Lesson 5 - Online Video Resources

This lesson was pretty interesting. The resource I liked the least in terms of educational value was clipblast. It makes me a bit nervous that there are no filters or tagging for inappropriate things. After that I guess 3rd place in my eyes would be you tube. I like it for personal things but not for teaching anything. Seems a bit scatterered to me. Teacher tube and Next Vista were pretty cool sites education wise. My personal favorite was Next Vista. I really liked how they had everything catagorized and broken down, (really liked the concepts of "light bulb", "global views" and "seeing service"). It was very user friendly and I really enjoyed that it was very student centered. I think kids are more open to watching their peers and learning from what they have to say. Teacher tube was catagorized too but not as much as Next Vista. The other plus for Next Vista was the rules they have before any videos were posted. If we are going to use these sites in our classroom, there should be rules to make the video and have it posted. Teacher tube was somewhat filtered but no rules, material was flagged if found to be inappropriate.
Basically, I found that Next Vista was easiest to use and clipblast would be a little less user friendly. I could totally see Next Vista being a great tool in my subject area as little bits could be posted on exemplary physical demonstrations for things like throwing or kicking to name a few. It would also be great to get the kids into the technology aspect of things as they could do the video taping, editing and making sure they are following the rules of the site. It would be a great collaboration with the classroom teacher as well.
I knew about you tube but the other sites were new to me. It's great to have these free online video resources but like everything else, there is a time and place for what each is good for. These lessons are definitely challenging my thinking and making my head spin in terms of what I would like to try this coming school year.

Thoughts on classroom blogging

Well, this course has definitely allowed me to see a different perspective on blogging. Reading some of the blogs of my "classmates" has made me think a bit as well. I think classroom blogging is a great way to communicate student to student, teacher to student and teacher to teacher in a relaxed atmosphere with no real time limit unless one is posed by the teacher.
In the world of PE, I think it would be a great way to get involved in some good discussions with kids and parents regarding some serious issues surrounding health and PE. Some things I would love to chat about are obesity, nutrition and human growth and development (what grades it should be taught, who should teach it and what exactly parents want their kids to know). There are so many things to talk about in PE that wasn't there when I grew up and the parents of today had when they were in elementary school. I enjoy talking about my job and what kids can do these days in terms of fitness and overall health. I think blogging would allow our department a great opportunity to discuss these things that we may not normally discuss in our jam packed school day. I think the hard part about it is going to it to check out what is being said and maintaining good communication with my visitors.
Overall, I think blogging is a pretty cool advancement in technology. I hope I can put it to good use during the school year.