Blog Post #7

After thinking about how technology is being used in the classroom as a universal tool I decided that it was a good thing, but maybe not the best thing for my future career. I think there are only a few students in this class that are pursuing Physical Ed. and I am one of them. The reason I say technology would'nt be best is because I want children to stray away from sitting in front of a computer or their phone screen for long periods of time and actually get their hands "dirty" with other activities. I do not totally disagree with the use of technology in the classroom because I do think it is beneficial, but I also think teachers need to maintain boundaries and a balance of technology. This will be one of my weaknesses when I become a teacher: knowing that they are receiving technology based instruction in their other classes will be hard for me to incorporate it in my instruction as well. I guess I could say that my goal with my students would be to clarify the appropriate times to use technology and the times when technology should be put down and entertainment/education be sought after in another fashion. On the other hand, I do have a great deal of experience with technology and I would certainly be able to use it in instruction. For example, music counts as technology and music could be used many times in a P.E. curriculum to teach content standards. Another example would be showing demonstration videos, methods like these would be beneficial to those students known as "visual learners." I found these two You Tube videos as examples. 1. Demonstrations 2. Instructions

With all of that being said, I want my readers to know that I am a very open-minded person and I can learn something and understand it's meaning from anything I can wrap my head around. For example, Bennett's video on audio recordings and QR codes-that was really interesting! I've always wondered how companies make those codes and why they are important. Bennett expressed that a code can hold anything you want it to and that the use of QR codes is very beneficial for sharing the child's work/progress with the parent. What a neat way to communicate information! Tuck's Kindergarten class also learned something very useful: iPad Reading in a Center. With the iPad, the student was able to hear his self while simultaneously evaluating his self. This reading technique, along with her Poplet app tutorial, seemed to be great tool for self evaluation. The next topic, Alabama Virtual Library (AVL) is something that I am familiar with. I am so glad students are learning basic research skills at such a young age. These skills will allow them to be so much more dependent and not to rely on somebody else finding the answer. AVL is also a great way to teach children to identify specific concepts/subjects and learn new facts. The Build a Board project was also a very interesting app to use in the classroom. Using a board builder in Discovery Ed. teaches students great techniques for organization, sorting information, note taking, and creativity. It also seems like a super fun way for them to share their work with the class! Lastly, I wanted to make a comment on the video "We All Become Learners." Dr. Strange is right every time he says it, "Teachers will never know everything there is to know about everything!" Teachers will teach the students and the students will sometimes have the opportunity to teach the teacher, and I believe this will always be accurate.

Project #8: Book Trailer

Project #6: C4K Summary #1

This week for comment #3 I was assigned to a student named Andrew who is part of Mrs. Greer's 5th grade class. Here is the class blog, you can find the students on the right hand side.
The post I commented on was tagged "100 word challenge," and he did a great job getting exactly 100 words into his post. He described a scenario about his family leaving their house to catch a plane. I enjoyed picturing his vivid sentences of what happened right before they left the house. Like I said, he did a great job with this portion of the post. On the other hand, I had to agree with the comment that Mrs. Greer left him pointing out his lack of quotation marks. I assumed they had learned this grammar rule by reading her comment about it. I reinforced this correction he needed to make in my comment as well. Quotation marks are vital when it comes to telling a story and having people in that story say specific things. Being in 5th grade he will begin to write many more narrative essays and this part of grammar is something that needs to become a habit.
The second student I had was named Cheyenne, and I believe she was about the same grade as Andrew. I remember her post being short, sweet, and to the point in answering her teacher's request. She shared her feelings about having an anti-bullying group come speak to her class-she enjoyed what they had to say. I shared with her that I liked reading her post and agreed with her because I believe bullying is a very serious problem in all school systems. The only correction I gave her was not to forget her proper nouns that required a capital letter, her school's name for example.
The first student I was assigned to was a young girl in New Zealand. I commented on one of her posts that included a Google slideshow. She made this presentation by using each letter of the alphabet and relating each letter to a sport. I remember she made a wonderful presentation that was very detailed with the names of the sports and graphics to go with them. I think that she enjoyed making this presentation because there was so much effort put into it.

Blog Post #6

Anthony Capps shared many important concepts and useful examples to understand how beneficial Project Based Learning (PBL) is in a classroom. He has shown 3rd graders how to use iMovie and his success proves that the PBL method works! The first two movies we were asked to watch, Part 1 and Part 2, shared the importance on how PBL should be implemented in the classroom.

~ Make sure the project includes the state content standards (Capp's example included Reading, Writing, and Social Studies).
~ And make sure the state content standards are represented in the project's standard/requirements.
~ Try to establish a project that the students can relate to/engage in (family, culture, leisure activities).
~ Include peer revision or even peer selection of the best work.

The first two points are pretty obvious why they are important to PBL, but the last two are the ones I want to focus on. When a teacher introduces a project the student thinks one of two thoughts: "I really don't want to do this." or "This might actually be fun." Our goal as educators is to create something so the student will enjoy learning. When the student can actively engage in the learning process and relate what they are studying to their own life that is when they are learning and retaining the most. Secondly, students also have the opportunity to learn when they critique their classmate's work. Every student will have a different opinion or idea about the subject, and by reviewing peer work the students are learning to be observant, open-minded, and maybe a little unbiased. I believe that when students acquire these skills they create the potential to expand their knowledge on any subject.
Capps opened my mind to what it takes to be a successful educator from PBL, to using iCurio, to establishing discovery education in the classroom as well. I want to share one of my favorite quotes from his commentary, "Never limit your students...give them the opportunity to exceed your expectations." This stood out to me when he said this because for so long children have been confined to a very small box that only accepts the correct answer from the text book; but now with methods such as PBL and Discovery Ed. the children can produce many different, and correct, answers.

Project #7: My Sentence Videos

I recorded myself with my DELL laptop. I then downloaded those recordings to a MAC desktop, that is why I ended up with this watermark over my videos.

My Sentence


My Passion

Project #3: Google Presentation

Blog Post #5

I swear I'm learning something new in this class every day! And what a great start to becoming a lifelong learner.
I had never heard of a Personal Learning Network (PLN) before today and it seems very helpful for an educator in the new technology-based learning generation. A Personal Learning Network is somebody's personalized space dedicated to their professional relationships, research sources, and commonly used tools/gadgets to help them in their research. The sites such as Netvibes and Symbaloo contain many tools to help someone begin a PLN (I think that Symbaloo would be a better choice for a beginner). Through these sites, one can gather as many contacts and online sources as they can and add them to their page. Whether they need an answer immediately, or they want to save research for later, the data will always be there. A PLN is an ongoing project; it can always be modified by the user and that's what is so helpful about it. By exploring the links shared by Dr. Strange for this blog post, I learned that a PLN is never finished and it is never perfect. Our personal relationships shrink and grow all the time; and for teachers it's always best to communicate with others that share your same beliefs and values about education. In some cases, it could also be helpful to get a different/opposing opinion about something, so a variety of sources is crucial.
This You Tube video is a great introduction for learning more about what a PLN is all about and how to create your own. Thinking ahead, if I were to make a PLN for myself I would include some Physical Education/Health teachers that have made a difference in their community because that is my personal goal. By collaborating with somebody who shares the same goals the possibilities are endless!

Project #15: Search Engines

Follow the underlined links to access the search engine! :)

I. Wolfram/Alpha
Wolfram/Alpha is a great tool for anything academic related. From measurement conversion, to statistics, to history facts, to medicinal research, this site has it all! Out of curiosity from my recent tip, I typed in "Galapagos Islands," and it gave me a full list of every island and the population and island size. It also includes a map with coordinates and links to related islands. If I were doing a project on something like the group of islands known as the Galapagos, this site would be a huge help!

II. Duck Duck Go
It's something new to me to find out about all these different search engine sites. This one, "Duck Duck Go," is your typical we browser tool except it promises the user real privacy. Along with speedy results in any subject needed, the user feels the satisfaction knowing their searches aren't being tracked or monitored. Our nation has privacy laws for a reason, and some users might feel more comfortable using a search engine such as this one.

III. Bing!
I have used Bing a time or two before and I believe that what makes it popular is that it portrays attractiveness to the eye. It has given me similar results to Google, but it is more interesting and exciting to look at. Bing also has a bigger focus on pop-news as it shows a reel of topics along the bottom of the page. This may be distracting if a student were hoping to use it to research an academic topic.

IV. Dog Pile
The Dog Pile search engine is very simple to use. It seems to be a good starter for children learning to navigate the world wide web because it includes a play on words such as, "Go Fetch" and "Sniff out info" to help children learn better. I searched the shopping option for a jewelry maker known as "Alex & Ani" and it took me directly to a page full of products and their prices. No unrelated annoying ads were included on the side of the page to distract the user from their intended purpose. I thought this site was very useful.

V. You Tube
Everybody and their grandparents are on and/or using You Tube by this year. Whether they are the star of the video or they are searching for a video their selves, most that have learned how to use it cannot put it down. You Tube is a great tool to search because some people need some hands-on learning. It is sometimes difficult to just read information or instruction off of a computer/phone screen; sometimes it makes a difference to watch and listen the information the user needs. This is a great source for moments in news and history that were once recorded and can now be recalled; the user also has access to digital recordings such as interviews with important people or organizations.

Project #4 Post: C4T #1 Summary

First of all, I want to share how much I enjoyed participating in this project. It gave me a chance to see what a real, functional, and popular, blog post looks like by a well-respected person. I was assigned to Mr. John Spencer who is passionate about helping his students achieve their goals.

The First post I commented on was titled, "The Hero of Your Own Story (Part 2)," here he discussed the tug-of-war battle between giving the students the opportunity to create their own strategies, make their own mistakes, and learn from them, and the threat of too much freedom in the classroom. He makes this statement to introduce the blog: "I was thinking about what it actually means to have students acting as active protagonists." I agreed with him that we should encourage students to be active in the decision making of their school careers; but I also agreed that inhibiting them from doing so may limit their full potential.

The Second post I commented on was, "How Do We Define Success?" That's a tough concept to define. In this post he shared personal stories about what success has meant to different students. Whether it's graduating college, maintaining a high GPA, or even just putting food on the table, we must acknowledge that everyone measures success in different ways. I want to share my personal experience. I came across this post after a stressful, normal college day and after reading it I was a bit more relaxed; Spencer has a perspective on situations that I must appreciate, and I shared both of these things with him and his other readers. Our lives will have many ups and downs but we need to learn to appreciate every success we make-big or small!

Spencer's blog was very interesting to explore, and he has many engaging topics that are universally related (and he's even a Harry Potter fan!). Please follow the link to see his blog for yourself! Education Rethink

Blog Post #4

More than often, we think we are doing our peers, or children we interact with, a favor when we ask them questions. We ask questions that make sense to us, and we assume it makes sense to the peer or child. To be productive with a question it must make sense to the person receiving the question, and most of the time that is where we lack effectiveness. I started off with Johnson's Edutopia blog about the right way to ask a question in the classroom. Reading through his ideas got the wheels in my head turning, but I still couldn't figure it out exactly. I kept focusing on what he mentions about the goal of the question, what do we want this child to know/understand from what we are asking? And furthermore, how can we tell if they really do understand?
While pondering on these questions, I decided to check out Weimer's blog: "Three Ways to Ask Better Questions in the Classroom." She included some great tips for educators such as preparing the questions you want to ask, playing with questions in different ways, and preserving good questions, whether from another teacher or even a student! She also includes these questions in her blog, "Is it the question that needs to be asked? When is the best time to ask it?" These questions really stuck with me when I explored another source.
The YouTube video about open ended questions gave me a much clearer idea of what is trying to be taught to educators. The author, Stix, gave some great examples: "For what reasons did the American Revolution begin?" "Generate a list of all the places mold could grow." And that's when I finally got it! These open ended questions allow the students to engage in a deeper thinking and reasoning process instead of being hung up on answering the question exactly right with one short answer. I believe this is the type of approach we as future educators should begin to use. Good teaching begins with good strategy, and good strategy begins with asking ourselves the good questions. I also would like to invite you all to explore Stix's blog because she has some great, outside the box ideas about effective teaching strategies.

Blog Post #3

The videos and slide show that were included with this week's assignment were so extremely obvious that I hadn't even considered a few of the points that were made in my previous experience with peer reviews. Unfortunately, my past experience influenced me to think that the class was doing this to help the teacher lessen their work load. I was never taught the importance of why we as student peers engage in reviewing each other's work. Now I know why.
Peer reviewing is a sensitive process because no body enjoys being told that their work isn't good enough. We must be aware that our peer has put in a lot of effort to complete the assignment, and we cannot just jump in head first and bash their best efforts. To become an effective reviewer, I need to STAY POSITIVE! That means to first find what does work in their writing rather than what doesn't, and then proceed from there. For example, I could say, "I really like what you're trying to say/describe and maybe with a little sentence revision it will be more clear to the reader." instead of saying, "What you wrote doesn't make any sense and your sentences are too unorganized." The attitude I have when I critique something can determine how the peer responds and if they fix it correctly.

Furthermore, I always thought it was only about pointing out the spelling and grammatical errors, but now I understand that I need to look for things like a clear main idea, smooth transitions, descriptive detail, and etc. We are doing this to help one another, so to provide meaningful feedback we also need to make useful suggestions in the peer's work. I could suggest moving a couple of sentences around to be read more clearly, or provide synonyms for a word that would create more meaning, or even suggest how to make a conclusion. I believe that when peers brainstorm together there shouldn't be any reason why an essay or a blog isn't up to the correct standards.