IMG_0067

IMG_0067, originally uploaded by bdurkan.

Sean Andrew Durkan

1/2 way done with semester #1

I really have had a nice experience with the 1st 8 weeks of my 1st semester in the Master's program. The technology class was really cool. I learned a lot about new technologies that I may never of had the chance to know about if it weren't for the class. The Content Standards class is also good, as it makes you think about your teaching style and how it can be better. My portfolios have had good marks and I'm happy. I hope all the classes are as good as these two have been.

Digital Portfolio

I have created my digital portfolio and I must say it was a very interesting exercise. I used some of the suggestions we came up with with the google wave assignment. It was a good experience to sit down and build a site that is a reflection of myself. I hope to build on my site in the future.
http://sites.google.com/site/briandurkan

More Social Networking/Professional Portfolio

There are a few pro's and con's when considering Plaxaco, Linkedin, or personal web site as a professional network. Plaxaco and Linkedin have formats that are already established. A web page can be created and changed however the user sees fit.

Plaxaco seems to me to be a more businesslike Facebook. You can add RSS feeds and keep a calender. There is an option for an e-card. It was easy to navigate in Plaxaco. You can add and import contacts and join groups that share similar interests. Plaxaco seems casual compared to Linkedin.

Linkedin is very business-like in their presentation. It really focuses on networking and finding jobs. Linkedin is also easy to navigate, but a person is limited by what they can add to their profile. Although both Plaxaco and Linkedin have a wide scope of what can be added to a profile, there is a limit to what can be put in.

A personal web page is limitless in what a person would like to share. To be sure, the person would have to be very creative. That doesn't describe me. A personal web page is much more creative, but more likely to be less organized and user friendly. It is also harder to get people to view your site.

bdurkan's books | LibraryThing

bdurkan's books | LibraryThing
Above is my link to my books in LibraryThing. This was a good site. I don't read as much as I should, but I listed some books that I really have enjoyed over the years. From now on, I'm going to list those books on LibraryThing to keep a catalog. It is interesting to see what other people have read. I wonder how they have the time. I think it will be useful to list the books on football that I have read, and to resarch what others have read in that field.

Image generators

This was a fun assignment. I used the Generator Blog and Letter James to create these images. I wish the Warhol one came out better. I see these sites as being fun, but you could use them to create posters for your class. A poster for a class would show a more personal side of you, and you could have a lot of fun doing it.

Podcasts

I enjoyed searching the podcasts for exercise and fitness. I found a dieting science podcast that informed the user on foods and how they work in the body. It was called Diet Science. The particular episode that I listened to was on foods that will help keep the liver healthy and function properly. I also found a podcast with video on exercise. The Ford Model's workout was interesting. It took a male and a female through a workout that could be done together with creative modifications.

I can see where podcasts can help a person keep up to date on topics that interest them. I think you could also have students follow a podcast to keep up to date on current events and trends. I think that podcasts would be very useful outside the classroom. Almost like a new form of homework.

YouTube

I had a lot fun searching around on YouTube. I started by searching for videos related to exercise, and I found quite a few. I refined my search to ab workouts and was amazed at how many videos where out there. I also searched for videos on the Pistol Offense in football. I, again, was amazed at how many videos there were on that topic. Most of those videos where of a play or two, but it was good.

I ended up putting a video of great football hits on my blog. Some of these are classics. I used this video in honor of the Super Bowl, and I hope it gets you fired up before the game. If you watch it after the game, maybe it will help with the post football blues.

I think YouTube can be a very successful tool in the classroom when used the right way. I can use exercise videos in an aerobics unit, and I can use videos of Lacrosse games to show the students how to play. These are just two examples of the endless possibilities of how YouTube can be used in the classroom.

Football Hits for the Super Bowl

Technorati

I had the opportunity tonight to explore Technorati, a site that keeps tracks of blogs. This site helps you find inforamtion that may be posted in a blog, posts, or video to name a few. I typed in the word Kinesiology and I found 4 posts on topic. I searched the blog tab and I found 28 blogs on Kinesiology. I found it interesting that I found 155 blog sites devoted to the Lakers and 430 posts. The #1 blog according to the Technorati top 100 was the Huffington Post. It is an Internet Newspaper and it has many blogs.

I found Technorati to be very interesting. I can see my self using this site to help me find interesting blogs for fun and for research. It is a very useful tool.

Delicious

I spent some time checking out del.icio.us and it was pretty interesting. It is interesting to see other people's bookmarks. I can see where you can get new ideas to find information based on the different bookmarks. I also like how things can be categorized by tags. The tags become more narrow in focus the more you search.

I looked for education sites under the education tags. Many different sites popped up. I could narrow my search by hitting a tag, or by using the search window. I looked up sites for the Lakers and for Notre Dame. I found sites that I visit regularly and some I've never seen before.
I also took some time and looked at other people's bookmarks. Some guy had 10 pages of bookmarks!

I do see how a social bookmarking site would help in research. There are so many sites listed. I'm not entirely sure how it would help my teaching job just yet. I'm sure it will as time goes on. I think it could be useful to share colleagues sites. I can see that as being useful. I'm not sure how I'd use this with studentsjust yet. Delicious is a very interesting site and social bookmarking is an interesting concept.

Technology I Can Use Now

I believe the most useful technology that I can use right now is the podcast. I think downloading game film, or snippets of game film, and practice film could be very useful to our kids. Our kids ask for film all the time. They love to watch. We could do a real service to them if we had the capacity to have the film as a podcast that they could download. I need to further research how to upload a podcast every week, but I think it could be done. Now if it meets with our IT departments blessing is another matter. I also don't know if it is possible to do at my school. I may have to start small and work my way up.

Someday, I see film exchange as easy as downloading a podcast. No more driving to a remote location early in the morning. You'd have the game film ready to go when you were ready to get to work.

There are some questions to consider. How can you keep your opponent from seeing practice film? Is every team you play going to have the same technology you have?

I also believe podcast would help in my teaching job. I would like to start out with a rules and regulations podcast that could be downloaded by students and parents. It is funny how kids forget some rules during the school year. Having a podcast that would be available for a reminder would be helpful. A podcast for the beginning of each unit would be helpful as well.

Web 2.0

The site I searched was Farecast powered by Bing. It was a great web site. One in which I will be returning soon. I first checked for hotels in Las Vegas. Farecast would show you the rates it could get, and it even let you pull up the competitors prices for comparison. The Farecast hotels also had a rating system that told you if you were getting a deal, an average rate, or not a deal. You could also click on a button and the page would pull up a graph so you could see what the prices have been for a 2 month period. I searched for a room during Super Bowl weekend. I was very surprised by what I found. There were many deals out there, and a few places were not a deal. I also searched the flight section. Its rating system indicated if the price of the flight was going up, staying steady, or the price was falling. Another neat feature was you could book the room or the flight right on the Farecast site. Farecast would take you to orbitz, or another type of site to book. Farecast is a very cool site and everyone should check it out.

Google Docs

Google Documents was a very interesting site, and I am interested to view it further. If the quality is good, I could see this being an end to software. All one needs is Internet access. I like that there were templates for the different type of document you might need. Would be very good with resumes. I also think a person could use Google Docs on an iPhone or Blackberry for some small projects. I think it is a very powerful tool to be able to share your documents. What a great thing for collaboration. I'm sure I'm just seeing the tip of the iceberg with this. I can see sharing a scouting report with other coaches using this technology. Heck, you might also be able to send it to players through e-mail. I can see sharing fitness scores on a spreadsheet to colleagues via the computer. Very interesting stuff.

RSS Exercise

I like how the RSS feeds can save you time when you are searching for information from your favorite sites. I now can go to the bloglines account to see what new information is being presented. I also look forward to finding new feeds that interst me. I look forward to keeping track of my classmate's blogs and keeping up to date.

Finish your homework, Mr. Tech Support - Bakersfield.com

Finish your homework, Mr. Tech Support - Bakersfield.com

Good article on Technology and Teens.

New Technology

I'm interested in how podcasts are going to change how classes are taught in the future. It is not hard to imagine that students may not always have to sit in a classroom to get their information. A perfect example is the Kinesiology Master's program I'm taking at Fresno Pacific. I never set foot on the campus, but I can gain information from my instructors through podcasts. Also, I can see how podcasts could help my football players watch game film or practice film on their own time if those films were in a podcast format. That would make the players so much more knowledgeable if they could do that.

How the education world decides to handle technology is going to be very interesting. Kids at our school get their iPods taken from them if they are caught with them at school. Is it that hard to imagine that in the coming years, all kids will need an iPod to download lectures they missed, a broadcast of school announcements, high school exit exam tutorial information, standard benchmark test remediation, etc. The list could be endless.

IMG_0599

IMG_0599, originally uploaded by bdurkan.

This is the view of the sunset from our back patio. We have beautiful sunsets out here in Taft, Ca. It is nice to sit out on our patio with a glass of wine or beer, look out at the sunset, and unwind. We live on a golf course, so we should always have this view.

Lake Bellagio

Lake Bellagio, originally uploaded by Sutanto.

The fountain at the Bellagio is awesome. My wife, Jana, and I went to Las Vegas for New Years and it was a blast. Saw the Black Eyed Peas. Just an awesome time.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

My Interesting Items From Week 2 Articles

In the article, "Social Networking" I was interested to find out that more than 1 billion people have become connected to the World Wide Web, and more than half of American teens use social networking sites. Facebook and like formats can be good sources for people to connect, but only with certain rules and etiquette.

The Neomillennial User article was hard to read at the start, but had some good information in the middle. First of all, I had to really focus on what the heck neomillennial meant. The basic idea is that the newer generation is "always on" with interactive media. Learning experiences will have to adapt technology into lessons such as RSS Feeds, Weblogs, iPods, Social Networking Sites, etc. These technologies will help develop learning communities.

The Social Software article was interesting in the fact that the article tried to show that Social Networking sites can have positive and negative aspects to using it in education. A positive is the collaboration that can happen. Students can feel like they are really working together. Unfortunately, people can be rude, vulgar, and mean on these sites. There are many examples of cyber-bullying.

Here I Go!

This is my first blog and it is pretty cool. I think this could be a good way to spread news and get feedback. Technology is a very powerful tool that has changed many things. Take College for example. 17 years ago when I was finishing my BS, e-mail was just being introduced to us, but it was a Intranet based system. Now I'm blogging! Who would have thought. It is going to be interesting what the next decade and beyond has in store.