Wordle

I really enjoy this tool. This could be used as an introduction activity for any age really. It is really easy to use and it is a creative way to introduce yourself and the things you like.
All you do is in the box provided, you write anything you want about yourself or an activity. The more times a word appears in the box the larger that word will be in the final product, making it easy to see what is really important to people.
There is a down fall to wordle. You are unable to save your wordle in a place where you can access it later, meaning we would have to finish in class and present. Or we have the option of printing out our wordle so we can present the next day.
This would be a different  way to introduce ourselves as teachers on the first day of class. It seems like everyone pretty much has a set way of doing that. This is just another option.
The link for wordle: http://www.wordle.net/create

Music in Education

I was in band for 8 years throughout school. I played the flute and was in marching band for 6 years. Every year my band director would tell us how the school district is thinking about getting rid of the arts (choir and band) because they are not as important as all the other subjects such as reading and math. She would make us write pretend letters to the board saying why we think music should be kept in schools. I was researching what music does to the brain and these are some things I found that maybe shoud be taken into consideration...

• Music improves spatial-temporal reasoning (See the M.I.N.D. Institute research), a neurological process needed to understand mathematics. The best way to enhance your child's learning with music is to encourage listening to and learning music throughout the child's developmental years. (http://childparenting.about.com/cs/k6education/a/mozarteffect.htm)

• Music training imposes a high working-memory load. That can be a good thing, in that it helps you expand your working memory capacity, and thus reduces the impairing effects on memory of working memory overload. Increasing working memory capacity also improves the ability to think, as manifest in IQ scores.
• Music show improvements in auditory verbal memory and auditory attention
• She(Nina Kraus, a prominent brain researcher at Northwestern University) believes music training may benefit academic achievement by improving learning skills and listening ability, especially in challenging listening environments (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201007/music-training-helps-learning-memory)

• It is a proven fact that music has helped to educate students. For example some kindergarten teachers use musical rhymes to teach their children how to write, and how to learn the alphabet. The reason behind this is because it helps the child to retain the information better than without the rhymes or music. (http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/58241/can_music_help_enhance_learning_ability.html)

I 100% believe that music has a positive effect when it comes to education. A major debate is whether or not to keep funding the music program. I wish everyone understood what a great expreience music provides for a person. Even if it wasnt a proven fact that music helps when it comes to memory, I still think music should be kept in schools.
I understand that english, math, and reading are more important when it comes to getting an educaion, but when I child learns to play an instrument or learns to sing, they are becoming wello rounded individuals.
Once I am a teacher I am going to incorporate music into my lessons, not every single lesson but into at least once a week or  maybe even once a day, I will have music in my classroom.
If music works to help with tests, why not use it?

Google Docs

In this class I think the most interesting and easiest thing we have used so far is Google Docs. It was so easy to use. It was very convient that we were able to do a group project without having to meet in person so we didnt have to work around everyones schedule. I really liked how we were able to write the paper but also comment on the side so we were not all writing on the document at the same time.
One thing I did not like about it was when we all tried typing on the document at the same time it did something funky and moved the page because we were all doing it at the same time.
I think Google Docs would be very easy to integrate into any classroom.

My name is Natausha Glenn. I am a sophomore at Edinboro University of PA. I am an Early Childhood Education major. My goal after becoming a teacher is to make a difference in a childs life even if it is just one child. Knowing that because of me one childs life was made better will be the biggest satisfaction for me as a teacher. I think making a difference in a childs life should be at least one goal of every single educator. No matter what they are an educator of, we should all have the mind set that we are here to make a difference in someones life. I think that is what being an educator is all about. I would like to share anything useful I learn that might be useful to use in a classroom. Not just in early childhood education but in every educational aspect.