C4T # 3

On October 18, 2011, Bryan Bennett wrote a blog post "Video Is Not The Answer." He talks about how many teachers are focused on the video aspect of the flipped classroom and they are missing the bigger picture. I had not heard of the flipped classroom and had to do a little research on my own to really understand what the concept was really about. I found this link on youtube that really helped me see the full picture of what the flipped concept was really about. Bennett stresses that the video aspect of the flipped classroom is a reinforcer rather than the entire concept. He says one way to use the flipped classroom is if students are having trouble keep up with the lectures they can watch the videos to help them with that subject. I really enjoyed the blog because I learned a totally new teaching method, and I learned how to use the flipped classroom concept to the fullest extent. I wrote to Mr. Bennett that I was an education major and I wanted to learn more about the flipped classroom so I can use it in the future.

On October 24, 2011 Mr. Bennett wrote a blog post "Thoughts of Innovation." He started thinking of the concept of innovation after a tweet that a teacher Steven Anderson wrote on twitter about innovation. Mr. Bennett says that teachers have the opportunity to innovate every single day. We have the chance to try something new with our students. If we try something new and fail then we can still say at the end of the day that we tried something new. I really like that he is not afraid to try new things as a teacher. I believe that we all can learn something from this blog post and I am glad I was assigned to read it. I wrote to Mr. Bennett that I hoped in the future I would not be afraid to try new things and innovate my classroom.

Blog Post # 10

After watching the youtube video "Do you Teach or Do you Educate?" I really took a minute to think about what I am truly going to do when I became an elementary teacher. The video describes what it means to be an educator rather than a person who just teaches facts and dates. The video describes an educator as someone who inspires, is a mentor, and is an advisor.
When I think about the teachers I had growing up I can only think of three who truly has made an impression as an educator in my life. I hope that when I become a teacher I can be a great example of what a teacher is supposed to be. I want my students to be life time learners and learn that they can go great things if they set their minds to it. I am glad I watched this video because it really put into perspective what I am really trying to accomplish with my education degree. I hope to learn how to be an educator rather than just a teacher in my everyday life.

"Don't Let Them Take Pencils Home" by John T. Spencer is a little story about how sometimes educators can take a situation and blow it out of proportion. Mrs. Gertrude is arguing to Mr. Tom that students should not take pencils home because they do will do poorly on standardized tests. Mr. Tom quickly corrects her and tells her that they should encourage students to take home pencils, even if they use them to play games, because they can be used for learning.
This story illustrates how sometimes we can miss the big idea of things if we focus on the little stuff. Teachers can learn how to be creative with their students and show them how to productively use things such as pencils and most importantly technology. Educators may be afraid of technology because it can be a distraction to their student's studies. If we teach them to use it properly then they will benefit them more then they will know. When I become a teacher I plan on teaching my students how to use all of the tools they are provided to its fullest extent. I really enjoyed how Mr. Spencer used the story about pencils to show how educators can be sometimes. I am glad that we were assigned to read this post!

Blog Post # 9

"What I learned this year" by Joe McClung is a series of posts he has written for the past three years of what he has learned teaching that year. It is so interesting to read because you know that he is young and relatable. I know that when I become a teacher I am going to be so nervous, and it is encouraging to read his posts because he has been there and you learn how he has overcome it. In the 2009-2010 blog I learned how important it is to find your "class mom." She is someone who knows the ins and outs of the school, and she knows many of the students. I know when I am a student I will want to be very involved in my child's classroom. These moms can really come in handy from time to time so it will be important to know ahead of time who you can rely on.
From the 2010-2011 blog I learned how important it is as a teacher to not get too comfortable. When you feel like you are getting into a groove of teaching he suggests that you add something in your teaching style that will challenge you a little bit. You will never learn more things if you do not try something different. I fee like if a teacher tries different teaching styles on occasion the students will find the subject more interesting. I hope to read more of Mr. McClung's blog posts in the future. He really gives great advice that any teacher can take advice from.

SmartBoard Project #13

Due to time restraints our group had to make two video's. To see the Shelby and Ashley's video
click here!

Project # 11

Project # 12

Blog Post # 8

This Is How We Dream Part 1 and 2
In the youtube presentations "This Is How We Dream Part 1 and 2," Dr. Richard E. Miller discusses writing with multimedia. He begins to tell the audience how vital the times are that we are living in because of the fact that technology is advancing at such a rapid pace. He spoke about when he was a young child he had a love for books. Dr. Miller grew up and actually wrote a book where you can find it in a library amongst many other books, or "you can purchase it on amazon for 59 cents." Dr. Miller takes us through the last few years of how technology has made its way into literature. He points out that now we do not rely on pencils and paper but rather, we carry our laptops for reading and composing most of our work. Any and everything you could possibly want to be educated about can now be found at the click of your mouse.
Dr. Miller discusses several ways for us to bring this technology into the educational scene. He says that we need to have: spaces that foster collaborative learning, inspiring teachers of new media composing, pedagogies that foster creativity and collaboration, and ubiquitous composing technology. Dr. Miller wants all of the humanities and sciences to come together and share their technologies in order to make a more unified University. The rate that technology is growing I agree with Dr. Miller. I am in my junior year here at the University of South Alabama and I am just now understanding the importance of the role technology is playing in my life. As a future teacher I hope that when I am in my classroom teaching my students I will be able to explain just how important technology is in their own lives. I enjoyed this presentation and I hope to learn more about writing with multimedia in the future.


Carly Pugh's Blog Post #12
Reading through and watching all of the links that Carly posted on her "blog post #12" really helped me to see what we should really be doing as a teacher teaching with technology. It will be so fun to have a lesson planned out and simply have the students read through it at their own pace ,and be able to click on the individual links to really understand the concepts. Using all of these different sources in one assignment is exactly what Dr. Miller was talking about. I will continue to learn about what is available to me on the internet so that I can one day collaborate it all into lessons for my future students.

The Chipper Series and EDM 310 For Dummies

"The Chipper Series" and "EDM 310 For Dummies" was a lot of fun to watch. I recognized a few girls in the video's, and it is cool to see that we are getting to make fun videos to watch for future students. The Chipper Series was a series of events that a student in Dr. Strange's class went through after she quit school because of the work it took to be in the class. It is humorous to see the different things she tried to do in order to be a successful person. Life teaches many lessons and the greatest lesson Chipper learned from the back of a garbage truck, was that if you want to get anywhere in life it is going to take hard work.
EDM 310 for Dummies was also a fun video to watch. When I heard about this class before I even stepped into the door, I was frightened about the hard work it was going to take to pass the class. I have learned now that I really enjoy this class more than any others this semester. I am learning life time lessons about technology and my very own character. I have learned so much about myself in this course, and I would do a video about some of the lessons I have learned about time management, my dreams and how I hope to accomplish them in the future, and how much fun EDM 310 can be.

Learn to Change, Change to Learn
"Learn to Change, Change to Learn" is a video found on youtube. The video features many different educators, CEO's, and professors talking about how the traditional classroom needs to change because the times are changing. Children are being raised in an entirely different world in the 21st century than in years past, and we need to update our educational system to keep up with the changes. I agree with what I heard on the video. What stuck out to me the most was the fact that questions can be answered on the internet, but we as teachers need to teach students to learn to validate the information. Students cannot take everything they see on the internet as truth. Teachers need to teach their students how synthesize the information and test it amongst other sites to make sure it lines up. We have an important job as educators and we need to utilize the internet as much as we can. Networking with other teachers is really important too. If one teacher has a question about something than another teacher may have the answer. Teachers from across the world need to unite and help each other out. The title of the video says it all. Learn to change, change to learn.

Blog Post # 7

"Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture" was the most inspirational videos I have ever seen. Prior to this lecture Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was told by doctors that he had about 3 to 6 months left to live. Randy begins his lecture telling the audience that he is not going to talk about cancer or being upset that he is soon going to pass away soon. Rather, he is going to talk about achieving your childhood dreams. Pausch breaks the speech up into three parts:childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others, and lessons learned. Each of these topics are so important in realizing that it is not too late or impossible to fulfill your childhood dreams.
Pausch gives us a list of his childhood dreams ranging from wining oversized stuffed animals, being Captain Kirk, and being a Disney imagineer. Randy talks about how he accomplished almost every childhood dream he ever had. He talks about the brick walls he ran into and how they were important in how he reached his goals and made him the man he was today. In fact, there were many brick walls in his past that arose in his past that could have stopped him in his tracks. Instead of giving up hope he took those obstacles and learned how to overcome them and make his dream come true. Watching the lecture I saw many of my own brick walls that arose in my past and I hope to revisit those dreams and try a different approach to making my own dreams come true.
The second section of the lecture was enabling the dreams of others. For ten years Randy has changed countless of student's lives with helping them realize their childhood dreams and making them come true. Pausch been fortunate enough in his live to have met a countless number of people who have been influential in his own life. He gives his listeners much of the advice that has been given to him. My favorite part of the lecture was when he talked about the course he taught Building Virtual Worlds. He had the students work on projects with virtual reality and they were able to realize their own childhood dreams and apply them to work. Many of his students were able to continue on and use the knowledge they learned from him and have very successful careers. Pausch was truly an inspiration.
The last part of his lecture was really heartbreaking for me. He summed up all of the great works he has ever done in telling the listeners what he has learned from everything. He truly wanted to change peoples lives and I believe he has changed more than he will ever know. He seemed to have a great grasp of life and it just broke my heart to know that his life was cut short from such an awful disease. The advice that he gave can reach to any generation. He made it very clear that it is NEVER to late to revisit you childhood dreams and make them come true. At the end he told the audience that the lecture was for his three children. He was such an inspiration and I hope to never forget the message he was teaching in his lecture.

Project 9b Timetoast

Progress of PLN

Before EDM 310 I had never heard of an PLN. I would never have imagined how useful it would be in making my school work so organized. I chose to use Symbaloo as my PLN because I love that you can personalize every tile. When I started my Symbaloo I deleted almost every tile that it originally cam with because I wanted to start fresh. Now that I have been using it almost daily I have added about 25 tiles. I really enjoy how I can keep up with my c4t and c4k's all in one organized list. If I want to recall something I simply click on it. I am glad that we are assigned to keep a PLN for this classroom because I feel like I would never find out on my own what it is.

C4T # 2

In Beth Still's blog "Leadership Day 2011: An Appeal to Nebraska Administrators" on September 4, 2011, Beth is asking educators in Nebraska and all over the United States to "dust off your Twitter account and start again." She talks about how she was the only person running a department at her school and she felt lonely and overwhelmed when it came to making decisions in the committee. A friend of hers told her to join Twitter in order to get other educators advice and opinions about things she was trying to make decisions about. Beth did not "get" twitter until one day she wanted to complain about something that was affecting teachers State wide. With the overwhelming response to her tweet she quickly realized what an effective tool Twitter can be to a teacher. Beth has become almost an advocate for Twitter and wants all teachers to get on and start using Twitter for their classroom. Her license plate even spells out Twitter!
I wrote to Beth that I had never used twitter before EDM 310, and I am still learning how to work with it for educational purposes. I am eager to learn and I feel like it is great that we are being taught how to use it in a classroom. I enjoyed reading her enthusiasm about Twitter and hope to read more of her blogs in the future.

In Beth Still blog "Will There Be an ISTE12 Newbie Project?" on September 28, 2011, Beth is talks about a project she started in 2009 called the Newbie Project. This is a project where she used her personal PLN and Twitter to raise money to send an ordinary teacher to NECC to learn all they can about technology in the classroom. In 2009 it was a great success and she decided to do it the following year. This is the third year for the Newbie Project however, she has too much on her personal plate and cannot be the one in charge of the project. This blog is a call for someone to take the reigns and finish what she has started.
I wrote to Ms. Beth and told her how great the Newbie Project was and that I hoped someone would see the vision she had and continue it in the future. It is so important for teachers to be up to date in the latest technology. Going to NECC would be such a great opportunity to learn and share with others how to use technology in the classroom. I truly hope someone steps up and fills her shoes.

C4K September Summary Post

Madison's Biopoem

Madison in Mrs. Huebner's class wrote a biopoem with a wordle attached to it. She talks about how she is a funky girl who loves going to church and dreams of going to Italy one day. She also said the person she wanted to meet most in the world was Selena Gomez. I told her that she was a lot like I was at her age except I wanted to meet the group Hanson!

Anna Kate's Blog

Anna Kate from Mrs. Kilgo's class wrote about her favorite animal in her blog. She explained that horses are her favorite animal because she wanted to go to a rodeo one day. I told her that my daughter's favorite animal is a horse, and one day I hope she gets to go to a rodeo because they are really fun.

RJ's Blog

RJ who is also in Mrs. Kilgo's class wrote about an animal he thought was very interesting. RJ learned all about the botta pocket gopher and wrote about all of it's interesting facts. I had never heard of this animal before and I actually learned a lot about the small gopher. I told him that I enjoyed reading his blog because I never heard of the botta pocket gopher. I wrote to him that I know my cat would love to play with something like that. I enjoyed reading his enthusiasm about these animals.

Blog Post # 6

In "Wendy Drexler: The Networked Student," we learn about a true story of a student studying American Phycology. In his classroom his teacher uses the method of Connectivism. This concept is based on learning in a digital age. Using social networks and websites students can find the information they want to learn by themselves and share it with others. This is a more hands on approach to learning, and it helps you find information by yourself on the internet. Using this method students learn by finding information themselves and checking the information to make sure it is credible.
The question was asked in the presentation "Why does the networked student even need a teacher?" This is such a great question because it does seem like the student is basically doing all of the work. In this day-in-age it is so easy for anyone to just google a question and instantly it gives you a long list of information to go through and find out what you want to read. As a teacher we need to make sure we are helping the students by showing them what is credible in the internet. I have always hear in high school that we were not allowed to use Wikipedia for any sources. It was not until I was a sophomore in college when a teacher gave us an example of why it is not a good idea to use it as a source. There is so much for students to get involved in on the internet and it is important for teachers to help sharpen the students eyes on what is actually credible.
At first I would think using connectivism in an elementary school would be too much for the students to handle. But, after reading many of my comments for kids and looking at their blogs I feel like these students really enjoy using the internet to learn more about the world we live in. These young students need to be taught early on not only how to use technology but, to learn what information is even worth the time to read. Teachers in the 21st century have such a huge responsibility to make sure students are ready early on for the technology in this world. I have said it on this blog page many times that technology is not going anywhere and we need to teach our students early on how to use it right. I enjoyed Wendy Drexler's post, and I hope she does intend to start connectivism as soon as possible!

A 7th Grader's Personal Learning Environment

Watching the presentation of a "7th Grader's Personal Learning Environment" about a real student using her PLE made me feel like I knew nothing about the internet. She did such a great job explaining what she was doing and how she was doing it. She showed how easy it is to keep her school work and have her social networking websites all on one on web page. I use Safari as a web browser and it keeps all of my websites organized but, I have not used a PLE to keep all of my school information organized. I enjoyed watching this presentation and look forward to building my PLE in the near future.