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.

C4K March

Kaitlyn's Third Quiz
                The first post that I commented on was this girl named Kaitlyn who loved to do unique things on her blog. The post that I was supposed to comment on was a quiz that Kaitlyn came up with. It was really interesting and had an actor and some bands in it and i believe a few tv shows. I left her a comment and told her it was really cool to see her generation doing things like this using technology. I also told her I couldn't really answer who any of the people were but, it was really interesting. She commented back and said she appreciated my comment and everything that I wrote.

Kaitlyn's Blog

Caroline's Blog
     
        My other comment was for this other girl named Caroline and her blog. First off I noticed that she put a lot of work into her blog because it is colorful and has different layouts where it looks like she has been doing this for a little while. She had a really cool post talking about how she liked to ski and take pictures. I left her a comment saying how I have never been skiing but, I do like to wakeboard. I also talked about how photography would be a good hobby to pick up because there is nothing like seeing the finished product and what you can do with a camera. She had a really cool blog, I just wish I could have done things like this at their age.

Project 14

C4T Summary

C4T Summaries

My C4t summaries came from a blog by Will Richardson. He put's very interesting blog posts up to open eyes about education here in America. All of his posts are interesting and they always receive a lot of feedback from all over the world. His points are different ones that most people wouldn't really go to which makes his posts very different.
       The first post that I commented on was a post where he spoke about Kony and the chaos that erupted with this video. He spoke about how great it would be if there was an Education 2012 video to show what education looks like in this day and time in a networked world. He made it clear that you can't just not be amazed by the Kony video no matter the reasoning behind it. He said that there should definitely be an Education 2012 video itching to be made that puts children front and center and get's people excited about the advancement of education.

The next post that I commented on was a really cool post that opens your eyes to some points that you may not think about. He speaks of how places like Singapore try to prepare their kids for a diverse world. They want to prepare their students for the test of life not just tests. He talks about how China's main priorities are thinking and problem solving and teaching them to live in a highly integrated global environment. He just talks about how these places are preparing kids for values and the actual real world outside of school. He said Someone gets it, Why aren't we? He really is kind of right because America and teachers around here focus on tests and students scores to make them look good.

Will's Blog

Blog post #9

What I've Learned This Year


  I chose to read Mr. McClung's post from May 27, 2009 because that is around the time that I graduated. I loved this post because he gives different tips and pointers about teaching because this is after his first year as a teacher. The picture that he had before the article looked like a piece of paper that he had written that said An important decision that I made this year is Stay Positive. He gave different pointers about things like Be flexible, Communicate, and give an audience based lesson.
  He said one of the more common things he did was worry about being assessed by his superiors and not giving an understandable lesson to fit the kids. I think this is something that all teachers need to realize whether they have been teaching for years or are just starting. You have to fit your lesson to the kids. Make it interesting and fun to keep them in tune and involved.
  Lastly he said two points at the end that really spoke to me. He said you should always listen to your students and never stop learning. I love these posts because they are something that I strive to do when I become a teacher. First of all to teach you should never stop learning whether it's material for your subject matter or technology. Always continue to learn, you can never know everything. Lastly, you should always listen to your students, that's one thing that I loved about some of the teachers I had. They would listen to us, ask us what we liked, and try to change things to better fit us. I always told myself I wanted to strive to do the same thing.

June 23, 2011

 This post was three years later after his first year teaching. He made some great points about knowing who you're boss is. Like most teachers do he said don't try to please the adults so much that you forget about the kids. He said the students should be our primary focus and how we serve them rather than serving administration 24/7. Another one he posted was don't be afraid to be an outsider. Which pretty much means stay true to yourself no matter what the other teachers do. He said he has never been one to fit in and he was ok with that.
  He always strives to be the different teacher which is something that I really think is cool. He's not afraid to be the one guy that stands up for the kids or what he believes. He puts the kids first and tries to make their learning experience the best it can be for them to learn the best. These things are things that I have always thought of how I would be as a teacher. A true student's teacher who understands them, listens to them, and makes school better for them. I plan to keep up wit these posts and use his tips and pointers as I become a teacher.

Blog post 8

This Is How We Dream part 1&2

In these videos Dr. Richard E. Miller talks about some of the great changes that have come with multimedia over the last few years. These changes have affected everything in our daily life. He talks about the changes in writing with multimedia and how the changes of communication are some of the most important in our life time. He also showed some really cool things in his videos like how they had updates on the election of president Obama and had interviews with different people. I thought how they showed that newspapers kept up with election as votes came in with both print based and moving image based photos was really interesting.

The two points he makes are the two main types of changes. There was Incremental change and Fundamental change that he spoke of in the videos. Incremental change was more or less saying things like our work space has changed from the library or writing with a pencil to our laptops. Research, writing, communication is all on your laptop and it cuts out the need for the trips to the library. He also used examples of collaborating through networking. Which meant that we didn't just have to have text anymore we can include movies and pictures to make learning better.

Fundamental change was what he said makes technology possible. Things like kids not using word processors in the future but using different technologies to compose things. I am looking forward to using things like these technologies in the future and learning more. He also spoke about in the second video that it is our duty to share ideas for our culture. He said that ideas don't belong to us individually but to us as a culture which I found to be really neat. Overall it's just really crazy to see all of the changes and technological advances taking place as we speak. There's no limit to what education can be like in the future.


Blog Post 12 by Carly Pugh

I really liked Carly's post and how she tried to challenge everyone to a point on what they had already learned. I liked what she said about how videos usually do help the learning process. I mean who doesn't want to watch videos and learn. I really liked how on the playlist she wanted people to find videos that described the kind of teacher they would like to be and show ways that they could motivate their students. That to me accomplished her goal at the beginning of the post of making the assignment seem like Dr. Strange came up with it himself. Overall it was a really cool post with a lot of great ideas in it.


The Chipper Series & EDM310 for Dummies

The chipper series was pretty funny and it cracked me up how she kept thinking all of those jobs and ideas were going to work. She went through all of that and in real like probably would have wasted years doing all of these other things because she thought it was a better road to take instead of sticking it out and finishing school. At the end she realized though and eventually came back to school. This is so true and so many people do this all the time but, this would be a good video for them to watch if they were having thoughts about quitting school.

Edm310 for dummies cracked me up when they were trying to break keyboards and screaming! But, I know what they mean with getting frustrated in this class and freaking out. I mean, I don't stand up and try to destroy school property but, I do get frustrated. Things have gotten a lot better though recently because I have managed my time better. I try to get up early on Tuesdays and Thursdays and come to the lab and work on things and that has really helped. I just try to have more fun with things instead of seeing it as a nuisance.

Learn to Change, Change to Learn
I loved this video because it is so true. The world is completely changing from what we are used to. Technology is opening up so many doors for the future of education but it get's rejected in schools for old school teaching. One thing I have learned from this class and other education courses here at South is just how important networking can be for education. They really hit the nail on the head when they said that kid's are in more stimulating learning environments outside of school than in school. The very things that these kids are using outside of school are the things that are being banned inside of schools because they believe it hinders them. This video just makes me even more excited about bringing these tools to the table as a teacher.

Scavenger Hunt

Locate a tool similar to Facebook/twitter

On the web2.0 I went to community tools and chose the first link to a website called Emodo.com which was really cool and I have never heard of it. It is like facebook as far as the networking goes but the cool thing is it's like for teachers and students. They have different things like events and different communities that you can find and join. They also have sections for practices for teachers and students which I thought was really neat. These kind of tools are what the education of the future needs.

Locate the tool that most likely created this presentation
I believe that the tool that created this presentation was Animoto. It gives you te opportunity to bring ina whole new world of lessons for your students with videos. The pricing had three different categories. The first category was free which had unlimited 3o second videos which really is not a bad deal. The second was $30 a year or $5 amonth which gave you unlimited feature length videos and 600+ music tracks from a wide variety of genres. The third option $249 a year which comes with everything pretty much. Unlimited music, featured videos. HD upgrades, and downloads. This is pretty expensive but, when you think about everything that you get with it I think it's not a bad deal at all.

Video Feature
A video feature that I have never used before would be Animoto. I have never even heard of it before now but, it seems to be really cool. It syncs with so many different things such as facebook, flickr, and photobucket to let you upload images. It also lets you use music. The coolest part about the music is you can use your own mp3s that you may already have stored on your computer. Or you have the other option which is to look through some of their music and search through plenty of genres. Lastly you can watch your finished product in HD or upload it to youtube or even put it on a DVD. There's no limit to what you can do while composing a video using Animoto.

Project 12 Book Trailer

Short Story Video

Time Toast 9b

Blog Post 7

The Networked Student

This video by Wendy Drexler was really interesting and it really showed you how education is changing. Networking is becoming more and more a part of education and it will only continue to grow as the future progresses. It gives you a better understanding of virtual networking and learning where someone may have not had it before. It also explains some more tools that you could use besides a book. Me personally I am all for technological advancements in education but, I don't want them to ever completely do away with books. They are such a good fallback tool to go to.
I thought it was really cool how they explained what the theory of connectivism means. Connectivism is that says the learning occurs as part of a social network with many diverse connections and ties. I never knew what this meant before now so that was really good to have that broken down to have a better understanding so maybe if I have a co-worker who believes in connectivism I can relate to them in a sense.
When it got to the point where it asked why a networked student even needed a teacher it was because she helped them on so many levels. Yes she hardly lectured but, when they needed help the teacher was there to explain things. Things like guidance, proper communication, differentiate information, and helps them stay organized. This teacher is still a big part of this class because they would have never gotten some of these assignments finished on time without her. I also believed she opened up many doors for their future while introducing them to connectivism.

2. A seventh Graders PLE(personal Learning Environment)

I thought this video was really cool because there was so much that was going on for a seventh grader. I would have never dreamed of being able to do all of that as a seventh grader. She had page that had her school work, social networking, and different web pages. She could get on before school and see what she is going to have to work on for school. I really want to use this type of things for my future as a teacher.

Blog post 6

First off this video that Randy Pausch made of this lecture called Last Lecture was very inspirational. It was a great thing to hear that someone talks about all of their dreams and how all of the dreams and goals whether they reached them or not made them who they were. I would recommend this video to anyone to watch to maybe get some inspiration or some motivation no need your career choice.
He talks about different dreams throughout his life and they were really all amazing. He had dreams like be in zero gravity, play in the NFL, and become a Disney imagineere. It was really cool to see how he speaks of all of his dreams, the ones he reached and didn't reach. One of my favorite things he said was that Brick walls are built not to stop us but to see how bad we want something. Brick walls are meant to stop the people that don't want it bad enough. That is truly motivational and inspirational.
He talks about his tumors and how he only has a few months to live but he just says that's not what he's there to talk about and moved on. He says how he was in better shape than most people there and he got down and did like twenty push ups! This was just a truly inspirational video and I am so glad that I got to see it. He shows how he got his dream of going into Zero gravity on the plain called the "Vomit Comet".
That was a really cool part of the video to see then he said that he wanted to play in the NFL but he didn't get to. But, he said that was all ok but football still made him who he was . He speaks of his old head coach and how he was old school and stayed on him pretty hard when he messed up which is what he needed. The last one was where he became a Disney imagineere after trying so hard to. He eventually became a consultant for them for ten years! He truly lived his life to the fullest and he inspired everyone in that room to keep them motivated. It was just an all around great video.

C4K Summary

In my first comments I didn't do everything right and I forgot to save details but I do remember what everything was about.
My first post this girl named Hannah had a really interesting post talking about how she didn't mind one Ap class she was taking because she loved the text book she had read. She said she actually liked the text book and having it to refer to. I commented on it and said that I completely agreed with her because I also love having text books to refer to and look back on. It was an all around good post.


My third c4k was about a girl named amy in Mrs. Garcia's class. She wrote a really cool poem called the Knewts where she was ble to really tie some rhymes together to create a clever poem. Her teachers class blog showed that they had famous fighter named Brock Lesner come and read to the class and I was shocked personally. I didn't know that guy was one to come read to a class like that but, i was very intrigued by it and I left a comment to the kid in the class and for their teacher and asked them how they liked having Brock read to them. I thought that this was interesting post to show that teachers are taking different routes in classrooms to help children achieve more.

My fourth post was on Mr. Salsich's class and I was really impressed with this class and the video they had posted. They had a "boat project" where they would use tin foil and other materials such as straw to see which sizes and shapes of boats would work when they put marbles in one at the time. I commented and said that I thought it was really great to see kids enjoying their education so much. That's the way it should be, we should be able to teach in a way that we are able to make it fun for the kids. I know that is when I learned the best. So this was one of my favorite posts yet.

PROJECT PODCAST

My Time Line

My Sentence Video

Post #4

1st Graders create their own read along audio book

I really liked this video and how she explained what she did to help the students stay better focused like splitting them up into groups. The coolest part to me was that she said how much enthusiasm they showed to do all of the recordings. They wanted to re-record if it didn't sound just right which helped them get better with emotions and the way they read the story. This also will help them in the future with reading in classrooms or public speaking I believe and making a crowd believe that you enjoy what you are talking about and not just reading a piece of paper. One more thing I really liked was that she thought to put a specific noise at the beginning of each chapter just in case a student became lost along the readings.

Listening Comprehension Podcasting

This video was really cool and I only wish we could have gotten to do things like this in the first grade. They were able to use the smart board and edit their audio clips like it was some kind of music track or something. It was really cool to see that and they were speaking Hebrew pretty good whether the knew it or not. Another thing I liked is how she said that listening to the words not only helped them see how they were pronounced but how they sound or relate to the sentence. This will help future use of the word when they put other words around it to make their own sentence. Overall, a really cool post.

The benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom

This video was probably my favorite out of the group because it shows a way that technology is helping education that I can immediately relate to. I have been sick plenty of times in school and had work sent home with me that I may not understand. Now they have podcasts and or vodcasts where the teacher can explain the lesson to the sick student in more depth for them to understand it better and complete their work correctly. I think that is very cool and can't wait to integrate that into my classroom. This is another great positive about technology in the classroom that is helping us educate even better.

Blog Post 3

Part 1.
All of the videos and slide shows talked about quality peer reviews and how they should be constructed. I loved the techniques that they showed especially in the video of the Top 10 mistakes. It was pretty funny and informative at the same time which was cool. Some of the techniques like speeding through the review or being vague were good because those are things I think everyone does without realizing it sometimes.

Part 2.
Technology in special education was really cool and I'm glad someone made a video for everyone to see first hand. I had the chance to experience this on a first hand basis myself. I had the opportunity to visit the Little tree which is an inclusion school for autistic and regular children. It was a great learning experience and i got to see just how much technology plays a role in education. This also ties into How the ipad works with Academics for autism.
I got the chance to see them use the ipad and other things like the smart board for non verbal children to communicate. It is absolutely unbelievable to watch how much technology helps these children. They literally have a voice when they use these programs. I got to watch them do programming with a non verbal child who was beginning to speak all because of the ipad and smart board technologies he started on when he arrived there as nonverbal.
I would use these different apps and features to help with the education of the children no matter how serious their condition may be. You can sit down with a child who may have not been able to talk and actually have a conversation because of these apps. There is a whole new world that is available now because of these features. I truly believe education and special education would not be improving as quickly as it is now without these technologies

Part 3.
This social media count is Crazy! It was so cool to see just how much time and information people put into computer. You really see how popular things like facebook and twitter are which was pretty crazy. I also liked the section bout gaming and mobile phones and if you click on the tabs under it to change it to days or months or even years. Those numbers got so high it took second to count! Definitely a cool video to watch to understand how much time and effort is put into these social features that are available to the world.

Part 4.
I liked this video because this can relate to all of us here at south taking huge classes where teachers don't have any idea who we are. It seems like a lot of them don't even care to know who we are or our situations. Teachers need to get back to actually caring for the student and actually wanting to help them. I really liked how it had different students holding up different signs describing aspects of their life with college. We all can relate to the papers, the 18% of teachers that know our names, and the seven hours or Less of sleep we get every night. I think teachers should have to watch this video.

Post #2

Did You Know?

I really liked this video because of all the interesting facts you probably wouldn't learn elsewhere. I thought it was pretty cool how all of the facts tied into our class and our goals for becoming a technological literate teacher. One of the main things i picked up from the video was the fact of how behind the U.S. was in this education. Imagine how much more could happen in our country when the education increased or did some of the things that those countries did.

The education system here in our country is based around what Dr. Strange likes to call burp back education. I think one of the main things that is wrong with teachers today is the way they view education and students. In my opinion there are tons of teachers who see every semester s just a group of kids who they have to get to meet a curriculum instead of actually caring how the student will learn to their best ability. I think if teachers start caring more and want the kids to know about the world around them there will be many different aspects of education that will increase.


Mr. Winkle Wakes

This video was interesting and showed side of someones opinion on the education system in today's time that you can actually say is kind of true. It showed rip van winkle waking up after One hundred years sleep and finding how the world has changed around him in so many aspects except for one, school. I guess i can see where they are coming from technology has advanced so much in the last ten to twenty years alone much less the last one hundred. Through all of this there are many aspects of school that have stayed the same as well. Books, paper, and reading are the main tools in schools today.

I did like how they did show there was a computer in the back of the room that was collecting dust because that is how a lot of the schools are today in society. They have computers in the classroom but, it is every once in a blue moon they get on and use it. Why can't you get on the computer everyday instead of having to have some type of special assignment every other week to do?


The Importance of Creativity

This was probably one of my favorite videos out of the whole group. It shows how videos need to be in school that we must watch for learning. He combines comedy with teaching to keep us awake and paying attention to his every word. If every video that we had to watch for school was like that the most boring of topics would be interesting. He was really funny and intriguing about his thoughts on the school systems and education for the future.

One of the cooler things he said was the story about the little girl who couldn't sit still. The doctor walked out and cut some music on and told her to watch. The girl started dancing and he told her she wasn't sick she was a dancer. They out her in a dancing school and now shes a multi-millionaire and world famous choreographer. We should fit education to the students needs not hand them some pills and tell them they have a problem.

A Vision for 21st Century Learning
I loved this video because it get's me ready to become a teacher. I'm going to teach history and there are tons of students that find that to be one of the most boring subjects in school. So it makes me happy to know that they tied technology into some world history in the video to show that there are ways to make it fun for everyone. I'm a firm believer in teaching through and with technology and i think that one day our system will go to something like that.

I can only hope that one day i will be able to do something cool with my students like that. It would have been unheard of for us to get on a computer when I was in high school and walk around ancient Rome and learn things through the computer, and that was just 3-4 years ago! This video just makes me excited about becoming a teacher because of all the possibilities in the future.

Harness Your students' Digital Smarts
This video was the best in my opinion out of the group of videos. We had to watch this teacher in rural Georgia teach students to be technologically literate. It really hit home to me because that is the kind of school I came from, a small rural area and small school. I can not tell you how exciting it would have been for me to have had a class like that where we learn so much on the computer and other devices. She also let her students teach class sometimes which would have been really cool I think. The classroom would have been more comfortable with everyone being so active among classmates.

These techniques are some that I hope I can use once I become an educator. There are just so many possibilities for our future and the future of our students. We can start making the classroom more interactive like this class that we are in now. Who says you have to wait until you get to college to take a class where you learn how to blog among other cool technological things. I'm just ready to become a teacher and to use some of the techniques to my own advantage in becoming a teacher who can keep up with the times.

Zack Boone's Wordle