Journal 3

This last week our movie trailer blogs were due and I was pretty confident that I could whip it out really quick, but when I started brainstorming I realized it was going to take a lot of thought to put together. I knew from mind mapping what I wanted to project through the video, but coming up with a short 2 minute trailer was difficult. While I gathered video clips I knew I had something really awesome, but I was worried about how I would make it all flow together.  This was my 2nd video I have ever made and I started to question if I should switch from adobe premier pro to iMovie because they have pre made trailers at your disposal. After checking it out I decided to just see what I could come up with using adobe because I really liked my clips and wanted the content within them to be heard instead of just having the iMovie music playing. I am so happy with my decision! I have learned how to do so much every time I fool around with the program! It is extremely exciting because creating videos was never something I ever thought I would, or could do. Now I want to make them all the time! I keep thinking of things I can film to make a mini movie out of.

I am also extremely proud of the way my trailer came out! When I kept playing it over and over again, I realized that it was actually pretty good! I really enjoyed this assignment. I feel like I am learning so much about what I am capable of in this program. I have already gathered really cool technology skills, as well as understanding how I am learning as I do the reading and the assignments.

Movie Trailer...The Company You Keep

Journal 2

Right after I wrote my last blog I realized that I was actually talking about the Smith book rather than the Dewey book, but then I realized that they both have similar connections and that is why I was cross referencing them! I love the Smith book because it puts what  Dewey says in a way that I can understand it. One connection that I have noticed between the books is that they both talk smack on classical conditioning. This is interesting to me because I have a Psychology Degree and funny enough I completely agree to what both books said! Both books state that classical conditioning has nothing to do with learning, it is just training. I completely agree with this statement. Hitting a child's neck to make him bow to something does not mean he knows why he is bowing. It just means that every time he sees or feels a certain stimulus the child will bow, but he does not learn or understand why he is doing what he is doing, he just does it. While Pavlov was conducting these classically conditioning stimulus the animal is stuck in a cage unlike a human. An animal in a cage will respond a certain way then an animal that is free.

It reminds me of saying the pledge of allegiance in elementary school. We were trained that every morning when we get to school we stand up and repeat a pledge that we are taught to memorize. Just because we memorize something does not mean we are giving meaning to the words we say. We say the pledge because we are suppose to, not because we really know or understand why we say it. I recently got a job working with autistic kids which makes this topic interesting because ABA therapy, which is what is used on autistic kids, is exactly what classical conditioning is. Repeating an act, or word until the child memorizes what it is based on reinforcement. Maybe I can come up with a way that I can help the autistic kids learn without using classical conditioning! That is my new goal even tough it might be the only way they can learn.

Journal week 1

In our cog tools class we are reading John Dewey's book Democracy and Education and to tell you the truth it is such a hard book to get through. It is extremely dense, and I have to reread some parts because I start to notice that I have no idea what I just read. I know I just kind of ripped on the book, but it does have some really interesting points. Dewy talks about how education is focused on what we do not know, instead of what we do know. The teacher is not focused on what the child did correctly, but instead they get there confidence in learning lowered because the teacher is focused on what they did not fully perform correctly. He states that learning is done in an environment in which people learn from others around them that they can relate too. He uses clubs as an example of learning where you belong and who you are. I really enjoyed when he talked about how the most important thing we learn is who we are by figuring out which clubs we can and cannot relate too. It is like the old saying, "be careful who your children's friends hang out with." The company you keep is who you learn form, and who you start talking and acting like. This type of learning is continued and never forgotten.

Dewey loves using language as an example because it is one of the ways  that proves that learning is mostly not conquered in the classroom. The way the education system is set up, there is a lot of memorizing, and then forgetting. When children learn new words or skills through there friends, or clubs those words are not forgotten. He talks a lot about language and how children learn a language from observing the company they keep. I am interested to see what the next chapters of Dewey have to teach me about where learning actually takes place.