Final Blog Reflection

The technology gadget I probably enjoyed using the most this semester was building the website. I think a website will be so helpful in the classroom--especially for parents. No more of the hassle of giving the students announcements or homework that is bound to get lost in the backpack somewhere. How hard would it be to just give students and parents the class website at the beginning of the school year where they will meet their teachers and then it would be safe sailing from there right? I really do plan on using in my future teaching to let students and parents know about upcoming events, announcements, test, quizzes, calendars, syllabus, etc. It would be like my own little blackboard! The students could use my website by posting journals or even taking quizzes. However, I think some more interactive one that will help them learn within MY classroom are using the iMovie, and the garageband for dance composition purposes. Those two really are catered for the performing arts.

Eportfolio

As I was on the wikispaces I saw a cool new gadget that I thought would be useful for teaching technology in the classroom. How fun would it be to have my students create their own dance videos? This website would be great for it too, because it works for all types of computers, and it could be done inside of school! Click here for the link.

The impacts of technology

This is a great website that talks about the influence of technology on art forms. It talks about how we as dance artists and further enhance our own art of dance through the use of technology and how it has impacted us up to this point in the art form. Interestingly enough, it was written for a senior project by a girl who went to University of North Carolina---so she believes in the fusion as well!

Click here for the PDF file.

Final Project

For my final project, I feel like it would be really useful to learn how to create my own music. Dance teachers are constantly using music, and are even looking for the next great song to use in their classroom--it isn't always easy. It is harder than you think to find fun, appropriate music for a high school dance class...so why not create your own right? I plan on using garageband for this assignment, and perhaps if I had a school that had a lab of Apple computers, they too, could create their own music as an assignment, and then create their own piece of movement to the piece of music they created. Now that's what I call incorporating dance and technology--lets get those students creative juices flowing!

dance teachers can do technology too!!!!

Here is a great site that gives dance teachers great ideas of how to incorporate technology into their lesson plans. It also gives further links for other sites encouraging the same thing. Click here to find the site.

Internet Safety

This week, I got to read about internet safety for my class and found it really interesting. My post will be divided into two sections: Analyzing the articles I read, and then talking about my discussion with sister and her thought about raising a family in a world that is increasing with internet dangers.

Part 1

It's interesting because there is good and bad to everything in this world. The internet can be a dangerous place, but it can also be a wonderful place to obtain knowledge. I loved reading the LDS talk about the non-member Derik Fitch who searched "mormons" on his search engine and came across what he had been searching for his whole life! I think the church does a great job using the internet as a tool for good influence--particularly with the new lds site, the new mormon.org website. As a future parent, I want to do everything I can to raise righteous children in the gospel. I think some of the majors things I could do as a parent as well as a teacher is to keep the computer in a public place, install spyware the computer, and most of all help the kids understand how important it is to know the dangers of internet safety.

Part 2

I got to talk my oldest sister who has six kids all under the age of 12....crazy!!! She was pretty savvy when it came to internet safety. She has the computer placed in the kitchen where there is high traffic for the family. She says that they have a special safety on the internet FHE every quarter of the year. I talked to her about how she could blog about the church and share her testimony through her blog and she said that she already was doing that....(successful sister). My sister is 34, has six kids, and lives in American Fork. We mostly just spoke about how much she desires to be good mother and raise righteous kids in the gospel, and one of the ways to achieve that was to keep them safe on the internet. It was a great experience--my sister and always have really great, deep, and rich conversations together.

Apple's iPad for teaching???

So, apple came out with a new product a couple of months ago called the iPad. This blog explains how the iPad could actually be a really great tool for teaching kids. Check it out :)

click here for the blog.