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Responsibility

Responsibility There is little that we do in our everyday lives that do not affect our environment in any way. From getting from place to place, or even from our everyday consumption of meals, we contribute to the entropy of the universe, the carbon waste in our biosphere, and the literal waste in our communities. Straying from the theme that I have been holding on to, this narrative will venture into a situation even closer to home, and even more current: our trash. We live on islands, what waste we make is more than likely going to end up staying on this island with much of nowhere else to go. To put it quite simply, the real problem in this modern world of consumerism and consumption would be litter in excess. Not necessarily all the wasteful things that we do as individuals, but the cumulative actions that lead to such a large “carbon footprint” for an island community. It is extremely rare to walk into a public park or facility and not see some form of trash anywhere. At...
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Stowaways

Stowaways On a small island in the middle of the ocean, there is little we can do to say “no” to visitors; wanted or unwanted, somehow, someone or something is going to give them a warm welcome. Sometimes, they stay for a short while and leave, like most responsible visitors on vacation. But others for some reason choose to stay just because they found it easy and readily available to survive in. Living spaces that can accommodate their needs, an abundance of their favorite foods, a fairly untouched market with no competitors, it is the perfect place to start a new life. Now, to draw the line between humans and nonhuman organisms, there must be a definition as to what part of the island community they are visiting. But fortunately, instead of delving into the politics of immigration, this narrative will delve into some subjects of introduced and invasive species. As I have stated above, introduced species following that analogy as “permanent visitors” find their way into the...
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Digital Citizenship

     On top of teaching new technology skills applicable in the classroom and the software and hardware that could be used thence, this "Technology Application for Education" course should also emphasize much of the digital safety skills that teachers and students should learn. This set of Digital Safety presentations fulfills the latter part and could go into much more depth with a larger set of minds coming together to produce ample creativity and add ideas from different perspectives.  With the four separate presentations, students had the opportunity to research their assigned topic, make concise presentations summarizing the issues of the topic, and become something short of a "professional" on their topic. Topics covered include sexting and textual harassment, cyber-bullying, phishing and pharming, & copyright and fair user practices.     In this increasingly digital age, children need to be increasingly media literate and more "tech savvy" th...
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Creativity! MII

A is for AOL, an American creation,    and also for Appple, a big corporation. B is for boredom so the web I do search,    for booties and boobies and Bulbasaur merch. C is for Classflow, which I’ll use, no doubt,    in my future Classroom once I am out. D is for Duo, who's doting on donors    to donate some dollars for new language learners. E is for educators using Edmodo for class,    electronically engaging their students to pass. F is for Facebook, where family’s found,    fearing photographs that add a few pounds. G is for Google for researching ghee,    for frying up garlic in a good recipe. H is for Hollywood, fueling the nation,    like Hooters and Hulu and TV sensation. I is for Imgur and Instagram apps    initiating interest in Internet snaps. J is for Jisho for Japanese nerds    joshing up jargon with Japanese words. K is for Kindle, a keen book whiz, ...
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EdTech Assesments

#1 - Moodle    The premise of Moodle would be to allow educators to facilitate hybrid, in-class, or online teaching all within access and control of themselves and their institution. The University of Guam uses Moodle to facilitate in nearly all online class material. As it is already paid for by student fees, it seems feasible that keeping up with the software and web material would be appropriate. It allows students access to secure material given by their instructors and only that secure element. Instructors are able to control their class material allowing access only during a window if time or even block access to some material until some previous material has been submitted or checked off. The possibilities for the embeddable material are only limited to the instructor's cache of information and what they need to share with their students.      As a student, this allows me to keep in contact with all the class material shared through this ins...
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Inte-GREAT-ion

     In the "Assistive Technology: Enabling Dreams" and "STEM and People with Disabilities" videos, we are reminded that there are people with different abilities who work just as well as us. These videos highlight that these people are humans as well and have dreams and talents just like we do. Their only hurdles are physiological limitations that prevent them from learning, participating, or communicating as well as an average functioning person. These videos take into account the rising tide of assistive technology and the ways that they can be integrated into "regular" academic life and how they are already being used. Speech-to-text and Text-to-speech software is a milestone for AT development      Susanna Sweeney-Martini, a college sophomore then when interviewed for the Enabling Dreams (Ellis, 2005) video stated: "Without [assistive technology] I could not exist as I am today." Born with cerebral palsy, it is difficult, nearl...
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