COL. 250

I want to take this time to thank everyone who was in my COL.250 class this semester. Cathy and Maggie did a great job with presenting the information to us to use as future educators, while making the class very enjoyable. Everyone in the class was always a joy to be with and this was by far my favorite class of the semester! I want to wish everyone the best of luck in your future as educators...I know each of yall will do a great job!

COPYRIGHT

Copyright is a very gray issue that the head of the Midlands Library came and spoke with us about. Copyright will never be easy to understand, but it does protect the people who think of all this cool stuff for us to use! I never really thought about copyright until this speech, and I am glad that it was presented in class, because I think all professionals should understand a little part of it. Fortunately, educators are protected under what is considered "Fair Use," fair use allows educational tools to be used without copyright laws. There are still some sketchy areas even when considering fair use. You may never take a copy out of a 'coloring book' and reproduce it, or if you show a movie it has to be shown in a certain time frame. I respect the copyright issue, but still find it very hard to remember everything that is pertinent to an educator!

BLOGS, WIKIS AND PODCASTS

Maggie did a great job introducing blogs, wikis, and podcasts to the class. All three are resources that teachers can now use, especially with the increasing computer knowledge that students have and create different resources for their students. A blog is what I am doing now, somewhat of an informal way to get feelings out there, a wiki is a group of different projects together, some schools are even using them for their newsletter, and a podcast is a audio project. There are great resource videos out there to use if teachers will take the time to learn the new things. I am thrilled about being able to use technology in the classroom to meet standards!

DISCUS

A representative from DISCUS came and spoke with us about the resources that are available on line for all South Carolina students. DISCUS is a set group of resources and databases that have been set up and all schools and educational institutes have the password needed to log in. DISCUS is a great resource, there is information for children as young as kindergarten who are learning the basics in research to academic journals for college students. I have posted a link to the DISCUS website:
http://scdiscus.org/

Linda Lucas

Linda Lucas, a retired University of South Carolina librarian and master at literacy and children with disabilities came and spoke with us about children's books in particular. She spoke about different disabilities that classroom teachers may encounter, and possible books that may appeal to them. She also did a hearing simulation with us, portraying to us what it would be like to try to hear in a classroom setting with different types of hearing loss. It is amazing to think of what children with disabilities go through to try to be 'normal.' I have posted the link to the Linda Lucas Walling Collection:

http://www.libsci.sc.edu/fsd/walling/web/bestfolder.htm

Praxis

So I took the Praxis test yesterday, and I failed the math part by one point...oh well:( But I blew the reading out of the water, so I guess I'm glad that my comprehension skills are decent. Hope the two other ladies who took the same test at a different place had great success. I really hate the idea of standerized tests, I was not any good at them in high school and I'm still not. I mean, is there not another way to make sure that I am "compotent" enough to teach our future kids? I guess I'll just pay an outragous amount to take the math part again...

Community Resource Projects

The Community Resource projects were intended for us to go out in the community and find resources to use as possible field trips one day. I chose a police station in the area and worked with them to compose a pile of resources that were geared from kindergarten to seniors. It was very interesting to see how everyone in the community is very willing to help teachers in order to then help the kids. I almost had too much information at the end and felt very lucky! It was nice to see all the other resources in the community that others did...infact, I called the SC Fire Museum after hearing Joannes and booked with them a field trip this summer for my four year olds!

Learning Centers

The Learning Centers were a semster long project that were composed of different resources classroom teachers can use in order to present a certain topic. We had to choose from a health and safety topic, and I chose the topic 'drugs' intended for grades 5-9 in a health or science related field. The learning centers had to be compromised of...lesson plans, websites, videos, on-line game, books, databases, and a misc. one and for that I found a guest speaker. It was so much fun finding these different resources from different souces all over the place. When we had to present them in class I was so exicited to see everyone else's and I walked away with a good pile of resources for the future! Thanks to our 'classmom' for bringing us the treats!

When we visited Oak Grove Elementary school mid-semester, it was very enlightening to see the cooperation that took place between the teachers, and media specialists there. They really were like a family in that one school! The librarian there told us about how she works with her teachers to promote literacy in the schools and that it is very imperative for teachers and librarians to work togther as a 'team' in order to provide the best learning experience possible for the students. If a teacher is very choosy, and picky about who helps her, in the long run it is only going to hurt the students. In the past she had been a teacher and understands herself how hard the classroom teachers have to work, and is there to assist them. OGE is very lucky to have the team that they do!