Week 15 & Course evaluation

This week in etec we learned about a website called  http://www.inspiration.com; this website is a great website that allows younger students to work with each other on different programs that go from science to English to math and its all online. the students are able to communicate with the teacher and the other students and can work together and figure out problems,or just to get help. I think that this program is a wonderful idea and it should be used for earlier grades along with daily meetings in a classroom. But, as a music teacher i dont ever see myself able to use a program like this, but i do appreciate what it can do for other teachers.


Well, it has been a good year in this class and i have learned many things..... I have learned how to make a functional eporfolio this semester, that is the most important thing i have learned this semester. But, along with that i have learned about different sites that i can teach my students to use to get things done like research paper about composers and musical periods. I always thought that it would be difficult to find lesson plans that i could use with elementary music classes but, it turns out that it isnt that hard at all. I have found so many lesson plans that i can use to teach musicality and even foreign texts, like french, german and latin :) I will reccomend that all of my fellow classmates take this course, so that they may also learn how to integrate technology into a music classroom...


It has been fun,


Thor: Gott des Donners

Ok, serious nerd chat......... Superhero showdown

 Well lets start with the worst of the worst......... A marvel vs DC showdown. here are my thought in the villian department, Some of you disagree but i think that marvel takes the cake for villians, i mean in this picture you can see the big two are Thanos and Darkseid..... In an all out showdown darkseid would destroy him but there is a bigger bady that is missing in this picture...... Galactus........Where is the old titian, the grandest of the planet eaters :) I would love to hear your responses to this. Of course to fuel the fire lex luthor is NOT an acutal threat to anyone outside the DC universe...

 Ok!! Topic #2 Superman vs the X-men.... Obviously rogue isnt a real issue, its like fighting parasite not hard at all. And professor X While he is my favorite marvel character he doesnt really stand a chance without the ability to you know....... move......... But old wolvie, well he will make things interesting. What happens when unbreakable metal meats an unbreakable man? Would the adamantium ever break, or would it slice right through superman... well the research gives many different thoughts to this...... Most agree that superman could break adamantium easy.... And i agree completely i think that while wovie would make for a great warm up :) With out super strength he would last the first few rounds...........

 I know everyone asks this question, it is doubtful that Goku could ever beat superman; But, it can also be said that their worlds are too far apart to try to compare. So enjoy the thought :)

 Alright!!! now for the heroes... Well I KNOW that DC would destroy marvel in an all out battle the marvel heroes are too ordinary.... Marvel is full of normal people who can build cool suits that manipulate matter and have guns.. Their best fighter is a robot and a God who dies in his real mythology.. Everyone else is a mutant and out of all of them Professon X and The Scarlet Witch are the only ones who could do some damage.. Lots of people hop on the iron man parade :-/ Come on folks..... that metal aint unbreakable. Dare i say, Iron man the center of the Avengers (sometimes), The poster boy of the Marvel Universe is the weakest of the bunch.. I can think of 1 DC hero who would dies really fast is Booster Gold, and the DC world would be better for it :)

Well this is the end of my rant on this day... I leave you with a moment that every nerd would like be a part of :)

Live long and Prosper folks

Mr. Sinister

P.S: Picard is the best!!!!!!! This is for you!!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dorr03BQRXM

Now for Pokemon

Ok, like most people as i grew up and went through a phase of pokemania..... It was wonderful, trading cards and playing the card game as wrong as possible. My favorite part were the games, i beat every game from the original red, blue, and green; up to the emerald version (at least). Well recently i have been wondering what i would do about the new black and white games; I take pride in knowing how to catch almost ever creature in the game and i usually do so. Depending on how well i know the game this can take me 24hrs or a week.... But these last two have a combined 649 pokemon to catch/trade.. That is insane!!!! My problem with pokemon is that its about time to get some new artist... the pokemon are starting to look the same, this link http://www.serebii.net/blackwhite/pokemon.shtml will take you to a site with all the new pokemon profiled on it. To me most of them look like another older pokemon..... I think that my rant about this is done. I dont have nearly as much to say as i did when i thought of doing this :(

Well, until i find something else to talk about

Zeus :-/

P.S: Why is team Rocket still an organization? They have been beaten by every other Team in the pokemon universe!!!!!!!!!!!

Topic1: Web 2.0

              Well when it comes to educational web-based social groups, i am pretty noob. I have never really know the difference between a blog and wiki space. I feel like information gathered from either of those sites should be taken with a grain of salt; while blogs are a great way to gather information you have to be sure that their source is credible. Also, in a blog you are more likely to get the bloggers opinion rather than gaining any real facts about the subject.
                   Wiki space was a great next step after the blog. You can share your information with everyone, and if they have any extra facts to add they are free to do so. The only possible problem with that is misinformation; People do dumb things and as some of us know people don't always put true information on these wiki sites. Also, like a blog they are not always created by a credible source, and sometimes their sources are just wrong.
                          Social bookmarking: This is like the greatest idea ever!!!! Ok, so some people might send you dud-sites but really with so many sites online these days it gives the average person a chance to explore sites that they never would have found on their own. I'm not the best when it comes to finding relevant sites when i looking up things but i know that with all the old-school bookmarks i have on my computer i could help someone. The last thing we talked about were voicethreads; I believe that voicethreads has great possibilities, but has not yet reached a point, in the U.S. at least, that would be accommodating to most of society.

Well I had planned to have a nerdy discussion about Pokemon this week but that is going to have to wait until this weekend. I have a lot to work on and need to get ready to start conducting ensembles :)

Topic1: Copyright laws Topic2: Doctor Who

Hello again!

I guess these blogs are going to happen a bit more often than i expected...... I cant say im that torn up about it :)

Anyway this week i will be copyright laws and my favorite show Doctor Who!

As a musician it is very important for me to know copyright laws. With our constant use of sheet music and never-ending report writing, we often find ourselves wondering if we are violating copyright laws.  As a choir director it is very important that we know what music we can copy and what music we cant copy, and also under what curcumstances we are allowed to copy them.  Most publishing companies allow their music to be copied if the person coping the music has already purchased the sheet music. Also, it is possible to get an up to date book on copyright laws, they dont change very often but you might find it helpful if you are an educator of any kind; I actually own a older edition of a book and have found it very helpful.
Next, nettiquete? I didnt even know there was such a thing; but i guess it makes sense that it does. I just dont know where it would apply online. I mean in an academic setting it would be great, but i feel like what we are calling nettiquete would happen naturally there. And, in non-academemic settings enforcing nettiquete would be great to help avoid cyberbullying, but beyond that i feel like it wouldnt really serve a purpose. There are rude people online who will never use nettiquete even if you do. The best was to handle these situations, is to avoid wedsites where rude people like to visit. I cant believe that cyberbullying actually exists and is an acual problem. This may be because of my attitude towards such things. i feel that if someone is bullying you online, the best thing you can do is avoid that person. Online that really isnt that hard, dont friend them on social sites and block them if you have to. Although, i do understand that the actions of people are beyond the control of other people. That is really all i have to say on this topic. Be smart out there fellow web users.

Ok, second topic, Doctor Who! If you dont know what it is go on itunes and find out. Or, just wait for me to tell you, either way is fine with me.  Doctor Who is a british show about an alien who travels around in a time machine. He usually takes a human companion around time and space showing them all of the wonders of the universe. "The Doctor" (That name he uses) is the last of his race who all were killed in the last great "time war". Also he does not die, instead he has a method that allows him to rewrite every cell in his body, and changes the way he looks, sounds, and even the way he thinks. I would say more but i feel like, the rest would be better left in a blog not related to the class i am taking right now.

Until next time

You stay classy Asgard!!!!

In the Beginning (Introduction)

My name is Sean McDonald, i am currently a college student at Texas A&M-Commerce. I am studying music education, although i wish to be a performer before i start teaching. I am creating this blog because i would like to pass my educational technology course this semester, and the assignment this week is to make a blog. But who knows i might like this whole blogging thing ^_^

As a future music educator, i feel that technology has a very few purposes in my classroom. As a choir director the only technology i could see myself needing to use is maybe recording devices, so that the kids can hear the product of their hard work. And, now to be realistic, i will more than likely be teaching a music theory or even a music history/appreciation class to and, while i would never use any technology besides an electric keyboard in music theory, for music history/appreciation i would use many PowerPoint to show the students how the other arts of each time period effected music.

My goals for this class are to pass, but also to learn things about technology that i didn't already know. The lessons i am most excited about are the podcasting, copyrights, and eportfolio lessons. I have always kinda wanted to start a podcast, i don't know what it would be about but that something to think about. Also knowing how to make podcasts would be very helpful in a university classroom, because you could just have each student subscribe to your podcast and put you lectors online for the students to listen to.

Well that's Post #1

Signing off,
           Sean McDonald

P.S: For all the other nerds out there i know that i spelled Odin wrong, its on purpose. I had to spell it that was because Odin was already taken.

You Stay Classy Asgard!!