Produce a 3 minute video about yourself.  Address question(s) from each of the following categories.

Suggestions:

1. Upload the video to YouTube;

2. "Edit" the video into three shorter segments;

3. Embed the video into your ED586 Weblog.

Personal information

1. Name, hometown, primary email.

2. What name do you prefer to be called?

3. Undergraduate and graduate degree(s), education license(s), current employment: grade level, subject(s) if applicable, district.

4. What are a few of your more interesting hobbies, travel experiences, somewhat “unique” aspects about yourself that would help our classroom community get to know you a bit better.

Learning Style and more:

5. Being as specific as you can, what must be in place for you to feel comfortable taking intellectual risks in a classroom?

6. I am interested in your perception of yourself as a student. Please describe it. Consider such criteria as a) active oral class participation; b) responsible, timely class preparation (of readings, projects, etc.); c) honest, candid self-assessment; d) awareness of your own preferred learning styles/approaches; e) first thing that you do when you cannot or do not understand something; f)other dimensions you believe to be relevant and informative.

7. Is there anything I should know about you, your learning style, or life situation that may be relevant to your successful performance in this course?

Technology Section

8. What do you believe was the most important technological invention in history? Why?

9. Please list a number of technologies you currently believe to be essential to your life. Star (*) those you (tend to) believe to be insufficiently promoted in education.

10. In relation to technology, please describe what life is like for you after a typical school day?

11. Indicate any uses of technology that you believe tend to be inappropriate or used excessively (by children in or out of school, by teachers in or out of school ) or promoted excessively (by the media, the computer industry, schools), i.e. ones that should be restricted or regulated in key ways.

12. Let’s imagine, humbly, that this course is definitely going to be the most meaningful and relevant educational technology course you’ve ever experienced. EVER. Drawing on your past experience in classrooms, and thinking uniquely, specifically and BIG, describe what we need to (1) DO (activities/projects), (2) STUDY (content topics and compelling issues/questions), (3) BE (interacting with each other) and (4) AVOID (in the previous three categories) in order for your visionary views of an ideal course to be mostly realized.

About Dr. Shutkin:

13. Consider a question or two to ask me about myself or the class.

Roland Barthes (1980) informs that the narratives of the world are infinite and never restricted by medium, whether it be textual, visual, or audio information on the Internet or drawings on the walls of a cave.  As Barthes shares that these narratives are trans-historical, David Nye (2006) describes an ancient relationship between technology and narrative marked by improvisation and transformation tracing to the very essence of what it means to be human.

As you read David Nye’s essay, “Can We Define Technology,” reflect on and consider your beliefs about the relation of narrative to technology.  What do you believe?  Compose and publish a blog entry expressing your thoughts and beliefs about technology and narrative.

Reading:  Nye, D. (2006) Technology Matters.  Chapter One: Can we define "technology"? Cambridge : MIT Press. 1-15.

(+/- 250 word narrative).

Blog3 

As a pre-service teacher, how would you design a classroom website?  What should it look like?  What kind of functionality should it include? Think about how a teacher, student, parent (guardian), principal, etc., might use your classroom website.  Have you ever been a student in a course that had a fantastic website, a terrible website, no website at all?

You will be linking and/or embedding multiple Web 2.0 applications together to build functionality into your website. What types of Web 2.0 applications would you integrate into your classroom website to facilitate the organization and management of your classroom, advance your teaching and scaffold the learning of your students? What are your web-based needs as a teacher?  What are the learning and studying needs of your students?  How best to facilitate communications with your students and their parents and/or guardians outside of class?

Blog4

As a teacher, what range of Web 2.0 applications do you need to integrate into your classroom web site? What are your goals?  What are your students’ needs?  How best to facilitate communications with your students and their parents? What about your principal’s expectations and/or concerns?

Identify at leas four (4) different Web 2.0 applications to link into your course website.  Carefully review each Web 2.0 application BEFORE you link it into your class website.

Create a webliography to include:

• Name
• Address
• Rationale explaining how each Web 2.0 application will contribute to the curricular, pedagogic and/or administrative goals of your class and your class website.

Blog5    

 Albert Borgmann's philosophy of technology opposes the device paradigm to focal things and focal places.  Until now, his discussion has been broad and general; it has yet to be applied to the field of education, to places of learning such as classrooms or to experiences of pedagogy or learning. 

For this Blog5, I challenge you to apply Borgmann's philosophy of technology to education and to define the device paradigm, focal things and focal places relative to places of learning such as classrooms and to experiences of pedagogy and learning. (+/- 250 good words and/or multimedia).