I-Movie PSA

NETS 1,2,3
This is a Video I made using I-Movie. I imported video and audio clips into I-movie and used editing to create an original public service announcement.  I included screen effects, transitions, freeze frames, and voice overs.

Journal 10: Learning Connections: Find Free Tools and More NETS-T 1,2,3,4

Ribera, M. (2011). Learning connections: find free tools and more. Learning and Leading with Technology, 38(6), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/issues/Learning_Connections_Find_Free_Tools_and_More.aspx

This article discusses a great web resource for teachers called, EduTecher. This online site was developed by Adam Bellow, director of technology for College Board Schools and an ISTE emerging leader and therefore directly addresses teachers needs. This is a free of cost and free of ads site that catalogs and shares web tools for for the classroom at all grade levels and disciplines. This site is now in its third redesign, and contains more than 1000 links for teachers, students and parents of all different technological experience levels. Bellow includes sites designed for classroom use as well as others that can be re-purposed for the classroom using his explanation of how to incorporate the site into your lesson. Each site has a clear explanation of how it can be used beneficially in the classroom from a former educators perspective. This site also has a collaborative aspect, as each link allows users to leave feedback and questions. Users an also leave their own links and web tools for other teachers to use. This web resources has a great search tool that allows teachers to find specific sites to enrich their lessons regardless of time restraints. EduTecher is also readily available to teachers due to its availability on mobile applications such as the i-phone and other smart mobile devices.

Question 1: How will this site help you as a new teacher?

This site will be very beneficial to me as a new teacher as it will help me develop lessons using web 2.0 tool that will engage my students and connect with the standards of my lessons. I will also be able to use it to collaborate with other educators and ask questions about how to use the site or complete a lesson.

Question 2:

Did you find this article useful?

Yes, I did find this article helpful as I was not aware of this site beforehand, and it sounds like a great tool that I will be able to use throughout my teaching career.

Journal 9: "Teaching Green" NETS-T 1,2

Waters, John. (2011). Teaching green. The Journal, 38(4), Retrieved from http://thejournal.com/research/2011/04/digital-edition_april_pdf/asset.aspx?tc=assetpg&returnkey=DUc5hIYTuX9Y8Xmk4MsZaQse9VSulSL2

Summary:
In this article the author, John Waters, discusses educational websites that address the National Environmental Education Act enacted by President Nixon in the 1960's. These websites all provide resources for students and teachers about "green teaching and learning". The first website is called, "Classroom Earth". Directed towards high school students, this site encourages inclusion of environmental science into other high school subjects. There are resources for students and teachers including lesson plan ideas. The next source was "Walk in the Woods", a website for younger students grade 3-5 who are not often exposed to true nature. This offers a virtual tour trip through the woods in either English or Spanish that includes notes, picture snapshots, and identifies Illinois statewide learning goals, as well as sample lesson activities. "EEK" or "Environmental Education for Kids" is for student’s grade 4-8 and is in the form of an online magazine. It provides lessons on an array of environmental subjects, and also has a great teacher’s page with tips for teachers and subject specific lessons. "The Ecological Footprint Quiz" allow Highschool students to take a test to see how many planet earths it would take to sustain their lifestyle, hence showing them their environmental footprint. This will encourage students to live more sustainably to preserve our earth. "Power Up" is an online multi-player game in which participants get to save a foreign world from their environmental disasters. It also provides a parents guide and a lesson plan for teachers. Finally, the "US Environmental Protection Agency Teaching Center" is a teacher focused site that offers resources, lesson plans and helpful articles and tools separated for specific grade levels.

Question 1: How could you use these websites in your classroom?

I could use these websites in many ways as helpful resources for my class. Some of these sites I can use in my planning stages to prepare lessons for my class, and research environmental issues. Other sites students will be able to go onto during class to complete objectives, while others students can use on their own to complete assignments at home.

Question 2: Which of these sites do you believe sounds the most useful?

While all of these sites offer several useful tools, I believe the Ecological Footprint site is a great tool to allow students to visualize the damage done to the earth by not living sustainably. I used this site for one of my college courses, and it had a lot to offer students, and would be great at the high school level as well. When your Ecological footprint is high, it teaches you how to bring your score down and shows you how to live more sustainably.

Journal 8: "Point/Counterpoint: Should Schools Be Held Responsible for Cyberbullying" NETS-T 4

Bogacz, R, & Gordillo, M, G. (2011). Point/counterpoint: should schools be held responsible for cyber bullying. Learning and Leading with Technology, 38(6), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/Libraries/Leading_and_Learning_Docs/March-2011-Point-Counterpoint.sflb.ashx

Summary:
In this article, the point and counterpoint to the argument against schools responsibility in the battle against cyber bullying are addressed. Renee Bogacz offers the argument that that teachers and administration are responsible along with parents and students. This is because whether the bullying occurs on or of campus, the damage will greatly affect the schools environment as well as teenage culture. She argues that in order to make a change away from cyber bullying, teachers, administration parents and students must all work together and be on the same page. Teachers must begin by listening to their students and providing them with available resources. Administration must then establish clear consequences and follow threw with them so students know this behavior is not tolerated. Parents must monitor their children’s cell phone and computer use, and insist that they delete offensive material. Finally, students need to understand what cyber bullying is and take a stand against it by not being a bystander, but rather encouraging other students to report it.
The counter-argument was written by Migual Gordillo. He argued that schools can not be held responsible for behaviors that have been learned at home. He claims that today’s society has lost touch with the institution of functional families. With more and more kids living in broken homes, dual income homes, and young uneducated parents, more kids are not being offered the LOVE they need to learn compassion and tolerance towards others. Since parents are the primary educators, they must learn how to raise their children how to treat others, and the difference between right and wrong. In his opinion, educators can help parents with this by communicating with the parents about their educational plan for their children, and providing them with helpful resources.

Question 1: Do you agree with the argument, or counter-argument?

While the counter-argument is true that most behavior problems are learned at home, I believe the argument is correct that it is the responsibility of teachers, administration and parents to ensure children’s cyber safety. All of the above are responsible for teaching, monitoring and protecting children’s safety since they are all role models and positive influences on children’s development.

Question 2: What ways can you influence your students to take a stand against cyber bullying?

I believe it is important to teach students about what cyber bullying is and how they can recognize it. I believe a great time to do this would be during character lessons, when you can address what is right and what is wrong. Students will learn what cyber bullying is, how it can affect classmates, and what they can do to make a difference.

Journal 7: My Personal Learning Network NETS-T 4,5

My Personal Learning Network or PLN is important because it allows me to collaborate with other educators and continue learning about emerging theories in education. A PLN is a collection of social media networks in which you can connect with people who share similar interests and collaborate with one another about ideas, educational resources, and helpful on line links. It is therefore very important as a classroom teacher to establish a PLN as it connects you to others around the world and allows you to stay up to date with emerging technological advances and educational practices.

Twitter is a great addition to a professional PLN. While it is often looked at negatively due to its social and gossip aspects, many people fail to realize the networks endless educational possibilities. There are many people, my self included, who use twitter strictly as an educational and collaborative tool. On my Twitter account I currently have just over ten followings who are all classmates, future teachers, or current educators. By following such people, we will be able to view each other tweets, and collaborate on our shared interest of education. On twitter I also participated in an online chat sessions, in which educators around the world all meet to communicate about a specific topic over the period of one hour. I participated in the #edchat discussion on Tuesday April 5th from nine to ten am. The topic of the chat was, "Social Media is a professional tool for successful exchange of information and collaboration. How do we involve more educators". This topic was strangely relevant to my participation in the chat, as it directly addressed the importance of establishing a PLN. During the chat, I was more of an observer then anything else, as I was a little overwhelmed by the vast participation, and fast pace of the tweets. I could barely keep up, reading all the tweets but did read some very inspirational ideas about how to show others that social media can be a great educational tool.

Diigo, is another great tool for educators, as it saves you the step of searching for creditable and useful on line material and resources. Diigo is a social bookmarking tool that allows you to bookmark sites and tag them with helpful key words. Through such keywords you are able to find other sites regarding the information that other educators have already tagged as valuable. In my Diigo account, I picked my followings by first looking for others with the ed422 tag. I then explored others followings to find people who had bios that sounded like they would be a positive person to follow and learn from their bookmarked pages. I found my bookmarked PLN pages by searching PLN tags and choosing ones I thought connected to this class and my future. The first site was titled "How to use Twitter to grow Your PLN" and was an article about twitter by Edutopia.  This site listed many different educational hash tags and chats, and was a very positive site for PLN building.  The second site was titled, "Personal Learning Networks are Virtual Lockers for Schoolkids" and was also an article by Edutopia.  The final site I tagged PLN was a google site titled "building a PLN".  This was a very useful resources with links, videos and descriptions regarding PLN building. 

Finally, I became a member of classroom 2.0. This is a social media site for classroom educators who are interested in web 2.0 where they can read articles, watch videos, participate in chats and blogs and collaborate with others. Like other social networking sites, this allows you to create your own blog and follows others, except unlike twitter, it is limited to educators, which eliminated the gossip aspect. On this site I explored the elementary school 2.0 blog, which was designed to discuss the specific challenges of social media at the elementary level. On this blog people placed links to their own blogs and shared their experiences with incorporating technology in the classroom.

Journal 6: "Grow Your Personal Learning Network" NETS-T 3,4,5

Warlick, D. (2009). Grow your personal learning network. Learning and Leading with Technology, 36(6), Retrieved from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/200904?pg=15&pm=1&fs=1#pg14

Summary: In this article the author, David Warlick, explains the importance of maintaining a Personal Learning Network to establish life long learning. He writes that, "Technology has inspired a shift from a hunting-and-gathering information economy to the domestication of the information landscape"(Warlick, 2009). This refers to the vast amount of information available to educators who have established a network of peers to collaborate and gain information, without aimlessly searching in textbooks and other sources.
Warlick identifies 3 types of PLN's used to establish collaboration with others. The first is a personally maintained synchronous connection. This is the traditional network which is like attending a meeting with out the restrictions of being in the same room. The second is referred to as, personally and socially maintained semi synchronous connection. This refers to the conversations you can have through your PLN's with out the constraint of time, so people can respond when it is convenient for them. The final category is referred to as dynamically maintained asynchronous connections. In comparison to the first two categories which connect you to other people, this branch connects you with useful content sources such as education blogs and social bookmarking tools. This will be useful to you when you are searching for information because rather than getting ALL the information that has been posted on the internet about a particular subject to search through, you will only be given the sources that others have found useful, and are pre-recommended for that subjects use. All of your many PLN paths, through both new and old technology, lead to the same goal of reflecting and knowledge building and will assist you with your life long learning.

Question 1: What resources will you include in your PLN?

So far, I have already found many helpful resources to use to build a strong PLN. This includes, twitter and educational #tags, Diigo’s social bookmarking, TaskStream, and Skype. I hope that through these sources I will be able to expand my PLN by collaborating with others and learning of great new sources.

Question 2: What is one advantage to establishing a PLN?

A PLN allows me to expand my learning by collaborating with others who have similar interests. Through resources like Twitter, I can connect with fellow educator and we can share helpful links, and new ways of thinking with one another. This allows me to gain support from people all over the globe in which we can discuss educational tools and discover new techniques. My PLN will also separate useful resources from non-useful sources which will save me time and effort in the long run.

All About Me Survey

NETS-T 2, 3
This is an about me questionare I created using google forms.  I created the questions, and choose the answer format as well as an appropriate background.

Journal 4: "It's Time To Trust Teachers with the Internet: A Conversation with Meg Ormiston" NETS-T 1,2,3,4,5

Schaffhauser, D. (2010). It's time to trust teachers with the internet: a conversation with meg ormiston. The
 Journal, Retrieved from http://thejournal.com/articles/2010/12/01/its-time-to-trust-teachers-with-the-internet-a-conversation-with-meg-ormiston.aspx?sc_lang=en

Summary:
This article is an interview between The Journal staff, and Meg Ormiston, about her efforts and struggles as a school consultant responsible for incorporating technology into the classroom.  Meg Ormiston has served as a " curriculum coach, school board member, conference presenter, professional development specialist, and grant facilitator" and yet she is still facing resistance amongst school districts in her argument to use Internet resources in the classroom.  She claims that most of this struggle comes from school boards simply not trusting their teachers to have Internet access in their classrooms. 
Ormiston explains how she understands the importance of protecting our children, however this doesn't mean we need to cut them off completely from all of the useful and free, resources on the web.  Rather, she believes that administration should trust their teachers judgement to preview material for appropriateness, while also teaching students safe and responsible computing.  In doing so, she also believes that districts should not go blocking crazy, and limit access on school computers.  while she clearly believes that pornographic material, and other malicious sites should she be blocked, she believes that the blocking of social networking is more of a nuisance and will lead to further problems.  First off teachers are likely to give up on using technology in the classroom if they are continually blocked from resources.  In addition, students are not being taught to how to self filter, and are likely to run into inappropriate sites when they are surfing the web at home and have no guidance. 
Ormiston suggests that the first step is educating administration so that they become less afraid and can see the values of using the web in the classroom.  From their she suggests first opening up access to the teachers, and from their slowly opening access to the students.  Ormiston stress that regardless how much you block in the classroom, we live in an age filled with technology where children have access to the Internet regardless of schools attempt to hide it from them.  So rather than blocking sites, we should focus on educating our students with supervision, to teach them how to use all the tools at their fingertips. 

Question 1: As a teacher how could you ensure the safety of your children while using the web?
If i was given the opportunity to use the web as a resource in my classroom, with out having to worry about blocked sites, i would make sure that I was not endangering my students with inappropriate material.  First off, Any sites, or videos used in class, i would make sure to preview for appropriateness.  Second, I would teach my students what to be aware of, and how to be safe, and appropriate while using the web.  Finally i would make sure my students were always being supervised, to prevent them from entering dangerous sites, and to assist them with learning how to use web tools and resources in a positive way. 

Question 2: If you had limited access at your school and found a site that would be appropriate and beneficial to your curriculum, how would you go about using it in your classroom?
If i found a site that I had previewed and was sure it would be beneficial and appropriate, i would talk to my superiors about its value.  I would schedule an appointment with the person in charge of Internet access, and show them how the site would help my students, and aid to the curriculum.  I believe after showing them that the site was safe, and age appropriate, as well as the benefits from using the source, they would realize that it was a great aid, and would allow me to use this site.  In this way I would gain the respect of my superiors by not going behind their back, and showing them that web resources, can be a great education tool in the right context. 

Journal 5: "Research Windows: Collaboration Makes the Ed Tech World Go Round" NETS-T 1,3,5

Niederhauser, D, & Knezek, G. (2011). Research windows: collaboration makes the ed tech world go round. Learning and Leading with Technology, 38(6), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/issues/Research_Windows_Collaboration_Makes_the_Ed_Tech_World_Go_Round.aspx

Summary:
This article discusses how worldwide collaboration has allowed ed tech to expand to new possibilities.  Due to advances in transportation, telecommunication, and global web connectivity, International collaboration is now a prominent tool for educational growth world wide.  Through these tools educators are able to connect with one another, and schedule conferences around the world, to meet and collaborate on topics such as, standards, conference and research. Through technological advances, today's tech advocates are able to work together "despite distance and cultural differences" to advance technology opportunities and education for our future.(Niederhauser, & Knezek, 2011)
The way collaboration is used is to establish technological standards for our students, and lead to initiatives such as NETS-T.  This has lead to other nations attempt to collaboratively form a set of International technology standards that would provide all nations with a framework for teaching information and communication technology or ICT, in hopes of supporting innovative teachers.  Collaboration also allows educators world wide to meet through conferences in which they are able to share their ideas, research and practices.  These help establish partnership amongst different nations in their shared goal, of expanding technological opportunities, and lead to collaboration amongst many different organizations.  These collaborations ultimately lead to new research, and new technological advances and possibilities.  This research also allows us to see how technology is being used in the classroom world wide, and teaches us how we can improve, as well as the positive effects it will have on future generations. 

Question 1: How could we take global collaboration to the next step?
I believe one way to use technology to advance global collaboration would be to use tools such as skype, to hold digital conferences, where educators around the world could meet and discuss standards and research with out worrying about the expenses of traveling.  In addition, even tools as basic as google docs, would allow people globally to bounce ideas of each other with regards to research and ideas, in which they could collaboratively work together on research for the future. 

Question 2: How can I ensure that I am teaching my students the most current and age appropriate technological skills?
Through memberships such as ISTE, I will allow myself to read up on current  research, as well as participate in collaboration with other educators through conferences, and networking. In addition talking with my peers and using educational tools such as twitter, will allow me to network with other educators and share ideas, research, and resources, to ensure that I am aware of the nations view on technology.

Journal 3: 100 Things that make me happy!

1. My mom
2. My dad
3. my brother dylan (most the time)
4. my little sister Kristen( except during her pre-teen mood swings)
5. My step mom Jennifer
6. My step dad Bent
7. my Estonian step relatives
8. my grandpa and all his projects
9. my grandmas silly habits
10. my aunt michelle 
11. my cousins learning with my grandparents
12. the rest of my family
13. Hiking torrey pines with my brother
14. the beach!
15. warm water
16. sand and sun!
17. sea shells
18. sun tanning
19. pools
20. hot tubs
21. lifeguarding
22. working and earning
23. camp cedar glen
24. Julian 
25. Football fields
26. Football games
27. outdoor tracks
28. playing soccer
29. playing softball
30. dancing
31. going to bars
32. spending time with my friends
33. making new friends
34. getting together with old friends
35. Fresno State greek life
36. Delta Zeta 
37. sisterhood
38. my sisters
39. Ladybugs
40. Turtles
41. Diamonds
42. having my own room
43. my pretty car
44. my cell phone!!
45. my laptop!!
46. my families health
47. my own health
48. my bed
49. naps :)
50. food!
51. Camping at the beach
52. Camping in the dessert
53. my quad
54. my families trailer
55. motorcycles
56. boys
57. being outside
58. kids
59. working with kids
60. playing games with kids
61. teaching kids
62. getting my nails done
63. buying new clothes
64. shopping in general
65. beer
66. drinking with friends
67. drinking with family
68. laughing
69. the office
70. modern family
71. grey's anatomy
72. desperate housewives
73. full house!
74. disney movies
75. having a job finally!
76. having a degree
77. living in SD again
78. snowboarding
79. traveling
80. my new ugg boats
81. my pretty high heels
82. getting dressed up
83. sweatpants!
84. comfy sweatshirts
85. spending money!
86. relaxing
87. vacations
88. the internet
89. netflix
90. facebook
91. hulu
92. email
93. keeping in contact with fresno friends
94. girls nights
95. watching movies
96. cooking
97. getting good grades
98. sunsets
99. star gazing
100. living life!

Technology Self-Assesment: School 2.0

NETS-T 2, 4, 5

This was an internet resource that allowed us to test our own familiarity with the NETS standards and explore helpful resources that would ahelp enamble us to meet the standards in our classroom. 

I choose to explore Nets-Ts standard 4, Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibly, because it seemed very interesting to me.  The Question that really caught my eye was number 4 which stated, "I involve students in opportunities to develop cultural understanding and global awareness through digital-age communications and collaboration projects with students from other countries." As of today, I would have no clue how to engage my class with communication with other students from other countries, but see this as a truly remarkable learning tool.  However while this site did not have any specific resources to help me establish this communication, it did have many other resources involving teaching students proper online etiquette and communication with others.  One that I thought would be a great classroom experience was titled, Skype an Author, in which students would be able to actually sit face to face via the internet with the author of the book they are studying.  Another great tool was called eLanguages, and was a collaboration tool for teachers around the world to share lessons and ideas.  Through this site Teachers can begin conversations with teachers from other countries which could possible build a online relationship between the two classes, in which the students will be able to learn about the others cultures and lifestyles.  

Journal 2: "Join the Flock", "Enhance your Twitter Experience" NETS-T 1,3,4

Ferguson, H, & McClintock Miller, S. (2010). Join the flock, enhance your twitter experience. Learning and Leading with Technology, 37(8), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/Libraries/Leading_and_Learning_Docs/June_July_2010_Join_the_Flock.sflb.ashx

Summary:
This article is written as a beginners guide for educators using twitter as a professional learning network, or PLN.  It begins with Hadley Furguson's step by step instructions on forming a twitter account and establishing an interactive community.  She explains how when you set up your account is it important to identify yourself in your bio with personal interests that you may wish to learn more about by following others with the same identifiers.  For example, as a teacher, I would want to identify myself as so to attract other people with similar interests who may want to follow me and share their ideas.  You will then begin to form a network of people who will tweet helpful resources which you can read and learn from.  She explains how even if you are apprehensive about leaving your own input you can read others post with no pressure.  However, once you feel comfortable to input your own knowledge, your community of followers will grow and establish more resources for your professional growth. 
From here, Shannon McClinton Miller continues by explaining ways to enhance your twitter experience.  She explains how her twitter account has exposed her to many great educational tools that she otherwise would have never known about.  Not only can you learn from others, but you as well can share with others great resources and expose your followers to helpful links.  Shannon continues by explaining how to use helpful tools to help organize and manage all the resources of the twitter community.  She explains the use of hash tags to focus in on a specific area of concentration as well as organization tools such as tweet deck and hirsute to help easily manage your different communities of interest.  Through these articles, the beginning tweeter can learn of the advantages to a PLN, and the ways in which they can benefit by using twitter as an educational resource. 

Question 1: What is a PLN, and how is it helpful for educators?

A PLN is a personal learning network, meaning a connection between a network of people who share similar interests as yourself, that you can follow and learn from.  This tool is extremely beneficial for educators as our goals should be to always be learning.  With this resource we can connect with fellow educators all around the globe which can expose you to numerous opportunities.  You can get ideas about lesson plans, what worked well in one classroom and not so well in another, as well helpful Internet links to online resources.  In addition you can exchange conversations and learn of new or different concepts. 

Question 2:  What is one way you can enhance your twitter account, to make it more beneficial for your professional growth?

I believe that I can use twitter as an educational tool if I take the time to establish my PLN by exploring the site and finding people to follow who share in my interests and tweet things that i find interesting or helpful.  Through following others with similar interests i will be exposed to many more, and be able to broaden my community and knowledge.

Journal 1: "Do Web 2.0 Right" NETS-S 1-4

Light, Daniel. (2011). Do web 2.0 right . Learning and Leading, 38(5), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/issues/Feature_Article_Do_Web_2_0_Right.aspx

Summary:
Today technology is being used universally by the old and young, and while teachers are prone to discourage kids from using electronics in the classroom, it makes more sense to incorporate it into their daily lessons.  This article explains how even though technology can be a scary thought when applying it to the classroom, today teachers are fortunate enough to learn from other educators experiences to use technology as a positive educational aid. In this article the author discusses the elements of daily lessons, audience, and appropriate online behavior. 
Educators shared their experience of using both private, and group blogs in the classroom as an overall positive experience.  Blogs can be used both as a private journal between student and teacher as a form of assessment, as well as as a group blog to encourage communication amongst the classroom.  Some positive aspects of the blogs include allowing all students an opportunity to speak up, and participate in a less threatening environment.  It also allows students extra time to clearly articulate their argument and use other resources to back up their claim. However, some students may be concerned with the idea that anybody could read their blog postings, and this could discourage meaningful participation.  This is why it is important to consider the audience and post assignments that would be of interest to the students and encourage thoughtful posts and conversation.  Finally the importance of maintaining appropriate behavior is to create a friendly environment where all students feel safe to present their ideas and take risks.  It is important to limit the participants to only members of the class in which you can create a trusting and open community.  Students should understand appropriate and inappropriate comments, so that everyone will feel safe to post their ideas with in their online community.  Through these elements web 2.0 can be a very effective educational tool that will encourage participation and allow for easy communication even after the school day has ended. 

How could you use web 2.0 in your classroom?
I believe that I would use both private blogs and a class blog in my classroom.  Private blogs would be a great form of assessment, as students would not have to worry about their peers reading their comments and therefore could genuinely reflect upon their lessons.  Here I could read students individual thoughts and learn of things I could have explained better or topics I should recover.  In addition, I believe a class blog would be a great tool to encourage an open community where the class felt safe to communicate with one another.  Here students could ask questions, and be answered by their peers.  In addition, I could use it to introduce a topic where students can learn through conversation amongst one another. 

What is one precaution you would make prior to using web 2.0 in your classroom?
While using the Internet, there are many risks that I believe students should be aware of prior to using the web as an educational tool.  I believe it is important to explain to students the difference between secure and insecure sites and teach them what is and is not appropriate to post on the Internet such as personal information.  I also believe it would be important to establish an open and supportive learning community with in the classroom prior to using class blogs, so the class will understand constructive criticism and appropriate communication amongst their peers. 

Kimberly’s Introduction

            My name is Kimberly Knudsen and I’ve lived in California my whole life! I was born in Oceanside California, but at the age of 4 I moved to the small historical town of Julian located in the San Diego Mountains.  Not many people have heard of Julian, or are even aware that San Diego has mountains, and yet hundreds of tourists travel up the mountain each day in search of snow or apple pie.  Growing up in Julian was somewhat of a fairy tale. With the exception of dons market, an extremely small and overpriced general store, the closest grocery store was 30 minutes away, and any form of entertainment was at least an hour drive.  The first school I attended was Spencer Valley, the last one room school house in California.  This school was very artsy and not very conventional, and at the end of first grade my parents had had enough and transferred me to Julian Elementary.  I remained in the Julian Unified school district through High School, and by this time I knew just about everyone, and everything about them.  There were no secrets at Julian High School as it consisted of just about 200 students.  In 2007 I graduated with a class of 47, and moved to Fresno California to attend Fresno State University.  (Talk about a culture shock!) Here I became a member of Delta Zeta Sorority, and gained my degree in liberal studies after only 3.5 years, this past Dec.  I then moved back to San Diego, and am currently living in Carlsbad and plan to obtain my teaching credential through San Marcos at the end of next spring. 

            While I would by no measures consider myself gifted in technology, I believe I have substantial knowledge of technology basics.  I have had a laptop since my sophomore year in high school, and took the basic mandatory computer classes starting in 7^th grade with PowerPoint, to keyboard in 9^th grade.  At Fresno State I was required to take two technology/computer classes, and therefore while I personally own a PC, I am fairly familiar with Mac’s applications and word processors.  These classes covered everything from word to excel, to creating our own personal websites.  However, I still feel I have a long way to go!

            As I am at CSUSM specifically as a College of Education student, the mission statement is very important to me.  With my credential interview coming up this semester, I understand the importance of the mission statement to the school, in there efforts to prepare qualified teachers for our diverse communities.  When I read this statement I think about my college education thus far, and the importance of knowing your students and being a dynamic and reflective teacher, in order to supply our youth with unlimited opportunities.