Blog Post #8

This Is How We Dream: Dr. Richard Miller
This video/movie was beyond enlightening. The virtual world, unlike the one we live in, contains a subject base that will never cease. Dr. Miller explained this to us in his presentation,“This is how we Dream”. At this day and time, I am not as educated as I need to be on the ideas and concepts of this non-stop virtual world, but I am learning from instructors such as Dr. Miller who openly and willingly share their knowledge.

“These ideas belong to us as a culture, not individually.” What would the world be like if we were denied the access to these ideas? What if instructors were all simple minded and continued to go about teaching in the repetitive ways, that some just can’t seem to shake? The world will then become repetitive, which would result in a critical change of a world that is built off just that, “change”. I think Dr. Miller has introduced this idea to challenge future teachers to work together in making this dream, a reality.

In Edm310 we are taught multiple things that assist us in learning to build our skills to becoming great educators. Mastering these skills and those of others through the virtual world will make each of us well equipped with multi-media writing. Just as the ideas are shared with us, we should reflect the ideas and knowledge upon our students, encouraging them to expand the ideas by making them their own and passing the knowledge on to others.


Carly Pugh
The creativity of the assignment was great to begin with for this post. I love that Carly applied what she had previously learned in Edm310 by using links in her post as an example to guide students through the assignment. Just as Dr. Miller painted a picture while explaining the virtual world to us, Carly did as well in her example of the assignment. What I appreciate about Carly’s post is that it justifies to there being an endless amount answers to questions one may have.


The Chipper Series and Edm310 for Dummies
Both of these videos were great for explaining what we all thought from day one entering Edm310. In The Chipper Series I wasn’t surprised by the way the student was acting. Chipper reminds me of the saying, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.” When we are faced with decisions or certain tasks and let distractions keep us from accomplishing them, we have to deal with the consequences of our actions. There were times where I thought to myself, “Why am I in this class, I’m going to be a Math teacher.” Over a course of the class, I began to see the bigger picture behind Edm310. My learning skills needed a boost and time management and I did not get along well.Edm310 for Dummies seems like the perfect book to assist a student taking the course. I would like to see more videos of students discussing and visually showing their personal gain of new skills learned in Edm310.

Learn to change, change to learn
I enjoyed this video mainly because as it spoke about different cultures, it expressed them as well. When I see teachers who are passionate about what they do and want to work together in making sure 21st century students are prepared learners for the types of jobs ahead in the future, inspires me even more in joining the field of education. As I think about the standardized test that I was pushed so hard to pass in high school, I begin to agree with the instructor, who says, “The work students will be doing in the future will be called on their artistic abilities, abilities of synthesis, abilities understanding the context, abilities of working in teams, abilities to be multi-disciplinary, multi-lingual, and multi-cultural.” Another source I found interesting in this video is that it also contained information on PLNs although it didn’t specifically address them.

Scavenger Hunt 2.0
1. Blogger is an awesome site that can be used by teachers, parents, and students. It allows you to get know other bloggers from all over the world, for educational purposes and for personal ones as well. Students gain confidence in having something to establish as their own, making every aspect about them, but also apply new learning skills to the blogs so that it’s not just a simple page about them. Parents may want to collaborate with other parents on how technology is becoming a primary source of learning and teachers use blogger as a way to push their knowledge to the next level by putting it out there for everyone to see.

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4.Windows Live Movie Maker
Windows Live Movie Maker is a great feature. It is no iMovie, but for a PC it is awesome! It combines with the built in webcam of your computer or laptop to create movies or videos that you can keep for fun or post for projects and assignments. Some of it's features are similar to those of Microsoft PowerPoint where you can add visual affects and animations to the movie. You can also add pictures to the video/movie to add to finish touches.If you own a PC, I would definitely recommend that you download this feature.