Story in 5 Photos: Making Stroganoff :)

Sex Education: Being Safe is Better Than Abstinence

I saw this video about sex education from a girl named Sarah from the International School of the Americas in San Antonio. Her video provides information and statistic on how providing safe sex education is way more effective than just telling teens to be abstinent. This video is very informative and definitely strikes exactly how I feel on this issue. Her drawings of stick figures provided a creative and lighthearted way of presenting hard facts. This is her video.

Giving Back with Technology: Luis

In our latest Digital Youth Portrait, Luis has a very interesting and inspiring story of the way he uses todays technology. He uses technology often in his everyday life and uses it to help out with his family and even his community. I can see that he is a great person inside an out, he is completely unselfish and motivated to succeed in whatever he feels he can do. Technology has opened a window of opportunity to him and he is reaching out and grabbing at every experience possible. I mean, wouldn't you feel honored to be invited to Chile just to present a world class presentation? This kid is something special and definitely someone who is going to innovate and expand our world of devices and tools.

One thing that I can for sure take away from this is the realization of how intelligent our nation's youth has become because of new innovative systems. It is incredible how much heart a kid has when using a form of technology that they just absolutely love. If you put your mind to something anything that you are capable of doing can happen and so much more. You do not have to be naturally talented to use technology so you can be just as good as it as anyone else.

Much of America care more for their sports and their television shows, but none of them really appreciate how any of those things appear on the screen and how they are able to access information just by the click of a keyboard. It is so second nature to us now that some people do not see the positivity in it. My whole family uses technology to its advantages. My dad works at home on the computer and brings in the dough because he knows how to use a computer to his advantages and provide a lifestyle for himself. I believe that if every person at least has the knowledge to access websites and information anything is possible and Luis proves this in every way.

VoiceThread: Dancing is Passion

This my VoiceThread that I created about dancing. It describes exactlty why I love dancing and the way it effects me.

Kiwi Classroom: Technology Can't Be More Advanced Than That!

This classroom is by far one of the most technological classrooms I have ever seen. All of the students use technology in almost everything they do from writing on the smartboard to showing YouTube videos. This is living proof of the advantages of a widespread amount of technology in the classroom and just how focused students are learning from something electronically created than just from reading a book and talking about it. This is the future of education and everyone needs to step on board!

I remember back when I was in elementary school and all we had were dusty overhead projectors that would burn out every couple of hours if left on too long. We rarely had access to the computer, and if we did it was just for a short time and was only for hearing sounds and seeing pictures with no instructional activity involved. So personally, I wish I was a kid in this era and was able to have the opportunity to get my hands on all of these technological wonders.


So much can be taken away from this video and used for the classroom in so many ways I cannot even list. Having certain websites like Tutpup are great tools to increase learning and basic web skills. I have said this time and time again but teachers NEED this kind of education in their classroom. It is paramount to the children's education and with better technology and understanding of technology, these students will no doubt pay attention to anything that you put in front of them.

Nafiza and Technology

We watched a video in class about a girl named Nafiza who uses technology every way that she can. She is part of the technology club at school and her and her classmates create avatars of themselves and made a short video. This video was about how a child was having problems with attaining higher learning experiences. The video shows just how important it is for students to know technology and learn it to the best of their ability. Nafiza also introduced websites that were helpful to different problems in the world such as Darfur and believes this game could help people understand just how difficult it is in that kind of environment.

One thing that I can take away from this video is how much you can do with technology in the classroom and out of the classroom. There is limitless knowledge across the internet and every tool can be useful to broadening your education of the technological world. By exposing children at a young age, these kinds of technological advances will become second nature to them and they will be set for new technologies in the future.

Teacher should be aware of these uses of technology and use it in the classroom. I personally would use any kind of game or video of any kind to encourage my students in the usage of technology. It is very important to me that, as a future teacher, technology can improve the children's knowledge of the world around them and create any kind of imaginative and technical skills possible.

Student Blogs

I wanted to follow Mrs. Yollis' classroom and be a blogging buddy for her students.
I decided to comment on Ben's All Around blog which was about hockey and was titled Bruins Beat the Panthers 2-1. He had many pictures and lots of information behind the pictures and it was a very good blog. http://bensallaroundblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/bruins-beat-panthers-2-1-i-wanted.html

T4T class comments:

I commented on this blog about Cameron from the week before:

http://nayshomeworkthoughts.blogspot.com/2010/01/when-students-become-teacher.html

And this blog as well about the class in general:

http://amackt4t.blogspot.com/2010/01/t4t-blogging-buddies.html

Hopefully we can all benefit from this class from all of these challenges!