Two pilots fired for letting bikini model into the cockpit of their airplane and telling her that she could control the plane during takeoff. The two pilots, Fredrico Soaje and Patricio Zocchi let a 29-year-old model named Vicky Xipolatakis in the cockpit of the plane that they were about to fly. Not only did Vicky post selfies with the pilots on twitter, but she also posted a video of the controls and of the pilots saying that she could control the plane during takeoff. No one is allowed inside the cockpit of a plane unless authorized by regulations of the Federal Aviation Administration, which is why this was an issue.
After 9/11 the rules and regulations became more strict in hope of keeping people safe. They also put at risk all of the people on that plane. Both pilots have been fired from Austral airlines and are facing $10 million in lawsuits and 2-8 years in prison. Vicky is also facing charges. Fredrico and Patricio let Vicky into the cockpit knowing that it was against the rules and regulations and because of her posts on social media, they had to pay a huge price. Connected Educator There are so many ways to teach and learn by using the internet. I can't imagine education WITHOUT it! So what are some ways to connect with learners using the internet? Well, there are blogs, bookmarking tools (find some examples in my earlier blog post), podcasts, social media, wikis, google docs (another earlier blog post), and more! Chapter 5 of the Connected Educator by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Lani Ritter Hall talks about these types of tools and how to utilize them!
Blogs are a great way to share information about any topic that you want. You can use them personally or professionally as well. Basically, they're just public journals. Some popular blog websites are Tumblr, Blogger (which you obviously know about), Weebly, and a popular one for educators is Edublog which helps schools and teacher provide a window into the classrooms.
Podcasts are audio recording that can be posted on the internet or downloaded to a smart phone, computer, iPod, or any other audio playing device. Podomatic is a free site that lets record audio or video recordings. If you're going to make a podcast you would just want to use the audio setting. Musicians used to use podcasts as a way to let their fans know what they were up to when they were on the road, but it can also be used for educational purposes. Julie DeNeen posted an article of 50 educational podcasts, and I'm sure there's a ton more.
All the Apps that You Could Ever Imagine! Have you ever heard of Augmented Reality (AR)? Well it's a very cool, very real bit of magic that you can bring into any moment using just your SMART PHONE! It basically makes a 4-D image pop up out of nowhere due to, explained by Drew Minock "overlaying computer generated images, or other data, on a real-life environment." My favorite app that we learned about was Zookazam! Which puts animals right in the palm of your hand, as you can see in the picture below. A great article about Zookazam explains the great features of this app, including how teachers can use it in the classroom as a creative and intellectual tool. My favorite idea from the article is having students create a habitat and placing the animal in it using the app.
Archaeologists are even using this technology to see and smell the past. With another AR app called Dead Mans Nose which emits odors as you pass certain locations. This can help Archaeologists not only visit sites, but LIVE them as well, serving as a window into the past. Google Cardboard! Basically Google Cardboard is the coolest thing since sliced bread. It is an app that can transport you anywhere!
All you have to do is have the cardboard box that goes with it, insert your phone, and you're transported anywhere around the world! It reminds me of those cool picture changing toys we had as kids, but obviously more technologically advanced and more fun!
App Smackdown Here are some other awesome apps that my classmates taught me about this week! Adobe Sketch is a fun app, especially for all you artists out there! One cool thing about it is that you can put in a picture, trace it, and then make the picture go transparent so that you only see the trace. Also, all of your drawings are backed up onto the cloud. Where To Go? This app makes it easy to find any type of business or transportation while you are in an area that you aren't used to! You can look for food, gas, hotels, clothing, groceries, and more. The app also has a handy tip calculator to help you out when you go out to eat! Color Therapy is a fun way to be creative with coloring templates! Uber is an app that helps you find a ride. The drivers for Uber are all background checked and have their cars nice and clean, from my own experiences. It's not to expensive and is an easy way to get from point A to point B.
Astronaut Abby! Abigail Harrison is a young woman with a big dream, to be the first astronaut on Mars. Abby's dream grew into so much more when she started using social media to reach out to people and learn more about what she wanted to do. The growth of her social media accounts have given her the opportunity to not only run her own programs, like Mars Generation which is a non-profit preparing the students of today to become the leaders of tomorrow, but she was also selected to be the Earth liaison to Italian Astronaut, Luca Parmitano, while he was up in the space station. One tip that she gave my class was not to over expose yourself and to only focus on the social media accounts that help you the most, which for her were Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Good luck to Abby! I can't wait to hear about her adventures! In Other Space Related News.. Scott Kelly has returned from a year on the International Space Station! His recent return was documented on Snapchat for everyone to see! Here are some pictures capturing the exciting day!
Okay, Now Let's Stop Spacing Out and Look at Some Presentation Tools! In the semester where I have been doing the least amount of presentation, and my last semester of college, I finally learn about all of these presentation tools that are so much better than just standing in front of a PowerPoint presentation. A presentation is supposed to be more than just reading off slides. In fact, the slides are mostly there for "decoration" and shouldn't be the entire presentation. There are some tools that allow you to create a more interesting backdrop for your presentation. Some examples include Animoto, Emaze, Office Mix, Haiku Deck, Powtoon, and more! The two that I have found easy to navigate and fun to use are Animoto and Emaze. Animoto is more of a video presentation. It offers you templates and then you place in the pictures and text. After picking a song you can add in as many pictures and text boxes as it takes to finish the song. The one thing I liked about this tool was that it only let you add a certain amount of text to each slide, limiting you so that there isn't too much. Here's a video that I made on Animoto.com promoting my major here at Stockton University. Emaze is also run by templates that you can choose from. All you have to do is add the pictures and writing and you're good to go. It is very interesting because a lot of the templates are 3-D, making the presentation more creative. It is also similar to a video with the ability to add notes, voice, and set timing. Here's a basic Emaze presentation that I made about what I'm doing for Spring break.
Here's Some Article's About More Presentation Tools.. Microsoft Sway - if you're presenting over the computer, then Sway is perfect for you! With the cloud being utilized, Sway presentations can be viewed anywhere without formatting problems and also embedded onto websites and blogs. The editing is also based on a story line, making the editing easy for everyone.
GoAnimate - Similar to Animoto, GoAnimate is a video presentation that comes with backgrounds, templates, characters, and even languages and accents for the characters. This is a great tool for teachers to use because if your class is registered then students presentations cannot be viewed by the public.
Office Mix - This is a free expansion for anyone who already owns PowerPoint on their computer. You can even take PowerPoint presentations that you have already made and upload them to Office Mix to upgrade it! With this expansion you can add video and voice to the presentation, draw and mark up the slides during the presentation, and you can also embed your presentations. This tool is keeping PowerPoint alive in the midst of all of these fascinating new tools.
#Scistuchat This week my class had a webinar guest, Adam Taylor, a high school science teacher who started #scistuchat, a was for students, teachers, and scientists from around the world to connect on twitter. Adam has connected with around 400-500 scientists from around 150 countries around the globe to participate in a monthly discussion about different topics having to do with science. They use moderators to keep the conversation steady and educational and have made some memorable connections, including the US Department of Energy. Adam has made his connections through twitter by first finding out that certain scientists were on twitter and then contacting them. From there, his PLN grew into the thousands. He categorizes people into lists on his twitter (his Women in Science list has 590 members.. WOW!) to keep it organize! One tip from Adam about growing your PLN is that the number of followers doesn't matter, it's the connections that are important. Check out the full webcast below!
Presentation Tools Everyone knows about PowerPoint, but did you know that there are a bunch of tools to help you make presentations? Presenting has grown past PowerPoint and its original uses, to aid someones verbal presentation, and online tools have become very beneficial. Some online tools that you can use are Slideshare, Prezi, VoiceThread, and Poll Everywhere. Preziis a tool, just like PowerPoint where you make slides and put information on them. Instead of just having a bunch of info on each slide, the Prezi makes the presentation more entertaining and interesting! One of my teachers used a template that looked like a tree, with each leaf being a different slide. The presentation was shown by hopping from leaf to leaf! And the presentations don't have to be linear either. The presenter can lay the information on a canvas and draw a path and click through it! So much more interesting than PowerPoint. Slideshareis a tool that lets people share presentations to people around the globe! Everything you upload automatically gets converted into their format and gives others the ability to look through everything without having to download it. If your teachers or other professionals in your field are using it than it's a great tool because it can catch you up on things you may have missed at a conference, in the classroom, or give you the opportunity to see what other's in your industry are studying and presenting about. Poll Everywhereis great because it can be connected to your phone. A teacher can poll a question, multiple choice or open ended, and students can have it sent to their phones and answer instantaneously. A free teacher profile gives you the opportunity to get forty responses to polls and also download the polls into a PowerPoint. With a paid subscription you can do even more like upload student names, input the correct answer to the poll, and have the site automatically grade the students based on their answers. VoiceThreadgives you the ability to share videos and photos along with comments. These comments can be through text, audio, or video. It is a really great tool for digital storytelling and even though it is simple, it's effective. There is also a paid subscription version of Voicethread where you can create student accounts and upload unlimited files. Ted Talks, Have a life that is truly awesome.
Some of you may have heard of TED Talks and some of you may not. You're thinking, "who is Ted and why would I wanna listen to him talk?" But TED is actually a nonprofit organization that has one mission, to spread ideas. You can either go to conferences or watch online to listen to extremely amazing people speak about a myriad of different topics from The Mysterious World of Underwater Caves to Failure or even the Piano.
One video that I personally really like is Neil Pasricha: The 3 A's of Awesome. Even through a really tough time in his life, Neil was able to look at life and realize how awesome it is. Through Neils experiences, he started to write a blog called 1000 Awesome Things which eventually went viral and earned him a Webi for Best Blog of the Year and a book called The Book of Awesome. In the TED Talk Neil talks about the 3 A's of awesome, attitude, awareness, and authenticity, and how living with these three A's in mind will make life awesome. Our attitude make our lives better or worse. You can hit a slump in your life and feel bad about yourself and have a bad attitude and it's not going to get any better, but with a good attitude you can make it through any day. With awareness, he mentions how it's like being a 3 year old discovering the world for the first time. Always be aware because at one time you too saw something for the first time and never let go of that feeling of amazement and excitement. Authenticity is about being true to who you are and loving who you are. For instance, I am very passionate about travel and when I have the opportunity, and finances, to travel I do it. Some people look down upon spending your money rather than saving, but I believe that the experiences I have from travelling make life awesome. Now go give yourself an awesome life.
Some other awesome TED Talks Monica Lewinsky: The Price of Shame - Monica Lewinsky talks about her experience with cyber bullying and shame. Getting through a seriously rough time when her life where compassion and empathy outweighed the shame. She said that we need to change our culture and stop the shaming.
Rite Pierson: Every Kid Needs a Champion - Rita Pierson talks about her years as an educator and how the teachers attitude and presence in the classroom can change the education and confidence of any child. "I am somebody. I was somebody when I came, I'll be a better somebody when I leave. I am powerful and I am strong. I deserve the education that I get here. I have things to do, people to impress, and places to go."
