Blog Post #15 Final Reflection

In my first Blog post that I ever created I talked about the type of teacher that I wanted to become, as well as the way that I wanted to teach my class. Since I have been in EDM 310 my views have somewhat varied. I said in my first blog post that I wanted my students to feel comfortable in their learning environment and feel like they could be free to try and learn things in their own way. I did say that I would allow my students to use Kindles, iPads, laptops or any smart devices they needed to do their work, but since I have taken this class I believe I should make using these things a requirement for my class. I said that students may have to use Smart Boards or other electronic devices to go over reports or present speeches. Now, I would require students to give their oral book reports and presentations through Smart Board. I may make them video themselves, using iMovie, giving their oral report and pull it up on the Smart Board in class so everybody could watch, and I would make them create a power point that they could pull up on the Smart Board to present to the class. I would like for my students to use Blogger to talk about books, poetry, etc. that they learned in my class, and converse with other people through blogs to talk about the knowledge they have attained.



I did talk about using the lecture method of teaching in my class in my first blog post. I said that my students could take notes while I lectured them. Since I have been in EDM 310 I would like to use a variety of methods. I want my students to be engaged in the classroom. I really like using group work. I believe students have the opportunity to learn from each other while having fun if they are in groups. I also would like to try giving my students assignments online where they read, research, and learn the material on their own before I even begin to attempt to teach it to them. I would also like to try and give my students their work online through a certain online tool that would allow me to see how many hours the kids are putting in and spending on each assignment. I would also like to give my students tests online if it were possible for the school I will be working for. I am very interested in using the the Q.U.I.V.E.R.S. method of teaching created by Mr. Paul Anderson. This method is where you start out by asking your students an intriguing question that grasps the students attention, the students investigate and experiment on the topic, you show the students interesting videos or clips on the topic, elaborate on the topic now that the students are engaged in the lesson, individually or in small groups ask the students review questions about the lesson, and finally give a summary quiz on the material taught if all the students do well on the review questions. I want my students to gain knowledge from being in my class. I do not want to teach my students just so they p have to learn it!



Fianl Reflection

C4K April

#9 Emily C.

Emily lives in Nebraska, and she thinks it is a good place to live. There are a lot of interesting things about Nebraska. Like how they invented kool aid, and they have a roller skate and sod (grass) museum. They have the largest hand planted forest in the world. They have the largest indoor rainforest in the world, along with the second largest indoor desert in the world, which can both be found in the Henry Doorly Zoo. Their cash crops are corn and soybeans. Soybeans can be made into many things such as fuel, animal feed, paint, and crayons, also milk. Some of the things you use could be from soy. Their state bird is the western meadowlark. All of the facts I listed about Nebraska is what I learned from reading Emily's post; she did an amazing job, and I learned a lot from reading her post.





C4K #9 Mitchell's Blog

Mitchell's Blog basically was just an introductory post. He gave a lot of facts abouthimself so readers could get to know him better. He said he would use the blog to post things he is learning in school. He loves food, sports, and his family. His favorite color is red. From reading his post I believe he is also in a wheelchair. He did a good job!

Project # 13 Collaborative Tools Report

I was in a group (3 Ladies and a Guy) to work on project #15 with the following members:Jarrod Roberts, Farrah Deese, and Nikki Rae Mooney. We used Google Docs and Facetime collaboratively to meet the requirements for this assignment. These technological tools allowed us to communicate back and forth with one another in an simple way. Google Docs allowed us to view information, during times it was conveniant for us, that our group members added throughout the day. Google Docs also allowed me to add my own information along with the information my group members where they could see it just by opening the document on their computer. Facteime allowed us to demonstrate face to face with each other on the sections of the video where we would be recorded. These tools were very beneficial in conducting our EDM310 MythBusters.

Final Report On PLN

EDM310 has opened my eyes on how to use my PLN. I can add new resourses to my PLN whenever I want. It is easy to use, and it is very helpful. I like using Google Docs; it has been helpful for this class and even other classes. I like how I can add other people, like other educators. It expands on who all I can reach out to and ask for help from for my students. I will definitely continue using my PLN after this class. I will also suggest to others that they should try it to make their lives easier.

Blog Post #14

In the post Teacher Knows if You’ve Done the E-Reading David Streitfeld talks about using a new type of system teachers can use to evaluate their students work. The students buy their text books electronically, and they read all their material on E-Readers. The system described in this post was called CourseSmart. CourseSmart allows the teacher to see how much time the student is or isn't applying to their work.

As a teacher I think that using CourseSmart would be a great hel. I would like to see which students actually care about their work, and I would like to see who sends the most time and effort into creating quality work. It may be time consuming to evaluate each students work, but I believe it would be well worth it if I could see which students really need hel and which ones are just lazy.

As a student I think that I wouldn't like the idea of using CourseSmart because then my teacher would be able to see exactly how much time I send on my work. I wouldn't be able to lie or get by with half way doing my work. I believe that in the long run it would help me though. It would force me to care about my work and do it the right way. So honestly, as a student CourseSmart would have its u and downs.


Questions I would ask the professor
1. Do you plan to use CourseSmart to create a participation grade
2. Do you like using CourseSmart
3. How has it benefited you're teaching
4. Would you recommend it to new teachers
5. Would you recommend it to teachers who have been teaching from textbooks their whole carreer

Questions I would ask the students
1. Do you like using CourseSmart
2. Have your grades gotten better since using CourseSmart
3. Have your grades gotten worse since using CourseSmart
4. Was using this system hard to learn
5. Has using CourseSmart changed your study habits any

If i had to leave a comment on this ost it would say this.

Thank you for taking the time to tell about CourseSmart. I really enjoyed learning about it. I want to try something like CourseSmart when I teach. I believe that it will benefit my students, and it will help me see what students need help and which students are lazy.

Final Project #16

Group Smart Board Project #15

C4T#4

POST 1

2013 Photo365 Project
Beth Still talked about doing a project where you take a picture every day for a whole year. Beth said that she has tried this project before but by the end of January she can not make herself continue doing it anymore. She said she has found the key to motivating herself to go through with the whole project. She said that she has collected a lot of things over the years, and everyday she is going to take a picture of something she wanted to get rid of and take it straight to the trash or to the local good will. I told her that I really liked her idea of how to keep her motivated. I said I might even try this project myself one day.


POST 2

The Bammy! Awards
Beth Stills post was about good teachers not receiving the credit they deserve for their hard work. I really enjoyed this post. Beth is are right about it being hard to be a teacher these days. My mom is a high school English teacher, and I know she works hard at school every single day. She teaches non stop from bell to bell.She never gets the credit she deserves for all the effort she puts in, and I know there are plenty of teachers all over the world facing the same issues. I think it is great that the Bammy Award that Beth talked about is seeking out great teachers and giving them recognition for their work.

Blog Post #13

Brian Crosby's video Back To the Future is about helping a group of at risk students. Crosby taught many students that were getting left behind in the classroom. Because these students were getting left behind they started not to care about their work. They were getting discouraged. Crosby began to use the internet to get these students back involved in their school work. The students actually enjoyed doing blogs and began to engage in the class activities. It was very inspiring.



Blended Learning Cycle
Blended learning is composed from the three following elements: classroom, mobile, and online. He says the learning cycle should be blended in with the previous three elements. The learning cycle is when you get the students engaged, you let them explore, you explain, and then expand. Therefore, the blended learning cycle is just combining blended learning in with the learning cycle.He created the Q.U.I.V.E.R.S. approach. He likes to start the class out by forming an interesting question to grasp the students attention. Then he wants his students to investigate and experiment a bit. Next he likes to use videos in class showing the videos would be interesting for the kids and also frees the teacher u to do other things that need to be handled. Next you elaborate on the topic of the lesson that you are teaching.Then he individually or in small groups reviews all the material that was taught to make sure that each student has grasped the material being taught. Every student must do well in the review before they can move on to the final step, which is the summary quiz. The summary quiz just tests them on all the previous steps. If they don't do well on the quiz them they go back and relearn the material. After they go through about five cycles of this, then they take a sit down mastery test on all the material.I believe this strategy is excellent. It will get the students engaged in the class, which will ultimately make your job as a teacher much easier. I would love to try this technique of teaching in my class.

Progress Report On Final Project # 16

Nikki Rae Mooney, Jarrod Roberts, Farrah Deese, and I are in the group 3 Ladies and a Guy. We met on Wednesday, April 17 where we began filming our video "Mythbusters EDM 310 Edition". We have planned out what each individual is suppose to do in order to complete our project, and we are going to meet again on Tuesday and Wednesday to finish it.

Blog Post #12

Blog Post Assignment (Special Ed)

1. Watch the youtube clip Assistive Technologies for Vision and Hearing Impaired Children Tell me in two paragraphs how you think you will use these technologies in the classroom if you have a student that is in need of certain tools to assist them.

2. Watch the video Teaching Math to the Blind and write a brief paragraph telling how highly you view the importance of special needs kids recieving new technology and new strategies of being able to learn the same content as the average students.

3. Look up three different tools that kids with special needs can use to assist them when they are in school or at home working on assignment. List a picture of each tool you have discovered. Write at least one paragraph for each item you have chosen. The paragraph must tell what the tool you picked is called, how it is used,how you would use it as a teacher to help your students, and how much the item costs.

4. In a concluding paragraph tell me why you are going into the field you are entering, and tell any stories that might have inspired you to pick this profession.

C4T #3

post 1
Technology Will Kill

Technology Will Kill is about new technology constantly replacing old technology. I had no idea that they were about to do away with Google Reader! It is very frustrating to have to find new ways to view things after we have already gotten attached to something we have been using. We tend to grow dependent on these things because we make them into a ritual of our every day lives, but it is our job as educators to try our best to stay posted on new ways to use the web. Like this post said, we need "to experiment with something new -- and quite probably, something better than we ever could have expected."

post 2
The Handcuffs Holding Us Back [SLIDE]

Bill Ferriter thinks that teachers and principals are bound to only teach what legislators want us to teach. I agree with him, and I also agree that it is time for a change in the classroom. We need to teach students things that will help better our future and stop focusing so much on teaching our kids to memorize stuff to regurgitate on a test.

C4K Summary

POST 4

Faith's post was about her bestfriend moving; she was real upset. I told her I was sorry to hear that her friend may have to move. I told her that when I was in elementary school one of my bestfriends also had to move. I told her I could understand how hard this was for her, but I was positive that her and her friend will make plenty of new friends! I gave her compliments on the picture she uploaded of her and her friend.

POST 5

Ayla B's
5What do you think you as a student gain from blogging with students and others outside of the school? Is it worth the time? Why/why not?
Ayla's post was about if blogging really helped students or not. She said that she thought it was a great way to socialize with other schools all over the country and to hear about the things they’re learning. She thought it posed as a great way for people to get others opinions. She said you could meet other kids and writers from all over the world , read their writing and see what their schools are like. I told her blogging is a great way to get new and fresh opinions from other studentsand even teachers! I think it is amazing how people from all over the world can comment on our blogs and give us feedback. I believe blogging is a great tool for displaying our thoughts, engaging with other students, and expanding our knowledge. I told her she seemed very smart, and I enjoyed reading her post!

POST 6

GRIFFIN'S BLOG
CHARACTER TO SELF- FOOTBALL GENIUS
Griffin's blog was about a summary he did of a book called Football Genius by Tim Green. I could tell he really read the story by the details he talked about. I told him he did a good job, and that he should keep up the good work!


POST7
The kid's post I was assigned to do was on the movie Wretches and Jabberers. He said it was a great moving and inspirational film of the world tour of two hilarious autistic adults one being a artist another being an advocate, and how they go around and speak about the inclusion of those who are autistic. He went on to describe some of the characteristics of autistic people. I could tell the student really did their work. They had a good post tha went into depth with his topic.

post8
Lucas's post was about his favorite part of the bible. He said his favorite part was when the Mary found out she was going to have Jesus because Jesus being born was important to him. I told him that I thought it was a very important part of the Bible as well.

Blog Post #10

I'm a Papermate. I'm a Ticonderoga
The cartoon by John T. Spencer is basically saying that you get what you pay for. This does not only go for pens, but for things such as laptops, TV’s, or anything for that matter. Like the cartoon says, if you buy the cheap version of a product it will break faster because it is made of a cheaper material, and you will spend more money if you keep replacing the item. The comic reminded me of the Mac and PC commercials. Macs are more expensive, but you get what you pay for. The PC costs less and breaks more easily.


Why Were Your Kids Playing Games?
The post Why Were Your Kids Playing Games? by Mr. Spencer talks about how he got in trouble with his principal over laying games in the classroom. The principal wanted the teacher to focus on teaching his students memorization so that they would be able to pass tests. The teacher wanted his class to be engaged in the classroom instead of the routine of just memorizing and forgetting. I hoe when I become a teacher my boss doesn't force me to only focus on the kids memorizing the material for their tests.

Capturing Reality
Ok, I chose the post Capturing Reality because it seemed really cool to me. The man started out by having a conversation with his daughter about taking a picture. His daughter asks why her dad had to take a picture of them instead of just letting the memory run free. Her dad explained so that they can remember that moment forever. The post shifts with the father talking to another man about why we should or should not use cameras. The father explained he liked to capture moments so he could remember them forever, but the other man explained how if we take pictures then we are missing out on memories because we are behind the camera. I thought this post was just very interesting. I liked it a lot.

Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please?
I really enjoyed this post. At my school, all electronic devices were banned so I didn't have much practice with them. My parents believed that all the new technology would do is let me find new ways to sneak around and do things behind their back. It definitely affected me when it came to knowing how to do things in college. I wish I would have been more exposed to these things at a younger age.

Project #14 Smartboard Instruction Part 1

Project # 11 Short Green Screen Movie

Project #12

Snow White Movie Trailer

Blog post #9

Posts by Mr. McClung


In Mr. McClunghis Version 4 Post (2011-2012)he talks about how he only learned two things that year teaching. I believe that he learned two very important things that all teachers need to focus on. I have always thought that letting the students have fun was the most important thing while teaching, and of course it would challenge me to find new and interesting things to get the students to engage in class discussions and other activities. I want to be a fun teacher that all the students want to take. I want to be creative and affect my students in their educational journey. I believe that I will have o stay focused in giving the students what they need and deserve so I wont become one of the lazy teachers that stick to the ritual lesson plans that Mr. McClunghis talks about.

In the first year Mr. McClunghis sent teaching, he noticed that he was focusing to much on the content he was teaching and not spending enough time seeing if the students were actually comprehending what was being taught in the classroom. I think it is very imortant to make sure that the students are understanding the content I am reviewing because if they arent it doesnt matter if I teach all the necessary content or not because they will gain nothing from it.He also believes it is imortant to be flexible in the classroom. All lans you have for a lesson may not work out the way you want them to. You have to just go along with your mistakes, and try to fix the roblems as you go.I dont want to make my students feel stuid because I get mad at them for not being as advanced in a lesson as I think they should be. He talks about how we can discourage our students if we set a standard to high for them that they cant reach, and i definitely dont want to be that teacher. I want to be as reasonable as I can with my students. He also talks about not being afraid of technology. Technology is here to hel us, not harm us. I will admit that since Ive been in this class I have become a lot more comfortable with using technology.I can honestly say that I agree with him about the teacher listening to the student being imortant. I always feel more comfortable in a class when a teacher listens to my oinions and tries to get to know me. When a teacher acts like they are to imortant to have conversations with their students, it makes students hate that teacher and dread doing any work they assign(at least thats how I feel about it). He ends his blog ost by saying Never Stop Learning. As a teacher I believe that we can learn just as much from our students, if not more, as what we teach them. Why would our students want to hear what we have to say if we dont listen to them?

Blog post #8

This Is How We Dream Parts 1 and 2

Richard Miller's video This Is How We Dream Parts 1 and 2 was very interesting. Miller talks about how we can write via multimedia. I think it is a good idea to start teaching children how to do this at a young age. The younger they start learning, the easier it will be to do. Teaching kids to use technology to do their work is the future. As teachers, we have to make sure that our students know how to use the newest tools to help them with their work.

Using multimedia to write is something that I will have to enforce as an English and Literature teacher. The kids will have to write their papers and reports all through multimedia. I believe this will be more helpful than the regular handwritten assignments.

Grading papers through the use of multimedia will be so much easier. Kids can add pictures and links to their assignments. With the assignment being on an electronic device, I can quickly access any links the student has added into their assignment. I believe all schools will be using this method of teaching soon.

Carly's Post

I agree with many things in Blog Post #12 by Carly Pugh. She thinks students should be excited about learning. As teachers we should push students to be the best that they can possibly be. I want to make my students to think differently as well. I want to be the type of teacher that inspires students to do their work at the best of their ability. I want to be an effective teacher. I really want my students to leave my classroom feeling like I actually made a difference in their life.


Learn to Change, Change to Learn

The video Learn to Change, Change to Learn reminded me so much of Dr. Strange's approach to teaching. I do agree with the video. I believe that kids are bored in the classroom because they are not being challenged. I believe if more teachers taught like Dr. Strange, then students would actually learn useful tools that they can use in every day life. I know Dr. Strange has definitely pushed me to be a better student through his self teach method. At first I hated it, but now I understand this method. I think schools will soon change and be more like the schools explained in this video. Thank God! It is past time for our schools systems to change.




Scavenger Hunt 2.0
1. The tool I found for videos is called drop.io. It takes any pictures or media you want and puts them into a drop box. With this tool you can easily save anything that you might want to share with your class quickly and easily. It also saves voice recordings in case you need to make a memo that you may forget.
2. The second tool I found is www.jott.com. This allows you to convert voice into text. If you have a lot to tye or you are in a hurry to make a note of something, this site will quickly allow you to transfer your words into text.
3.

C4T#2

Post #1 Should “Education” be so Packaged?


The post Should “Education” be so Packaged? was about how some teachers are reluctant to try new things in the classroom. Teachers are afraid that students will take too long to learn new ways and technology to do things so they go ahead and decide not to teach them. Also, some teachers are reluctant about how long it will take them to learn new material and tools to teach their own students. I totally understand why a teacher would be reluctant to use Google docs to teach students. Teaching a child to use this tool to do a report or any other activity is time consuming, just as it would be to teach students who have never used a calculater before to learn all of its functions. Since I've been in EDM310, I have learned how benificial using Google docs can be; I believe it is well worth the time you would spend teaching students to use Google docs. Like Warlick said, "Our mission is to prepare our children for jobs, lifestyles, tools, processes, problems and goals that we can hardly imagine. We’re preparing them for the unimaginable." It may be hard for us as educators to learn and teach our students new and upcoming advancancements in technology, but technology is the future. We must strive to make our students the best they can be, and keep them up to date with what the world has to offer: it is our job whether we like it or not.


Post#2 A new way to visualize the Solar System.


Warlick's post,A new way to visualize the Solar System, was about how the earth and sun actually travel through the universe. It really took me out of my own little world that I tend to get caught up in and, it made me realize that there is so much more going on in this universe. I guess I never really thought about us all flying through the universe so fast while orbiting around the sun. My mind is actually blown right now. If we close our eyes and just visualize our solar system, most of us probably just see floating planets that are slowly spinning and orbiting the sun. Warlick points out that it is so much more intense than that. He says, "It’s pretty crazy to think that as still as the ground below us seems, we’re on a giant rock that is not only rotating and orbiting the sun, but also following the sun as it blazes through the universe." As you are reading this, just think that you are on a huge rock flying through space. This post was vey interesting to me!

Project 8 Podcast

Project #9-Personal Learning Network

I started using Symbaloo as soon as I goy done watching A 7th Grader's Personal Learning Environment. Symbaloo was the perfect thing to get me started on my PLN. I now have easy access to go from one website to another. All my work is so much more organized now. Now I can put up links of other teachers' blogs with ease. I can do so many things at once now. I can use Google or Twitter to search for other ways to expand my PLN.Steven Anderson explained in his video Building Your PLN-A Primer for Anyone, that you don't have to know everything. Other educators are working along with you, and they are answering your questions as well. By using a PLN you are able to obtain information quickly and easily.

Blog Post #7

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

Randy Pausch's video was actually a lot more interesting than what I imagined it would be like. I thought that since this video was over an hour long that I was going to be bored out of my mind, and I thought that this assignment was going to drag out and seem like it took hours. Randy Pausch is a person that we can all look up to and admire, not only as far as being an educator goes, but also as being an amazing person. I have never met somebody that had such a positive outlook on life and be in the same position he is in. I hope that as a teacher, I can aquire some of the many good qualities Randy Pausch aquires. I think we should all strive to be like him; it would make our jobs a lot easier if we stayed as positive as him.

The teaching methods that Randy Pausch advocated at Carnegie-Mellon led to the students creating their own virtual worlds. I am completely mind blown about the whole class. Pausch assigned five projects for each semester; there were fifty students in each group from art, design, drama, and CS. The teams were randomly chosen (four students per team), and they changed each project; they only had two weeks to design, implement, and test. The first year he gave them the option on making their world however they wanted with the exception of no porn or violence. The results blew him away.He had his whole room where they presented the room completely filled and over flowing.

As a teacher I would like to give my students the freedom that Pausch gave his students. He allowed them to pick the content of their experiment; he said that they could make their virtual worlds on whatever they wanted, within the two conditions of not using violence or porn. I like how he placed them in random groups of four to work on an expirement, but switched the groups each time.I would like to use this method of placing students in random groups for projects so they will learn to work with each other. Working in a group like this would also create a sense of community in the classroom. I would have to give my students certain guidlines to follow, just as Pausch did. I would have to give deadlines for their work and some guidlines so they wouldn't spend to long on one project. I think it would be cool, since I am teaching English/Literature, to allow the students to pick a book (that I approved of) to write their own report on. I could even let them do a multi-genre report on a book that their group agrees on. Each student could contribute their own skills to the project.

When I was watching Randy Pausch's Last Lecture my mind began to wonder a little. I know technology is growing faster and faster every day, and I know most small kids today know more about technology than their own parents. I started to wonder what my students would actually be capable of doing in my own classroom. I thought the fact that Pausch taught a class on how to develop your own virtual world was AMAZING! I know I would have loved to learn something like that when I was in highschool as an elective. If all kids can create their own video games and virtual worlds soon, wouldn't it be awesome to involve that in the classroom? If my teacher said, "Class for homework tonight go home and play your video games to get ideas on how to improve your virtual world" I know there would not have been a single head on a desk, and the teacher would immediately have every child's attention. In the future, if it's possible, I would like to assign my class a book to read. When they got through with the novel instead of making my students take a basic test or book report most teachers assign, I would put them in groups and tell them to create their own virtual world of how they pictured the setting of the novel they read. This would be without a doubt one of the most interesting assignments ever. Of course, things may not go as planned, but I believe it would be an assignment worth trying. I believe this assignment would push my students learning ability as well as have them engage in the classroom. Isn't that what being a teacher is all about?

C4K Summary For February

POST 2 Can You Guess What My Book is Called? LaDarrius's Blog


The student I had to comment on was named LaDarrius. His Blog was about a summary of Turtle’s Race with Beaver. I told him that I thought that it was great how he was blog posting on the books he was assigned.I told him he did a great job on his post, and I told him goodluck on his accelerated reading.





POST 3 Elizabeth


The student I had to comment on was named Elizabeth. Elizabeth talked about how much she loved music. She said that she loves music because of her older brother; she believes he is a great singer. I told her that I also enjoyed singing, and I told her that I also liked to sing even though I wasn't good at it.

Project #10

When I was in high school I had a teacher that made us use Wikispaces in her classroom. I really did not like it at first because it was different and created more work for me, but I eventually got the hang of it and enjoyed it. Wikispace is kind of like Blogger in a way. Our teacher made us add her to our Wiki so we could see discussion questions she posted. We could add our peers and have a class discussion online. It was pretty cool. I would like to use something like this in my classroom for discussions on books I assign or poems.

Blog Post #6

The Networked Student

The video The Networked Student by Wendy Drexler made me think about what teachers will be required to do in the future, and what will the role of teachers be. I do agree that technology is advancing, and we need to teach our students to use tools on the internet in order to better their education. On the other hand, I think we are getting away from traditional teaching too much.

Teaching students how to use search engines to better their knowledge is a great idea. By helping kids learn ways to attain knowledge is what we should be doing as teachers. We will soon play less important roles as teachers because people are forcing to turn everything into a technologically advanced way of teaching. I will include the use of search engines and other uses of the internet in my classroom to better my students.

Although I do like the idea of using the internet to teach my students, I think it is important not to stray to far from the basics of teaching. We can not expect a student how to learn certain things all through the use of the internet. Teachers are important because they teach kids social skills. You can not learn how to have a normal conversation with another human being if you stay on a computer to learn everything. A computer can not teach students the basics so I think we need to keep in mind that we do not need to stray too far away from the way we have been teaching students all along.


A 7th Grader's Personal Learning Environment (or PLN)

The video A 7th Grader's Personal Learning Environment (or PLN) made me think about The Networked Student video because the girls class was online and done all through the internet. I believe learning this way would be fun for a little while, but I would rather be in a classroom and engaging with my peers. When I am in a classroom, I can ask questions and get feedback from my teachers or other students right away. I feel more comfortable in a classroom learning environment, but that is just my personal opinion.

Blog Post #5

Building My Fream School!

Krissy Venosdale's post If I Built A School opened up my mind to what I would do if i had the opportunity to create my own school. I believe the environment she depicted was amazing; I know if I went to a school that was designed like that, I would be much more willing to wake up every morning and much more willing to learn. She wanted her students to feel comfortable in their learning environment because she thought the students would be more willing to do their work on their own instead of being forced to do homework and assignments. I think Krissy Venosdale's school would be extremely effective, but we never hear of schools like these because we are forced to certain standards and a certain criteria we have to teach.

If I could create my own school, my school would be a lot like Krissy Venosdale's dream school. I would definitely want my students to be as comfortable as possible in their learning environment. I would have study lounges and computer labs accesible for all students. I like the idea of the cafeteria being like a modern day coffee shop. In all of my classrooms I would have comfortable chairs for the students and have the rooms decorated. I think students being involved in the school is very important so for every club or school group, I would have a room set aside for them. I believe student athletes strive to keep their grades up to play sports so they should be rewarded with the best gear, equipment, and places to practice and play. I think it would be really awesome if kids could pick a certain subject that they would like to focus on and take more of those classes after they retained all of the basics from other subjects. I would want my school to be a place where kids would be eager to come to too learn, and I want my school to be a place that makes the students want to push themselves to better themselves.

Virtual Choir

I think it is incredible where technology has taken us today! None of the singers have ever rehearsed or even met before is what amazes me. They sounded perfect together; I didn't here one mistake in the whole show. If this can be done only via internet, just imagine what all the internet can do and offer us. Honestly, I am just in shock over this video. It was amazing!I could maybee even use a technique like this and make a class assignment.

What Does It Mean To Teach In The 21st Century

If Roberts is correct about the information in Teaching In The 21st Century then one can infer that the way teachers teach now is useless. Students can get information from so many sources now that the role of today's teacher can be repleced with the internet. Roberts believes that teachers can only provide students with the following: content, facts, dates, formulas, research, theories, stories, and information. All of these things can be obtained from the internet so what is the purpose of being a teacher? The students still need to learn the right way to use tools and search engines on the internet. Roberts asks the question "with all this information available [on the internet], should our curriculum be focused on facts and content or skills?" It could be possible as a teacher in the future I would have to focus more on teaching skills to students because they can get all of the facts and content they need on the internet. As a teacher my job will be to get the students to engage in activities as I teach them the skills that they need to know.

Flipped Classroom


I think the flipped classroom approach of teaching students is different and pretty awesome. I think as a teacher you would be able to make sure all of the students know the material because you would have more class time to work individually with each divided group. My concerns with this approach is if all the students will actually do their at home review on their computers or electronic devices. Every child may not have a way to view the material at home, and If the kids did watch the assignment when they got to school that would still cut into the class time that you were trying to create to help the students individually in the first place. Also, the kids that are further advanced in the subject, I don't see how it really benefits them in any way. They further advanced kids will go home and learn the assignment quickly, get to school finish their assignment quickly, and then just sit there while the other kids take their time to finish their work. I can see see how the flipped classroom approach would help kids that struggle in a certain subject if they do have a computer or electronic device at their home, but if they didn't I don't see how it would help them that much. I can see how this aqpproach would help in math or maybe even science classes, but I think it would be a lot harder for this approach to work in a history or English/literature class. If you gave students a certain assignment or project to work on some of the ideas from this approach could be useful in history and English/literature, but I don't see how it would help with giving reading assignments or assigning a paper. I might would use it in my classroom under certain circumstances.

Blog Post #4

The Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom
This link was created by Mr. Joe Dale, and it tells the benefits of students podcasting in the classroom. Some of these benefits include promoting creativity and innovation, creating project-based learning, and creating an effective way for the teachers to interact with their students. Another great thing about this link is how he ads a video that explains all of the ways that podcasting benefits the students.

Judy Scharf Podcast Collection
This link is provided by Ms. Judy Scharf. Out of all of the other links, this one is my favorite! It is perfect for one who is new to podcasting and may not understand what it is. Ms. Scharf tells exactly what a podcast is, and explains why using a podcast in ones classroom would be a great idea. She then provides teachers with tips that will help them to become successful at teaching their students about podcasting.

Langwitches - Podcasting With 1st Grade
This link tells about the benefits of teaching younger kids in elementary school about podcasting and the skills that it provides them with. It tells how the 1st graders get excited about podcasting, and they begin to open up and become more active in class projects. Podcasting helps the students speaking and presenting skills get better, and these skills will help the children throughout their lives.

Special Blog Post

Compare population of India, China, and the Unite States.

What is the population of India?
*1.21 billion people
What is the population of the United States?
*309 million people
What is the population of China?
*1.35 billion people

Compare the internet usage of India, China, and the United States

What is the internet usage of India?
*125 million people (10.07% of population)
What is the internet usage of China?
*516.1 million people (38.4% of population)
What is the internet usage of the United States?
*243.8 million (78.24% of population)

Compare the the mobile cellular subscriptions of India, China, and the United States

What is the mobile cellular subscriptions of India?
*893.9 million (2011)
What is the mobile cellular subscriptions of China?
*986.3 (2011)
What is the mobile cellular subscriptions of the United States?
*331.6 (2011)

WolframAlpha

WolframAlpha could be completely useful to me and my students. If I give an assignment out, this tool would be a convenient tool for my students. Teachers do not want their students asking them a billion questions about one specific assignment. Teachers expect students to find some information out on their own; using WolframAlpha would be a quick and efficient way for students to get quick information. Teachers can also check information from their students quickly by using this tool.


Gary Hayes Social Media Count

Gary Hayes invented an app that observes social media count. This app is really cool because it lets people keep up with the rate at which new technology that comes out. The world is changing so fast, and technology is becoming such a major part of living that Gary Hayes's app could be very useful in allowing people to see this increase.

I am going to be a teacher so keeping up with technology is extremely important for my job. I am in charge of making sure that the students I teach know how to use technology to better their studies for the subject I teach. It is always important to stay on top of new technology because new stuff is being invented everyday; Gary Hayes's app should be very helpful to me.

Blog Post #3

Peer Editing

I learned in the Peer Editing video that Peer Editing is actually "working with someone your own age to help improve, revise, and edit his/her writing." when you are peer editing it is very important to stay positive so that your peer will be more acceptable to the mistakes he/she has made. The followings steps are essential in peer editing: compliments, suggestions, and corrections. You want to be positive when editing someones work because nobody wants to hear how poorly they did; tearing someone's confidence down isn't going to help anybody, which is the whole point. You should focus on how to make their grammar, organization, sentence structure, word choice, etc. better.

It is important to stay positive, be specific, and complete the three steps of peer editing while reviewing someone's paper. Peer editing can be useful for people of all ages if you know the correct way to do it. You need to be specific while being kind to your peer, or they will not know what to correct and not care that they need to. It is also important for a person that is getting their work edited to stay open minded and try not to be offended by the mistakes their peer pointed out.

The Mountbatten

The Mountbatten video taught me about this device that blind students can use to type with in the classroom. The machine tells the child what they are typing while they are typing it. It also prints out what they typed so they can tell what all they have written. This device also can save and send the child's work to another computer. This device would allow a teacher that did not know braille or sign language the ability to communicate with the student. It would also allow the child to be able to communicate with other students. I think it is awesome; I would definitely use the device in my classroom.

Deaf/Blind Awareness

It is important that deaf and blind kids receive the same knowledge that every other kid receives. The problem with keeping deaf and blind kids on the same track as a kid that doesn't have these disabilities, is that they have trouble communicating or interpreting the way other students do. Now we use technology as if our life depends on it to obtain knowledge; it is important for deaf and blind kids to use the same technology available to other kids. It is very important that we keep making advancements in the technology for deaf and blind kids to use because I imagine it is tough enough doing basic things, much less doing things electronically.

In my class, if I have a deaf or a blind kid I will do everything I can to see that that kid receives the same education as the rest of the students. The device in the Mountbatten video would be very helpful for a blind kid or even a deaf kid to use; it would make giving and turning in assignments so much easier. Blind kids could use an iPad to read the assigned books that they needed to with the help of the voice control option. I am sure there are many other helpful tools i could use to help these students as well.

Digital Smarts

The teacher, Vicki Davis, reminds me of Mr. Strange in the video Vicki Davis: Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts. They believe that you don't have to be told everything in order to learn something. Vicki expected her students to look things up instead of asking her things every time they had a question which forces them to actually LEARN something. I thought it was really cool how she assigned them something that she didn't even know how to do, and three day later her students were teaching her something that she assigned that she had no idea how to do.

As a teacher, I would love to implement some of the techniques that Vicki Davis uses in her classroom. I want my students to have to think and use their own minds so they will remember how to do stuff instead of me constantly having to repeat myself. I expect to give my students assignments where I will have to learn from them and them learn from me as well.

Blog Assignment #2

Did You Know

The videos "Did You Know? 3.0 by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod" and "Did You Know? 3.0 A John Strange 2012 Version" were extremely interesting to me. Before watching these videos, I had no idea that China and India had smarter students than the United States. I knew that there were more people that lived there, but I had no idea that they were so much more developed in education than the United States. It scares me to think that in China, there will be more English speakers by 2025 than any other place in the world. Also, I did not know that India had more honor students than all the students put together in he United States. We, as a society, need to open up our eyes and start to deal with these matters as soon as possible!

The fact that technology is becoming more innovative every day should make us as Americans strive to keep up with what's new. As a teacher, I will for sure have to stay up-to-date with my teaching methods because I am in charge of teaching the people that are responsible for controlling our future. I did not know that technology was getting to the point that by what a person learned one year could be totally useless within the proceeding two years. I think it is important to stay updated on technology so we will not fall even further behind other countries than we already are.

Mr. Waking Winkle

In the "Mr. Winkle Wakes" video an old man has been in a coma for a hundred years, and when he wakes up nothing is the same. So much has changed over the time he had been in a coma that he feels overwhelmed. Mr. Winkle first goes into a building which had all new sorts of technology; the sight of everything new made him so uncomfortable thathe felt sick. Mr. Winkle decided to go to the doctor since he did not feel well, but going to the hospital only made matters worse. Everything at the hospital had been technologically advanced, and this made Mr. Winkle feel even more uncomfortble.

Mr. Winkle walked until he couldn't anymore and ended up at a school. At the school there were kids in a classroom facing a teacher that was giving a lecture. Mr. Winkle loved the school because he felt comfortable there; not one thing had changed. The class was just as class was a hundred years ago. The fact that we still teach class the way it was so long ago is ubsurd. I now understand why the United States is so far behind with everything compared to China and India now. How are we suppose to grow and develop new and better things if we are stuck in the past? I think it is extremely important that we start changing the classroom settings in the United States now!

Sir Ken Robinson: The Importance of Creativity

The Importance of Creativity video by Ken Robinson gave me a new perspective about how to view the different ways people learn. I know all people learn differently; is it really fair to force students to all learn the same way? Teachers are forced to smother kids creativity in the class room so that each student learns the same thing in the same way. Creativity in schools will become non-existant if we don't change our outlook on the way we teach each student.

I think it is wrong for students to not be able to express themselves in their learning environment. We might be constricting brilliant ideas that could change maybe the development of our future by not allowing students to actually use their minds and be creative. I think the basic teaching methods are outdated, and we should be encouraging kids to be different and creative instead of trying to mold them into the image of what we have in our minds of an average student.

Pinterest
As a teacher I could use Pinterest to help give students assignments or extra material to study. I could tell my students to go to my Pinterest and look at certain material I had repinned. I could tell them to write a paper or brief summary about how they felt about what was assigned. I could pull my Pinterest up on my smart board in class , and I could easily show them material I saved to my board. I am new to Pinterest, but I am sure the more familiar I get with it, the more ways I could find to let it benefit my students.

Project #2 Wordle

Blog Assignment #1

About Me

Hey! My name is Ciara Deese, and nineteen years old. I am from a small town  called  Chatom in Alabama, which is right above Mobile. I am attending school at South Alabama because my sister also goes here, and it is close to home. Me and my sister are very close, we take all of the same classes together, and we both plan on teaching. I also have two brother, one younger and one older. My dad works at a paper mill and is in the National Gaurd; he is actually getting prepared to go back over seas right now. My mom is the best highschool English/Literature teacher that I know of. I love hanging out and spending time with my family when I can. I LOVE sports and I am addicted to music.
 I am majoring in secondary education because I feel like that is what I need to be doing. I feel like I could help a lot of kids and be a decent role model for them tolook up to. My mom, three of my aunts, and my uncle are all teachers so teaching is sort of in my blood.
I plan on teaching highschool students. I want to make my students feel comfortable in my room. I think it is very important for kids to have an environment that they feel comfortable to help with the learning process. I will enforce class rules to discipline the students, but I don't think being a cranky teacher that does not care whether my students pass or fail is what teaching is about. I am going to look out for the best interest of the students, try to be reasoble, and try to explain things in ways they can understand while trying to make it interesting.
Classroom
I think every child learns in different ways. It is hard to say my students will all learn material the same way. Some students will pick up on things while listening to the lecture in class while others have to read and study more on their own. Some students will learn and pick up on things from group work and learning from the other students. Some students may seek online help and browse the internet for help. As long as the students pay attention in class, take notes, and do their assignments they should be fine.
Students may use kendals, iPads, laptops or any smart devices to help study for my class. Teaching English/Literature requires a lot of reading so whatever they need to use to read the material assigned is fine. They may have to use smartboards or other electronic devices to go over reports or present speeches.
My classroom is going to be a place where kids feel safe to write about whats on their mind without anybody making fun of them. I want to create a laid back but controlled environment. I want the kids to work together and feel comfortable with each other while learning. I want to introduce the kids to thingsthat can help them learn new things, but I also expect to learn things from them as well.
Time Management
I learned that time management is a big deal. Procrastinating is not something that I can afford to do any more. I need to just make up my mind that I have something to do and do it. The problem is not just going to go away. I need to take care of my business as soon as possible, and it would probbly help relieve my stress if I did not procrastanate.
Making a plan would also help relieve some stress I have. I need to start planning ahead whether I think I need to or not. Even if things might change, I need a plan to start with to help keep me organized. I also do not need to save my big problems for last. I need to tackle my major issues first, then worry about the smaller ones.

Test 1

Test 1