Blog Post #14 Final Reflection

Project #16

Project #13

Collaboration Summary:

I was very happy with the way my group worked together to complete our assignments. It was a challenge to try and coordinate times and figure out which program we were going to use. In the end, it felt as if we were together in the same room and were sitting right in front of each other. It was fun to be in our own environments because we had access to everything we needed. We didn't waste time having to get up to travel anywhere to meet, which was NICE! I would say that all-in-all, collaborating via Google+ was a great success. The only problem I would say we experienced would be the quality of the videos. Several times I was afraid we would have to start again because of faulty internet connections or slow WiFi. Other than those minor concerns, everything worked wonderfully.

Final Report: PLN

My PLN has stretched so far. I add everything I can find useful to my Symbaloo page. I admit, it's been hard trying to keep everything organized but, I think I have it all down. I will hold on to my PLN and share my resources with anyone who needs them. This was probably the most precious thing I gained from this class because I am no longer holding on to a thousand different pieces of paper with websites written on them!

Blog Post #13

Ok, so I did it. I think my attempt may have been a little bit easier than it should have been but, I did it on my first try! My family has a little house on a patch of land we own in Greene County, Mississippi. Coincidentally, we took a trip up to the house this past weekend and, needless to say, my phone receives ZERO signal. I was forced to be without connections to the outside world. WAIT! Before you scoff and turn away, just listen...

It was pretty easy to ignore my phone when it wasn't working. What wasn't very easy was the fact that because we are surrounded by nothing, there wasn't anything to do. Usually, I can waste my time by going fishing, reading, playing on my phone(games and such) and watching television. When I get bored with being outside, I usually come in and engage in using my electronic distractions previously listed. Since I couldn't do that this time, I pretty much lost it.

I proceeded to flip through every single magazine in the house, along with hunting catalogs (for which I have NO interest) and even a few cookbooks. After I alphabetized the magazines in the baskets in which they lived, I decided to play with my dog...she doesn't play. When I realized we would never work, I moved on. I was tempted to play the hundreds of dazzling games I added to my phone especially for weekends like this but, my self-discipline prevailed.

After trying to find ways to occupy myself for so long, I realized how sad it was that I was bored. We had all this land! I could go for a walk, I could watch the birds, fish more, find out who my neighbors were...normal things that people used to do before electronics consumed our lives. I was a little ashamed of myself because I have always thought myself to be one of those people who aren't occupied with their phones like the rest of the world. Although I may not be tweeting or facebooking, I am still looking down at my phone and letting nature float on by without any acknowledgment. That house was designed so that a person could ESCAPE from the busy body life of global networking and just take the time to relax and breathe...privately.

I remember being young in the world before cell phones ran ramped in the hands of youngsters and before we used internet at home on a daily basis. I still thought school to be the prime place for learning, knowledge and my connection to the rest of the world. I was always humbled by how much my teacher knew because I really did not have a resource to go to other than her or my parents. Of course, this changed around sixth grade when AOL IM became popular and we all started depending on the internet for our information.

I am a little frightened that one day, teachers may be obsolete. We are so enthralled with using YouTube videos to learn everything that someday people will feel that we no longer need someone to teach our children face to face. I think this is very important! I love technology, the internet, YouTube, all of it...

 I am worried that our students will no longer see teachers as  a source of knowledge. I want them to be humble and not come into the class thinking they know everything because of what they have seen online. I wish for children to be respectful and not look down at their phones when an adult is talking to them. I am desperate to teach my students that this is not, and never will be, acceptable. I want them to learn that even though they have grown up in a world where ".com" is the newest form of punctuation, technology is not everything. We must still be able to learn from actual nature and not from what the internet shows us what nature is supposed to be. We must still be able to learn from doing it ourselves, not just from how YouTube shows us to do it.

 I support technology but, in appropriate doses. By that, I mean that we have to learn to limit ourselves because their are other things we are missing because we were staring at our phones, our computer screens or our televisions.