Blog Post 10

Morgan Bayda
I found Morgan Bayda's blog post something that I could relate to very much. I think it is sad that most students feel the same way that she did. Which is frustrated, frustrated that we have to sit in classrooms and feel that we are wasting our time. I will never forget the first class that I became a number to a teacher. I thought what does it matter if I come to class or not this person does not even want to take the time to learn my name. I was paying hundreds of dollars just to make sure I get a grade. It seemed to me that the teacher didn't care if we learned the topics or not. I don't understand why education can't use the tools of technology to make it more interesting, interactive, and overall cheaper. I thought Dan Brown's video made some great point as well. I agreed with most of what he was having to say except I would not have gone as far as to drop out of school. Like it or not companies now days like to see that piece of paper. I think it is sad though that the education system today would want to make even one person drop out.  I hope one day there can be a common ground with the world and education, especially sense I will be working in the education field. 






Tom Johnson's Don't Let Them Take the Pencils Home!

I thought this was a funny and interesting post.  I think some times that we focus to much on the problem and not on the solution.  I think that is what this post was trying to get across.  When we are confronted with a problem we should try to work out a solution for it and not stress so much about the problem itself.  Who knows what could happen if you would work through something instead of focusing on the negative.  Like the post said the students could use the pencils to play hangman, and that helps with spelling.  Not only are the children having fun but they are practicing there spelling.  I hope when I am in the classroom one day that I try to work through a problem to find a solution instead of focusing solely in the problem.
 

C4T #3

Teacher: Mr. Chase

Blog Site

Summary of Mr. Case's post on March 24, 2011 

In the the post "Not all ideas are sacred" Mr. Chase was writing about a local church being torn down and how most people found it sad simply because it was a church.  He wrote about how people felt that the church building was sacred.  He said though that he had passed by the building many times and thought of other things the building could be.  For him personally the ground was unconsecrated along time ago.  The reason he wrote about this is because he was sent a link to a web page talking about 20 technology skills every educator should have.  He agreed that the list was important but he didn't necessarily want to consecrate it.  Mr. Chase write that list like this sometimes become commandments.

I responded that I agreed that we should not be to quick to consecrate something.  I wrote that I read the link that he provided and couldn't help to realize that a lot if not all of those items on the list was things that I was learning to do in this class to become 21st century educators.  I said that I thought all of the items on the list was very valuable but more than likely that same list will change from year to year.  I thought is was important to know the things on the list but to also stay up to date with what technology has to offer us. 

Summary of Mr. Chase's post on March 27, 2011 

In the post "It's time to share the funny" Mr. Chase writes about how it is important for educators to still have fun and find thing funny.  He writes that it is important that we laugh.  He makes the point that we should not take things so seriously all of the time.  He writes about a time that he was on a volleyball team with his fellow colleagues and that he finally got the most unexpected person to laugh and how wonderful and funny the experience was.  He make the point to find the funny somewhere in your life because we will need it as educators.  His question is where do we find our funny?

I responded by writing that I really enjoyed this post because I think it is so important to laugh and have fun.  I wrote that I try to find the funny everywhere for example the things people say and do, a sign that I drive by, or simple a thought that pops into my head.  I made the point if we had fun and found things funny then we would probably have more interesting lessons and our students would get more out of our classes.  So I think it is a win win, we can have fun and still have great lessons.

Blog Post 9

"What I've Learned This Year" by Mr. McClung
I thought this was a great post to read.  Mr. McClung writes about things that he learned in his first year of teaching, such as how to read a crowd, being flexible, communication, being reasonable, not being afraid of technology, listen to your students, and lastly never stop learning.  He wrote about how he went into teaching with one mind set and as the year progressed that mind set changed.  I thought he made great points throughout the article such as remembering to read your crowd.  He writes "in order to be effective you have to be able to let your audience drive your instruction".  I think that is something for us to remember as future educators because I know personally I get kind of focused on how my lesson plans look on paper.  This goes hand and hand I think with his topic on being flexible.  Like Mr. McClung wrote we all want the perfect lessons but it does not always work out that way.  Sometimes we will need to go with the flow of the class an make adjustments as we go.  I thought all of his topics were great and it is probably something that I will go back to read a couple of times over the next year and a half.  We can always use good advise sometimes. 
 

Skype Interview Project #12

Comments4Kids Summary #2

ts2011
Ts2011 is a student in Mr. Wolfe's class.  Ts2011 was writing about how the class was getting ready for the SAT, ARMT, and the math test.  He or she wrote about how this time can be stressful for some people.  They are learning how to solve different types of math problems.  He or she said that math can be fun or frustrating, and that during this time they have to just keep moving forward.  I responded back by saying that I agree with them about how math can be fun or frustrating.  I personally leaned to math being more frustrating.  I told them that I did not start to enjoy math until I made it into kind of a puzzle for me to solve.  I commented that I thought it was great that they are such a positive person, and that I loved that they keep telling themselves to keep moving forward.  I finished my response with wishing them luck on there upcoming test.  Ts2011 responded back to me by writing that they hope I fun making my math problems into puzzles.  


Ala
Ala is a student at Pt England School.  In her post she was writing about how excited she was to go to her science class.  She was writing about how she loved science because of all of the fun experiments they get to do.  When she finally got to class she realized that the were not doing an experiment but instead they were learning about nutrition.  She wrote about how she was sad at first but later was okay with the topic.  She enjoyed learning about all the different things we should eat.  She especially thought it was great that we should eat some of everything and not cut things completely out of our diets.  I responded to Ala by say that I too love science in grade school because of all of the experiments.  I told her though I thought it was great that her teacher was teaching her class about nutrition especially in today's society.  I agreed with her that it is important that we eat a little bit of everything but just to remember to use portion control with certain items.  Ala responded back by thanking for all of the responses to her blog. 


Grace
Grace is a student in Ms. Engelhard's class.  Grace wrote a poem in her blog post.  The poem was talking about three different people and what they were doing and not being able to do.  I responded to Grace's blog by say that I have always enjoyed poetry, and my favorite poetry book in grade school was Where The Sidewalk Ends.  I told her that I enjoyed her poem and I thought she had a natural talent for writing poetry.


 

Blog Post 8

Richard Miller: This Is How We Dream Parts 1 and 2
In part 1 of this video Richard Miller is talking about how when he was younger he would read books all the time and thought that his life would pretty much always revolve around books in some way.  He was right he is still a published writer but his books and publishing's are on the Internet.  He talked about how he did a article about the Virgina Tech shootings and never even had to step foot into a library.  This first video was an eye opener of seeing where research and publishing's are heading and are at now.
In part 2 of this video he is talking about the present and the future of obtaining information and using it.  The part of this video that I thought was most interesting was when he talked about ideas.  I think it is a great point he made that as educators our ideas are not just ours, but that they need to be shared.  If we were always to keep our ideas to ourselves then we could miss out on a large opportunity to make something more interesting to a lot of people.  He talked about making things creative I think technology can help us with that.  Like he said he could of put his idea down in text and it would have taken it two years to get going, but because it was visual and compelling it was pretty much a hit automatically.  This way of publishing and teaching is happening now even though some people think it is the future.
I think being able to write with multimedia is something that will always take some kind of training and learning.  I think this class has shown us just how fast technology changes from a day to day bases.  I would like to think that I will be able to write with multimedia and learn throughout my career the ways I can enhance my ideas and writings using it.  I do think that the students I teach one day will be using this style over plan text style.  Being able to write with multimedia will help the students become prepared for the future and help them grow technologically.

Is EDM310 Different
I thought these two videos were great.  The overall concept of the videos was showing us how EDM310 can help us in a lot of different areas.  I idea that I have for a video of this nature would be to compare and contrast the lives of a technologically literate person and a person who has no desire to want to know anything about technology.  It could show the course of there college years through getting a job.  It could show a overall outcome for the two people.  I think this would be a funny but interesting video.

Learn to Change, Change to Learn
I think the argument in this video is correct.  The way the education world teaches need a much needed makeover.  The students that we teach will be using so many different technology devices out of school and they are not allowed to use anything but mainly books, paper, and pencils in school.  It seems that the students have an overall interest in technology so I say why not us it to our advantage.  I know there is the whole money issue and things cost money.  If we put money to better use than for example, standardized testings which students really don't care anything about and they cost a lot of money, then maybe schools could afford more things.  Who knows what the education world would be like if we became up to date with the times.

The Secret Powers of Time by Philip Zambardo 
and Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us 
by David Pink
These two videos were basically talking about society.  In "The Secret Powers of Time" it was talking about how as Americans we focus so much on getting things done that we forget about friend, family, and sleep.  We think time is precious and it should not be wasted in any way.  It also talked about how students today play a lot of video games which is rewiring there brains.  This causes them not to succeed well in the way schools are set up today, which in turn makes them dropout.  It shows how focused we are on the future that sometimes we forget the past.  
In "The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us"  it was talking about how when offered a large incentive usually our work performance goes down.  It was talking about how when given the option to just take the pressure off of doing a assignment then the overall outcome was much better.  The study shows that is was not just the case for American but world wide.  
I feel these messages described the growth in people's education and their drive for success in many ways.  The fist thing is that we need to think more about the type of students we teach and less about standards.  If we do this then chances are the students outcome could benefit from it.  It also shows us no matter what kind of reward we can come up with sometimes just letting the students be themselves is the best thing for the job.  We need to think about where these students come from and use that information.  It needs to be less about do this and you will get this and more about them being creative and see what they can come up with.  I know personally I was more pleased with myself on a project when I felt there was not a lot of pressure on me and usually the outcome was better than when I felt the pressure.  I thought these were great videos to watch.

   

Smartboard Project #13

I thought this project was a great idea. I now definitely believe that the smartboard can help in the classroom in so many ways. Just in the lesson that my group did on MyPyramid seemed to be much more interesting than when I was taught the food guide pyramid in school, thanks to the smartboard. This technological device can help us make any lesson more interactive and interesting for the students. I have just begun to learn things about the smartboard and I look forward to see what else I can come up with using this item.
The results that we got back on the form we sent was pretty good responses. Everyone seemed to like the animations we included into the activity. They all agreed that the animation contributed to the lesson. One person gave us a below perfect score on the question did the speakers feel comfortable teaching the topic, and I totally agree with that. I wish that our group could of had more time to practice the lesson as a whole. This was our first time doing a project in front of other people so I know personally I was a little nervous at first. This will just be something that I will have to work on each time I teach in front of people. I thought though overall my group did a great job on this project, and I think we all learned a lot.

PLN Project #10

I would have to say that I personally like to use Symbaloo for my personal learning network. Until EDM310 I did not even know the site existed or what a PLN was for that matter. Through symbaloo I can have access to my favorite bookmarks at anytime. It is also a quick way to check my facebook, twitter, and blog page for any updates. I can also add educational sites to it as I find them. The thing I like most about this site is that everything that I usually check when I get onto the computer is right there in front of me and I don't have to go searching everywhere for it. I also think it is wonderful that I can access my symbaloo page from any computer by simply just signing in. I look forward to see what else I can do and learn through using symbaloo.

C4T #2

Blog Site

Teacher: Mr. Chamberlain

Summary of Mr. Chamberlain's post made on January 31, 2011:
In this post Mr. Chamberlain is writing about the concept of the master/apprentice idea in schools.  Which is the master takes a set of skills he or she knows and passes them onto there apprentice.  He wrote about that if we used this concept in school today it would look like this.  Classrooms would have fewer students in them which would allow us to teach them learning skills to help them develop into master learners.  One of his questions was can schools be re-purposed to this end?

I responded back to him that stating that I thought that the master/apprentice class was a interesting concept.  I stated that I thought that this way of teaching/learning seemed to be more beneficial than the teacher standing in front of the classroom reading out of a book and the students not really getting anything out of what is being taught.  I wrote how some studies show that students in this kind of environment overall enjoy school more and get more out of it than the alternative.  My question to Mr. Chamberlain was why don't schools use this approach more?

Mr. Chamberlain responded back by stating it is all about the Benjamins.  He made the statement that it would cost more money for this type of learning.  He made a very true statement about how it is much easier and cheaper to just heard thirty students into rows with the teacher at the front of the classroom.

I responded back that I do agree that it is all about the Benjamins.  I made the statement that it seems that the world revolves around money, and it seems that most industries grow from it.  I thought though in the world of education it seemed so far behind, and I wonder does that have to do with lack of money for education?

Short Movie Project #11

Blog Post 7

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture
       Let me start off by saying that Randy Pauch's Last Lecture was a great motivating video.  I thought it was amazing that he was such a positive person even though his outcome was bleak.  In this video he talked about three main point and they were childhood dreams, enable the dreams of others, and lessons learned.
      In the childhood dreams section of the film he talked about all of his childhood dreams and how he achieved them.  He was born in the 1960's and said being that it was the time of man walking on the moon it was time to dream big.  He made a great point when he was talking about his time playing football.  He said that one of the coaches told him "that when someone is hard on you when you mess up its a good thing.  When they stop being hard on you is when they stop caring".  I think throughout life everyone can relate back to a time that someone was a little more tough on us than we would have liked.  At the same time I am sure that we can all look back on that time and reflect on what we learned from the situation.  I think that can go hand and hand with the comment he made about experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.  When he was talking about this I couldn't help but think about the things that would have not happen or the things that would not have been invented if everyone succeeded the first time at something.
       In the enable the dreams of others section he talked about a class/program called "Building Virtual Words".  In this class he had fifty students and every two weeks teams would be randomly chosen, and they would have to make there own virtual worlds.  The rules for the class was to make whatever you want but it could not have gun violence or pornography.  I think these rules gave the student a free range to use there imagination.  When he got back the first assignment he was blown away with the outcome so he asked for advise on how to handle what to do next.  He was told to not to set a bar.  I really like this comment, because I think once you set that bar and achieve it you stop trying to go beyond it.  Having no bar gives you endless opportunity's to grow.  He said that the thing that he will live on in was a program called ALICE, which is a novel way to teach computer programming.  This is a program that a student writes a book and at the same time is learning to do computer programming.  This is something that will be use at the grade school levels to teach how to do computer programming.  Through this he said millions of kids will learn something new while having fun.
       In the last section, lessons learned, he talks about the roles of his parents, mentors, and students.  He talks about how great his parents were in the way of always being there and encouraging him.  He said his mentors always pushed him, and his students helped him in many different ways as well.  He asked the question to decide if you were a Tigger or an Eeyore?  He is trying to say through this question to always have fun.  I think this makes a great point.  Think about if the world was full of Eeyore teachers, school would be a pretty boring place.  It is like what he said kids can learn while still having fun.  I believe that a student would probably learn more if they are having fun.
       The one thing that he addressed throughout the video was the topic of brick walls.  He talks about how brick walls are there for a reason.  They show us how bad we want something.  It also shows us who doesn't want to keep going for something.  They show us our dedication to what we are trying to achieve.  I think as teachers we are going to hit all kinds of brick walls and it is how we get over them is what truly counts.
       At the end of the video he gives words of wisdom that I think that not only teachers can use but everyone can.  Some of my favorite things he says to "get a feedback loop and listen to it, show gratitude, never give up, apologize when your wrong, you can't get there alone, and don't complain just work harder".  He mentioned the first head fake of this video was to lead your life the right way.  I think that statement sums up what he was trying to get across in this great video.