Food inc.

Though I've seen this movie before watching it a second time really allowed me to pick up on more of the facts and information that I missed the first time because I was aw-struck the whole time. Being able to be aware of the trends our food is going is wildly important because it is our future students that are being most affected by these food changes. Students are experiencing puberty at increasingly younger ages because of all the growth hormones in the food they are eating, they are facing increased diabetes and obesity issues as they eat more processed and fatty food because they are cheaper. Eating healthy is hard and expensive but it makes such a difference. While in undergrad I ate as healthy as I could living on campus, limited fried foods, no soda mostly tea water and juice, fruit and salad as normal staples in my meals. And to be honest I thought it was great and I was proud of it, but as soon as I graduated I maintained my eating habits with a slight shift of less meat,dairy, and more raw foods but I lost weight and felt more energetic and healthier. This was because I was bake to prepare and buy my own foods and it made the world of difference.

One thing many younger grades are doing when it comes to your snack day, students are required to bring in something off of a prescribed list of "healthy" class snacks. Though they are not all "healthy" they are far better than the sugary fruit snacks or cookies. As teacher we should be actively educating our students about making healthy life choices not just with food but with all the actions we take in our lives.

iMovie

Playing with imovie was very fun and interesting; I've used photo story before which is similar to imovie but not nearly as fancy, but they are related. I would say photo story is the easy/lazy mans imovie for an extent. The flexibility and options available through imovie are endless, I can see using this program as a realistic teaching or presenting skill in all grade levels and with how computer savvy students are today I can see introducing the program to them in the later elementary grades and allowing them to explore the program for assignments. I've said in the past that young children today are loosing their creativity and ability to play with abstract toys for long periods of time. A program like imovie has the potential of recreating creativity for students, I think we need to make a shift from paper pencil imagination to computer imagination. Something that our students are more innately hard wired for. They could polish their movie making skills also while honing in their presentation and diction skills. Giving students the chance to explore a program teaches students more than you could ever imagine, when you give them enough to play around they will start to click on buttons and l figure out parts of the program that if you tried to teach them would take much longer.imovie is the direction that we as educators need to be traveling in. On top of it all it is super fun to play with.

Well done PBS

Watching the last part of the movie in class was interesting. Having the chance to listen to everyone else's opinions and ideas about the content made for some great discussion. In general I don't think enough classrooms have open share discussions like the ones we have on a regular enough basis. I think if classes were to have more open discussions based on the topics that are currently begin taught it would create a classroom with more interest and even potentially more respect.It may even help break down some of the walls people put up around themselves and others, with less walls students may start to see the similarities in one another instead of the differences. With that the hope would be that everyone would be more informed and bullying would happen less because there is an understood level of respect for one another. Additionally the teachers in classrooms that have more open discussion will have a better idea of where their students are coming from what they are interested in maybe even where their academic interests lay. Being informed beyond the student's names and where they sit it the classroom are an important part of an educators job, a part that we as teachers have less time to focus because of outside constraints. Though this last bit may have seamed dramatically off topic it is where my mind wandered to after the conclusion of the PBS special we watched.

Gotta love PBS

This investigation took a rather unexpected turn at the end with the suicides and eating disorders. But the points that were stressed there helped knock home some of the key ideas that were introduced early on. At the start I was not surprised with what the educators had to say about technology, and how it needs to be used regularly and that students are more educated about technology than the teachers. When you really sit down and look around you'll see that we are throughly in the throngs of a paradigm shift; we've moved past consumers of physical products to consumers of services and internet based goods. Teens are literally putting themselves on display online, something that I have never done to the extent that my peers have. I would call myself a little more classic and modest in some respects and am continually surprised about what people are willing putting on the internet for all to see. The refreshing thing is that though young teens though sharing some more elicit things are very ware of the dangers and how to avoid them. However with the internet they are even more accessible than before they can be tormented from afar with great ease. As a future educator there will be a continued need for teachers to be aware and teach students how to manage cyber bullying.

more and more garage band

Well planning with garage band again and more fully exploring all the features of the program, from personalizing ringtones, adjusting some of the classics or learning to play the piano or guitar. Looking at all these learn to options reminds me of one of my placements in undergrad where I was able to utilize Rosetta Stone to introduce Spanish to a kindergarten class. Initially I thought it was a tad early to be teaching a new language, but truth be told it is actually the perfect time to learn a new language because students' brains are already use to and wired to absorb and learn new language. The same goes for instruments and computers, the world of computers is very much a unique language with lots of conjugations and special rules for the use of certain words in specific situations. In today's world young children are being exposed to more an more diverse technologies, from their phones to their toys and their computers. Children are entering school with a very larger computer vocabulary and are far more computer literate than we were at the same age. So whenever possible I think it is crucial that we as teachers use new and varied resources to keep our students interested motivated and excited about the content they are learning.

I'm listening

The remainder of the presentations were just as good as the other half, but I must say that garage band stole the show. I swear if I had that program on my computer that I would be playing with it all the time. I am such a techno geek that I would just sit and explore every possible option until I understood the whole thing. However I barely have time to sit and read a book so thats not going to happen anytime soon. In reality I can see this happening over and over again as new fun programs and gadgets come out; and the truth of the matter is that my future students will most likely know these programs better. When I hit that point I am going to have to take it in stride and let my students teach me about something that I don't know. Much like I am sure I have taught many of my teachers little things about technology. The next generation, in fact the ones are due to start school shortly, they will be more technologically rich from having growing up in an environment where technology is everywhere from phones to microwaves. I just want to say that I remember phones that didn't need electricity to run, ones that didn't have push buttons or light-up screens. While on today's side of things there are some kids might not even have a home phone. I grew at the birth of the internet, students know are fully computer literate and savy beyond what I was at their age.

Wow, wow, I digress. The truth of the matter is Garage band=awesome tons of fun, and I can see numerous options and uses for it in a classroom. End of story, done.

I never knew 15min was so long...

Though we were unable to finish all of the presentations because in the world of new media 15 minutes can last a rather long time, I really enjoyed all the dialoguing we were bale to do after the presntation had finished. I think it really gave us all a chance to get to knwo one abother better and more fully understand the place we have all come from. The topics everyone chose truly spoke to each of as individuals and think that is an important fact that many educators soon forget when they allow students to choose a topic at will. I really like the fact that you could tell everyone was really passionate about the topic they were presenting on because we all were able to talk at lengths about the intricacies and the possible classroom application to no end.

I was really amazed at hoe much I had forgotten when it came to calculators and was wowed at all the different options there were when it came to smart boards. Along with the fall backs of bot, over reliance of technology can hinder us in the short run of things. However integrating technology into our classrooms while still utilizing traditional methods allows to use technology but not fall victim to it when for some reason it is not cooperating.