Edible Schoolyard and A Night in the Global Village

The Edible Schoolyard is the baby of Alice Waters a Chef, who in 1994 wanted a way to improve upon school lunch progams. She said of children "if they grow it, cook it, then they'll want to eat it." It is a non-profit organization at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, California. The teachers at MLK Jr. are able to use the Schoolyard as a way to integrate social studies, math, science, and life into their classrooms. Everyone is a learner in the Edible Schoolyard, each person does their part, from planting to picking.

The intrgration takes a very common sense approach, they learn about plant species, and where they can be found in science and social studies. Math comes in the kitchen, where they are preparing the food, mixing ingredients. These all come together to build life lessons that the children take with them. I liked how they used the most common materials for tools in the kitchen; the children were using wine bottles as rolling pins. I would have never thought about using them for that. I like the idea of children tasting the fruits of their labor.


A Night in the Global Village was very interesting as well, it is located at the Heifer Ranch in Arkansas. This shows the Rocky Mountain Middle School from Denver, Colorado learning about different countries and the poverty that they live in. The children pick numbers, shown around the ranch,where they have four living conditions set up; Guatamala, Tailand, Apalacha which is a Refugee camp and Zambia.

Each location has different amenities Guatamala gets all the water, and have the nicer beds, the others get food, with the exception of the refugees, they get nothing food, wood, and on top of that they can't communicate with the other villages, which is just carrots, potatoes, onions, nothing special. The experience is to allow children to see how other countries that have nothing live and survive. It will also make them think about all that they have, and maybe change them and their feelings.

I think showing classes podcasts like these would be helpful, these kids are changing the world with the things they learned from both of these experiences. I would like to see public schools in Mobile doing something like the Edible Schoolyard, especially some of the schools like Chastang, Mae Eanes some of the ones that the children don't care and the parents don't care either. I think it would teacher some of the students what it would be like to take care of yourself, I remember taking a cooking class in middle school and I loved learning how to make different foods, it also lets you experiment with different flavors and spices.

iTunes University

As a student iTunes U would be helpful when you miss a class, you could just upload the information you missed from the iStore. Keeping you up to date, like you never missed the day. It would also keep you from pestering your Professor with questions. iTunes U creates a different learning environment from the conventional style we are used to today. It would open doors for different styles of learning. It would allow students like me, the visual learner would be able to see examples of lectures not just notes.

The other opportunity that iTunes U would make would be the fact that students would have access to the classroom 24/7 all they would need is a computer, iPod, iPhone, etc. It would also allow you to take the classroom outside, on days like to day when its warm and the sun is out NO ONE wants to be inside, they would rather be outside.

As a teacher iTunes U would make the classroom more enjoyable. You could teach a variety of subjects, and styles. While on a field trip you could have the students looking at other examples, or take them outside on the school grounds and let them identify the different birds, trees, flowers etc that they just learned about. Then upon returning to the classroom have them blog about their findings.

iPods as Learning Tools

The two articles that I read for this blog were very informative. The first one is on Apple.com, this site explains Apple's implementation of new tools that will help teachers and students alike. The second website that I read was titled Duke Gives iPods to Freshman. In 2004 Duke University gave 1,650 incoming freshman a 20GB iPod to "foster innovative uses of technology in the classroom". They downloaded the freshman orientation info for the students to listen to at their leasure, with the hopes that they will download course information, lectures, lessons and much more.

I had never thought of an iPod being used for anything more then to play mp3's, but both of these sites gave a new look. I wish South would give there students an iPod. it would have been alot more useful to students to have that fee tacked on to tuition, rather than a new football team(sorry to the players). I think it would be very useful when dealing with handicap children, who may not be able to take notes. They would be able to learn the same things as someone who took notes and then use them for a review. It could be very useful with speech classes, they could her pronouncation of the words and then be able to repeat. Newer iPods have more capabilities then the older ones and they are advancing everyday.

Dr. Christie

Dr. Alice Christie has a PhD. in Educational Technology and Language and Literacy from Arizona State University. She taught in K-12 schools for 25 years. She was also taught in the College of Teacher Education and Leadership at ASU, currently she travel nationally and internationally doing workshops on "How Technology can Enhance Teaching and Learning". From her website you can tell that she is a woman of knowledge and she enjoys learning and teaching.

The thing that caught my eye on her site was the section on photography. She gives a little explaination as to why she takes pictures and then some of her photos. This could be useful to me as a teacher because you can give a child a camera, tell them the assignment and let them use their imaginations. Then have them view the pictures pick one and write a journal entree about the picture and their inspiration.

You could make this a morning activity while, you are calling roll, taking up lunch monies and all the what nots that you have to get together. Photos are something that each person views differently, they have to power to jog a memory, or spur creativity. So you can also have the students review a classmates work and write a comment or two about what they liked about the picture. Then at the end of that assignment make a collage for the students to view their work.

I liked this website it was full of information that I can use later on in my career or even now. I am doing an arts and crafts lesson each month at the library for the children who come in, and this gave me inspiration for a lesson that would be two parts. One week they could go outside and find one thing they find intriguing. The next week they can find their picture and frame it and display it on the wall.

Wikipedia

The question of whether Wikipedia is a trusted source is something all future teachers should know about. I read an article in an English class last semester and the creator of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales says, that you should not use it as a source for papers. Due to the fact that anyone can change the information. I will admit that Wikipedia is easily accessible, and is normally at the top of the list when searching on the Internet. I knew that anyone could change the information however, I did not think about companies and even members of congress changing information. I like the fact that even though you may have remained anonymous it still kept a log of you IP address. For a few facts on who can change wikipedia visit the NPR website.
I like Wikipedia, I think it is a great place to start research because it is the first site. However I wouldn't allow my students to use it as a source because of the lack of validity. They could however use Wiki as a jump point many topics have sources listed at the bottom of the page that link to the site where that author got the information and you could go to that site. I was taking a Tech and Learning class for teachers when Wiki first came out and the Professor thought it was so great, he only wanted us to use Wiki as a source for his papers. Then he found out that anyone could edit the information and he changed his mind. A word to the wise, if you do use it back up the information with more credible sources.