Blog Assignment #14

Teacher Knows if You’ve Done the E-Reading


This post explains about the new technology called CourseSmart that allows teachers to see if and how often that their students are reading their assignments. CourseSmart is already altering the way that teachers present material, how students are responding to it. This software enables the teacher to determine if the student is actually leaning the material or just memorizing it the night before a test by checking how many times, if any, that the students open their books.
As a future teacher, I think that this new technology is a great way to monitor the student's work ethic. This lets teacher know which students need extra help when they are struggling or if they are just being lazy and not reading the assignment. This also helps the teacher know if his/her student is actually learning from their readings, or if they are only memorizing the main points. I think that this will benefit both the teacher and the students in the future.
As a student, I think that knowing that the teacher can see if I am actually reading the assignment will inspire me to do my homework. This holds each student accountable for their reading homework, and I can bet that more students will begin reading if schools used CourseSmart in their classrooms. Also, I would feel like I had to pay more attention to may readings and take better notes if my teachers were monitoring my homework. I may not like it because I would not be able to skim by anymore, but in the long run, using CoursSmart would benefit me as a learner.

If I could talk to the teacher that this post is referring to, I would ask him/her the following questions.
*Could you see a change in the student's work ethic after using CourseSmart?
*Does it increase the work load for you as a teacher by using CourseSmart?
*Do you use the information you receive with CourseSmart when you give the students participation grades?

If I could interview the students in this class, I would ask them the following questions.
*Do you like your class using CourseSmart?
*Do you think that it benefits you as a student?
*Do you consider this new technology an invasion of privacy?

A comment I would leave for this blog post would be...
Thank you for sharing this information on CourseSmart. I think that this new technology is a great idea, and it will benefit the students as well as the teachers. I also believe that using CourseSmart in the classroom will improve the number of students reading their homework each night, and also improve their quality or reading and taking notes because they will know that their teacher is monitoring them.

C4T #4 Summary

Jarrod Robinson blog Mr. Robo-The PE Geek

Comment #1. The 14 Day Twitter Challenge for PE Teachers. This post is about a challenge that Mr. Robinson has to encourage teachers to begin using Twitter. He wants everyone to understand the benefits of creating these powerful connections and to have a platform of professional learning through Twitter. I said that I thought that the 14 day challenge was a great way for introducing teachers to Twitter. I also stated how I really liked the way he breaks it down into simple steps, because I remembered when I first started using twitter that I was lost.


Comment #2. Zite – My Personalised Professional Learning Tool. This post is about an app called Zite. It is almost like an electronic personal newspaper that gives you popular news from all over the world in your favorite subjects. The more you use it, the app leans the type stories that the reader prefers and gathers more like it. Also, if the reader can share a story that he/she likes with their facebook or Twitter. I said that I though this was a great app for everyone to use. It allows the user to find stories that they like, and enables them to share it with the world.

Project # 15 Smart Board Group Project

Progress Report On Final Project # 16

Nikki Rae Mooney, Jarrod Roberts, Ciara 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 Assignment #13

In Brian Crosby's video Back To the Future, he tells about a class that he teaches that has students who are "at risk." He explains some of the troubles that they go through ,and he does not understand why there is such a disconnect with these students. They are so behind that he worries that their lack of creativity and imagination may cause them to lose their passion. Mr Crosby finds ways to reach these kids by making learning fun for them. He incorporates technology into the classroom by providing all the students with laptops to create blogs, and he also conducts several projects that the students are able to take part in. This type of hands-on learning peeks the students interest and inspires these students to take a more active role in school. He gets the students to explain what they learn on their blogs, and this replaces the standard multiple choice tests. By using blogs, they realize that people from around the world actually read their posts, and this provides motivation to strive to be better. Mr. Crosby does not only stops there. He skypes other teachers and classrooms around the world to help them learn how to do some of the same projects as his class. The students benefit from this type of learning because they are now connected and collaborate with people from all around the world when they were not even connected and with their own neighborhood before.



Mr. Paul Anderson's video,Blended Learning Cycle, explains his new idea of a blended learning cycle. He takes the compelling parts of online, mobile, and classroom learning and blends them together in the classroom, and he then adds in the five "E's" of the learning cycle:explore, explain, expand, engage, and evaluate. He goes on to explain his idea by breaking his blended learning cycle down into six different parts. To start off, he askes a good question that will get the students interested, and then he lets the students investigate and explore. Then, he likes to incorporate a video for the students to watch instead of only giving a lecture, and he also begins elaborating on all of the other important factors that the students need to learn that deal with the question he has asked. Finally, he reviews all of the information with each student, and if he/she can explain what they have learned, he gives them a test.
I think that Mr. Anderson's blended learning cycle idea could be very beneficial to students. It gets the students more interested and involved in what they are learning. I like how he is very hands-on and makes sure that each student actually understands the subject matter before letting them move on to the next thing. This forces the students to actually learn the material instead of memorizing the information just for a test.

Blog Assignment #12

I think a good idea for a blog assignment would be to actually get the studnets to give an example of an assignment that they would give their future studnets using a blog. This will make students have to think ahead and visualize themselves in their future teaching environment using technology, and it would benifite each of the different types of teachers-English,Math,Social Studies,ect. Because I am going to be a high school English teacher, an example of my directions would be:
Blog Post #1
Think about when you one day become a teacher. How will you use technology in your classroom? For this blog post focus on the subject that you will teach, and create your own blog assignment that you could get your students to do in your future classroom. Make it as authentic as possible so it can actually be a lesson that you may one day use. Tell what grade level and subject the assignment will be for. Give spacific and clear directions, and try to make the diffculty match the grade level.


My Future Blog Assignment for 12th Grade English
Finish reading the novel Of Mice and Men.In a paragraph describe the setting of the book. Find a picture that you think best visualy describes the setting and add it to your blog.
Next, you and the others in your group will get together and video yourselves acting out a part of the book. The video must be at least two minutes long. Then you need to upload the video to youtube and embed it into your blog post.
The final requirment is to write two paragraphs about how you wish the book would have ended;however, if you are satisfied with the way it ended, write two paragraphs explaining why you liked it ending that way.

Blog Post 11

First Graders in Ms. Cassidy's Class
Ms. Cassidy is a true pioneer when it comes to using technology in the classroom. She began teaching her student by using technology over 10 years ago during a time when nobody else was doing it. She was one of the only teachers at her school to begin using technology, and she did not let everyone's negative opinions stop her. She should be an inspiration to other teachers who are too scared about if their piers will disapprove.
Regardless of the fact that she only teaches 1st graders, Ms. Cassidy still gets them to understand how to use blogs,wikis, and all kinds of new technology. She is a firm believer that teaching by using technology is the only way to keep the students up to speed with our ever-changing world, and give them a head start above students who do not get the privilege of using technology in the classroom.
In the future when I become a teacher, I would like to use several of the technological teaching tools that Ms. Cassidy uses. The main one I will focus on using is blogs. I think a blog is the perfect tool to us in a high-school English class. My students can give their feedback on the books or poems that I assign to them, and I could even give them a creative writing assignment for them to post. The options are limitless! I think that using blogs in the classroom will benefit the students also because they will be more interested in the assignment and also get to show their creativity.
One of the main problems that I think I will face is the students cheating. Technology makes it easier and easier for students to cheat because the information is always just a click away. I liked how Ms. Cassidy explained the issue of cheating. She said that teacher just need to realize that information is everywhere now, and we need to just look at it as a collaboration. The student may base his or her ideas off of things they find on the internet, but the teacher needs to focus on making them build off of that found knowledge and creating it to be their own.

C4T #3

Dylan Blain

First Comment
In his first blog post he says that where he is working, the faculty is starting to use iPads to share videos of the lessons and sharing it with other members of the staff. He is a PE teacher, and he likes how it is easy to share different ideas he has for exercises with others. I told him that I am going to school to be a teacher and to coach volleyball or softball, and that I think that the idea of using iPads to share video footage with others on the staff is a great! It shows how technology can make being an educator so much easier.

Second Comment
In his second post, he says that using research informed ideas within his teaching has always been something he has tried to do, but it is difficult because he is a PE teacher, and his field often gets overlooked. He then gives a free option of finding research informed ideas about PE. I said that I agree with him and think that using research informed ideas while teaching is the best way to keep up with the best techniques, and that I will also do this when I become a teacher and a coach.

C4K March

Harper.
In Harper blog post she talkes about her mom, and how sweet she is to her.She also tells how she does not want to move out of her grandmothers house and move schools. I told her that I liked her post, and that she seemed to be very smart because she spelled all of her words correctly and did not have any run-on sentences.

Blake
The next comment I left was for Blake. He is from a small town and likes to hunt, fish, and play sports. In his post, he explains that he thinks blogging is a good tool to use in the classroom because it allows you to communicate with others from all over the world. I told him that he reminded me a lot of myself because I am also from a small town where hunting, fishing, and sports were the main things to do. I also told him that I just learned how to use a blog in my class EDM 310, and that I also think that a blog is a great way to communicate with people from all over the world and learn from what they have to offer.


Izzy
Izzy's post is a book review on the book Divergent. She says that she is not as brave as the character in the book. I told her that I was already thinking about reading this book because a lot of my friends have said that it was really good, and her comments on the book have made me want to read it even more.

Tyler
Tyler's post is about how Larry and Tracy, two people who have autism, came to his school and answered several of the students questions after they watched the movie based on the story of their life- Wretches and Jabbers. I told him that I thought it was great that Larry and Tracy actually came to his school and answered questions for them, and that it was an amazing experience because they can see what its like when a person has autism.

The group Sour Power
This blog post is about a man named Philip Gans who was captured and tortured in the Holocaust. I told him that it was a very informative post, but they needed to watch out for run-on sentences next time.

Blog Assignment #10

I'm a Papermate. I'm a Ticonderoga.


This is a cartoon that John Spencer posted on his blog. At first I did not understand it, but once I thought about it for a while, I figured out that it was mocking the "I'm a PC, I'm a Mac" commercial. I have a PC, and I like it alright. It was way cheaper than a Mac, and I can do almost everything I need to on it, but I do understand why a Mac would be a better choice. In the future when my PC does eventually mess up, I am going to look into buying a Mac.


Why Were Your Kids Playing Games?
This blog post is also from John Spencer. It tells about a teacher who is getting in trouble by his principal because he was letting his students play a game. The principal would not even let the teacher explain his reasoning because he was convinced that there was no way that the students could "memorize" what they needed to by a game. The crazy thing is that the students were getting excited and actually LEARNING the material through playing, in comparison to only memorizing the material for only a short period of time-like the principal would rather have.

Another post by John Spencer is Remember Pencil Quests?. I liked this one because he tells about a time when a teacher got him excited about learning through trying something a little different than normal. He then creates the comparison between this experience of when he was a student, to his students now that get excited about using technology in the classroom and with their project they create. He says that looking back on this memory of when he was a student, he realizes that was only the start, and he wonders when his students grow up and look back, how much things will have changed for them.

Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please?
Dr. Scott McLeod is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading academic experts on K-12 school technology. In his blog post Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please? he uses satire to show his belief in using technology in the classroom. I agree with Dr. McLeod that technology will benefit students learning, and all teachers should incorporate technology in their teaching because in the future they will be a step ahead.

Project #14 Smartboard Instruction Part 1

Project # 11 Short Green Screen Movie

Project #12 Video Trailer

Where The Wild Things Are

Blog Assignment #9

Mr. Joe McClung
I really like this blog assignment because soon we are going to be starting off our new teaching careers, and by following Mr. McClung, we can see what it was like for him as he went through his fist couple of years of teaching and take his advice. This is just another example of how using a blog is a great way to share ones knowledge and experiences with others. When I become a teacher, I am also going to create a post at the end of each school year to share what I learned. This way other teachers who are just starting off can benefit from the things I learned while I was teaching, and they will be better prepared when they become teachers as well.

May 27, 2009 What I've Learned This Year (2008-09)

After Mr. McClung's first year of teaching, he shared what he learned in this blog post. One of my favorite pieces advice that he gave was to always focus on the students comprehension of what you teach instead of worrying about what your superiors think. The most important thing is to make sure that you do not lose touch with your audience-the students. Another great tip he gives is to be flexible. Things are not always going to go the way you plan, and the best thing to do is not get angry and just work with the situation that you are in. He says that, "NO LESSON IS EVER PERFECT. THE LESSON YOU TEACH AND THE ONE YOU PLAN ARE ALWAYS DIFFERENT". Mr. McClung also says to not be afraid of technology. Because I am in EDM 310, I don't think I will have a problem with this one! However, I think this is good advice for teachers who have already been teaching for several years. For example, my mom has been teaching high school for over 30 years, and she really is an excellent English teacher, but she has never used technology in her classroom because she did not know how. Now that I am in EDM 310 and learning all of these new ways to use technology while teaching, I go home and tell her about what I have learned. Even though she has been teaching the same way all of her life, she gets excited when I tell her these new ways to use technology in the classroom, and she is now getting me to teach her how to make a blog so she can use it in her class next year! That was fun for me to see that even older teachers are now catching on to using technology.

Version 4 Post (2011-2012)
After Mr. McClung's fourth year of teaching, he left this blog post explaining all the things he had learned in the that year. He said that he realized that he did not learn much from his fourth year, so instead of leaving a lengthy post, he would concentrate on two main points. The first point was "You Gotta Dance With Who You Came to the Dance With." This means that as a teacher you should not worry about what your peers think about you as an educator. You did not become a teacher to impress them, but to reach students and touch their lives in the best way that you can. His next point is to "Challenge Yourself." He explains that it is not good to get complacent and use the same lesson plans year after year. This will only make the subject you are teaching boring, and your students lose interest. Instead, you need to challenge yourself as a teacher to improve with each year, because there is always new and better ways to reach students and make learning fun, and you will never find them if you become a lazy teacher.

Blog Assignment #8

This Is How We Dream Parts 1 and 2

Richard Miller's videos are about how communication and writing are changing. He states that he believes that we are living in the time of the greatest change for communication in human history. I believe that he is 100% correct! Technology is changing everything about the way we write and communicate with each other. It is now possible to not only talk to but visually see a person that is on the other side of the world with just a click of a button. This advance in technology has also been introduced to the way we write.

One of the great improvements that have come from technology is that now instead of just writing a standard essay, one can incorporate visuals and audio. I feel like this would make their information they are trying to present way more exciting. Using audio and a visual aspect could really make the presentation come to life-compared to a standard essay. This really excites me because this is something new that I could use when I become an English teacher. Instead of getting my students to write a standard research paper every time, I could get them to create a multi-media project that includes video and audio that go along with their research. I feel like this would also get the students more interested in what I am trying to teach them, because it is not just writing but visually showing what they learn as well.

Another change that Mr. Miller talks about is how we no longer have to go to the library to do research, but now we can be anywhere and just use our laptops. Also, It is now possible to collaborate with others without ever meeting with each other. This would also be a very good project I could give my future students. I could get them to do a group project and only let them communicate with each other using Skype or Facetime. When I become a teacher, I feel like I will be able to write multi-media papers because of this class, and if I don't know how at first, then this class has also taught me that I am capable to teach myself. I also think that my students will be more than able to write multi-media papers.

All of the new changes that technology has provided for us truly gives our generation an advantage over all the generations of the past combined. Creating multi-media presentations and getting to publish ones work over the internet creates a faster way to get information out. Things that would normally take two years to get out now only takes months or even weeks. The use of Youtube, Google, ect. takes away limits and restrictions that past generations had to deal with, and they provide an opportunity to get ones ideas out into the world very quickly.

Blog Post #12 by Carly Pugh
Carly Pugh did an awesome job on her blog post #12! She really went into great depth with her research. Her post greatly resembles an assignment that Mr. Strange would create himself. I believe one of the reasons I thought it was so interesting is because she added so many video references. This goes back to Mr. Miller's thoughts about using multi-media in ones writing.

The Chipper Series And EDM310 for Dummies

These were two very funny but informative videos. They both show the struggles that students go through when they are in EDM 310, and they both explain ways to help students. In The Chipper Series, it shows a student who has the same attitude that several students who take this class have. Chipper tries to get by with doing the least amount possible, and it never works out for her. All she ends up doing is wasting her time. This is a good lesson for everyone who takes EDM 310 because if you are not going to do your best, then you might as well not do it. In the video EDM 310 for Dummies, it shows how most of the students who start out in EDM 310 feel. Students who are just starting off in this class will most likely feel overwhelmed, but this video gives students a way to help themselves by getting the book EDM 310 for Dummies.

Learn to Change, Change to Learn
This video shows how much schools are behind compared to other industries because we have not yet incorporated technology in our classrooms. The men and women in this video are very concerned with getting technology into schools. This is not something that can magically happen overnight, but there are several schools that are slowly making the change.
One of the points that they made in the video is that standardized testing is not going to help students once they get into the real world. They say that teachers should focus on the students creativity and ability to work together in groups. I agree that this would help better prepare students for their jobs that they will have the rest of their lives.

Scavenger Hunt 2.0
1. The tool I found for videos is called PhotoPeach.com. It takes any pictures you want and puts them into a slide show. I created an example and put all of the pictures that I have had in my past blog posts.
BlogPost Pictures on PhotoPeach
2. The tool I found to create a poll is called www.polleverywhere.com. Its very easy and fast. 3. The tool I used to make my comic was www.readwritethink.org. This is my comic I created.

C4T #3 and #4

DAVID WEES Thoughts from a 21st century educator.
Over Coaching
The first blog post that I commented on for Mr. Wees focused on teachers over coaching their students. He felt like teachers "baby" students too much. For example, he thought that telling students what page of the book that certain problems were on and answering students questions were too much help.I commented that I also felt like it was important for teacher not to over coach their students, but that I would probably not use all of he suggestions in my future classroom. I said that not telling students where they could find the problems that they need to work on in the book could be discouraging for most students, and that would give them another reason not do their work. I also felt like not telling them where the correct problems were in the book would be a waste of time for the student because they could use that time to actually be working on the problems. The books are so big, and to have to search to find the one page you need is too much.

Rethinking Our Anti-Bullying Efforts
The second blog post that I commented on for Mr. Weese was on trying to prevent bullying in our schools. He says that if at the end of a day a student still feels lonely or isolated, then we have failed as an institution. I said that I agreed that teachers should get to know their students and strive to make the school more like a community. Also, I agreed that teachers should teach empathy and compassion to students, and I believe that the only way to do this is to lead by example. He also shared a video on bullying that was very interesting.

Project #8 Podcast

Lighting Their Fires By: Rafe Esquith
Pregame Show, 6th Inning, and Postgame Show

Blog Assignment #7

Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture

I thought that Randy Pausch’s lecture was very inspiring, not only for making me want to become a better teacher, but on how I live my life. The lecture was very motivating, and I think that everyone should watch it. One of my favorite parts is when he talks about brick walls. He says that brick walls-or obstacles preventing us from achieving what we want- are their for us to show our dedication and to weed out the ones who are not willing to do what it takes to achieve their goal. This is a great analogy for life, and it is perfect to share with students in order to motivate them to accomplish their dreams.
Randy Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and he began a new class that focused on building virtual worlds. This class quickly became a huge success, and many people would come to see the class give their presentations. I think that this would be an awesome class to take at the college level. The way he designed the class, the students would be placed into randomly chosen teams to create a project, and they would have two weeks to do it. After the two weeks were up, he would shuffle the group, and the students would begin to work on creating a different project with their new group. I think that shuffling the groups like this is a good way to create a classroom community. It also helps with communication between students. I really like how he gave his students peer evaluations. This way each student can see how well they work with others in groups and know if they need to improve, and like he says,"The best gift an education can give is to get someone to become self-reflective."
Another think that Randy Pausch believed in was project-based learning, and he did not like teaching from books. This reminded me a lot about EDM 310. So instead of having tests, all they had were five projects to do. I really liked the part where his students did way better than he ever thought possible on the first project, but even though he was amazed by what they were able to create, he told them that they still could have been better. I thought this was amazing, because as teachers, we do not need to set a goal for our students and then become complacent when they reach it, but instead we need to keep raising the bar higher and push them as far as they can go. It is the teacher’ job to continue to inspire the students and not let them settle.

Randy Pausch also talks about his program Alice that is a novel way to teach computer programming. I think that this would be a lot of fun to use in my classroom. Since I am going to be either an English or a history teacher, I could get the students to recreate the scenery of a novel that I have them read, or they could create how they thought it might look during a different time period of history. The great thing about using Alice is that the students are actually having fun while learning, because they think that they are using computer software to tell a story or build a vision with their minds.

Project #9 - Personal Learning Network

As soon as I watched A 7th Grader's Personal Learning Environment, I could not wait to try out Symbaloo! I downloaded it immediately and began to work on my PLN. Symbaloo is the perfect tool to get started on ones PLN. It helps keep all of my websites that I use organized, and it is so easy to travel from one website to the next quickly. I can put links on Symbaloo of teachers blogs that let me access them with just one click, and at the same time, I can also pull up Twitter or Google to search for other ways to expand my PLN. I now use Symbaloo everyday! In Steven Anderson's Building Your PLN - A Primer for Anyone, I really liked the way he explains the uses of a PLN and how it is a way to make connections with teachers throughout the would. My favorite part is when he mentions that he doesn't have to know everything, because he has a network of thousands of educators to ask questions with, and they are there to help find the answers.

C4K Summary For February

Trang Nguyen
My first comment I left was for Trang Nguyen. He is a 13 year old boy from Vietnam. He explained how he visited the United States when he was nine years old, and he also tells about what his favorite activities. When I commented on his post I shared some information about myself, and i also told him to watch out for run-on sentences, but that his post was very informative.

Makayla
Makayla was the second student that I left a comment for. She is in the fourth grade, and she told about how her teachers inspired her to become a better reader by having a ”Reading Like a Rock Star” assembly. I told her that I was very impressed that her teachers were willing to go the extra mile to get their students excited about reading, and that she is very lucky to have teachers that care about their students that much. I said that her teachers also have inspired me to go the extra mile and be the best teacher I can be when I begin teaching.

Night

The third comment I left was for Night. He is a fifth grade student from Auckland, NZ. His post was about a recent trip to the beach that he went on. He had a nice picture with his post, and I told him how much I liked it. I also shared with him that I live near a beach and go there often in the summer.