Elser's Thoughts

2008-11-09T17:39:00.001-08:00

Final Blog On My RSS Experience

2008-10-22T17:40:00.000-07:00

My RSS experience has been education and enlightening. The kind and amount of information that one can have fed to them on a daily even hourly basis is incredible. As I have said before one can truly save and hour a day or more by using RSS. Some might disagree, as they believe that if they have their bookmarks set up that this is kind of like having a RSS feeder. This is how I got my information in the morning before I discovered RSS. I am now a RSS convert. This is where I go to in the morning to check the news, see what new gadgets are out there, follow my sports teams, and watch or listen to podcasts when I want to.

Igoogle has worked for me. It is bringing in some interesting information. I really like the quotes page I set up as I like to use those with my basketball team. I am finding that searching with Key words like "fitness" have helped me find better widgets for my physical education tab. I had been struggling for a while to find useful and helpful gadgets. There are still endless widgets out there to add that I have not explored. I look forward to searching for some fun and ones that can be helpful to me.

Problems I had were in my hast to set up RSS and Igoogle. I would quickly add them to my reader or google account without thoroughly researching them to see they are something that I would want. What I learned is that it would save me time to take the time to properly read and check out a blog or website that I subscribe to.

I just started a fitness goals research project with my 10th grade physical education class and had a great time showing them google docs and having them all set up accounts and using google docs to write the goals and do some researching and planning. I am trying to think of a way to use blogs to have the students reflect on the experience and possibly have them write blogs on the progress they are making towards their goals. What do think? Any suggestions from anyone would be welcomed.

RSS Posting 3

2008-10-21T09:55:00.001-07:00

Well it has been a few days since my last blog about RSS, Igoogle, and podcasts and spent a lot of time tweaking my RSS reader. It has become apparent that some of the information that I had subscribed to looked interesting at first but as I spend time with them I find that they are not the best feeds to be watching, so I spent alot of time tweaking my RSS feeds these past few days. Also, some blogs I subscribed to have not had a new posting since I added them. Some I have kept as they have some good information, but others I have deleted to make space for new and better ones.

PE for Children is rapidly becoming my favorite blog to read. They have many interesting articles about children and obesity and the last article I read PE and No Child Left Behind talked about how PE is not held accountable like core curriculum classes.

I find that looking for stuff that I want to have in my RSS feeder has been fun and educational. My problem is I can spend too much time doing it as I can get distracted by working with and following new leads on technologies, ideas, and gadgetry. For instance, Engadget is always putting up new hardware that is in the works or they have an opionion about well... before you know it I am doing searches about the product to learn more about it. But the more I think about it I think that it is actually a benefit. But it still takes time and then by the time I am done playing I still need to do my assingment.
I will talk more about this in my 4th and final blog about RSS.

2nd Blog on RSS

2008-10-18T15:21:00.000-07:00

It's been about a week since I have set up RSS feeds and and igoogle pages. As I pointed out in my first blog about setting up RSS I was using it heavily before I got my assignment for ET course. My morning routine is still pretty much the same except that because I have added a few RSS feeds like this one I found on in education called MAT Strand 2 Blog which led me to EduHound.com which is a pretty useful website that has links to sites for lesson ideas on just about any topic. I am starting my Fitness Unit next week and it led me to a useful website that is helping me with my planning and teaching of the unit.

On igoogle one of my favorite pages to look at is a "Quotes" page that I set up. It is great as I can read and look at a lot of quotes at one time. I usual take a picture of the one I like and I store them in a file so that I can reference them later for when I want to use one in class or to share with my basketball team.

I have also came across website called YouTube APIs and Tools that can help you figure out ways you can access YouTube. One of them is a way to put a YouTube search engine in your own application or websites. I have not figured out how to do it yet, but maybe you can.

One of the podcasts that I am currently subscribed to is call PTI Pardon The Interuption. Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon face off on the latest sports topics. You can also see them on ESPN, but what I like about podcasts are that I can listen to them when I have the time instead of making sure I watch the ESPN episode that airs there show. They are fun to listen to as they rarely agree with each other and they can get after it and have a lot of friendly banter. The only thing I don't like are the commercials, but they are short and I can fast forward through them if I want to.

How does this all this help me learn? Good question. First of all using RSS does save me time as all I need to go is to one place to get the stuff that is important to me. But most importantly it keeps me connected to the information that I want. I also find myself looking for more information that can help me be more efficient and help me be a better teacher.

RSS And What It Means To Me

2008-10-15T17:18:00.000-07:00

As soon as I was introduced to RSS I recognized what unique tool this was. I immediately subscribed to all the sports, news, and websites that I usually would navigate to while drinking my morning coffee. It was great as all I had to do was go to one spot to get the stuff that was important to me delivered to one place. I now have RSS feeds for technology as you can see in the picture one of my favorites to check out is Engadget as they are posting all the new and cool stuff about tech gadgets. I also subscribe to sports, news, EIT class, my classmates blogs, blogs that I follow, and my PE stuff. I also use igoogle to collect and look at information that it is important to me. I am learning as I look through the information from both my RSS feeds and igoogle that each one has a lot of the same information but certain information is easier to look at in one form or the other. For example I like to look at weather and sports in igoogle and news in RSS. Here is a picture of my igoogle. It is a lot of fun looking for new gadgets. You to could save an hour a day by using RSS and igoogle.

Sports of Sorts Tour of Second Life

2008-10-08T16:24:00.001-07:00

This blog is going to take you on a tour of some sports/activities that I have located in Second Life. I spent a lot time looking for traditional sport such as basketball, soccer, football, volleyball, rugby, tennis, etc. I found a few sites that were dedicated to some of these sports, but I decided that maybe adding some sports or leisure activities might be fun and interesting also. Most sites have more than one sport or activity offered for you to try. I believe that all of them have at least one or more free activity that you can try. But many sites offer things that you can buy, anywhere from clothes to equipment. With all this in mind I hope you enjoy your tour and find yourself able to keep fit and active in SL. Just click on the picture of the site and it should take you to the area in SL. Have fun and good luck!

Kona Island
This a place for interested in triathlons. You can follow live events and subscribe to a multi-sport radio podcasts. You can find a nice place to meditate as you see me doing so in the picture.

Baller City
This a place where you can learn how to play hoops in second life or you can hang out and watch people play in a park. You can practice your skills and when you get good enough you can see if anyone wants to play one on one.

Ice Skating
You can get a free pair of skates and go ice skating with friends or new friends. There is also some games to play and some socializing areas like dancing and if you have someone special a kissing bench.

Skydiving
Really cool place where you can skydive. I went up 4,000 meters and free fell to about 100m then my chute deployed and I safely landed on the ground. I always wanted to skydive it was an awsome experience and it almost felt like I was there!

Carribana Boulevard
This is a place where you can try out many different sports and if you like them you can by them. I played tennis, Foosball, volleyball, badminton, table tennis (ping pong), and as seen pictured here I rode in a whirly ride thing. It was a lot of fun!

Bodybuilding
nteresting site that has a gym where you can lift weights and perform exercises, but also has an interesting collection of boats, helicopters, planes, and a miitary side of things.

Snowboarding
Cool place where I got a free snowboard and boots and snowboarded down the a hill in Salzberg. And then afterwards you can lounge around with friends and have cup of hot chocolate or go exploring Salzburg.

Boxing
I didn't find gloves so that I could go boxing, but I was able to practice my boxing skills on different hitting bags. I was also able to workout doing situps and pushups.

Technology & Application

2008-09-24T13:10:00.000-07:00

My new class Emerging Technologies to this point has been a whirl wind. I want to take a few moments to reflect on what has happened since the beginning of this class to now. First and for most I absolutely love the gadgetry and exploring the infinite wealth of information that exists in Web 2.0. I have for too long been sitting on my haunches and using the Internet for shopping or just looking up information...not to say that that is bad, but in just a short time Dr. Z has introduced me to an abundant of cool interactive and productive ways to collaborate with colleagues.

I have already begun to use several technologies such as Google docs and Google sites to help with communication and collaboration with my colleagues at work. One of my goals for this class will be to learn how I can apply all this new information and technology in to my teaching. I would also like an area of our class project to reflect how we could create a learning community that will be able to help others like me. I just want to someone to show me how to do it and give me the resources to get the job done.

Dalton Sherman

2008-09-14T11:32:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen this You Tube video of Dalton Sherman's speech to a group of teachers in Dallas at a back to school in service you should. He talks about believing in all students. It's a cute video with big message!

Thoughts on class readings

2008-09-11T15:07:00.000-07:00

This will be quick. I love reading Prenske. I think he is right on with where we need to go with embracing technology and making it work in schools. What I hate is that there is so much new stuff that he talks about that I stop reading and go play instead of concentrating on my reading. The other downfall is that it is time consuming, but I am finding it most worth while as I am already using texting as a way to communicate with one of classes and it has been quite effective. Could talk more but I gotta run.

Young Minds, Fast Times: The Twenty-First-Century Digital Learner

2008-09-09T19:41:00.000-07:00

Once again Prensky is right on the money with this article. I am a big supporter/believer is giving the students some ownership in the education. Whether or not it is linked with using the latest or greatest technology that students relate to. The key is finding something that you can connect with students from their lives that they care about and they know you care about. For example, I find that just by playing music in class and letting students peruse through my ipod can be a way to connect. They get to see what kind of music I like and then we end up talking about it and I find out what they like. It's fun.

Prensky, M. (2001) Digital natives, digital immigrants.

2008-09-09T19:26:00.000-07:00

I found reading this article by Prensky thinking about my experience growing up with technology and how it was used. What I remember about computers was basically that I played Oregon Trail on them and loved it! My first video game was Atari and all through college the only use I had for a computer was to word process and I wasn't very good at that. But by the time I bought my first computer...Mac of course. I was hooked on wanting to learn more. My only problem with technology right now is that as much as I want to keep up with it I find it very time consuming to research and play with the new stuff out there.

I do feel that I kind of a tweener when it comes to digital natives and digital immigrants. I grew up with a little technology and I as I could afford it love buying the toys. I am probably more of an immigrant as I oftened am behind on whats the latest and greatest. Just in three short weeks I have learned a ton of stuff about some cool stuff on the internet.

Emerging thoughts about technology

2008-09-04T18:11:00.000-07:00

I think the theme of this class should be change to "Doing common things in an uncommon way". I really felt that today's discussions really center around this theme. How can we teach something old in a new way by incorporating emerging technologies.