Final Reflection Video

C4T #4 Summary

The final teacher that I found to read his blog is Jason Hahnstadt and he has been a PE teacher at Joseph Sears School since 2005. He is very involved in using technology for athletics and teaching Physical Education. One of his blogs is titled, "What is Flipped Coaching?" Even though I do not intend to be a coach, I was still very curious. He explains the ideas of showing videos to the students to introduce and even begin teaching new skills or activities. He continues to explain that this method increases consistency among different classes; and that is to say, he won't forget or leave out any need-to-know information if he just tried to remember the instructions off the top of his head. I liked this method and I think I could use it in my future teaching if I can get the needed equipment.
Another post I came upon is titled, "iBook and iBook Author," and of course I was interested in this one because my group just finished our iBook for this class! I think that he wrote this post to introduce the program to other professionals. He included the widgets, the complexity and the use on the iPads. Also, I agreed with him when he added that Apple should update the program so that one could view an iBook on an iPhone. That just seems obvious to me!
I'm glad I found Jason's blog because I think I could learn a lot from his experience. :)

C4K Summary #3

The first student was Keanan in Ms. Stadler's 5th grade class in South Africa. Keanan has many creative ideas that he includes in his blog posts. The post I commented on was titled, "poetry," and had a simile and a metaphor poem. He had great detail; the metaphor poem described a lion as a vicious animal that was deemed "the king of the jungle," and the simile poem was an expression of his feelings of school. Although he displays feelings of a typical elementary boy and says, "school is like a bumble bee working wasting it's time," he shows great competence in his language arts. He also included pictures, which is always a nice touch in blogs. I really enjoyed his poems.

The next student I had was Travis who is in Mrs. Meyer's art class at Waverly Shell Rock Middle School. Travis seems to really enjoy art class and expressing his creativity. In one of his posts he described himself in 100 years from now. He animated his ideas using a Sketchbook Pro app and embedded it into his post. He shows a lot of artistic potential and is doing a great job blogging.

My third assignment was Alex in Mrs. Debuhr's 6th grade class. This class has done a lot of blogging assignments this year, they seem to have learned quite a bit so far! Alex recently posted about his view on his first quarter of 6th grade. I reflected on what he had already accomplished and told his goals for the rest of the year. I mentioned to him that self reflection is important and that he's done a good job. I also liked his title, "1st quarter down 3 to go," I thought it kept his page entertaining to the reader.

Project #12: Smart Board (Part B)

Here is a link to our slide presentation if you want a closer look!

Blog Post #13

Create an Assignment
My specialty will be Physical Education. My assignment is to answer this question: What are the best strategies for helping kids succeed in P.E.?Check out these links
>P.E. Central's List of Best Practices
>The Physical Educator

Firstly, I would like to make clear what it means to me to "succeed" in P.E. I believe that when a student succeeds in P.E. they have learned new motor skills, learned new sports skills, and have gained a new understanding and appreciation for healthy and active living. Not all children are alike; everyone comes from a different home that has already influenced their ideas on being healthy. When I become a P.E. teacher I want to make sure I focus a little bit on every child to try and make a difference in their lives. The two links I have included are great sources for current and future P.E. teachers. They both provide helpful ideas/strategies/lessons/tips, communication between professionals, and much more.

So, back to my question. There are many ways to get kids involved in Physical Education, but what are the best ways to do so? On P.E. Central's website they have a list of submitted ideas to be voted "Best Practice;" all of them are great but I picked out a few to focus on. Achieving Lifetime Physical Activity (ALPhA) looks like a great program to get students really involved in creating a healthy lifestyle. The goal of this program is to have students, and their families, set monthly goals throughout the school year. The students will be able to show their families what they learn in class, and incorporate those skills into their goals. To motivate students even more, the teacher who submitted this ideas also included the use of tokens, or rewards, to give every month that the child met their goal. The next idea is called "Sid Shuffle," and it is to be conducted as a whole school assembly. The "Sid Shuffle" can be seen on this video, the video that will be shown at the assembly. I believe that when an activity like this involves the whole school all the students are very excited to learn and participate, and also be excited about P.E. The third and last idea I found to focus on is a Healthy Field Day; I think a favorite for all students. Field days can be extremely fun and educational. Speakers would come and talk to the kids, and different stations/games would be set up to tell kids about nutrition, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, sports opportunities, and anything else the P.E. teacher could think of. Hosting a field day is such an awesome way to get students to participate and understand the importance of health and physical activity. I love all of these ideas because I think I could actually use them as a way to help my future students succeed in my P.E. class. I think by giving the students something to look forward to, such as a field day or assembly, would get them more interested in P.E. all around.

I hope you all liked my idea for this assignment, I sure did enjoy exploring my options. :)

Blog Post #12

C4T #3 Summary

Pricipal Bernia's blog, The Principal's Principles

"A Middle School Principal, striving to make the world a better place, one day at a time."

John Bernia is extremely engaged in his school and regularly participates in school wide projects and events. I know this because of his blog posts which all have an important topic.
The first post I came across was his most recent one titled, "Attendance Matters." In this post he gives the reader three questions concerning the teacher's relationship to and influence on the students' attendance, and of course, the effects on their work. We may think that a child attending school is a pretty simple matter, but if/when it does get out of control it can have vast negative effects on their academic success. Teachers definitely play a role in whether their student's attend school. I believe along with Bernia that they also have the duty to intervene and help the students when they notice a problem with their attendance. Showing up to class is "literally the first step toward success."
Another post I found to comment on is titled, "Compliance or Creativity?" Take a minute to consider these two things: a culture run by mandates, strict rules and timelines, a clear chain of command with authority, and everyone saying, "mine;" or a culture with flexible mandates, rules and timelines, collaborative leadership, trust, and people saying, "ours." Which type of culture would you like to see in your (future) school? I think this question is what Bernia wants his readers to ask themselves because leadership will affect the school's culture and environment for the students and teachers. Principal Bernia is a very insightful man and I think we could all learn a lot from his posts.