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New good site

I was preparing an assignment for one of my classes, and I came across this site. It's a general humanities site (not specific to English), but it contains lots of lesson plans or ideas for lesson plans.
http://www.edsitement.neh.gov

Further comments

The two videos I watched were good. One was specifically related to teaching English. I thought it was interesting to present a new unit through an online presentation. It seems that it could be an effective way of helping student prepare for a class discussion. The homework could be to watch the presentation and write thoughts or feelings down before coming to class.
The second video I watched was more just for fun. It was a funny presentation to welcome the students.
As I watched different videos from TeacherTube, I realized how effective this resource could be in and out of the classroom. There are a lot of examples or ideas presented that I could shoe during class time to help students further understand a concept or see it visually presented. I could also use it as a resource in finding new ideas to try.

Teacher Tube - Copyright Assignment

1) The first video I watched for our Copyright Assignment was a video put together by a teacher named Ms. Latham (I didn't even notice the name until I was halfway through the video - It was purely a coincidence, I assure you :) ). Ms. Latham introduced her students to their poetry unit with a video in which she read a poem entitled "What We Believe" by Anita Endrezze. Her recorded voice accompanied the images on her slideshow.

http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=28160

Ms. Latham introduced the poem by sharing with her students (and any other viewers) the title and author of the poem - giving full credit. She only used one poem from this author, so she seems to be staying in the guidelines. To introduce poetry and the specific poem, she read from their class text book. If the poem she used was also from their text book, she is not violating any copyright laws. The only question I had was regarding the images she used. It appeared to me as if they had been taken from the internet, yet other than one or two exceptions (in which the site was "printed" on the picture itself), I didn't see these images cited.

2) The second video I watched was a teacher that put a humorous video together to welcome his students back after the summer break. He uses clips from what appears to be many different sources.
http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=1246&title=Welcome_Back_to_School
From what I can tell, he does well abiding by the copyright Fair Use policies. He plays short clips from different sources and he cites all of his sources at the end of the video.

English Education blogs

Here are some of the sites I've come across since I've been looking around for other English Education blogs: http://www.enotes.com/blogs/english-teacher-blog/


http://poemshape.wordpress.com/introduction/ (This one has some good posts about poems)


http://weblogg-ed.com/


http://www.mikepiero.com/wordpress/2009/05/17/teaching-grammar-in-today%E2%80%99s-modern-classroom/



http://www.huffenglish.com/

My Background in Technology and My Goal for this Class

To tell the truth, I don't feel very technologically savvy. I can find my way around the Internet, and I'm somewhat proficient with Microsoft (Word, PowerPoint, Excel). However, I know that there are a lot of tools that I have access to that I do not even know about, let alone how to use them.
My main goal for this class is to find what resources I have access to, and learn how to use them for my benefit, and for the benefit of future students. I am in the English Teaching program, and I feel every teacher ought to feel confident using techological resources available. I would also like to have the opportunity to discuss with other English Education students how we can use these resources in our specific subject. I feel that I will greatly benefit from this class as I communicate with members in my group, ask for suggestions, and share ideas.
For example, here is one website that I think is just brilliant for English Teachers:
http://www.free.ed.gov/