Smith's World

Metaphor

jrocksmith2009 — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 19:10:15 +0000

You see or hear metaphors almost everyday. Metaphors are created to help people better understand reality. The metaphor that we will be looking at today is “Sadness is but a wall between two gardens”, which in reality says before and after sadness is happiness. This may not actually always be the case but the point to get is that even if you aren’t truly happy you aren’t as sad as you once was. Everyone grieves and everyone gets better. If you look at sadness as only being a wall and you know that if you keep on keeping on it will get better you are going to try harder. This metaphor tells me to keep my head up and always look at the bright side of life. This metaphor also makes me think of building character. I believe that its not always about being happy its about what you have to do to get there, that is what makes you as a person. I’ll leave you with this, As a miley cyrus song states “ain’t about how fast I get there, ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side, it’s the climb.

Social Bookmarking

jrocksmith2009 — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 18:58:14 +0000

Its the new way of life. It’s safe to say that almost everyone is some form or fashion connected to the internet today. Social bookmarking makes the internet that much easier. Let’s say I have a blog about college sports, I will “tag” this blog with the words; sports, college, and maybe my favorite college sports team UGA. When people search blogs with these keywords or tags they could stumble upon my blog. Social bookmarking can also be used to save website favorites. If i am on a web page that I like and want to continue to go to, I can add the website to “favorites” so that I can easily access it. For more information on Social Bookmarking you can check out the wikipedia page ..here.

A newer type of Social Bookmarking has also emerged. It consist of tagging your favorite sites to a web page. Having this luxury you can access your favorites from any computer instead of just one.

Social Networking

jrocksmith2009 — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:45:29 +0000

Social networking is a way of life in today’s society. Almost everyone is using it in some form or fashion no matter if you are a child or an adult. Having social networking in a classroom can take learning to a whole new world. Students will not be simply be reading a textbook and taking test to be assessed anymore. One type of social networking that you could use with your students would be Voice Thread.Voice thread is a website that allows people to upload pictures and give voice comments on them. As a teacher there are several different ways you could use this website with your students such as; having students upload pictures that represent the lesson at hand and having them comment on each other’s pictures. Another social networking site that you can incorporate in your classroom is a facebook. With facebook, it will give you an extra edge to getting to know your students. Facebook can also allow students to communicate and help each other out on assignments they may not fully understand. Cl4pt is a website that is dedicated to the set up for learning professionals to discuss social learning and offers some valuable information. Other uses and tips for social networking in a classroom can be found at social networking for teachers.

Along with the good of social networking there is of course the bad. When you use social networking you are putting yourself out there for virtually everyone to see. As a teacher, you have to be careful what information you put onto your site. Since many people will be looking at your pages you do not need to get a bad impression about yourself. Depending on the age group you are teaching, you may not want to use a social networking website such as Facebook. Students could take what is intended for learning purposes and turn them into something totally different such as; a thought of a relationship. Another disadvantage you might consider is the fact that some students will be uncomfortable sharing his or hers work with others. This could lead to students disliking your class or possibly not completing assignments in fear of not being as good as everyone else. Situations like this should be confronted at the beginning of the semester so that students know it is not an art contest but a different way of learning and experiencing new things.

Evaluating Web Sites

jrocksmith2009 — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:08:23 +0000

When you do research you need to make sure the source you are using is reliable. There are many different ways to check your source such as; checking the domain name. The domain name tells you where the article is from. Most people think “.edu” and “.gov” sites are trustworthy; however, this isn’t always the case. Both of these types of websites can have personal pages within their main site. There are several common ways to tell if the source is a personal page or not such as; A tilde (~), a percent sign or if it states users or members in the link. You also want to check the validity of the author. Ask yourself; does this author know he or she is talking about? What other articles has this author written? All of these questions will be helpful with deciding what articles are reliable sources or not. For further information please check out Alan November’s website.

West Virginia Ninja

jrocksmith2009 — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:24:03 +0000

10 simple things in life that make me happy.

jrocksmith2009 — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:17:33 +0000

10. Naps

9. The cool side of the pillow

8. The feeling/smell of freshly washed sheets

7. Favorite song coming on the radio

6. Breakfast in bed

5. Finding money in an old pair of jeans.

4. The first day of vacation.

3. Cold beer at then end of a long hot day.

2. Waking up thinking you have to go to school or work , but you realize it’s the weekend.

1. Surprising a loved one with a gift and seeing his or her’s reaction.

Web 2.0

jrocksmith2009 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:19:39 +0000

What is web 2.0? Apparently there isn’t a set definition. So let’s see web 2.0 is social networking, blogging, wikis, audio, video, etc; all through the web. Who would have thought, over the past few years I have been using web 2.0 and haven’t even realized it. When it comes to teaching with web 2.0 it is going to take teaching to a new level. Teach web 2.0 is a perfect site to help people use web 2.0 applications in their classrooms. Having students use the internet for different types of applications will expand their learning. Students may think they are just doing a fun project, when in reality they are learning a key concept. One application a teacher might use in his or her classroom is Museum box. Museum box is a website in which students create cubes with information on them; the cubes can have pictures or texts on each side. One example of this application would be if you were teaching about comma usage. You could have students put a picture of an object, the comma rule at use, and a sentence that uses the comma rule and whatever is in the picture. Web 2.0 has changed the internet and it will definitely change our classrooms.