something about walking into that huge arena of all those people makes the day feel larger than life, which it should from all of the hard work that is put into it. (Now I'm just referring back to graduating high school and imagining what it will be like to finally be done with College!). Maybe that some feeling of accomplishment and hard will be there for these students graduating. Whichever way you feel about it, you have to agree, it is something that shows us how technology really gives us a world that is full of limitless possibilities.

The Blog of All Blogs!

While watching a video for an extra credit assignment, I learned about this awesome blog, Connected Principals. This blog is a collection of blogs from different principals and administrators. The idea is for these administrators to share ideas that they have, ideas they use in their schools, and to empower teachers and facility within the schools. Any administrator can sign up, and once you do you can add to the blog, share and learn from other schools all of the world. I love the idea behind this and after hearing the story from the creators of the blog, I hope that I teach in a school where the principal and assistant principals are involved in this amazing opportunity. Have any of you heard of this website before? Do you know of any administrators within Iowa that are involved?

Kindles in Schools

(Image from article in News Tribute/ Kemp Smith)

How much different could schools be with the use of Kindles? Would the benefits outweigh the negatives? From the moment the iPad and Kindle came out one of the first thoughts through my mind was, "I'm sure these are going to be in schools by the time my daughter goes to school! There are no limits with the doors this could open for students and teachers.", so it was not suprising when I found this article, Kindles go to school in a big way this month. In the article Andrys Basten discusses the benefits and negatives with using Kindles. The major advantage this is bringing to the schools, according to what Basten found out from librarians is the excitement and motivation it has put in students to wanting to read again. I could not agree more, I think by having these in schools it can get students excited to read more, possibly save money in the long run, and expand the possibilities of their learning. What do you think? would another device be better, the Nook? iPad? Why or why not?

Will All Twitter Users Please Twand Up

Look at this great post I found on "Ask A Tech Teacher" ' s blog. She (Jacqui Murray) has a TON of awesome information and updates her blog very frequently. Go ahead and check it out *here*. She talks about using twitter in the same way we are right now for our Technology and Design class at UNI.

Will All Twitter Users Please Twand Up

My First Blog Post!

I have not done this whole blogging thing for a very long time. The last time I did it was for a two week trip I had in London. I knew that I would never remember all the little details from the trip and my family wanted daily e-mail updates with pictures of what we were doing. Blogging seemed like a perfect solution. To be honest, I had totally forgot about that blog until this idea for this blog came along. I went back to my old website and checked everything out, I cannot explain how happy I am that I made that choice. There were so many things I had forgotten. So, as my first post for this blog, I am very excited to start this process again!

For my first post on technology in education I wanted to share a few things I have found over the past week. Here is a link to a HUGE list of other blogs that are education related. As I started looking at a bunch of other blogs I realized so many ways that technology can be used in our classrooms.

Link to Other School Blogs!

One thing that was very intriguing to me was this video on You Tube that was featured in Betty-Online - Time Out's Blog (you can see her blog *here*) from August 2010:

In this video she talks about having student's use their POD (Personally Owned Devices) as a tool in the classroom. After watching her video, what are your thoughts? What are the advantages and disadvantages of using POD's in a classroom?