Blog Post # 15

Reflection on Week 1

In my very first blog post I wrote about how I want to teach my students how to effectively revise papers by grading other students work. I also said that I wanted my students to be able to write about anything they wanted to write about as long as they were writing. The last thing I said was that I wanted my students to be able to tell me if they disagree with my teaching methods and if they think we should do something as a class. When I look back on this I still agree with all of these statements in my first week and I hope I will be able to teach them effectively.

With that being said EDM has changed how I plan on doing this. Before this class I never even considered using blogger for a way to write and read, but as I was reading over my post I kept thinking to myself "well blogger can help this" or "blogger would be good for that." So I am going to keep my teaching methods of what I want to be able to do however, I am going to add that I want to use the tool blogger in these methods. The reason being is that a good way to read other students work is by reading  and grading a blog post. Also that when writing a blog post students can literally write about anything they want which will hopefully get them excited about learning. Finally blogger uses technology which I am sure that students want to use in class so they will be guiding my classroom. This is why blogger is so amazing because it literally fits all three of my techniques and is in one simple package.

Final Reflection Video

Project # 11 Short Movie

Blog Post # 14

Teacher Knows If You Have Done the E-Reading

Summary

This article is about online books that tell the teacher how much the student actually reads of the book. The way it works is the book is online and every time a student reads it documents it. It also documents how many times a student highlights something or if they skip pages and how much time they took on each page. The theory is that this will give direct feedback to the book and the teachers on what the students are reading in the textbook and what ideas the students think are important. The theory is this will also show teachers how much time and effort students are willing to put in to their class. With this technology of being able to keep track of how much homework students are actually doing it should give the teachers valuable feedback on what they need to change in their teaching, and what students are actually putting in effort.

Thoughts as a Teacher

My thoughts as a teacher is that I like this idea because it allows me to see which students of mine are putting in the effort, and whether or not students grades directly correlate with how much they read. I also like this idea because it not only encourages my students to read but it also forces them to analyze and highlight what they feel is important information. So, as a teacher I absolutely love this idea it allows me to be able to show that if a student is doing bad it's because he is not doing the reading, it teaches my students how to read critically, and it shows me who is actually dedicated to learning the material.

Thoughts as a Student

As a student I absolutely hate this idea. The reason being is because what does it matter how much I read as long as I do well. In the article it talks about how if students are doing well without reading then maybe the teachers should toughen up, how is that fair for me as a student. It doesn't matter how many times I have to open the book to learn it, could be once could be 25 times, as long as I learn it, it shouldn't matter the time I put in to it. As a student I also don't like this idea because I think that teachers will hold biases towards students who don't read and highlight as much as other students, which isn't fair to the student. If someone is naturally smarter than someone else they shouldn't be penalized for it.

Questions for Teachers

My first question would be, how do you prevent kids from just opening the book to make it look like they read when they could be playing video games? I think this is an important question to address because as a concern for all schooling cheating is a major problem. The next question I would ask is, would it matter to them if a student was doing well but the report showed that they were not reading? I think this also is an important question because it shows whether the teachers actually care about the students or just the grades.

Questions for Students

I think the main question I would ask the students is , do you think that with this system it is taking away their freedom as college students? College students pay theirs and their parent's money to be at college. Which is an environment that teaches young adults how to be responsible with all of their freedoms and in choosing whether or not they want to do something. I would also ask that if students thought that this style is leading back to high school learning where every one checks to make sure you do your work? Being in college teaches students how to get things done for themselves and with this technology it is allowing the teacher to check up on them daily to see if they are doing their work.

Comment

My comment would be I both like and dislike this strategy. I think this is a wonderful strategy and allows teachers to actually see how much work students are putting in, but at the same time I think that it is taking away some of the valuable life lessons that college kids learn through independence. So I think that this is a fantastic idea for middle school and high school but not such a good idea for college.

C4T #4

C4T #4 Post 1

For this teacher I was assigned Will Richardson's Blog to the post "Playing Chopsticks With Technology." In the post Mr. Richardson starts off with a interview from Alan Kay. I did not know who Alan Kay was so I had to research him, and I found out that Alan Kay is a Computing Pioneer who has been working to create technology for over 30 years now. In the Interview it is asked wether having technology in the classroom will make students smarter, and he answers by saying it depends on the teacher. I thought that this was extremely accurate it doesn't matter how much technology is in a classroom if the teacher can't use it as well. He made a simile to a piano being put into classrooms, it doesn't mean we are going to produce more Mozarts, it just means that more kids will know how to play chopsticks. Mr. Richardson then goes on to elaborate by continuing to say that it is really up to the teachers to be technologically savvy because after all they are the ones who are teaching the technology.

C4T Comment #1

I commented on his post and I told him that I agree with him and Mr. Kay's ideas about technology in the classroom. That yes it is important for it to be there, but that it is even more important that we have people there who know how to teach with it. There was one part in his post where he talks about how he himself isn't near the level he needs to be on and I commented and said that I thought that he was very noble and humble by understanding that even though he can use a computer doesn't mean he is an expert at it. The more we learn for ourselves the more we will be able to teach to the future of our country.

C4T #4 Post 2

Mr. Richardson's blog was mysteriously taken down so I changed my teacher to Wesley Fryer whose blog is Moving at the Speed of Creativity. The post I commented on was Create an Online Radio Show with Spreaker DJ for Ipad. In this post Mr. Fryer talked about an I pad app where you can create, record, and publish a free radio show or audio podcast online. He added his screen cast video to his blog and I highly reccomend that you check out the app and Mr. Fryer's Screen cast.

C4T Comment #2 

I commented on Mr. Fryer's post and I told him that I thought it was a nice and inspiring post that he had created. the reason bieng is he is trying to tell the world about a solid free way to produce you're own podcast or radio show. In his post he also put another program that allows people to do the same thing and he said that these are now two of his favorite apps. I told him that I also liked the fact that he added the other program for people who might not of read his blog before and so that people will be able to compare them. I finished by telling him that I looked forward to reading more about what other tools he finds useful.

Project # 13 Collaboration

Face Time, Email, Google Doc, and Text Messages

For my two group projects, my group collaborated through text messages face time email and google docs. This was a pretty difficult concept discussing what we were going to do without actually being able to meet with each other. Face Time I think was probably the best tool even though sometimes the connection would be bad it was still the way we got things done. we used email because my phone does not have a screenshot button so my group emailed me a picture of the screen shot. Google Docs were effective because we chose which lesson plan we were going to do and then text messages were important because we used it to collaborate what time was best to do both projects. If someone would have asked me if I could do two projects with two other people and only meet up with them to film it. I would have never thought I would have been able to do it before EDM 310, but I was able to and I think they turned out really well.

Final Report on PLN

My PLN

At first I thought I was just going to do my PLN to make Dr. Strange happy, but I actually use it a lot it's a good way to keep everything I use on one page and I can just click on any icon I need and off I go. I think I have definitely expanded my PLN in the four short months that I have been in EDM310 and I know that by the time I become a teacher that it will be exponentially larger. I'm glad I was assigned to do this :)

C4K April

C4K # 9

For my ninth C4K I was assigned to Carly C who is a forth grader in Bellevue, Nebraska in Mrs Geldes' class. In her blog she wrote about Nebraska the state she lives in. I was very impressed with how much information Carly knew about Nebraska, she was able to talk about local attractions and she knew the state bird. The local attraction she discussed was the Henry Doorly Zoo. She talked about how her favorite part is the gorillas and how if you antagonize them then they will charge into the glass. She said that one day she is scared the glass will break and all the people will be in trouble. She also describes the weather in Nebraska as being hot in the summer in cold in the winter even though on March 24th it snowed. I commented on her blog and I told her that I was impressed with how much information she knew about the state of Nebraska and only being in 4th grade. I also asked whether she liked summer or winter better. I urge everyone to read Carly's Blog and leave a comment, because I think it is important for young students to get feedback from places all over the world.

C4K #10

For my tenth C4K I was assigned to Jessica who is a 4th grader in Mrs. Morris and Ms. Jordan's class at Leopold Primary School in Victoria, Australia. Her blog post was on  Easter and how much she was excited for it to be here. In her post I thought she did an impressive job with her grammar and word usage considering she is only in 4th grade. I also like the fact that she asked a couple of questions in her blog as well to try and get a couple more comments. I commented on her blog and told her that I liked Easter as well and that my dad and I always go golfing on Easter. I also told her that I had received Wreck-It-Ralph as a present and then asked her what she had received  All-in-all i think she did a great job and i definitely think everyone should post on Jessica's Blog.

Project # 16 Final Project

Project #15 SMARTboard Instruction part 2

Blog Post # 13

Brian Crosby Back to the Future

Brian Crosby's Back to the Future is a video that shows how important it is to educate students in a way that they will find motivating and entertaining. The video is about the projects that Mr. Crosby does with his 4th grade second language at risk students. The main project he focuses on is where his class made a hot air balloon and attached a camera to it when the let it go. This to me was an extremely neat idea, the thing that I thought was the most interesting fact about the project is he assigned his students to write a story as if they were the hot air balloon. I think this assignment was great because not only did it teach the students about science, it also taught these 2nd language students language arts as well. The main point in the video is that Mr. Crosby wants educators to realize that not all students are able to go to the best schools where they produce the highest test scores. However, all students should be able to go to a school where they will have the ability to learn in a fun and motivating way.

Blended Learning Cycle

In the Blended Learning Cycle Mr. Anderson describes how he tries to teach in his classroom. His method revolves around the five E's: Engage, Explore, Explain, Expand, and Evaluate. In order to use this cycle Mr. Anderson came up with an acronym to help teach with the cycle. The acronym is QUIVERS. The Qu stands for question, this part is very important to Mr. Anderson because with anything we do it is to solve a question. The second part of the acronym stands for Investigation, the process of finding out the answer to the question. The third part stands for Video Mr. Anderson posts a lot of his assignments and comments through video to allow for him to spend more face time with his students and help them answer the question through video and person to person. The E stands for Elaboration, this is a big part because students need to be able to elaborate on why the answer to the question is actually the answer. The R stands for Review, In Mr. Anderson's Review process he sits down with students and asks them detailed questions about why certain things are the way they are and why the students think that is. This is the most important part of the acronym because what Mr. Anderson does is he make his students explain to him the answer to the initial question, which in his theory and in mine, someone really doesn't know something until they can explain it to someone else. Finally the S stands for Summary Quiz, which allows other teachers and principals that the students are actually learning the material. I honestly think that Mr. Anderson's approach is a wonderful strategy, mainly because of the review portion. When he said that someone doesn't actually know something until they can explain it to someone else, really made me believe in his system because he won't allow his students to move on to the summary quiz until they have completed the review portion. So I definitely am going to try and incorporate at least some of the blended learning cycle if not all of it into my classroom.

Progress Report on Final Project

Final Project Report

For my group, July 16th group, we have decided to do Option B which is to create a 10-15 minute video to help prospective students learn about EDM310. Our group is doing fantastic already we have already discussed what each member is going to do and we already tried filming once but our volume didn't work. So we set another date and we will be finished in plenty of time.

Blog Post #12

My Blog Post Idea

For this assignment I decided that I think that this class should have had an assignment where the students use the internet to find out the dangers of an important topic. Such as drinking and driving, not practicing safe sex, obesity, or gun violence etc. The reason I think this should have been a post is because we are in college and I think it is important for students to do research on their own and find out the facts for themselves. Also, since I plan on being a high school teacher I feel like It applies to them as well.

My Post on My Idea

Since April is alcohol awareness month I decided that I would do the dangers of drunk driving. So when I was looking up statistics online I found a website called MADD and it is a pretty cool website that has a bunch of statistics and the option to be able to tweet any that you think are worth hearing. On the site it says that "over 1.41 million drivers were arrested in 2010 for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics." Which I thought was ridiculous that over 1.4 million people were arrested even though there are commercials all over TV and billboards warning people about drunk driving. The next thing I thought was interesting was the site said "The average person metabolizes alcohol at the rate of about one drink per hour. Only time will sober a person up. Drinking strong coffee, exercising or taking a cold shower will not help." I think this was a very important statistic because I know a lot of people believe that certain things can sober them up when in all actuality it can't. I also like this quote because it tells people that one drink takes an hour to metabolize therefore, even though you might feel fine after ten minutes you really aren't. The last statistic I am going to talk about is "In 2010, 211 children were killed in drunk driving crashes." I thought that this was absolutely absurd that 211 children were killed because people thought that it would be ok to drink and drive. That someone would rather risk a kids life then pay a taxi to take them home. I think that if people do this assignment they can find out more facts for themselves and hopefully it will make people think twice before they do something that can not only danger themselves but other people as well.

Blog Post #11

Mrs. Cassidy's Classroom

Mrs. Cassidy is a first grade teacher in Canada who is teaching first graders the importance of technology, and is allowing the students to have fun while learning. In her video First Graders in Mrs. Cassidy's Class she records her students telling about what they learn in the classroom as first graders. The video is really neat it made me understand that these kids genuinely enjoyed learning about this kind of stuff. I also like the fact that she allowed the students to do all of the talking that way it adds more legitimacy then just her preaching about blog posts and wikis.

In her Skype Interview she talked about some of her techniques she uses in her classroom. The one I will probably use is Blog posts. Being an English major, writing and reading is extremely important. So, when Mrs. Cassidy says that just writing and reading blog posts has improved her kids literacy I definitely think that is something worth doing. I also like the fact, which Mrs. Cassidy points out, that my students posts will be read by people all over the world. This way students can become more excited to write for an audience instead of trying to write for just me. I think though if I land in Mobile County that I might find it a little difficult to get the school board in on it as well. So instead of maybe blogging during class time I will make it a homework assignment and that way I can still teach what the school board wants me too. I think the benefits of this approach will allow students to become better readers and writers, allow parents to be able to follow their kids success whenever they have free time, and hopefully allow Mobile county to realize that maybe teaching with technology is an idea worth trying.

C4T #3

Post #1

This C4T assignment I was assigned to Michael Kaechele, who is a teacher in Michigan. His blog is called Concrete Classroom. In his post he was talking about how he was offering local teachers information about PBL (which is project based learning) and asking for advice on how to make himself better. In his post he said that he was struck to find that all the cared about was if PBL was going to help their students pass tests. Which even as a student myself I can agree that this is a terrible attitude to have when it comes to teaching. These teachers don't care if their students learn all they care about is whether or not they look good at the end of the year. I commented on his blog and I told him to keep up the hard work and hopefully people will start to realize that PBL can help students actually learn not just help them be able to pass tests.

Post #2

I went back to Mr. Kaechele's Concrete Classroom blog and he has now moved his blog to a different website it is still called the Concrete Blog it has just been moved. In his newest post he wrote about the importance of teaching about racism. He says that he hasn't taught his kids about racism yet but it's because he doesn't think they are ready to form their own opinion. He feels like if he assigns it that the students will just use the opinions that their parents have instead of developing an opinion of their own. I commented on his post and I told him I understood his dilemma, because we want to make sure that our students think for themselves especially on big issues such as racism. I also agreed with him that it should be taught as people overcoming adversity and standing up for their rights like the founding fathers did. It shouldn't be taught like these are important black people who did stuff, it should be taught like they are important people it doesn't matter that they're black. I definitely am glad that doctor strange assigned me Mr. Kaechele because I enjoy his post and I recommend that other people read them as well.

C4K March

C4K # 5

My 5th C4K assignment was on Jake who is a 2nd grader in Birmingham for Miss Carol McLaughlin. In Jake's blog he wrote about rocks and minerals. He said that he really like rocks and minerals and he goes on to say that there are different kind of rocks and minerals too, can you say future geologist. The most impressive thing in his blog though was the picture that he posted. It is a breathtaking picture and I would love to see it in person. For my comment I told him I liked rocks as well and one of my favorite places in the world is the Grand Canyon, and then I asked him if he has ever been. He hasn't written another blog for a while so I think some encouragement definitely might help him. So I recommend commenting on Jake's Blog.

C4K #6

My 6th C4K assignment I was assigned Julia who is a 6th grader in Waukesha Wisconsin, in Mr Seyfert's class. In Julia's blog her assignment was to make a creative writing story. Julia decided to make her story about a man whom had 3 wishes from a unicorn. In the story she describes how the man is greedy and asks for an animal who will give him more wishes. So a flamingo appears and starts to grant his wishes for all the riches in the world and a new name. The story ends with the guy receiving the name of Pa-ho. So in my comment I explained that I liked how she reiterated the fact that the man was greedy after he already asked for more wishes he in turn asked for all the riches in the world. I then asked why she chose the name Pa-ho and what did he receive with his other wishes. I thought her story was extremely well written and I encourage everyone to leave a comment on Julia's Blog.

C4K #7

My C4K assignment for week 11 was a girl named Kylie who has a blog in Ms. Lentine's class. In this post Kylie talks about how she misses Vermont. How it is so hot down here, yeah right. She continues by saying it makes her laugh when she hears people say it's cold because she says they have no idea what cold really is. She then says that her new school is really different but that she has still been making a LOT of new friends. I commented on her post and I told her that I thought it was funny that she said people down here have no idea what cold is, because my cousin who lives in Michigan says the same thing. I also asked her what her title meant it was titled BBFFF but I'm not sure what that means. I think you should check it out and maybe leave a comment as well on Kylie's Blog.

C4K #8

My eighth C4K assignment is on a boy named Jason who is in the 8th grade at a small school on the prairie in western Iowa near the loess hills. His assignment was to illustrate the words of christ. So Jason decided to illustrate Jesus's first miracle. What I liked about Jason's blog was he used links and he inserted his picture that he used to illustrate the words of christ. I commented on his post and told him I thought he did a fantastic job. I also asked him who was getting married in the wedding that Jesus performed his miracle at. I think Jason has a really cool blog page and I definitely encourage people to encourage him to keep positing. Also if you want to leave a comment here is Jason's Blog.