Project #11

Again, this project did nothing but make me hate Macs. I think the idea of using a green screen sounds like a blast. I had my whole project planned out and filmed. But then when I went to edit it all in iMovie, everything went wrong. The directions given by all the sources I could find didn't work, no one in the lab knew how to do anything, and I messed with it for 4 hours before giving up and filming this goofy, unprofessional short movie. It is not a great job on my part but after spending 5 to 6 hours trying to do this project, and it still not turning out perfect, I was just to frustrated to try again. I did not like this project and I will not use iMovie in my classroom. Enjoy.

Project #14

I really enjoyed this project. I love using smart boards and learning what all they can do! Hope you enjoy and learn from my video as well.

Blog Assignment #10

This is a cartoon drawn by John T. Spencer. The drawing of the boy on the left says he is a Papermate (a cheap brand that makes pens, pencils, etc.) The drawing of the boy on the right says he is a Ticonderoga (a more expensive brand of the same thing). Notice that the Papermate boy is dresses for success and looks very intelligent in his glasses and combed back hair. The "Hipster" Spencer draws as the Ticonderoga representative looks unhappy with scruffy clothes and long untamed hair. What does the pencil they each were drawn with have to do with the look of the boy in each picture? I, myself, am not 100 percent sure, but I think Spencer is trying to convey to his readers that investing in all the expensive merchandise is not what makes you smart or successful. Investing in hard work, perseverance  and the depth of the material is what makes you smart and successful.

In Spencer's Why Were Your Kids Playing Games post, he describes a conversation between him and his principal in which he was getting in trouble for "playing games" during class. Unfortunately, the principal failed to see the educational approach that Spencer was using and that the results were very educational. The principal told him he was not allowed to play games and sent him out saying that he should try an algorithmic factory. So Spencer created a new game called "The Factory".

In Spencer's Remember Pencil Quests, he tells about a time in his sophomore year when they went on a 'pencil quest' that was like a scavenger hunt yet all the students were given maps and had to all take the same route. As he looks back and criticizes the activity as something that didn't give the students the opportunity to choose and learn, he realizes that back then those teachers were the ones trying to do "something different" just as he is now. He then wonders if his students will grow up to think that his activities didn't help them learn.

The last post is by Dr. McLeod. It is Don't Teach Your Kids This, Please? It basically lists all the things people who aren't technologically literate think that technology will do to our students. They might cheat, look up porn, or get bullied. They don't need an audience when they write. They definitely don't need cell phones in school. These are all things that he mentions in his post, which, I might add, is tackled from a completely sarcastic point of view. At the end, he proposes a challenge for teachers not to do all this and see how is ahead in the long run as far as student learning goes: him or them.

I can't say that I agree 100 percent with what he says about they way others think or with his own point of view. I guess I'm on the fence. I do think that technology is important, and I do think that it will help children learn. But I also think that students are too immature to use it for the right reasons. A friend of mine is in the 11th grade and has a Mac issued by the school. He told me the other day that he loves being able to have it in front of him in class because he just watches movies all day... and he is number 1 in his class. What does this say about everyone else in the 11th grade? It also scares me to think that technology is starting to replace teachers and the students don't have a choice. I despise online courses at South. I like having the option to sit in a class where the teacher only lectures and no technology is required. I fear that someday students won't have that option, and some students will get left behind.

Project #12

I did my Book Trailor on M. Christina Butler and Jane Chapman's children's book "The Dark, Dark Night". This is a great examlple of who all children are scared of the dark because of the monsters in the shadows. I enjoyed working with this book and making this trailor for it. Enjoy!

"The Dark, Dark Night"

Blog Assignment #9

Mr. McClung starting teaching in 2009. At the end of every year, he writes a blog post for the summary of his year and what he learned. I chose to read this first one and his most recent one.

What I Learned this Year (08-09):

Mr. McClung's first year of teaching was in an Elementary School in Missouri. He's starts with "How to Read a Crowd" saying that one thing he learned was not to worry about how you come across to your supervisors when you teach, but instead, focus on how well the students are understanding what you are teaching. Second, in "Be Flexible" he sums up how he feel about things not going as planned by saying, " NO LESSON IS EVER PERFECT. THE LESSON YOU TEACH AND THE ONE YOU PLAN ARE ALWAYS DIFFERENT." Amen, brother! Next, "Communication" with the teachers you work with is key. Always work on building your communication skills with those in your workplace. "Be Reasonable" with your students. Set expectations that are high and if they fail to meet them, encourage them to do better next time. He next has a short paragraph about Technology and not "being afraid" of it. He say that it's our friend and to jump in head first and discover it. Then he says, "Listen to your students. You might be the only one that does." Listening to them builds relationships with them which is one of the most important things about being a teacher. Lastly, he writes, "Never stop Learning". We need to keep learning as we teach. We beg our students to learn, and we should to!

What I Learned this Year (11-12):

This is Mr. McClung's most recent year summary post , and he approached it differently. Instead of listed a lot of things he learned, he focuses on 2 main themes that make up his teaching career. They are "Dance with Who You Came to Dance With" and "Challenge Yourself".
"Dance with Who You Came to Dance With"
This section he tells us that he started worrying about what his peers thought about what kind of teacher he was. He concludes, though, by saying he has one rule: to keep hos students having fun and enjoying learning.
"Challenge Yourself"
In this last section,  Mr. McClung challenges us as "soon-to-be" teachers to never get comfortable. Once you have been teaching a while and can rely on old lesson plans to get through the lessons, then you get lazy and your students stop enjoying class. He encourages us to always be creative and never get comfortable.

I  really enjoy hearing/reading teachers' stories and experiences. I loved reading these posts by Mr. McClung. I feel like him and I think a lot alike, and I can learn from wthe things he wrote about. I love the idea of summarizing what I learned in the first years of teaching. I'm definitely going to do this when I start teaching.

Blog Assignment #8

1)      Richard Miller’s “This is how we Dream” videos Part I and II:

In Richard Miller’s video, he tells us that he loves to read and write. He grew up around books and always wanted a career where he got to use books. But now there has been such a growth in the technology of literature that he has been able to be a part of that instead. He wrote a book, but it is part of a virtual library and can be sold for only 59 cents.

In video Part I, he begins explaining the increments of writing. First were pen and paper and libraries, and now is on the desktop of a computer where we can bring up multiple windows with different things in them and operate them all at the same time. He was using one window with his internet, one window with documents, and another with the essay that he was writing in it. We can access all the virtual books in the world instantly from the comfort of home. He then explains how books that we get tired of in libraries or at home, we throw away after they are old or boring, but on the web, stories, book, essay, etc. live on forever. Also, once someone “checks out” the book, it isn’t gone. Others can still view it and read simultaneously as you are.

Second, not only do our books just consist of words on the computer. Technology allows us to add pictures and film. He calls it collaborating networks. This allows us not just to view and upload pictures and videos, but also to share them instantly with anyone in the world, not to mention streaming live!

In video Part II, he starts by talking about how technology allows us to see changes instantly. You can close out of a website and bring it back up and the info can be completely different. Then he shows us a screen of iTunesU and somewhat explains what it is. He says it’s a place where people upload their audio books and lectures for others. He says, “Ideas don’t belong to us individually, but together as a culture, and we as educators must be in the business of sharing those ideas freely.” He says that he sees a day coming when students won’t be taught to write with the same old word processors but with a digital composing processor.

How do I plan on using this in my classroom? Well, for classes that involve writing, this sounds wonderful. I have nothing against technology, learning it, and using it in my classroom. The only thing I know for certain is that no matter how fancy, fun, and new the technology is, I won’t use it if it isn’t helping my student learn MATH because math is what I am there to teach them. I am always open to hearing about how teachers are using technology in their math classes but so far, I haven’t really seen much.

2)      Carly Pugh” Blog Assignment #12:

In Carly’s blog post, she creates an assignment for her EDM310 class as if she were Dr. Strange. Her assignment is to make a playlist on Youtube that has 10 songs on it. Each of the song represents a way of answering question that she has asked about things such as motivation, inspiration, creativity, etc. This is similar to Dr. Miller’s idea about writing with multimedia because you are literally answer questions with someone else’s word (videos) off the internet. I think this is an awesome assignment by Dr. Strange to have us create an assignment for the class, and I also think it was a great assignment by Carly.

3)      The Chipper Series and EDM for Dummies:

The Chipper Series is a series of videos about a girl named Chipper who doesn’t like Dr. Strange’s EDM310 class because she doesn’t know how to teach herself or how to manage her time (which are the 2 primary purposes of this class). So she drops out and creates a school that eventually fails. The second video, EDM310 for Dummies, is a typical first week for EDM students. They are mad, frustrated, and want to just quit. Eventually, though, they learn how to manage their time and explore and start finding out the awesomeness of some of the things Dr. Strange is trying to show us.

Although the videos are great and amusing (and truthful about the course), I don’t have a desire to make even more videos of the same. In contrast, I loved very first video we watched about the lecture on time management. It was funny and actually taught me something, not to mention it was done by a professional lecturer. These videos were about what NOT to do in EDM310, whereas the time management video was about what TO DO in EDM310. I think this is what videos there needs to be more of. They tells you when you start a diet, don’t focus on all the pizza, ice cream, and bread that you CANNOT eat, but instead think about all the delicious fruits and smoothies you get to eat (and that smoking hot bikini you will be able to fit into). These videos need a new approach. Not so much “Don’t do this” and “Don’t do that”.

4)      Learn to Change, Change to Learn:

This video is a bunch of what appear to be very educated individuals who are downing the idea of “education” and looked forward to the pure idea of “learning”. Our typical educational system is centered on English, Literature, Math, Science, and History. They have standards to meet, and they don’t diverse too far off the path so that they can quickly return. Sometimes this kills the spark in students to veer off just the information that will be on the test and discover wonderful related ideas. One thing in the video that I definitely agree with that I almost even quote without knowing is that classroom shouldn’t be made of brick and mortar but out of the world that we live in. Students should be out in the world learning how to use their subject matter (those standards) in the real world.

5)      Scavenger Hunt 2.0:

       (This video is in Justin’s Blog Assignment #12)

1. Edmodo almost just like Facebook and Twitter but it’s for teachers and students. You subscribe to different subject areas and get all the statuses/posts from others about that subject matter. As far as I have looked at it, it is great because all the teachers ask for help, and teachers give them links to great resources and such. This would work great for me as a teacher and my students because we could always ask for more help and help others.

2. Photopeach is a tool that allows students to create accounts without email addresses and save their projects under the teachers account without publishing them until they are finished. They can upload any videos off the web and any music off their personal computer. All of these can then be added to the presentation. For educators the price for this is $9 a month for 50 students and $125 a month for 150 students.

4. A Video like this one and its prices: The tool I found to make videos is called Animoto. It takes all kinds of videos and mixes them together into your own movie and you are able to add sound and text and everything. 

PLN Summary #1

Symbaloo

I'm not really sure how this summary is supposed to look or if I am supposed to include a video or audio clip or anything but basically I am figuring out Symbaloo. This website allowed you to save all your websites as they might look as apps on like an iphone. By clicking on any of the small blocks/icons it will open up a new tab to connect you to whatever your website is. I am just figuring it out and have not put all of my sites up on it yet, but I have set it as my default for when I open my browser or any new tab. This way, all my information is right where I need it and stays organized. Also, I believe that once I have my profile complete, then others can view my, what they call, webmix and get links to all my websites. This is great for all my awesome educational help sites. I can send any fellow teacher right to my Symbaloo to see all my sites.

Blog Assignment #7

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture
I am obviously not going to retell everything that was in this video or even discuss how I felt about ALL of it only because is was about an hour and 16 minutes, and I'd be here typing, and you reading, for a really long time if I did. Still, I would like to touch on some of the phrases that he said during this video and how they affected me and my thoughts on my future classroom.

The first part of his lecture was about "My Childhood Dreams" and I have 5 phrases that I would like to get you to think about:
The first is, "Have something to bring to the table because that will make you more welcome." I love this! Imagine a Thanksgiving day dinner in which the guy who was supposed to be in charge of bringing the turkey didn't bring it! No one would want him to even be there anymore. Life, education especially, works easier if everyone contributes what they know to everyone else. This is a lesson I can use with my class everyday when working in groups. Everyone must bring what they know to the surface and share it with the others in order to solve the problems.
The second quotes is the definition of what he calls a "Head-fake" or indirect learning, "The best way to teach somebody something is by making them think they are learning something else." I know this from experience because when you play games that are fun, and it feels like you aren't learning, the material sticks!  I will definitely try to find games and activities or labs for my students to do so that they can stop focusing on learning and start thinking about solving problems.
A third is, "When your screwing up and no one is saying anything to you anymore, that means they gave up on you." This in itself says all I need to say about it. It teaches me that I should never stop correcting a student who is wrong even if I have to repeat myself 50 thousand times. I don't want to give up on any of my students.
Another, "Wait long enough and people will surprise and impress you. You just haven't given them enough time." This one, I believe, coincides with the previous. Though I may have to repeat myself over and over and over to get a point across, don't lose hope because they will always impress me eventually. I just need to be patient with them and try new methods.
Lastly, this quote is a tough one to read because in today's society with all the emailing and texting it is hard to hear tones. "There is always a "good way" and a "bad way" to say the same thing." For instance, telling a student that they are wrong, yet again. You don't just want to say, "You're not even close. Have you even been paying attention in class?" Instead, you might say, "This answer is wrong because you began using the wrong method. Remember this morning when we went over the new method? Try using that."

In the second part of the lecture, Pausch discussed how he wanted a way to help more than one person at a time to achieve their childhood dreams so he created a course called Building a Virtual World. In this section, he talked about his class and mistakes he made and ways to go about not making them. His first mistake was assuming he knew how smart his students were. His lesson to us is, "You don't know where the bar should be set and you're only going to do them a disservice by trying to set it somewhere. Let them show you where the bar is set and then you raise it from there." I love this because it's so true. Just because it took all your past classes 2 weeks to finish Chapter 1, doesn't mean that it will take this year's classes that long or it may even take them longer. Don't assume that because previous classes learned well from a particular approach that all others will too. Basically, don't teach based on the past. Teach based on the present.
The other awesome point he brings up in this part of his lecture is, "Are you a Tigger or an Eeyore? Never lose your child-like wonder, help others." If you have ever watched "Winnie the Pooh", you know who these characters are and that Tigger is a big bundle of joy and fun who loves to help others, and Eeyore is a gloomy cloud of depression who secludes himself. I think the point he is trying to make is that everyone should dig down in themselves and find the child (or Tigger) within them that makes them joyful and happy and wanting to help others. Also, it is about checking yourself. It is something that you should ask yourself every single day to determined if you are in the right mind set to really impact your students' lives.

The last thing that Pausch does is recap his lecture in a list which I will list for you:

1) Brick walls are there to separate those who don't really want to achieve their dreams.
2) Don't Bail
3) Get Feedback and use it
4) Show Gratitude
5) Don't complain just work harder
6) Be good at something, it makes you valuable
7) Work hard
8) Find the best in everyone
9) Be prepared: "Luck" is where preparation meets opportunity

This list is every powerful and is a checklist for us to being great educators, dare I say people, someday. Don't ever give up on your dreams regardless of whether it seems impossible or not. Most of them speak loudly for themselves, and I think would make a wonderful set of class rules to hang on the wall in our classrooms someday in honor of such a smart innovative man, Dr. Randy Pausch!

**He also lets us in on a little secret in the last seconds of his video. That this whole thing was a "Head-fake". Did you catch on?

Group #1 Podcast

I am part of Group #1, and we did our podcast on Rafe Esquith's book "There are No Shortcuts". Our podcast covers the prologue, chapter 3, chapter 4, and the epilogue. Enjoy!

PART I

PART II

Also I would just like to add that though the final projects of our podcast turned out great, the process by which we arrived was not so. We followed all directions correctly and didn't have a problem due to lack of "know how". The Macs and imovie were slow and unhelpful. I could have done the entire project on my HP and finished in less than half the amount of time. It took us over 2 and a half hours just to edit the video, transfer it to the Mac, and upload it to Youtube. I really enjoyed the book, my awesome group, and the project as a whole, but if it taught me anything, it's that I don't not want to get a Mac. (Which I'm pretty sure was the exact opposite purpose of the whole project.)

C4T Post: February #2

C4T Feb 19:


The blog that I was assigned for my C4T is called "Cooperative Catalyst: Changing Education as We Speak." This site is a place for teachers to come and blog and share their views with each other and with the world. Their vision is: "Passionate educators challenge one another to propose sustainable solutions and structures for re-imagining schools and education, supporting one another to enact and refine the ideas." The specific post that I read this week was called "The Diversity Crisis in Taxpayer-Funded Education" by Jabreel Chisley. He is not a teacher but an 18 year old boy who dreams of someday owning his own school and becoming a lawyer. His post was about how no education is being achieved if students graduate without learning to work and get along with people of other cultures. He claims that the dominant "white" race is given the title "right" and that others feel uncomfortable when having to work along side a "white" student. He thinks that because students today aren't learning to accept diversity but that sameness is being emphasized. Unfortunately, none of his reasoning directly supported his argument. He started talking about "No Child Left Behind" and the funding of schools and whether schools were rural or urban. He talked in circles, and his post was very long and vague. I did not particularly enjoy reading his post but was kind in my comment. I told him that schools everywhere in the US did not support sameness and have a lack of acceptance for diversity. I told him that I agreed with him that if I had not learned to civilly work with and accept others of different culture than I wouldn't have considered my education complete.


C4T Feb 28:


This week I have "Cooperative Catalyst: Changing Education as We Speak" again, and the post is by Chad Sansing titled "People, Problems, and Wonder." He starts off by listing 4 "wondrous" things he had witnessed in the past month. 1) Watched/Heard Jeff Mangum play his guitar, 2) Bought a record player for the house, 3) Watched the International Space Station fly overhead in the full moonlit night sky, 4) Oversaw 2 project based learning students recreate the wiring and circuit boards for old arcade game machines. He says that it's amazing that 1 out of 4 of his "wondrous" experiences in one month happened at school. Unfortunately, he knows that students lose this sense of wonder and sink into what hs calls "ennui" which means boredom. He then goes on to quote, "It is past time we designed schools to be wondrous places. It is past time we designed schools to keep kids full of wonder. It is past time we taught one another how to wonder again, fearlessly. It is past time we stopped confusing following instructions to complete a project with solving a problem to complete a project. It is past time we stopped confusing people with problems."

I know that this is true and sadly, it's hard to prevent. I hope that I am able to start changing this is my classroom. Anyone who knows me knows that I love to learn and make the subject of my learn my passion. So this is just what I commented to Chad. I said that I hoped that I could be one of these future teachers that he refers to that can change wonder into wondrous.

Monthly C4K: February

C4K Feb 8th:

My kid for this week is from Mrs. Behm's 8th grade English Language Learners class. My student's name is Ta Nay Tha. I'm not sure if this is a boy or girl's name, but for the post I would assume it is a boy. His post is about what he would do if he had $200. He says he would give $50 to his mom to go buy him some apples and oranges, then use the rest to buy video games. He loves to sit around and play games while eating fruit! I recommended in my comment that he just rent video games from a "Red Box" and that fruit is not even close to $50. I explained that he could have a day of fun playing games and munching on fruit for less than $10!

C4K Feb 14th:

This week my kid is from Robbins Elementary School in Prichard, AL. He is in the 4th grade in Ms. Muhammad's class and his name is Keenan. Keenan's Blogs are very short and only about 2 or 3 sentences. I read 3 of them and 2 were about reading and 1 was about becoming president. The one I chose to comment on was called "The Day I was inspired by the Assembly." It said this:

"The Reading Like a Rock Star assembly inspired me to do better on my reading test. Then it inspired me to learn new things like reading my book daily. It motivated me to stop playing and do my work. Now tell me how this assembly inspired you?"

My comment was also short just encouraging him to keep his focus in reading because reading opens the doors to learning every other subject.

C4K Feb 19th:

My kid's name is Aaron this week, and he is from Ms. Lavakula's 5th grade class. They are in Room 13 of Pt. England School in Auckland, New Zealand. Aaron's post is a Google presentation just like the ones that we made in EDM310 not too long ago. It was all about him. He is from Afghanistan, plays Cricket, and his favorite movie is Alice in Wonderland. Aaron's profile says that his favorite subject is Math, and I was able to comment about encouraging him to pursue a high level of Math because I am going to be a Math teacher. But out of all of this, my favorite part about Aaron's blog is that it had his picture on it, and I was able to see the face of the child hundreds of miles away to whom blog I was writing on.

C4K Feb 26th:

This week I have a 1st grader by the name of Daniel. He is in Mrs. Vannoy's class. His post "Ethan and I" was posted January 3rd and said, "Ethan is my friend. He is smart. He is nice. He is cool." Unfortunately, he didn't put spaces after any of his periods to separate his sentences. I told him I was happy he was learning to blog and told him his mistake. Then I told him his friend Ethan sounded like an awesome guy.

Blog Assignment #6

Wendy Drexler

This video by Wendy Drexler was very much like the class that we are taking, EDM310, in which we as students are assigned projects, activities, posts, comments, and etc that force us to dive into the resources we can find on the web and using our technology in new ways. We have done projects that involve imovie and Google presentation. We have created accounts with Twitter, Skype, Prezi, Google, Youtube, and more. We have commented on posts of students, teachers, and classmates from around the globe. We have watched countless videos throughout Youtube that have supported and given us examples of the “Network Learning” our teacher and Wendy Drexler are trying to get us to see.

After comparing Wendy Drexler’s video with what I, myself, am learning in my class, I see why the question, “Why does a networked student even need a teacher?” is asked by so many. The video tell us that the teacher is still very much needed to answer questions and guide the students in the right direction. What I have learned from EDM310, as far as this question’s answer is concerned, is that 1) I would not do any of this work or research into any of the websites and resources without a teacher that was giving me a grade for it, and 2) that technology has its moments when it just decides not to work, and in those instances, you need a teacher who knows more than you do to adjust to issues and, like the video said, “guide you in the right direction.”

In one if the comments below the video, a former EDM310 student wrote that she believes that teachers should be the experts of the classroom/subject matter. This is easy to do in a math course (because before I graduate as a math teacher, I will have had some of the most advanced math classes offered) so I expect to know way more than my students. As far as being a Network Learning teacher, I do not believe that I am ready. I could not confidently say that I could walk into a classroom and know more than my students. This mainly is because it is something that students can teach themselves. Also, it is because “technology” is a subject that never stops changing. As a teacher, you must continue learning as you teach.

Wendy Drexler also posted a video of a 7th grader’s PLE. She has it all organized on one page. Her school stuff is all on the bottom half, and all of her personal stuff is on the upper half. It is a perfect example of a Networking Learners PLE or PLN. She clicked on many examples on her page and showed what she has been working on, and it was rather amazing to see how far ahead she is than I am on developing my PLN. Right now I just have my blog. Everything that I have researched or created is on my blog in some type of post. Hopefully by the time that I am a teacher, I will be able to organize my info and references in a way that I can access any of it with ease to best aid my students.

Project #10: Finding the Right Tool

"It's Everybody's Job to Give the World a reason to Dance: We were made to be Awesome!"

I would like to start off by saying that I have always loved math and always learned it with no problem. My learning style was exactly how teachers taught: the  teacher would lecture and provide a couple of examples, then The End. I always assumed that my learning style would also become my teaching style. Since I entered college though, I have realized that there are other teaching styles out there, and although I may not learn best from them, other students seem to respond better. This has taught me to be open about where other teachers' styles and my students learning styles can take my teaching style.

With that being said, I took it upon myself to search for websites that will help me in the future to form the atmosphere of my classroom and it's learning/teaching style. Then this assignment asked us to find some and share them with the class. Done! I have found many websites that are connectors. They provide links for me to explore to find what suits my class and students. The first one is EduBlogs. This website provides all the latest "best" educational teacher/student/class blogs, podcasts, twitter posts, apps, websites, etc. By "best", I mean that the creators of Edublogs do all the searching for you, and then provide you with the links in order to save you time from reading stuff that will just waste your time. Another great website to keep you up to date and connected is Educational Technology and Mobile Learning. This site has tutorials to help teachers incorporate technology into their existing classroom using social media that their students are already familiar with: blogging, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Skype, Twitter, and Youtube.  In addition to all this, it provides links to some of the most educational based journals in the world for you to learn from the best. Still another that is basically the same, but individually run and operated, is Free Technology for Teachers. Lastly, is a website that my first C4T was assigned for is TED (this specific link is to Dan Meyer's "Math class needs a makeover.") This site is full of speakers and educators who have "Ideas Worth Spreading" about Technology, Entertainment, and Design. The videos are no more than 10 minutes a piece and really get you thinking about how to change your classroom for the better. Most of them are funny and enjoyable to watch. Here is one for example:Kid President: Pep Talk. A must watch: ENJOY!

My Sentence Video

Blog Assignment #5

Krissy Venosdale

Krissy is a 3^rd grade through 6^th grade Special Education teacher. She loves technology, photography, learning, and inspiring her students and others to chase their dreams. She bases her teaching off of STEM: Science, technology, engineering, and math. And she tries her best to encourage her students HOW to think, not WHAT to think.

“If I built a School”

I really enjoyed her blog post “If I built a school”. I would say that I have a very traditional learning/teaching style, but Krissy’s post left me thinking. At her “school”, she would create standards based on rooms and subjects. Reading would take place in a huge tree-house in the library. Science would take place in a real laboratory where experiments were always taking place. Math would take place in an engineering/problem solving environment. Art would take place in a real art studio. Technology would be taught in the mist of everything. All students would be encouraged to use their labtops, phones, etc throughout the day with everything. And she even goes as far as to say lunch would take place in a modern-styled café with couches and inspirational and innovative speakers. I think her school sounds like a blast. Obviously I left out all of her decorating and outside of school ideas, but they too would create the perfect environment for all of this to take place.

If I built a School, it would not be in a School:

If I had to build a school of my own, I would also base everything off of the idea of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). Reading, Writing, History, and the Arts are important, (I know in the past people got angry with me for stating otherwise) but there is a reason that there is a shortage of secondary Math and Science teachers. It’s because they are hard subjects to learn and hard ideas to wrap the mind around. Students nowadays don’t want to be made to think, and this is what Sciences and Maths require them to do. My school would encourage “The Nerd” in everyone to emerge! Let the uniforms be lab coats and safety goggles, let the school supplies be rulers, protractors, measures, and calculators, and let the classrooms be outdoors in the world! Our world could not exist without biology, physics, space, chemistry, geometry, and, believe it or not, Calculus (speed, velocity, acceleration, length, area, volume, etc). It kills me that people want to work jobs in which all they do is sit behind a desk, but then again, that’s all they have done K-12! Let’s get the students out into the world and have them study and live the math and science that is always all around us!

Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir and NPR Interview:

The choir in this video is good but to think that they never once met with each or practiced together is amazing. Everything was done through the internet, and people from all over the world got to participate. His interview with NPR explains about how it all started with a young girl who recorded herself singing his song and sent it to him. He then decided to get 50 people to do this and 185 people responded. Once his first piece had been edited and released on youtube, he did his next song which had 2000+ responses, and his third song had 3000+ responses. He says that this just proves that people long to be part of something bigger than themselves and part of a community who shares in their love for music. I have seen another video similar to this, Nelly’s “Just a Dream” performed by Christina Grimmie and Sam Tsui and music by Kurt: Youtube- Just a Dream . I often thought about how awesome the internet is when I first saw this video. They never once met but did the entire performance, singing and instrumentals, via internet, and it is amazing! Check it out (the end is the best).

Teaching in the 21^st Century:

This video was very long yet informative about all that technology is good for in the 21^st Century.  This includes podcasting, blogging, learning, researching, and much more. He had many lists of the different programs available for students to use such as Facebook, Youtube, Google, Wikipedia, and more. He describes teaching as becoming a tool to guide students into teaching themselves. All the technology out there can provide students with basically every bit of information that they will ever need to know.  Roberts suggests that teachers are just a tool for teaching students how to find the answer using technology. In my opinion though, teaching a student to look up an answer only works for some information such as, “Which country has the largest population?” or “How many gallons of water is in the Gulf of Mexico?”, but what about the analysis and application problems? Yes, they can find it on the internet, but how much of the actual thinking process is lost by this. Just because I can take any math problem out of my Calculus 2 book and plug it into Wolfram Alpha and get the answer does not mean that I “learned” how to solve the problem. And some might suggest that if we have internet programs that give us answers for this type of problem, then why in the world would anyone take the time to learn it? Are you kidding me?!!!! I’d like to take all the technology in the world and shut it down for a day and pretend like it’s the 1800s or something and see how many people literally go crazy. People have learned to rely on technology for everything in their lives and lose the pure intelligence that comes from really thinking. I don’t want to offend anyone; I think that technology is great and that we do need it. Everything Roberts stated in his presentation is right! I’m just a math nerd and nothing bets the sensation when you solve a problem that you had to work on for an hour. Technology takes that joy away. It’s just a sore subject for me. People in my “Math for Elementary School Teachers” class couldn’t even divide 324 by 3 without using their calculators; it’s called long division and we all learned it in the 4^th grade! I guess I’d end my little rant by saying, use technology, teach technology, benefit from technology, but don’t replace thinking and problem solving with technology. Please don’t teach your students to use technology as a short cut to thinking.

Flipping the Classroom:

Dr. Lodge McCammon has designed an idea called “Flipping theClassroom”. In a typical traditional classroom, the teacher spends time lecturing and then gets the students to practice at home with application problems. The idea of flipping this would get teachers to make videos for the students to watch at home for homework and do the application of the concepts in class while the teacher is there to help. At first, I thought this was a terrible idea because no student is actually going to watch the videos, and the teacher would just have to re-teach the lesson in class regardless. Then, I watched a video by teacher Katie Gimbar about how she flipped her classroom, and she has a set of FAQs which explain how to avoid problems like this. After watching all of her FAQ videos, I am seriously thinking out starting my classroom in this type of style. I have been hesitant about using technology to teach math, but I really like this idea. I would be a good way to incorporate other methods of using the internet for math as well. I would of course mend it into something that I am comfortable doing, but I like the idea of using class time to work together, teach one another, and get questions answered. I also like how it is a great opportunity to build responsibilities and relationships.

Blog Assignment #4

Langwitches’ Podcast Videos

Listening-Comprehension-Podcasting

It’s amazing to see and hear 8 year olds learning and fluently speaking Hebrew! The technology is very cool but knowing that it is helping these children to learn to speak and read in other languages at such a young age amazes me. I think that all schools should have a tech teacher that works with the children to teach them how to help themselves learn thing such as Hebrew through technology.

Flat Stanley Podcast

This post was so creative and cute. The kids wrote a book about a boy named Stanley who got crashed by a bulletin board into a flat piece of paper. So they folded him up and put him in an envelope and mailed him to all of their families who then wrote a letter and sent it back with Stanley. The students had a huge map of all the places Stanley had traveled and all the letters that came back with him. They then recorded a book/podcast of the journey that Stanley had been on. It was very cute, and I think that the children are learning a lot.

Podcasting with First Grade

First Graders create their own read-along Audio-books

First of all, the audio clip of the little 6 and 7 year old reading the book is absolutely precious. Aside from that though, this is a great opportunity for the children to learn how to record and make books and create something of their own, but more than that, they are learning to read! And after they read the scripts to record, then the whole class gets to read along with the recording. I think this is a great idea, and it’s so cute!

C4T Post: February #1

C4T Feb 7th:

My first C4T was originally assigned for a teacher whose website crashed so I am a week behind and trying to catch up. I was reassigned to "Teacher Tom" whose posts I am super excited to read just because of his opening page. He has a picture of himself in a superhero outfit. Now this guy has got to be an awesome and fun teacher. And to top it off, he teaches preschool!
The first blog post of his that I read was called "Students Refuse". This post is about a high school in Seattle that requires their 9th grade students to take a standardized test, called the MAP, that measures material not yet covered in their classes. As the teachers refused to give the test last month, claiming it wasted time, money, and resources, many parents and students have stood by their sides in a boycott. Teacher Tom expressed his opinion on the matter and how he is proud that the teachers in Seattle will take such a bold stand for the education of the students. He said that secretly the test is used as an evaluation of the teachers and is used for determine pay and promotion which even the makers of the MAP test say should NOT be done. Though all the teachers, parents, students and Teacher Tom are very passionate about this issue, authority rules. The superintendent has made all the teachers take 2 weeks without pay and forced all the students into taking the test. Needless to say, there are many people who are not happy!
I told him about the EQTs that schools are making the students take now and how crazy they are. They leave students behind rather than keeping them all together. Teachers loss focus of actually teaching the students a good quality lesson and focus on having them memorize facts for their EQTs.

C4T Feb 8th:

The next post that I read of Teacher Tom's was called, "Yeah, but it's not broke." This is a post that he said he wrote over a year ago but decided it was due for a renewal. I am very glad that he did re-post it so that I got the chance to read it. It touched my heart a little. And the story goes like this: Teacher Tom brought in 3 air pumps onto his preschool class one day and laid them on the table. Without telling the students what they were or for what they were used, he told them they could play with them. They quickly figured out on their own how to use them and began blowing air on each other and laugh and playing with them. Some used them as light sabers and others to make bubbles in the fish tank. Then Teacher Tom noticed that one of the pumps was not producing bubbles into the water and announced that that specific one must have been broken. Then one of the students spoke up, saying, "Yeah, it's not broken. That's what a light saber is supposed to do!"
If this doesn't get you thinking then i don't know what will. It's amazing to me to think that just because something doesn't serve the purpose that we think it should that it is useless. These 4 year olds teach us a different lesson. Sometimes they teach us more than we could teach them. He also mentioned this line in his post, and I want to end by quoting it because as teachers, I think we all need to hear it.

"I've written here often that I'm not all that concerned about what the children learn. From among the infinite bits of trivia that comprise our existence, who am I to choose what becomes permanently stuck in their brains and what has to be looked up later in life on the internet? No, my primary concern is that they develop the habits of inquiry and exploration: not that they learn, so much as that they think."
-Teacher Tom

Google Presentation

Special Blog Post #1

Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha is a computational knowledge engine designed to allow anyone to enter the information that want computed or just to know about, and it will give the output. A simple example search would be as follows:

What is the population of India? Answer: 1.21 billion

What is the population of the United States? Answer: 309 million

What is the population of China? Answer: 1.35 billion

Because I am going to be a high school math teacher, hopefully of precal and/or calculus, then I did some more example searches related to what I might use in my own classroom.

Search: “What is the derivative of e^x?” Answer: “d/dx (e^x) = e^x.” If you have taken calculus then you understand that this answer is true and extremely helpful in case you forget while doing practice problems. Not to mention that there is also a full page of definitions of the derivative and integral and graphs of your question.

Another search: “How do you find the surface area of a cylinder?” Answer: “2πa (axh).” Under the answer to this question Wolfram Alpha gives pictures that show the 3-D cylinders and explain how the answer came about and ways to help you remember it. It also lists variations of the formula and examples of using it.

This website is such a great resource for students who haven’t quite memorized all their formulas, trig, processes, etc. It gives pictures and examples of every question you ask it to help the students visualize the problem and make connection between the numbers and the figures. My college Calculus II professor recommends this site to our class for homework help. It works great for the simplest of math problems and the most difficult.

Although Wolfram Alpha is a wonderful tool for Math, it is also great for all other subjects. I did some additional searches such as, “Who was the 16^th president?”, “Who wrote Lord of the Flies?”, and “What element is Fe?” These questions, stretching from History to Literature to Science, all have correct answers that appear and give extra detail about each. Students could use this website in every subject to help them recall information and store it in their brains!

Gray Hayes Social Media Chart

Gray Hayes Social Media Chart has changing charts that update a couple times a second. There are 4 categories: 1) Social: Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Apps, Pinterest, Instagram, Netflix, etc. 2) Mobile: smart phones activated, mobile games played, sms messages sent, iPhones sold, etc. 3) Games: Zynga, World of Warcraft, games sold, game unit sold, etc. 4) Heritage: money made at post office, newspapers read, music download, DVDs sold, physical books sold, concerts, etc. Then each of these categories have 5 pages: Now, +1 day, +1 week, +1 month, and +1 year. These pages show the amount of the progress going on in that instant.

The thought of how fast everything is all changing is crazy. I think about how when I was young, everyone was still using cassettes and VHS tapes. Then everyone began using CDs and DVDs. Now everyone is using iPods and live streaming movies such as Netflix. All this progress and I’m only 21!! In the next 40 years there will be probably more than 10 times this much advancement. My students surely will know way more than I will. This means for me, as a professional teacher, that I will need to stay ahead of the students and learn as they learn and keep my head in with the craziness of the changing of technology.

Blog Assignment #3

Learning to Comment:

Paige Ellis’ blog post about leaving a quality comment was such a big help. I never know what I am supposed to write or how much. Paige's EDM310 post #12consisted of a list of steps to follow (and videos to watch) that help others in EDM310 learn to write great, informative, and helpful comments. Two links she provided wereWhat is Peer Editing? and Peer Edit with Perfection. These links, one to a video and one to a PowerPoint presentation, are basically the exact same. They discussed the three steps of Quality Commenting: Compliments, Suggestions, and Corrections.

Compliments consist of anything great you have to say about the post. Things like “I love your post”, “I liked when you said ____” , and “My favorite part was ____” are all appropriate for this first step of the comment. Next is the Suggestions part of your comment. This is where you tell the blogger if you agree, disagree, or have anything to add. This section is rather up for anything you want to say. The last part of your comment is where you make corrections to the post concerning grammar, sentence structure, spelling, etc. And that’s it! It’s really that simple. The number one rule though that Paige and both of her links all had in common though was Stay Positive! So remember this and happy commenting! Also, the video Writing Peer Review- Top 10 Mistakes is a very cute and funny one that would be great for teaching children how to comment on people’s blogs.

Assistive Technology:

The first two videos that I watched about assistive technology, Vision and Hearing Impaired Children and The Mountbatten, are really just about making you aware of the children with disabilities that still have to learn. They focused mainly on the deaf and the blind. I think that this is wonderful because I used to actually be fluent in sign language. We have a deaf ministry at my church and a staff of full time interpreters that translate the message and songs. I fell in love with the language early in life and took classes with the interpreters to learn it. When I decided that I wanted to be a teacher, I really considered minoring in sign language so that I could teach math at a school for deaf students. Unfortunately, South doesn’t offer sign language as a major or minor. Without using it for like 3 years, I have forgotten many words and can barely hold a conversation now, but I still can understand most.

The video Teaching Math to the Blind was kind of a wakeup call for me. I love math, and I understand that even those students without disabilities struggle to succeed in math, but I never considered that a blind student wouldn’t be able to line up problems in order to add or subtract. I guess I never thought about a blind person wanting to be an engineer or mathematician. Although Art Karshmer and his students at University of San Francisco have come up with a wonderful board to help them learn to set problems up the same way other seeing students would. In some new technology, such as the Ipad, companies like Apple have obviously taken these things into thought while making their product. In videos like Ipad usage for the Blind and Teaching Mom what her Blind Child is learning on the Ipad , a blind man and a mother of a blind child teach and are taught about the specific setting that Ipads make for their blind users. I think that it’s amazing that people sit down and take the time to make sure their product is friendly for all users, blind included. This makes me think highly of Apple and makes me want to go out and buy an Ipad.

Harness your Students’ Digital Smarts:

In the video about Ms. Vicki Davis’ technology class, Harness your Students' Digital Smarts, she tells about her students’ wikis, blogs, podcasts, and more. It is really interesting to see a class like this. In the school that I was raised in, the extent of our computer class was to learn how to use Mircosoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. Even in my college computer class, this was all we had to learn. I did have one Calculus class in high school that my teacher was actually in the room, but the class was broadcast to televisions at other schools were classes didn't have teachers and just watched our teacher teach to them through the T.V. and all of our work was done on swivel laptops. I can see how having a computer/technology class like this one would really help students to use the technology in their other subject matter and get them interested in learning more and figuring it out on their own.

The website in which the video was located, edutopia.org, is a great website for learning to incorporate technology and such into your existing classroom or giving ideas for future classrooms. I looked around some while I was there watching the video, and it is full of videos and blogs from teachers, students, and professionals. I think that I will definitely use this website at least my first year of teach while I’m trying to form my classroom into something of my own. And the best part, it’s free!