Blog Summary for C4T #3

My C4T #3 was Daneah Galloway. Her blog is called The Thinking Chick (which I thought was super cute). I commented on her blog post "Magic Wand". It was a reply to a tweeted article. She was amazed at how things had become obsolete just in this decade. Galloway mentioned her Stylus, land lines, boundaries, and the VCR. I agreed with her that everything is changing. I mean who has a VCR anymore? Land lines are also becoming out dated and more people are just using cell phones. The paragraph on boundaries was different. I hadn't even thought about that but it was true. She also mentioned another link she read. This link was pertaining to what would be obsolete in 2020 in the classroom. Two things that she mentioned were desk and paper! How crazy is that, but I guess it could happen. She also mentioned that she feels education changes slowly (which I also agree with at times). Overall it was a very good post and I enjoyed her blog!

My second post for Daneah Galloway was on her post called "Murky Waters." The post was about Galloway explaining to her 6th grade class about copyright. Some of her kids just couldn't grasp the concept that you can't take something that belongs to someone else. One of her students explained it by saying it allows people to steal a person’s passion. That's a good way to look at it! After Galloway and her students discussed copyright she thought about it for awhile. How do you teach a child that they can't take something that they can download? She feels her kids frustration with this issue as do I. She also posted a video that was funny about copyrighting. I told Galloway that I agree with her on the whole issue, and I have enjoyed visiting her blog! If you haven't visited Ms. Daneah Galloway's blog check it out!!

Blog Assignment #10

  

An Open Letter to Educator's by Morgan Bayda
Morgan Bayda wrote a post on her blog titled “An Open Letter to Educator’s. She opens with talking about a video by Dan Brown where he explains why he dropped out of school. His reason was that schooling was interfering with his education. The video really spoke to her so she posted it in this post. Bayda goes along by saying she too feels cheated by her university. Then she says that she learned so much in her Ed Computers class on collaborating with others. She liked Dan Brown’s video, but she wouldn’t have dropped out of school. Bayda is not afraid of change and is willing to embrace new ways of learning.

My experiences are much like Morgan Bayda’s experiences. I too have set in a lecture hall and have a hard time staying focused. It doesn’t do anything for us for the teachers just to recap what was in the book. If that’s all they’re going to do they should just talk and we shouldn’t have to read chapter after chapter. But wait, if they do just lecture we still have to buy the books right? Right. That always happens to me. Bayda mentions that a lot of professors don’t encourage you to speak to any one, and in my experience as well this is true. Professors don’t push for us to get involved with each other, and for shy people like me it’s hard to get involved if we’re not encouraged to. EDM like Bayda’s Ed computers class is a great class that encourages us to get involved with our classmates. We not only get to use our ideas but we get to collaborate with other’s ideas and make a GREAT idea! EDM teaches us how to collaborate when not in person as well. This consist of a number of great websites like Twitter for example. Our PLN’s also are great to keep the information we need at a click of a button.

The attitude of Bayda is a lot like mine as well. The attitude of feeling cheated by a university is mutual between us. When we spend long ours in a classroom my enthusiasm normally turns to boredom when we listen to the same thing over and over again. My grateful attitude for gmail, my PLN, and other internet collaborative sources are just like hers. Over all I think my attitude towards being educated is a lot like Morgan Bayda.

Don't Let Them Take Pencils Home

I enjoyed reading this post. It was very informative and insightful. I think that if a child wants to play a game with a pencil at least they are collaborating and learning with others! Some teachers are just so negative if they don’t agree with something. I thought this post was great and I will be subscribing to it!

Two Questions That Can Change Your Life

I loved this video, absolutely LOVED it. I have never thought about summing what I want to do in one sentence ,but I think it is a wonderful thing to do.

 I am trying to become a great educator to make a difference in my student’s lives, so they can one day make a difference in the world.

C4K October Summary

The first C4K for October was on a 4th graders class blog from the PT England School in Auckland, NZ. The post was titled “Playing with my Cousins.” Asena was the student who wrote this post. She wrote about a day she spent with her cousins. They played a skipping game, ate, played dodge ball and word scramble. Then her dad called her to go pick up her mum, and she had a fabulous day! I told Asena that I thought it was great that she likes to spend time with her family. I also said I loved her blog and she used interesting words. I really thought her blog was super cute!

My second C4K was on a 6th grader’s blog named Jade. She had written a short poem about herself. It said she loves birds, has 2 dogs, 1 fish, 1 parrot and 1 Avery (in the Avery there is 1 bangles finch). Jade also said she is 11. She lives and goes to school south of Tasmania. I told Jade that I really enjoyed reading her blog. I told her that I also had pet dogs and I also have a parrot. I thought it was great that she has so many pets.

The third C4K I had two assignments. I read a senior’s blog post called “The Other Side of Learning” which was about the most important things she had learned in school. She made a lot of excellent points. I told her that I thought her post was very interesting and informative. Education is a journey and it’s a great journey. I also said that I thought it was sad that not all children get to have the opportunity to experience the journey.
For the next part of the assignment, I had to comment on Miss W’s 7th grade student from Australia. My student was  Kyle Par. He had written a post called “Decission.” His decision was to do a passion blog about video safety so he would be safe when using you tube. I told him that a passion blog sounded like a great idea. I thought it was great that he thought about video safety because a lot of kids need to know about it. I told him I was very impressed!

My fourth C4K was on Mr. Goerend and Mrs. Quam’s 6th grade class blog. I had their student Piper C. Piper wrote a really cute poem that had a very good rhyme scheme. Piper used words such as lamb, Sam, clam, and spam. I told Piper that I loved the poem and was very impressed with their rhyming skills.

My fifth C4K was on Mr. McClung’s class blog. The post was called “Global Pool of Money.” He summed up what his class had been talking about the week of Oct. 7th. They had been talking about economy and the recent economic recession. In this post he wrote the cliff notes from the discussions they had on this topic. Mr. McClung then mentions to keep in mind that the cliff notes are for 8th graders and may be over simplified. I told him ,in my comment, that I didn’t think they were over simplified. They were simplified enough to make sense to a 12 or 13 year old.  I thought the cliff notes were very understandable and got the point across. I enjoyed reading his post.

Additional Assignment #3

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

What do you think is the most important thing Sir Ken Robinson says in this presentation?

 In my opinion, when he talks about kids are fed medicine to make them stay focused is a big issue and a very important problem. I think in some cases this is true. If a child can’t sit still give them a learning experience that involves getting up and moving!If they get into games try to bring an educational game into the picture and get them learning.

Is there anything you disagree with in this presentation?

I pretty much agreed with everything. Sir Ken Robinson is such a great speaker it makes you want to agree!

How congruent are Sir Ken Robinson's positions with those which you are being taught in the College of Education. In other words, where is there agreement? Where is there disagreement?

I think the different positions he presented are a lot like the College of Education in my opinion. I feel that they both agree on how students should learn. I think they want to wake kids up to see what’s inside themselves. At the College of Education they want kids to feel like they have a chance to be someone and so does Sir Ken Robinson. There may be some disagreements somewhere in this but as of right now I can’t think of any.

What can you do to address the issues Sir Robinson raises?

I can be a good teacher to my future students, and make others aware of Sir Robinson’s opinions and my own.

What do you think of the presentation? If you had to do a presentation with others like this, what role on your team would you like most to play?

I LOVED the presentation! I thought it was so interesting. If I had to do this type of presentation I would probably want to be the designer. Because the designer would have to know the order of things and be organized. I’m very particular when it comes to being organized and how things should look, so I think that would be a good job for me!

Project #14: How to Carve a Pumpkin

I chose to teach Andrew ,my boyfriend, how to carve a pumpkin. I hope that after watching this you will want to try it out!! Happy Halloween!!!

Smartboard Presentation

I did my smartboard presentation with Carly Dougherty. We chose to do our presentations nouns and verbs.

Blog Assignment #9

 

What I've Learned This Year

Mr. McClung posted on his blog an article that was about his first year of teaching. This post was simply inspiring. He spoke about his experience and his advice to other teachers for their first year. The article was by far one of my favorites we’ve read, and I plan to keep it as a reference. I think this is a great article for future teachers to read to get a glimpse on what to expect and look forward to. I hope everyone enjoyed the article as much as I did.

McClung tells us that we need to know how to read the crowd. I completely agreed with that ,and that our lessons should be student centered not just centered around how we want to teach the lessons. He also said we must  be flexible and reasonable. To be flexible we must not always just do things the way we want to do them. We always need to consider  our students in our lesson plans which is very true to me. To be reasonable is probably hard for some people but we have to be that way when being a teacher. McClung said so! I agree though that we must be reasonable and not have our expectations so high that we get very disappointed in our students and discouraged with ourselves. Communicating was also mentioned. To me this is very important. We have to be able to communicate with our students and building a strong relationship with them is essential to me. McClung mentions technology as well. After being in EDM no one should be deathly afraid of technology (ha ha), but if you are don’t let it scare you just do what Mr. McClung said jump in head first! Listening to our students is important too. We need to let our students know that their opinion matters and it’s not all about us, the teachers. Mr. McClung’s last point was never stop learning. I believe that is very true. We shouldn’t stop learning because there will always be more things to learn. If you don’t want to do it for yourself do it for your students!

Skype Interview: Breast Cancer

For my skype interview, I interviewed my cousin Carolyn Lewis about her experience with Breast Cancer. This is very important in both of our lives because it is in our family history. I hope this informs you on how it affects someone's life and how you can help fight the battle with us!

Blog Assignment #8

Watch Richard Miller: This Is How We Dream Parts 1 and 2

In part 1, Mr. Miller talks about incremental change and I completely agree with that statement. Part one was about how the computer is an incremental change. That books are pretty much out, but if you want to find one most are published online as well and they will always remain there. It amazes me how much you can do if you find the right sources online. Mr. Miller’s Martin Luther King information sheet was very good. I liked how he incorporated the video onto his information. I also had never thought about being able to access government documents! But with the web just about anything is possible.

During part 2, one point that really stuck out was that ideas don’t belong to us individually they belong to us culturally and that is very true. With computers anyone and everyone can access information. Educators should share information and keep bringing new findings to that information. Mr. Miller is so right about the use of the technology he presented. It gets ideas out there immediately and that is great if it is good ideas, but an idea is going to appeal to at least one person and that’s all it takes for an idea to spread. We as teachers should push ideas to our culture and children! It’s our job! This video should interest us and we should carry what interest us to others. This video was really interesting to me.

I really enjoyed the two videos. I would like to go back now to the statement about incremental change. If you don’t know what that is here is a short definition: something added or gained; addition; increase. In my opinion, that is just what all this technology is as Mr. Miller had said. Its not fundamental because it’s not really apart of our former thoughts on education and learning. It is new and changing things. It’s added on to our ways of learning and helping us find new ways of sharing that information.

EDM310 is Different

I would like to participate in videos like these. They seem like they were fun to make and they are informative. I’d like to do one like the EDM310 for dummies on blogging or something like that. Doing a series on something informative would also be fun as well. The Chipper Series was cute and informative. I got a really big kick out of it. I’m sure there are actually students like this. The points Dr. Strange make are very good and informative. EDM310 for Dummies was also informative and probably helped some people out when they watched it.

Why Smartboards Are A Dumb Initiative & Why I Hate Interactive Whiteboards

These two articles were different. I agreed with the first article more though. Smartboards are a good thing and they can help teach. If a teacher knows how to work it then it should be very interesting. The second article was right about teachers should learn how to work it. If a smart board just appears in a classroom and a teacher doesn’t know how to use it then it is a waste. I did like the quote from the second article. The quote was by Sylvia Martinez and said, “You can’t buy change. It’s a process, not a purchase. The right shopping list won’t change education”. As much as I agree with that I also disagree. She’s right you can’t buy change it is a process, but the right shopping list may help the process of education changing.
Here is an article that is the opposite of the others. http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2005/06/67710

Short Movie: The Tiny Snowflake

For my short movie, I decided to read The Tiny Snowflake. I hope you enjoy it!

Project 9b "Hairstyles 1900-2000"

Additional Assignment #2

 How Kids Teach Themselves

1. What do you think? If learners are motivated, can they teach themselves?
       I think learners can teach themselves. If they have the material and are motivated , I fully believe they can teach themselves.

2. If those motivated learners are kids, can they teach themselves?
        Yes, I don’t think it matters if it is adults or kids. Kids are interested in things so I think they would probably be able to teach better than some adults. This is because they get so excited when learning something.

3. What conditions are necessary for kids to teach themselves? For anyone to teach him or herself?
       I think the conditions would be to have the materials for them to teach themselves such as books, computers or both.

4. What role do computers and internet access play in the process?
       Kids trying to teach themselves have a world at the touch of their finger tips with computers. Internet gives them the opportunity to find out pretty much all they need to know about something. Computers teach the kids what they need to know to teach themselves.

5. What role does motivation, a desire to learn?
      Motivation is key when it comes to learning. If a child doesn’t have the desire to learn then they won’t try, but if they are motivated their capability for learning is endless.

6. What roles do a problem, a question or multiple problems or questions play in the process?
    If they have a problem they use their motivation to want to find the answer, and they use the computer and internet to find the correct answer.

7. How do you motivate someone to learn?
     Well for me, if someone were to tell me I did something good but I could make it great that motivates me. I guess it all depends on the person.

8. How are you motivated to learn?
      Grades motivate me a lot, but besides that I think if I’m interested in something it motivates me to learn more.

9. Can anyone who is not motivated to learn learn?
     In some cases they probably can I would think.

10. Do you teach yourself? When? Why?
      I do when it comes to math. When I was in Pre-Algebra in high school I was doing very poorly because I didn’t understand my teachers methods. I then really read my book and finally ended up passing with an A.

11. What role does a teacher (either answer generally or use a specific example) play in your learning?
     A teacher to me is there to show me how to do something, and to share their knowledge with me about something.

12. What is the most important idea, question or emotional response you take away with you as a result of watching this video?
    That there are kids in the world that have no choice but to teach themselves if they want to learn. It makes me feel privileged to have schools and knowledge available.

13. What other questions or issues are raised by this video that should be considered and discussed by aspiring teachers?

Why do teachers rarely do things like travel to poor countries to teach? Why can’t we get these kids some learning tools!

PLN #1

My PLN has been developing pretty well I think. I’m using Symbaloo to keep track of everything. I’m still working on filling in all my blocks, but I really like this site. I have many sites on my Symbaloo including: google, blogger, South Alabama, twitter, etc. I use my twitter account to see what other teachers have to say about different things which is very interesting. On twitter I’m following a lot of different teachers. I also use tweet deck to keep up with the teachers I find most interesting.  I also use facebook to keep in contact with some of my classmates and for personal interest. I really think my PLN is coming along nicely and hopefully will keep expanding!

Blog Assignment #7

 

 

Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture

While watching Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, I thought it was so sad that it was literally his last lecture. The lecture was about his childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others, and the lessons learned. The first technique I noticed was humor. Throughout the entire lecture he used humor to interact with his audience. The next method that stood out was his powerpoint. Pausch’s powerpoint really helped emphasize his points. Lastly , I thought his use of quotes should be considered a method. It ,to me, brought an emotional tie or aspect to the lecture. Overall I really enjoyed this speech and I hate that it is his last (I also thought what he did for his wife was really sweet and I started to tear up at the end when he said the speech was for his kids ).

Throughout most of the lecture Pausch used humor as a teaching method. During the first portion of his speech , about his childhood dreams, he used a lot of humorous references to keep the audience involved. Also, in the second portion of enabling the dreams of others he did the same. He made statements and would pause to get laughter or a reaction from the audience. The last portion of his speech had humor as well and you could tell somewhat that it was covering up the sad underlying message of the lecture.

During the entire lecture, he used a powerpoint. The powerpoint gave his points emphasis and the listener could figure out the important points. He used this during all three points. Pausch would list his main points on some slides and show pictures on others. This really helped me as I watched the video to keep up with the main points of the different sections of the lecture. The pictures he showed also helped emphasize his points on the slides. He also showed videos using the powerpoint method.

In my opinion, one of the techniques he used were quotes. His quotes throughout this entire speech really turned the emotional side up a notch. I really believe that if he didn’t have all the quotes from him or other people throughout his life this lecture would not have been as powerful. I wrote down many of the quotes because I really enjoyed them. There were too many to list, but I really advise everyone to go back and listen for them. They are really inspiring.

Blog Summary for C4T #2

My C4T #2 was Jabiz Raisdana. The blog I commented on was called “School Should Not Be Considered Work. Wmchamberlain had sent out a link to a students blog about learning. Raisdana wanted to comment but didn’t want to over step his bounds so he wrote how he felt about the student's blog on his blog. He had many good points that students shouldn’t think of school work as success for the future they should figure out what it does for them now. The things that students learn in the classroom won’t just benefit them in the future but it will during the here and now. I like how Raisdana said that we should apply what we are interested into what we are learning. Raisdana had the student’s comments on his blog and he wrote how he felt about each statement. I enjoyed reading this and it made me realized that school isn’t just work. On my comment I wrote that Raisdana made a lot of good points. I also said my favorite one was that teachers live off of questions. I think if more teachers made the effort to say that then more students would feel comfortable asking them.

My second comment for Mr. Raisdana was about his most recent blog on a video he had watched. The video was called “The Age of the Stupid”. He watched the video and put his review on his blog. I told him that I agreed that we are getting closer to scary times and we should be getting kids ready. He was very opinionated and I really enjoyed that. We all do need to understand climate change and other things that affect our lives. I really enjoyed commenting on his blog.