Comments for Teachers # 4

For this week I was assigned to Mr. Burrow's Art Viewer blog. This entire blog is composed of student artwork. The most recent post consisted of self portraits. Some included portraits of Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber. These portraits were pencil sketches, and some were extremely good. All of them were better than anything that I could have drawn.
I left Mr. Burrows a comment saying how I felt like I was in the self portrait section of a museum or something. I told him that I really enjoyed these portraits and how I wished I could draw as well as his students.

C4K Summary for November and December

This week I had the pleasure of reading a wonderful blog post by an 8th grade student in Iowa named, Ayla B. I encourage you all to check out this particular blog post that I read of hers titled Novel. She is in the process of writing a really good novel without a name. It's 4 chapters long and it is really good! I can tell she is a fan of the Hunger Games series because I found a lot of similarities in her writing.
I left Ayla a comment letting her now how impressed I was with her writing! I asked where she found her inspiration to write this and if she had a name for the novel yet. I wished her luck with the rest of her writing and I encouraged to keep up the good work.

For this week, I was assigned to read Tyler Remez's blog, a 5th grade student out of Chicago. His blog post, titled October Reflections, was a summary of all of the activities Tyler's class did in the month of October. He talked about how his class wrote scary stories for Halloween. Tyler's was about a kid who got locked into a haunted pumpkin farm. Next he talked about a monster bash, which are science experiments that were related to Halloween as well. He then talked about their jammin-jobs they are assigned to every two weeks. He also talked about the Global Read Aloud group and how they read the book, The One and Only Ivan. The last thing Tyler talked about in his post was about tour stops. He explains that these are a lot like stations and that they do them 4 times a week.
I left Tyler a comment saying how the month of October sounded like a fun month for their class. I let him know that I thought the Monster bash sounded especially exciting. I asked if he created the little slideshow that was included at the end of his post because I enjoyed being able to see the things he did that he described in his post. I ended by saying that I hope the month of November is just as fun and exciting as the month of october was.

I as assigned a tenth grade english student at Baldwin County High from Ms. Martin's class. The students name was Mallory. Her blog post can be found here. Her post was comparing the bird in the poem, The Caged Bird, with the character, Melinda, in the movie Speak. She did an outstanding job with comparing the two. Mallory says how the bird is tied and screams for freedom can be compared with Melinda in high school begging for freedom from being bullied.
I left Mallory a comment saying how I enjoyed her comparison of the two and how I thought she did a good job. I also talked a little about bulling in high school and that if she sees a student being bullied to approach the student and show that someone cares.

Blog post # 13

For this assignment I watched the video, A vision of Students Today. This video was made with the help of 200 Kansas State University students expressing how they learn, their dreams and goals, and what they think their life will be like among many other things. A google document was made that asked what is was like to be a student today. 200 college students were invited to answer that question in the google document and 367 edits were made to that one document. The video then changes to a classroom scene were students hold up a piece of paper expressing how it is like to be a student today. Some of these include how much they might spend a day doing a particular task such as eating, sleeping, watching TV, and doing homework. It all added up to be 26.5 hours a day. Someone else said that they complete 47% of the reading that they are assigned in class but only 26% is actually relevant to their life. One thing that a student said that I can relate to is buying 100 dollar books and not even opening them.

I really enjoyed this video. This video was published in 2007 and I find it interesting that, even with technology advancing at the rate it is, how it felt to be a student then, is the same as today. Teachers require you to buy 100 dollar textbooks that you only use once or twice. There is not enough time in one day to do everything that you wish to do, some things have to cut out. Students pay, or maybe not, for classes that they do not even attend. Students in the video might be $20,000 in debt by the time they graduate. I will be over almost $30,000 in debt. At the end of the video it's stated that technology alone can save students. Though, if you compare then to now, it's almost the same, maybe even worse. How has technology helped out in that aspect of a college students life? Yes classes can be online to save time, but we're still paying hundreds of dollars on textbooks we don't need. So much time is wasted on the computer now than it was in 2007. I think technology has made it easier to for college students to learn. In any other aspect covered in the video, I don't think technology has helped. This is only my personal opinion, of course.

Progress report on the final project

The end is so close, I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel! For project 15 we have to create a lesson plan using the Smart board. Also, the hard part of the assignment is that we are not allowed to meet face to face with our group until the day we film our lesson. So far my group member and I have been texting about our plans. We have decided to do a second grade science lesson on the water cycle. Science is so important and I think with a fun and interactive lesson, the students will be more interested and engaged in learning about this particular lesson.

Blog Post # 12

It's finally here, the chance where we get to make our own blog post assignment! I have been waiting for this ever since I found out that we had to do this. So here are the instructions as Dr. Strange might suggest them:

Blog Post Assignment 12
SMART Notebook activity
For this assignment you are to create your own SMART notebook activity that you might use in your future classroom. You are to create an activity that is in your area of specialty (math, history, elementary ed, special ed, etc). Then you are to film yourself demonstrating the activity. Post the video on Youtube and embed it into your blog
You may either create the activity using a SMART board in one of the classrooms or you may create it at home on your computer by downloading the SMART Notebook software

Download for Window users

For Mac users

You are going to need a Product Key to download this. You may either get it from me or any of the staff members. This key allows you to download it for free.

After downloading the software or before you go to a classroom to begin constructing an activity, I advise you to view these tutorials to help you better understand the SMART board.
Lesson Activity Toolkit Tutorial
Managing Pages Tutorial
Properties Tab Tutorial


Here is my example of the SMART Notebook Activity

Blog Post # 11

Ms. Kathy Cassidy and her use of Technology in Canada, Eh?

For this blog post, we were assigned to watch and learn about the techniques Ms. Cassidy, a 1st grade teacher in Canada, uses in her classroom. The first video I watched is called Little Kids...Big Potential. This video includes snapshot of students using technology, video clips of kids explaining the different ways they use technology, and audio clips of some of her students. One of the ways her students use technology is blogging. The students have a class blog where they can post what they have been doing in class or a writing assignment Ms. Cassidy gives them to post. Another way they use technology is through skype. Ms. Cassidy sets up various interviews with other students and educators from around the world for her students to interact with. Her students also make various video recording of themselves so they can play them back for critiquing or for other students to collaborate with. Another way that Ms. Cassidy's students use technology in the classroom is with Nintendo DS. The students can play a variety of educational games to allow a more fun and interactive learning experience.

Next I watched a Skype interview between Ms. Cassidy and Dr. Strange and a few of his former students. Dr. Strange asks Ms. Cassidy a variety of questions on her thoughts about technology in the classroom and how she uses it in her classroom. Some of the questions include how she got started using technology in her classroom, how and if other teachers in her school are using technology in their classrooms, and if the administrators support her methods of teaching. Dr. Strange also asks for advice for future students in using technology in their future classrooms.

I really enjoyed both of these videos. In the first video I got to see the students demonstrating how they use technology and they all seemed to really enjoy it. I'm sure they love when the EDM 310 students comment on their blog and leave positive feedback. I know for a fact those little first graders have a blast playing on the Nintendo DS. I think that is such a fun way to excite kids to learn and participate in activities. Using a Nintendo or some other hand held device for educational games is definitely something I will want to do as a teacher. Also, I will for sure have a class blog where my students can post projects and past assignments for parents to see, and also do writing assignments on for others to comment on. I will admit, when I first started blogging for this class in August I absolutely hated it, but now it's really grown on me and it is something I want to continue to do for my future classrooms. Technology is a wonderful thing and s Ms. Cassidy said in her interview with Dr. Strange, "it's here to stay". So get ready fellow EDM classmates because if you want to be an effective educator, you are going to have to use it in every way possible.

Project 3 - Comments for Teachers #3

This week I was assigned to Mr. Joe Dale's blog. The post I was assigned to is entitled Let the Championships Begin. It is about the language Perfect World Championships. This is something that I have never heard of so I really enjoyed this post! I decided to go to the official website here. And then I found this video giving a quick overview on how the competition actually works!
Craig Smith (CEO) briefly explaining the World Championships
Anyways, this whole thing is pretty interesting. In Joe's blog, he says that there are over 100,000 students that participate from all over the world. And the best part is, it's all online. JOe also says that over 14 million questions were asked in 7 days in last years competition.
I left Mr. Dale a comment saying how I had never heard of such a competition until now. I let him know that I looked up information on it and told him how I loved how unique it was and thanked him for posting information about it!

The next post of Mr. Jo Dale's blog I read was entitled Graham Davies R.I.P. Unfortunately this post is about the death and loss of the founder of eurocall. He lost his battle with Pseudomyxoma Peritonei (PMP), a type of cancer he was battling with for a while. This was someone that Joe Dale looked up to and was frequently in contact with asking for advice. He expresses his condolences to the family of Graham Davies and lets his readers know that if they would like to pay your respects, the Association for Language Learning has set up a tribute section on their facebook page.

I left a comment on this post expressing my condolences for his loss and everyone else's loss. I let Joe know that I did not have the pleasure of meeting or talking with Graham but that he sounded like a great man from the kind words he left about him.

C4K Summary for Month of October

For this assignment I was assigned to an 11th grade US History Research Seminar Blog. This school is a private school located in Portland, Oregon instructed by Mike Gwaltney.

The post that I commented on was about homecoming and the process of organizing it. These students rarely do homecoming activities because they are a private school. This year however, some students wanted to change that. Some students found volunteers to do a 3 minute choreographed dance, they took younger kids and put them into a group to do pep cheers, and they made three floats to parade around the school track. My comment to the young lady who wrote the blog talked about how we are in the process of homecoming at the University. I asked the student if they elected anyone for king and queen because our elections just closed today. I also commended them on putting together all of these homecoming activities with limited time and experience with homecoming.

The next week I was assigned to a 4th grade class at North Petherton Primary school in Somerset, UK. You can see there Class Blog here.
The post I commented on had audio clips of various students reading the story titled Taking The Cat's Way Home. This was the first time the class had done this and they seemed pretty excited. I listened to Shanice's version of the story. I commented on the blog praising Shanice and the rest of the class for their hard work in writing and reading these stories. I stated that I enjoyed how Shanice used different variations in voice level to help convey the message to the audience better.

This week I read a 2nd graders blog post from a school in Birmingham. The students name was Allie. She wrote a short post about zebras and what they looked like.

I left a comment saying how zebras were fascinating. I asked if zebras were her favorite animal and if not, what her favorite animal is. I told her my favorite animal is a giraffe because they are so tall and they're awkward with their necks.

This week we were instructed a special assignment. We had to comment on the wonderful Dr. Paige Vitulli and Dr. Susan Santolli's blog Eyes on Ireland. These two lovely ladies are currently in Ireland attending the Ireland International Conference of Education. I was assigned a particular post about the keynote speakers they got to hear speak.
The post Keynote Speakers, talked about the three keynote speakers Dr. Vitulli and Dr, Santolli heard speak. One of them was Dr. Richard Cooper, director of disability services at Harcum College in Pennsylvania. He actually owns a firm called Learning disAbilities Resources, which produces and distributes educational and motivational materials for individuals with learning differences. The next keynote speaker was Professor Cynthia Northington-Purdie, a psychologist and professor at NJ University. The last keynote speaker they heard speak was Dr. Patricia Mannix McNamara who joined the Department of Education and Professional Studies in the University of Limerick in 1999, prior to which she was a post primary teacher of English, Religion and SPHE. One of her interests are in bullying and its impact on health and well being. Which is particular important in todays society.
I left a comment stating that by the descriptions of Dr. Richard Cooper, he most likely would have been my favorite keynote speaker. I said that I would have loved to hear more about his firm that he owns as well as well as experience in guidance counseling seeing as that is what I would like to get my masters in. I expressed to Dr. Viltulli and Dr. Santolli how jealous I was that I was not in Ireland getting the chance to hear these keynote speaker talk.

Special Blog Post Assignment

For this special assignment we were told to read A world were grades will be left behind written by Mary Beth Marklein.

This article is about Google VP and professor, Sebastian Thrun and how he thinks education should be revolutionized. Thrun founded an education company called Udacity, where he is making his dreams about how education should work, come to life. His idea is to develop a catalog of free online courses taught by profound professors around the world. In one of the rooms at Udacity, a professor is filmed working problems and drawing figures on a white board. In another room, educators are coming up with fun new ways to get students interested in completing a math problem. Thrun believes that soon education will no longer be "one size fits all" he believe "Education will respond to you". He also believes that grades will not matter and that instruction will be free, but services might involve a fee.

I think Sebastian Thrun is up to something brilliant that could, and most likely will, change the face of education. Technology is already beginning to take over in classrooms and more and more teachers are "flipping" their classrooms. I feel like one day there will be no more face to face education, just solely online. Thrun makes a point however, about how theater never went away when film making took over. Film making is just more popular and less expensive. So I'm thinking that education would work out the same way. It would be available online for those who prefer it but you could also still go and learn with an instructor face to face. A lot of interesting ideas to take in here. I'm not sure what it means for the future of educators. I am all for technology in a classroom, but what happens when you take the classroom completely away? I think it could work but I also think it would take a lot of time to ease into it.

Green Screen Project 11

Smart board project # 14