Racial Cleansing in America Podcast

The first podcast I listened to was about Thenonious Monk. He is a famous jazz musician from the south. His song "Little Rootie Tootie" has train sounds in it from his heritage. He moved to NYC when he was five, but still remembered the train sounds from his past. He says most people think that Jazz is a cosmopolitan inner city things, but it actually comes from the south. Thelonious Monk lived with his mother from the day that he was born to the day that she died. He grew up playing piano in his church. He says that he learned his sort of "taste" from his mother from her food to her clothing.

The next podcast I listened to was Racial Cleaning in America. Corbin, Kentucky is a very white run town. Laura Smith tells a story of when she was a child and they ran out of gas, so they got picked up by an African American. His mom lied to the man and told them they were actually from Williamsburg. This was because they didn't want the man to know they were from Corbin. Mrs. Boose was born in 1927. She tells a story of getting off the train and being scared to get of because the main train stop was in Corbin. The 1910 census shows that there were a total of 10 African Americans living in Corbin at the time. The blacks commuted there just to work on the railroad. There was a time called Red Summer when there was 25 race riots against the black. After this all but 3 African Americans were sent packing. This just goes to show you how bad the racism was back then.

Alice Cooper

Alice Cooper has 40 years of experience being an educator. She created this site to help teachers and let them see her ideas she has come up with in her experiences. She gives numerous ideas to teachers on how to use technology in the classroom. She gives workshops and seminars to help teach the teachers. She also teaches classes as a college. One of her ideas she has come up with is Constructivism. She beleives technology should be used to facilitate learning, not the be the focus of the learning. She beleives students should learn by doing things within a specific context. Learning is reflective and incorporates feedback from the teachers. She believes that students as well as teachers learn from their mistakes.

Another part of her website gives information about Digitial Media and Photography Resource. This is a cool part of her website. She gives ideas and help to teachers who wants to incorporate digital cameras, camcorders, iMovies, podcasts, or digital photos into the classroom environment. This part of the site would be very helpful for up and coming teachers who want to use technology in the classroom. It gives them ideas on how to introduce it into the classroom.

Suggested improvements on podcasts

I listened to my groups podcast first. I think all in all we did a good job, but there was room for improvements. First off, I said "um" entirely too much. Maybe if we were to do it again we could have practiced more and gotten all of the kinks out. We also could have been more conversational in our speech. We all took turns talking about what we had written down and didnt really have a conversation about it. On the lighter side, our information was accurate and thorough.

The next podcast I listened to was group number 3, Access Labs. They did a really great job first off. Their information was very indepth and detailed. They covered every aspect of the Access labs. They could have been more conversational in their talking though. Instead of each person just reading off what they wrote, they could talk amongst themselves about the topic. The fact that Susan experienced access lab is really cool.

The last podcast I listened to was group number 2. They talked about blogs in the classroom and how they can be used in education. They did a really good job also. They spoke clearly and loudly. Their information was very informative. If someone didn't know anything about blogs, then they would after listening to this podcast. The only thing they could have done different would to be more conversational. I think since this was our first podcast we were a bit nervous and just read off our papers. On the next podcast everybody could just talk amongst themselves more.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia. Although it is an online "encyclopedia" it is not a very valuable resource. It allows anyone to make edits to the information that is available. People do not need to be informed on the subject at hand or anything. Anyone can go in and delete information or just add anything they want, whether its true or not. All in all I think wikipedia is a very untrusting source.

Although wikipedia does let anybody edit the information they do have a couple of things that they do to try to keep the correct information at hand. There is something called the Wikiscanner and it lets the public see who has edited the information that they are reading. If they can see who has written the information then maybe they can differentiate the true from the lies. Next they have a thing called Wikipedia scanner. Its a search tool that traves the comments and edits on Wikipedia entries back to their source IP address. Even with these tools I still think Wikipedia is not very useful for accurate information.

Using mathematics in the classroom

Judy Chandler is a mathematics teacher and incorporates technology into everyday class. She really recommends teachers using technology to enhance the learning quality of the children. Technology used in everyday classrooms in unison with mathematics can enhance the students learning quite a bit. It teaches the students to use math skills learned in the classroom in everyday life. Nowadays children just learn what they have to in school and don't feel the need to use it. Technology can show them that is fun and very useful. Technology really opens a lot of doors for children that they wouldnt have had in the past. It lets them see how mathematics and other things tie into reality.

Judy Chandler also gives a lot of free resources available to teachers. These websites should be very beneficial for children. Technology has become a really important part of life in today's society. If children are not getting the proper experience with it they are being cheated out of something really wonderful. All teachers should research how they can start bringing in different learning tools with technology.

"growth" vs. "fixed mindset"

I watched this video starring Carol Dweck. She talks about two types of students, those who beleive that their learning capacity is at the max and they cannot learn more, and those who beleive intelligence can be attained overtime. She did an 8 session workshop with students and half of them just had study skills classes and the other half had growth mindset classes. The students who had the study skills classes their grades decreased and the study was show to be a failure. The students who had the growth mindset classes increased intellectually. Their grades rebounded because they learned that the brain is a muscle and the more you use it the more you can learn. The teacher, who remained in the dark about this workshop, could pick out the students who went to the growth mindset workshop compaired the ones that only had study skills classes. Carol Dweck emphasizes that students should keep neurons connecting and use their brain as a muscle.

This movie is a very good thing for teachers. It can show them that if they administer the right kind of motivation for their students that the sky is the limit. If the teachers let the students know that the brain is in fact a muscle and that the more they use it the bigger it gets, the students will want to learn and see this effect happen.