Final Reflection

Blog 12

Why You Should Take edm310:

As we learned in this class, just over the past few years technological advances and achievements have taken over our society. Why should we be concerned with this you might ask? Well now a days you seem to walk around everywhere to see computers and cell phones as use. We should take it in our hearts to be the best educators as we can so this is important to utilize these recourses.

As you have seen what smart boards and other devices can do in the classroom things like this will continue to advance. You may ask why learn about it when it will be obsolete within a short time of graduating. But getting a head start on how these things work will help you adapt to new technology. If you properly use the technology you can enhance your teaching style to a new level by using videos and other activities in the classroom.

We definitely live in a new era where technology is key. So why not use it when it does have the power to better our careers? 

Book Trailer

PLN report

Although my PLN is far from being completely full it is progressing. I recently added a website called “At the Teacher’s Desk”, which is basically a teaching blog site. I do like the idea on a plan to stay on track and I am sure it will continue to improve and grow as I do as a future educator.

But in finding a teacher’s blog site to learn more from other teacher’s I concluded that it deserved a spot in my PLN.

Blog #14

This week’s blog was all about using technology. In Jose Ricardo’s video he show the defining reasons why you should use technology in the classroom. His tips are all focused on using relevant technological functions associated with teenage likings. Many of his tips are even the same ideas as we use in our class such as a class blog, social networks, and making podcasts. I am not 100% sold on how music will improve your ability to teach your class most of the others are great ideas. Jose’s idea of using teleconferencing or Skype is especially helpful when students may need help outside of the classroom. In our final project my group also used Skype to complete a videoconference shown on our video. I also like Jose’s final reason for using common student gadgets. Students should not be forced to leave behind or not use some of their gadgets in the classroom if the teacher can be creative enough to use them as a learning utensil. Also, do not forget about social networks. In today’s era so many children have social networks. By making a classroom page you can get the room to interact collaboratively in order to achieve common goals outside of the classroom.

C4K C4T

My last comments for kids post was done by a young student that wrote a halloween story about an evil vampire. The vampire went on to steal all of the kids candy. Then all of the kids revolted and decided to confront the vampire to retrieve their candy. The vampire then caved in and everyone shared the candy to have a happy halloween after all.

After reading the rest of this story I thought that he showed a lot of creativity. Having made up this story from his own imagination and slingshotting it to have a happy ending was great. My comment let him know this as i told him to continue to stay creative.

Another one of my final C4K post went to a little girl that had stage fright. She was terrified to have to preform a speech in front of her class and gave her anxiety. My comment was about telling her the importance of public speaking. Many jobs now require you to speak in front of a group and it does get easier with time. So you have to try to relax and find a comfort zone to talk to a group of people.

My last C4T comment was done on a facebook group for teachers. I commented on one of their most recent post about the top ten reasons to use and learn about technology in the classroom. I commented on how I am in edm310; a class focused directly on technology. I have learned far more than I ever dreamed of and can finally honestly say that I see the importance of using and learning technology. I now agree that technology should be used in every classroom around America.

Final Project

Blog #13 option 2

The “My Teacher is an App” article shows the pros and cons compared between traditional public schools and online public schools. Online types of homeschooling give some students the ability to play with technology and learn at their own rate. They can also get children away from peer pressuring and bullying but can they fully overtake the traditional classroom?

The truth is that fully online home-schooled students standardized test scores are much lower than traditional students. With that being said I think it goes to show that students physically need an educator there to motivate them. I also believe that it is vital that children grow up communicating with each other and adults so they can develop proper communication skills needed to function efficiently in our society. I think if people cannot properly communicate then they will struggle in the real world being unable to fully express their thoughts. Although this may not seem true to some just maybe some of the sheltered kids, which very well maybe very bright, can be deemed as somewhat socially insufficient. Which in today’s world is still very important in many jobs including teaching.

On the other hand there are schools that provide a classroom atmosphere to prosper along with a portion of the day set aside for computer work. This does give students to collaborate throughout most of the day then go and learn more about technology even if it is just playing mathematical games and so on. Some of these schools have their students scoring among the best of the national average. I believe this goes to prove that having the right balance maybe most effective. All students learn best in different ways but by incorporating all learning styles the scores show that this balance has had the most positive outcome.

Metaphors

Metaphors are away of proving a similar point without telling or giving away the objective straight forward. Metaphors allow you to get a different perspective on something from a different viewpoint to show how unfair something is using an ironic situation. As a result some metaphors can be misleading or taken the wrong way. It is important you correctly identify the objective of the metaphor to obtain the true meaning and therefore the point of it. Metaphors are hidden throughout everyday life, weather it be from songs, poems, or even just created by people to try and better explain their viewpoint on a particular subject is.

To properly identify a metaphor you must first be able to since the sarcasm. You can then relate the metaphor to the corresponding matter and see how it fits in to understand the power and meaning of the metaphor. As educators, metaphors can be a strong teaching implement. Once a student clearly understands your metaphor they will better understand the viewpoint you are trying to tell them. As a result they open their minds when they understand it causing learning, “every teacher’s goal,” and on top of that the student will often reflect back to that metaphor or viewpoint you past to them when the subject is brought up again because it influenced them. This is why metaphors are so powerful and are used in teaching today. They have the power to persuade and open student’s minds. But also encourages people to make metaphors of their own to more efficiently express their beliefs.

SmartBoard #2

Blog #11

After watching Ms. Cassidy’s class video it was obvious she is a great teacher. She was able to introduce technology to a group of very young first graders. By introducing her first graders to a blog she can share their work with other the classes and the world as well. Of course this can create some concern to the student’s safety. But Ms. Cassidy seems to understand the risks associated with this issue. She informs all parents with what goes on in her class and makes the blog very hard to exploit by not giving out very much information about the students such as full names. She has shown that technology can be used constructively by students of all ages if used correctly and carefully. As future educators we must adapt to our everyday changing lives with includes the drastic increase of technology over the years. I could not think of denying my child for any educational opportunity so it is important to learn how we can safely achieve this without acquiring any risks to the children.

Skype interview

C4T

My latest C4T post was towards a teacher named Beth Knittle. She told about her experience with a digital communication game known as Second Life or SL. Apparently she eventually became friends with many other users of the site but became maybe somewhat indulged in the game to the point it took up enough time to affect her non digital life.

She then spotted using SL or severely limited her time spent on SL but as a side effect misses some of the friends she made. My comment was more of a suggestion since I do not know much about Second Life. But I stated that it is good to keep in touch with her friends and maybe try and set up a meeting to catch up with some of them in person. She did comment back and informed me that she is now able to keep in touch with some of her friends made using the game and that they do but rarely hold a SL conference now. But she says her best experience with SL is being able to connect with teachers over the world and she has become richer from the experience.

Blog #10

Do You Teach or Do You Educate:

In Mr. Bloom’s short video he distinguishes the difference between teaching and educating. In his movie he defines an educator as someone who has the power to inspire drive people. A good educator must have good leadership qualities to make people aspire to be as motivated and driven to reach their goals much like you did. On the other hand he defines a teacher as one who just throws facts and information out in hopes that the listener soaks up as much as they can.

Of course everyone who is becoming a teacher wants to strive to become a good educator. We have all sat in a class at one point and found ourselves paying attention and actively participating in debates and talks just because we wanted to. When you find yourself in these situations pay attention to that teacher's teaching style because they are in fact doing their job to their potential of being a good educator. We have also all been in classrooms purely based on non enthusiastic lectures and find ourselves staring at the clock rather than attempting to indulge in the lesson just because of the torture of listening. Even at the time we tell ourselves that there is no way that we will end up like that so we need to make sure we retain our old motivation and strive to do our best.

Don’t Let Them Take The Pencils Home:

Tom Johnson made this post to educate us to not hinder our students learning potentials. Parents, teachers, and administrators alike can all put fear in a child that distracts them from their natural ability to learn. Johnson’s post also shows how a teacher, Gertrude, thinks that letting students take pencils will cause more problems than benefits. She thinks that the students will just use the pencils for unsuitable games or not at all. By Gertrude so focused on problems possible related to letting the students take the pencils home she is creating a problem herself. She is limiting the resources her students have which is limiting their potential. If you spend all of your time focusing on the bad you make it hard to notice all the good that comes from situations. Perhaps some of her students would maximize their potential with the opportunity.

The key to limiting problems is to anticipate them so you can put solutions out in advance. Addressing problems will just be part of being a teacher. So a good educator will show the guidelines and benefits to students before allowing students to do something. In other words just pave the road to allow students to correctly achieve their goals.

Blog #9

In Mr. McClung’s first post entitled “What I’ve Learned This Year 2008-2009”, I actually learned more about teaching. He shows how a new teacher basically has to start from scratch with no experience and learn their selves how to become a successful teacher. Communication is definitely a key to becoming a good teacher. You must be able to communicate in a way to where you can reach a student to be able to properly teach them. I believe a teacher should push a student to reach their maximum potential and to be the best teacher you can you should put yourself in the student’s shoes to see how they would learn best. It is not about how a teacher gives a lesson but rather how well they are able to make the students understand and comprehend it. But it is also important to encourage your students rather than scold them. If a student receives constant criticism then they might begin to lower their standards to avoid disappointing themselves.

In Mr. McClung’s second post “2009-2010”, he definitely learned more about teaching. He seemed to learn that by changing his ways of teaching he was able to reach his whole class since not all people learn efficiently the same way. He noticed that busy work was not the key for learning. I personally think if you can communicate and get the class interesting in a class debate then it will give the biggest impact to the students. It is always important to love what you teach or you may find it very difficult yourself to want to teach the material at a desired level every day. After all we are all able to learn more every day. Even teachers are still learning so it is important to keep an open mind set and be open to ideas from students and teachers alike. The more we learn will only improve us as a person and as an educator as well. Both of Mr. McClung’s post had a number of valuable points but equally as important it showed us what we should expect when we reach our goals and become teachers as well.

Blog 8

How We Dream:

In both parts of this video Richard Miller discusses human communication. He tells how communication has evolved over time. Richard says that his main goal in life was to become a published author. He finally accomplished his goal by publishing a book. Now we are able to buy and read his book whenever we want to. He then goes on to discuss hoe people are moving away from traditional books and moving towards digital copies. I would agree as well since a lot of classes at South now require you to purchase an ebook, or an electronic copy of a book. Now that we can get electronic copies it is impossible for a supply of traditional books to run out. There will always be copies available on line. Another benefit of electronic copies is that they are instantly available to people around the world.

Carly Pugh’s Blog:

I found Carly’s blog post to be pretty cool. Her video came together like an instructional map guiding people on how they should think and persevere in her own mind. Maybe an assignment similar to Carly’s should be added in the future to edm310. I think by doing this you will be able to get your students to be creative and think outside of the box. It could enable students to express their own beliefs rather than writing about videos and so on about other people’s view points. We might find it interesting how other people in our class think and maybe one or more can inspire the class.  

The Chipper:

I believe that the overall message of these videos is that you only get out what you put into something. This is true not only in edm310 but in all walks of life. I can almost guarantee that Babe Ruth didn’t set records by being lazy nor did the Auburn tigers win a football championship last year by playing video games. We all aspire to do great things but aspiring is only half of it, you have to put the effort forth. But on top of putting the effort forth we have to do it on time because Auburn wouldn’t have won that championship if they were ready the day after it.

EDM310 for Dummies:

The Edm310 for Dummies video was pretty funny. But the point was that if you put an effort forth and stay on track you will be able to excel. Everyone gets stressed at times but it is important to not give up and push through it. Plus, there are always people to help you in our EDM labs open almost everyday.

I believe I would like to make a video showing people how to push through stresses and aspire. I think a lot to do with this is keeping a positive attitude and being encouraged by someone how as been in your shoes and excelled.

Learn to Change, Change to learn

I thought this video was very interesting. It showed how kids are more inspired by technology such as social networks and so on which are banned in many classrooms. The video quotes “we must develop a narrative that sustains 21^st century learning.”  In my opinion this is true. The video also shows how standardized test are foolish since students will not be called to use these in their careers but their abilities to work in teams and find information to synthesis it. The dawn of learning depends on teaching students how to accomplish these goals by keeping them active and encouraged in the classroom. I believe if how we educate students now changes we will be able to influence them to aspire and give them a drive to be better and what the education system offers now.

Project 13

C4T

My first comment for C4T went to a teacher named Beth Still. Her post was about how she wanted to keep her time dedicated to work minimal. She stated how she was balancing the time and I let her know how important I thought this was. I even tried to give her new ideas such as planning family game nights in her schedule. I never received a notification back but hoped she had seen mine and took on to heart.

My second comment was towards a teacher named Arvid Grover. They had set up a memorial page for Steve Jobs who had recently passed away. They talked about his legacy in technology and how he founded it. My post simply said how great he was and how far he pushed technology. He really did refine education and the world we live in. many products from his company, Apple, we are using in our class now.

Short Movie

Project 10 PLN

Before I enrolled into EDM310 I had no idea what a PLN was. After learning what a learning network was I became hooked. It is a much easier way to process and organise information. My personal favorite is symbaloo. This allows me to surf the web easier rather than bookmarking or adding websites to my "favorites". I think everyone should consider looking into symbaloo.