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I am in my third year serving as an assistant baseball coach and as the recruting coordinator for Fresno Pacific Univeristy.  My ultimate goal is to someday become a college professor and head baseball coach at the California Junior College level.

In order for this to happen I need to come up with a great coaching resume filled with tons of contacts and support from others in the coaching world.  The great coaching resume will come from winning games, and to win games one must recruit greatly players.  I preach a family style atmosphere here at Fresno Pacific, the students will be at a place that truly does care about them on and off the field.

I work as hard as I can in the recruiting world.  I want to get out on week nights and weekends to see as many players that I possibly can.  In doing so I have met a ton of collegues in the coaching world that have come to respect the time and effort that I put into our program,  there is a possibility of getting several different letteres of recommendation from these coaches in the future if I ever have a chance at a head coaching job. 

I have learned that the best networking strategy is to simply be yourself, your true colors will come out at some point so if you are simply your regular self everyday then your players and coaching colleagues will come to respect you a lot m

 
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Like most educational techniques there are both pros and cons to using wiki.  It is beneficial becuase it allows students to remain in a comfort zone of thought and delivery with their information, there is no fear of the perception they could get from their peers on their speech and delivery technique. 

The main negative I gathered from learning about wiki's, is that it could hinder the real life communication skills preparation that students get from constant in person, face to face feed back by using in class learning systems.  By never getting over these obstacles, students are able to remain constantly comfortable, and some of the toughest situations in the real world are anything but comfortable.  Another negative for using some wiki's is the possibility of attempting to use it as a possible scholarly source, when it is free to the public and editable by anyone.  Who's to say the information is 100% factual and unbiased?

 
I am embarrassed to say that up until this afternoon I had never heard of "linkedIn" or anything about it.  After creating an account it was rather easy for me to see the differences between LinkedIn and Facebook.

I have been a facebook user for nearly 7 years now.  I use facebook as a simple social networking tool, it allows for me to stay in touch with friends from my past as well as update my friends on my life through my posts and pictures.  I do not use it as an advertising tool in any sort of way.  Meanwhile, LinkedIn seems to be an online resume application that serves as the purpose of networking with other individuals that share your same professional interests.  I view it as a way to promote yourself professionally through your page as well as a way to keep an online resume updated through your professional advances and activities.  It was very clever of the website to ask you questions on your past work experience and education as a way of creating your page for you, without the user having to decide how t
 
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Computer and Ipad apps in education could become very useful tools if used for the correct purposes.  For example, for  students particular apps could help them organize their schedules and assignment for their classes.  I use a checkoff list app that I create a list of my homework assisngment at the beginning of every week with the due date next to them and simply go down the list and complete all of my assignments in order.  This method has really helped me reduce stress in my life and saved me time as a quick reminder of what I have going on.
For Teachers there are several apps that allow them to create folders for each student and allow them to log any discipline problems or missing assignments. 

The LanSchool Teacher's Assistant App is an amazing app that I found.  With Ipads and laptops taking over our education system, it is very simple for distractions to be created during a lecture system in our classrooms.  With this app however, teachers can reduce student distractions by blanking screens, limiting applications and limiting web browsing on student computers. This helps direct student attention from their computer to the teacher.  It is also useful for monitoring student activity within a classroom setting, the Thumbnail feature allows you to view all screens as well as see the current application and website that the students are running.  

The app is also great for student and teacher private interaction.  Students can be quickly polled during a lecture with true/false or multiple choice questions.
Students can also silently request help from the teacher.  A small question mark appears on the thumbnail with the student questions.

The Teacher’s Assistant will automatically discover student computers on the instuctor's Ipad or computer notifying them of any computer or Ipad users in the area.

 
Dreaminder really caught my eye!  I am a huge believer in following your dreams and setting high goals for yourself.  Dreaminder is a free tool that helps you remember what you want from your life. Reflect on your life, write down your dream and set the date when you want to be reminded  of it.  This free web application could be extremely useful for any type of goal, however it made me think of a goal like achieving a certain amount of money in a particular bank account.  In six months when you are alerted of your goal with a reminder, how close are your to reaching that amount of money in a bank account ?
 
After going over the Top 100 Tools for Learning article, I feel like an aboslute caveman!  Yes, I have always been aware of many of the top tools like, Facebook, Google, and Twitter but up until three weeks ago I had no clue what Dropbox was and after seeing it all the way up to #6 on the top 100 list I feel like society has passed me up compe.   I had a former coach of mine who is now at Long Beach State University ask for me to send him a video of a local baseball recruit through Dropbox.  My response was simple, "what is dropbox" his statement of "dude you have got to be kidding me" made me feel 2 feet tall!  My old coach doesn't have a twitter or facebook account and made me feel like I had fell way behind society!  I have been able to learn about the benefits of Dropbox and will use it to commuicate articles and video with my players for the rest of my coaching career.
 
Web 2.0 applications have forever changed our education system.  According to the article, The Best Web 2.0 Applications for Education 2012 by Larry Ferlazzo, Web 2.0 applications must be accessible to english language learners, free of charge, classroom usuable, fully browser based.  These requirements make the applications easy and simple to use.  I have never been the biggest fan of all these online tools until the past month.  With online education forcing students to use these tools and applications, it forces them to catch up to our tech savy society today.  During my undergraduate in class experience I had zero knowledge of how to record my own video or pod cast, create my own website and had never heard of any of these web 2.0 applications!  This online program has prepared me and made me confident
 
During my Kinesiology 710 course I have been able to learn about a lot of online technologies that I was completely against prior to the course.   For example I have learned that a Fan Page can completely benefit my career.  I want to be a Head College Baseball Coach someday, by creating a fan page, I would have the ability to give a constant recruiting tool to prospective student  athletes that did not have much prior knowledge of my program.  Uploading videos will be especially beneficial, as I have learned that prospective student athletes love "cool" things about a program.  By creating the "coolest" possible video of my program, consisted of the current players, it gives the prospective student athletes the chance to see the fun type of atmospehere they could be apart of.
 
 
http://www.elon.edu/e-net/Article/59585

The article "Generation Always-On" brings up concerning points about our youth education for years to come.  The studies showing that the attention span of this generation has decreased from that of the previous generations shows that technology and parts of social media maintain space in the human brain. 
I feel that as long as education systems continue to push towards a fast paced shifting system then our youths will have success.  However, if the system that I was brought up in takes places with lots of in class reading with a subject per hour ration then our classrooms could be in trouble.
I agree with the statement that in the year 2020 the brains of teens will struggle.  The relability of social media to communicate definitely decreases the face to face communication performance.  As well as the ability to find scholarly information!  When teens are asked a question these days, before they even think about the answer they whip out their iphones and google search the answer, it is creating a lack of ability to carry a deep thought process which would result in quick and irrational decisions down the road!

    Author

    Matt Souza, 25 years old.  Assistant Baseball Coach- Fresno Pacific University.
    PHIL 4:13

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