The Edible Schoolyard and A Night in the Global Village

The Edible Schoolyard video is about the students at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkley, CA. These students are planting, harvesting, and eating what they grow in their garden. The teachers incorporate Social Studies, Science, Math, and Life Skills into this project. The children grow it, cook it, and eat it. They learn values as well. Most families today are not like they were back in the day. The children are learning how to cook, where there food comes from, and how to set a table. The students do not feel like they are in school but they are learning. They also learn the values of sharing and talking with their classmates. They learn about compost, ecosystems, photosynthesis, building community, and how to cooperate.

The program was started by Alice Waters who is a chef that wanted to improve school lunch programs. She refers to the program as a "Delicious Revolution". From this video I have learned the importance of teaching children simple values that they need that they may not be learning at home. I think this project is fundamental for middle school age students.

Heifer International is a company that has Global Ranchs throughout the U.S. They donate livestock to impoverished countries around the world. The video was about a group of kids who spent a night at one of Heifer Intl. ranches. The ranch is divided into different poverty stricken countries. There is Guatamala, Thailand, Zambia, Appalachians, and a Refugee Canmp. Each village is given different supplies to survive through the night. The only village not given anything is the Refugee Camp, wo must go around and see if they can have food from one of the other villages but they must only use non verbal communication.

The students that participated realized how important it is to help others and got a feel for what it is like to live in a poverty stricken country. They learned what its like to go to sleep hungry. I think that because these kids voluntarily did this it built character in them. These children understand now what this is like. I have learned that children really do care about whats going on in our world and not just about video games and television.

iTunes University

iTunes University is part of iTunes where instrustors and administrators can distribute educational media. The best part of this is that it is free. Professors can share their information with with their students and students from other colleges as well. Their are videosand podcasts. There are many different subjects that you can research. There are featured topics as well. There is business, fine arts, teaching, education, history, humanities, and literature are several categories that iTunes U has.

If you are interested in a particular University, you just search for the University and you are taken to their iTunes U page. From there you can search different subjects and view featured topics.Once you click on a topic you will be directed to the course homepage where you can view the audio or video. It is FREE!!! As a college student and a person in the U.S., free is a good thing in our economy! I think that having these free lectures is great. The video is a great way to learn how to use iTunes University.

This program is useful to students. If a student is doing research they could use iTunes U to access credible information. It can also be useful to the students that are in that particular professors class. They can go back and listen to the audio from the professors lectures. The videos can also be useful to those that need to watch the professor speaking.As a student this would be particularly helpful to me because I can listen to how other teachers explain things and learn from their lectures.

iTunes U is also useful to other professors. Other professors can use these lectures for their classes as well. I think that it is important for people in education to be able to shar ideas. As a teacher this could be very useful to me when I need to get information about certain subjects, whether its information in special education, or information on a topic I would like to cover in my own classroom. iTunes U is definitely a great program that I will use often in my college education.

iPods in the Classroom

In my search for articles about iPods used in instruction, I found an article about the positive use of iPods in the classroom. School CIO: Strategies for K-12 Technology Leaders is the website I found this article "iPods in the Classroom" by Susie Meserve.

Meserve's article explains why iPods are a good thing to use in the classroom. Meserve states,"According to Robert Craven, education technology coordinator for the Orange County Department of Education in California, iPods offer astounding possibilities for education. Administrators can record meetings, administer professional development activities, and keep contact information for every student and faculty member in the district. But the real benefits are for students, who use iPods to count calories, to record themselves reading, to make podcasts—even to get to the moon." In her article she interviews Mr. Robert Craven asking him what his reaction to the iPod when it first came out,and what the eductional possibilities are. He says that the first time he heard about the iPod his first thought was about the way they could be used in education. He points out the fact that you can use music in your lectures and intergrate video as well as let the class listen to famous speeches.

On the Wired website I found an article about Duke University giving their incoming freshman iPods. The article states that Duke gave their 1,650 incoming freshman 20GB iPods preloaded with an academic calender and freshman orientation information as well as the Duke fight songs. They did this because they wanted the students to use this technology. Katie Dean, the author of the article states, "Students also will be able to use the devices to download course content, recorded lectures, foreign language lessons, audio books and music from a special Duke website modeled after iTunes. The school will supply voice recorders for some classes, enabling students to record notes while working in the field." I think this concept makes very much sense. From what I have learned in my EDM class, I can agree that technology is growing and that by using iPods it makes things easier for students. In my experience with note taking it can be very strenuious. By having an iPod it can ease that stress of note taking.

Review of Dr. Christie's Site

While viewing Dr. Christie's site the one thing that caught my attention is the Virtual Field Trip Workshop that she does. I read about the reasons for them and how they work. Dr. Christie explains that with gas prices, and the country's economic situation, field trips may not actually be in the school's budget. With videos, audio, and pictures your class can go on a virtual field trip.

As a future Special Education teacher I want to allow my class to partake in thses virtual fieldtrips. I think that one of the best ways for children to learn about something is through experiences. By taking a virtual field trip, the class can have a field trip in the classroom without costing anyone anything. I think the idea itself is genius.

I think that it is a great idea to share the Virtual field trips with other educators. Dr. Christie talks about other educators sharing their virtual field trips. One thing I have learned through my experience in classrooms is that sharing successful lesson plans and information with other teachers can help the students learn. Although you as a teacher may have great ideas, others hae great ideas too.

I think some good ideas for Virtual Field Trips that would be useful in my classroom are virtually visiting farms,zoos,and beaches. We could discuss the different types of animals and compare and contrast the different enviroments. I think this idea of virtual field trips has endless posibilities to where your class can go on their virtual field trip. I enjoyed looking at many different things on Dr. Christie's site, but I must say this was the most interesting thing in my opinion.

Can Wikipedia be trusted?

Throughout my college education I have been told many times when doing research do not use Wikipedia. Because it can be changed, it should not be trusted. I have never used Wikipedia as a source for any type of research for school related assignments. The only time I use it is to just find out information about some things I google. From the articles I have read, it seems that people go in and change the things that relate to them. For example, the Church of Scientology changed some of their information, as well as the Catholic Church has changed their information. From the Wasted website article I learned that people can see who is editing Wikipedia. This article has some very interesting information. It says that someone from the Diebold company deleted information about the company. It also stated that Walmart changed the site saying they paid double minimum wage, when before it said they paid less.

I do not think anyone should completely trust information that they get from Wikipedia. If someone is doing research for something that is school related they should not use Wikipedia. My professors are right for informing other students and myself of this. I think that if someone is researching something that they are curious about they should look at reliable sources as well as wikipedia just to be sure of their findings. Some reliable sources may be actual articles by creditted sources such as newspapers and magazines. If a college student is researching information for school they should go to their libraries website and look at one of the databases the college pays for. I think its great that the college pays for these research databases for its students.
The USA libraries databases are extremely helpful.