C4T Summary

My C4T's for the last two were on Mr. Will Richardson again and I have really grown to enjoy his blog and the things he posts. He is truly all about the future of education and the educators. We are not alone in wanting the improvement of education.
                    The most recent post I commented on was when he had another guy's tweets compiled together on his blog. The tweets really opened your eyes because they talked about how he was at a conference of some sort I'm guessing and he was stating some of the comments from there. One of the comments said that if we just fired some of the teachers we would have more money to go towards technology. Another comment said that you have to have reform-minded leaders to attack teachers and their pensions. These are the type of things being discussed today in the world about education. Will spoke of how a grass roots rejection of these things were needed and I agreed with him in my comment and told him where I came from and that there was limited technologies in my school. I'm hoping that I am a teacher of the future that brings in these new technologies to help the kids.
               His first one that I posted on this time was a website his son was doing while he was 12 years old! That was completely cool that he was doing something at such a young age. The best part was that his son was learning and combining things he loved. He made a website for kids watch videos on different basketball pointers. He loved basketball and was pretty good at it and also wanted to learn more on the computer like his father. It's obvious Will is doing his part at home to educate his kids in the ever changing world and we need to do ours!



Will's Blog

Final Report on PLN

Final Report on PLN

                    My final report on the PLN is that it was extremely useful to anyone who uses their computer on a day to day basis. It has different options for networking and access that takes so much time off of things. It makes things that are time consuming go by so much faster by having the links all together that you can click on and go straight to. One of the best parts about it was that it was so easy to set up. You already had groups and categories that were pre-selected where you could choose from the different ones you use.
                     Another part about it that makes it super easy was that you had more space to add your own. So you can add blogger on there for class. You can also add your own personal blog along with the class blog. The bottom line is that a PLN is definitely worth making. I hope that I can bring this into my teaching career. I realize that some schools are a bit more old fashioned than others but, I hope I can break that pattern if need be. Maybe I can incorporate different things like PLN's, Smart Boards, and personal blogs.

Project 10 PLN

Project #15 Smart Board

Blog post #13

24 hour Electronic Fast!

                     Most of the time we or should I say I make fun of people who can't live without their phones or t.v. I like to think of myself as more of a country guy. I was raised in the woods with limited cell service and I loved the outdoors and what other people would probably call "Roughing" it. I grew up camping and being outside all day long only to go to sleep and do it all over again the next day.
                     These 24 hours were really hard to get adjusted to. I thought I would just be able to jump right into it and start it. I was wrong and found that out when I had everyone calling and texting me because I didn't let them know what I was doing. So after starting over and letting everyone know what I was doing it began to get really tough. My cell phone wasn't the biggest problem as much as my tv was. In Mobile where I live there's not much to do outside and I never knew how much time I spent inside until doing this. I knew the braves were playing and I just wanted to sit down and watch the game but, I couldn't.
                    I also couldn't get on my computer to do anything. Good thing I got a lot of my homework out of the way before starting this project because it was really hard not to get onto my computer. The thing that I learned was that I do use electronics way more than I thought I did. Even being the country guy I am I still use technology in almost all aspects of life. Which proves that the world is changing and is more technologically advanced. It will only continue to change for the better and I will use this to help me become a better teacher for the future. I actually would like to use this same project for my class and have them write to me and see the differences in my experience and theirs. This would help me get a better idea on how much the world has changed in their lives. I hope to be a teacher of the future and educate kids in new ways that I have learned in edm310 this semester. I completely agree that everyone going through education should be required to take this class because what you learn is extremely helpful!

C4K Summary April

April Summary

                 All of my summaries for the month of April except the last one were with one student whose name was Caroline who had a really cool blog. The last post she had was about her spring break and how she went skiing at three different places. Unlike spring break for most of us who take spring break in the sun and the water, she spent it in the snow. I thought this was really cool and I shared with her what I like to do on my spring break like wakeboarding. 

                The second post I commented on her blog was about the WWF which stands for World Wildlife Fund. This was neat because she had a video up that she made to show all of the different animals that this organization focuses on. The Panda is the animal that the federation chose to be on the cover of their things. I thought it was great that she made the video because it showed that they don't just try to help the pandas, there plenty of other animals that were on the video.
Her first post was about the different things she enjoyed such as skiing. It was a great blog post for me to start on because it was like a description of what she was like. So I commented and told her the things I liked to do in my spare time and how we had some similarities but also some differences. All in all Caroline had really great blog and it was really cool to see someone young involved in technology like this.
                The last post I commented on was for a little girl named Shelly in New Zealand talking about her visit to the camp.It was really great getting to see the young generations all over the world getting into this technology. I commented that she should keep it up and stay with making videos because she did a great job. All in all everyone of these comments that I left were on some great posts on some younger kids which was really great to see.

Caroline's Blog

Shelly's Video

Progress report on Final project

Team Procrastination

              My team is working on a video to combine a lot of different things of what we have learned in this class. Matthew Rodriguez, Joe Hunter, and myself plan to use things like green screen and editing of videos. We also want to use some different sounds and techniques we have learned. We still have more ideas we are brainstorming on to think about using for it but, I am certain that it will turn out great and be extremely unique. Hopefully we can make everybody laugh and still think it's a really cool project.

Blog Post 12

History of Alabama

1)For this blog post watch the history of Alabama video.


2)Write two or more paragraphs following the outline of a quality blog post. What are some things that you may have learned that you didn't know took place in Alabama? Where there other things you think should be added to the video?


               For me I thought the video was really cool for a number of different things. I thought it was cool how it started off with some local talents who have went on to make it in Hollywood and they still know what it's like down here. Like Ruben said one the greatest things about Alabama is the football. We don't really realize how important it really is to us until we look at it from an outsider's viewpoint. I also thought it was really neat that they had all of the stuff about Helen Keller in the video. I don't think you can watch a video on the History of Alabama and not have anything about her in it.
               The thing that shocked me the most was all of that about the music from Muscle Shoals and the impact it had on music. I had heard of Fame before but not the story that this video told. I had no idea that some of the biggest names in country, rock, and r&b recorded there. Names like Aretha Franklin and The Rolling Stones were among a few. That's really unbelievable to think about. This video had all kinds of cool things in it like one of the worlds first city wide elecrtic trolly system in Montgomery. Also one of America's first open heart surgeries were performed in Montgomery. All in all this was a great video that taught me some things about my own state that I didn't know before!

Blog Post 11

First Graders in Ms. Cassidy's Class

           

              Ms. Cassidy's class was doing some really great things as first graders! It's unbelievable to think that there are first graders that are working on blogs and wikis I'm working on them for the first time in college. I can remember doing different things on computers in early years in school but, I was never working on a blog or skyping with people. The advances in technology and the direction they are heading are truly amazing. 

            Just think about how much the education system will be different in a few years. Maybe this will happen down here in Alabama for us. I know this was not around here and they use different technologies than our students but, nothing is impossible. I can only hope that they will start doing blogs as young as first grade! That will make teaching high school that much more interesting when they get to my class and they already have a lot of experience with these different tools.
            I can't wait to become a teacher and use different things like this with my class. If i get a job back at the school I graduated at which I would like to do I will definitely be bringing something new to the table. They have a nice facility but they do not have a single smart board. There are a lot of old school teachers that teach there so it will be nice to bring something new to the table. I can't wait to use these tools that I have learned in this class. 

Blog Post #10

Do You Teach or Do You Educate?

              This video really made me think about my reasons for becoming an educator. I have always felt like there was a difference in just a teacher and an educator and I use two of my past teachers as examples. One of my teachers in high school was a math teacher and she was really passionate about math and she did everything she could to try to make it easier for me which is exactly what I needed for that subject. But, she is not the one that made me think about going into this profession. She was still a great teacher though and helped me a lot.
              I had a history teacher who was also one of my coaches who really made me think about doing this as my career. The way he taught was so different and he didn't try to do the same things as the other teachers. He enjoyed being the odd man out of the teachers because he pushed for the students to change education. He didn't want the same old normal history papers he wanted some different things. The thing that always stood out to me was he didn't teach just history. He wanted us to stand out outside of the classroom and learn life lessons. He talked to us about different cultures and how we needed to be respectful of them and how the world is changing and we need to learn as we go along. He often said that he was there to change our lives and he was in this for us. He would promise us that if at any point he became one of those bitter teachers who hated their job and took it out on the students he would quit because it wouldn't be fair to us.
             Things he used to do and say are the things that inspired me to become an educator. I want to instill something in the kids that they can carry for their whole life. I want them to come across a situation and say I remember when my teacher talked about this in high school and this is what I should do. I don't want to just educate them about history but, the world around them. I am really excited about being the new cool teacher with all of this different technologies I'm learning in this class. I just really feel like I can make a difference in these kid's lives as an educator and coach just as it happened to me.


Don't Let Them Take the Pencils Home
             In this blog post it was a common case of teachers or administrators worrying more about test scores than the actual students and their situations or their home life. Gertrude was worried about the test scores and said that he shouldn't let the students take the pencils home because students who used took the pencils home had lower test scores. I see this is as a problem as well as  Mr.Spencer.
             He didn't think that you shouldn't take pencils home because he didn't feel that it was the reason for test scores being low. You can't blame test scores on the writing utensil that makes no sense. I like the point that Mr.Spencer made that said that the children see the pencils as toys and not something to write with. They see them as entertainment tools. He also speaks of how the parents of these children don't use pencils in their jobs and don't experience pencils in schoolwork.
           He then explains to Gertrude ways he plans to prevent this from happening. He created a parent pencil program to show parents and students different ways that pencils can be used for learning. I think this is a great idea because he was looking for a solution and not a problem too solve the way these students feel about pencils.
              The last thing that I noticed was that he was a different teacher who was OK with the kids going home and playing hangman. He said there may be more learning that we might not know about. That's exactly how the education of the future needs to be where teachers are OK with different things children do to learn. Things besides looking in their books. The world is changing and education needs to be as well.