C4K March

 

    My C4K for March was a blog post by Amel and Kaitlyn. This post was a short story titled "Change of World." It was about the world in fifty years; everything was white. The character was sitting in his bedroom bored, but he remembered he had a toy spider under his bed. He went to go grab it, but it wasn't there. He finally found it under the stairs. His brother pushed him and became grounded, but took his brother's spider first.  I found this story very interesting, unique and intriguing. I told them this and that they should keep up the good work.

C4T #3

              My third C4T was a teacher from Iowa, Mrs. Georend. On the first post she talked about her spending most of her time outside of the classroom doing crafts, starting up her shop and thinking of creative ideas. She asked these questions: "How can we transfer this feeling to our students who may feel trapped in the day-to-day reading, math, and writing?  What sort of things are you doing to allow your students (or staff, my administrator friends!) to feel alive in their creativity?" My response to this post was: I am also addicted to crafting and pinterest! I agree with you that creativity is being lost among students. They get so bogged down in the reading,writing and math that they forget it is okay to be creative. I believe that as teachers we should embrase children's creativity. We should turn a traditional lesson into a fun creative project!

   The second post was about her cleaning out her plants and making room for the new plants. She made an interesting comparison to plants and life. "Some times to try new things we have to clear out the old things in our life to make room for the new things in our life. After time the old must go away to make room for the new." My comment on this post was: I really like your analogy about planting new plants and clearing out the old to bring in the new. I will be asking myself daily what can I do to clean out the old and bring in the new! Thank you for this post!

Blog Post 9

What I Learned This Year 2008-2009 

   This blog post by Mr. McClung was after his first year of being a teacher. He was an elementary teacher in Missouri. This was a summary post about what he learned in his first year of teaching. The main points that he made about what he learned was, making his lesson student centered, to be flexible with his lesson plans, communicating with his students and fellow teachers, not to be afraid of technology, listening to his students, and to never stop learning. This blog post was very helpful in what I should do whenever I become a teacher.

Mr. McClung's Blog 

What I Learned This Year 2010-2011

   Like the above post, this blog post was a refection on the third year of Mr. McClung being a teacher. He states that this was a year of first for him, becoming a cross country coach, and a computer applications teacher. One lesson he learned this year is "our decision making process should always be student centered and not centered around pleasing adults." I think that this is a good lesson to learn because as teachers we will always be trying to please so many people; we need to remember that it is about the students at the end of the day. Another lesson he learned this year was to always be your self. It is okay to be an outsider as long as your doing what you believe in. Mr. McClung's blog is very useful for a student studying to be an educator. It is helpful,insightful and humorous.

Project 14

Book Trailer Project 12

Project 11

Blog Post 8

This is How We Learn Parts 1&2 

Dr. Richard Miller gives presentations on multimedia writing. I had some trouble following along with him at times. I feel that technology is shaping the way we write. These videos always make me ask myself if I am ready to teach with this type of technology.  As a future teacher I believe that programs like this will help me be a better educator.
I believe that students are ready for this kind of learning. Students love anything new; especially if it involves technology. Students adapt so easily to new technology. Technology consumes all aspects of student's lives now days.
While watching Dr. Miller's video it made me think that I really need to be ready to teach this way. Technology will definitely be apart of every day teaching life, so I need to learn to adapt it into my life. I still have mixed feelings on an all technology based classroom, but I am learning to incorporate it into my daily life.

Carly Pugh's Post 12 

Wow Carly! This girl can really write! I love the way she uses her intelligence, but also her wit. I see how her blog post went along with Dr. Miller's video. Her assignment was about writing technology. The students would write their teaching philosophy through text, pictures and videos. 

Google Images 

The Chipper Series and EDM 310 for Dummies

In the Chipper Series , Chipper is having a conversation with Dr. Strange about her being late for assignments or not doing her assignments. It is very important in EDM to have your assignments done and on time to get a passing grade. 

In EDM 310 for Dummies some students are explaining how EDM 310 works. This is a pretty funny video. I think It would be fun to make videos for your classroom. It would make things more interesting instead of the same old traditional learning. 

Learn to Change, Change to Learn 

  In the video Learn to Change, Change to Learn, educators discuss how education is changing. During the course of EDM I have read, watched and listened to many educator's point of views on the changing of education. In my opinion change is good, we may not always like it, but it is necessary. 

  A classroom should not be just a room with four walls, as the video states, it should be the world. There are so many opportunities in the cities around the world to learn in a non traditional sense.   

Scavenger Hunt 

I found a website called Edmodo . It is like Facebook/Twitter. I set up an account as a teacher and I can set up reminders, notes and created discussions with my students and parents. I really like this website because it helps me become more organized. I can talk with other teachers and get ideas from their pages. This website lets me make up quizzes and homework and let students access it from home. This is a great tool for everyone to use to get more organized and on top of their work. 

The webpage I found to make my comic was Make Belifs Comix . Here is my comic: 

A cool tool I found that I had never heard of was Free Stock Photos. This is a website that has tons of pictures for your blog. You have to set up an account, but it is free. It has a lot of different types of pictures that you can use on your blog or website. 

  

Project 9b

Project 10: PLN

My PLN is coming on nicely. It took me a while to figure out what it is exactly for, but now that I have it is very helpful. I will be working on my PLN and putting more useful links into it to help me a long the way. 

Blog Post 7

The Network Student 

    My first reaction to this video was it was like the iSchool initiative. I was a bit confused at the first of the video, but by the end I understood. It made a lot of sense for students to be independently responsible for their school work.  

    The part that I was the most confused on was if students are doing everything on their on why do they need teachers? At the end of the video they stated that the point of the teacher was to teach the students how to make their PLN, to guide them on how to talk to important people, and to be there for any questions. 

    I honestly do not think that I am ready to be a network teacher. I think with time I will be, but as of right now I am no. I think that this class will help me be ready to be a network teacher. 

C4T Assignment #2

This C4T I was assigned Mrs. Krebs. She is a junior high teacher from Iowa at a small catholic school. Her post were so inspiring and interesting I read more than the two that I was assigned. Mrs. Krebs' first post that I commented on was a selection of inspirational quotes put on pictures. I really enjoy reading inspirational quotes, they always make me want to try harder. I commented that I would love to use some of these in my future classroom to help get the student's motivated. Here are some of my favorites:

My second post that I commented on was about her genius hour. A genius hour is a class where Mrs. Krebs lets her student's create, engage and learn.  She said her students were so engaged that they missed several classes in the day! I commented that it is amazing to see what students can do whenever they really put their minds to things and are really into the things they are doing.  

Project 8: Podcast

C4K February

The first C4K I was assigned to was to a fourth grade student in the United States. She was telling us about a story that she was writing about a girl that wanted to run cross country on her high school team. She goes on to tell us about the girl joining her school's team and the great success she had. She asked us to leave our feedback on the story and any suggestions we had. I commented that I thought she did a great job on her story, and I would like to know more about the girl she was writing about. She did a very good job on her writing.

The next C4K I was assigned was a online high school student from Hawaii. Hannah's blog for her AP history class  was quite impressive. This particular post was about her "confessions of an online AP history student." She discussed her favorite parts of the class and the parts that she did not care so much for. I commented that I too can share her pain on the online class part of the post. I said that I really enjoyed reading her post about being in an online school because I went to a traditional high school.

My third C4K was a student from Canada blogging about a skype session that her class had with a class from New Orleans, LA. She described what they learned from the class from New Orleans: mardi gras, the hurricanes, and football. I commented that I lived very close to New Orleans and that I visit it often. I described what I liked about New Orleans and how beautiful the city is.

My last C4K I was assigned was the same AP history class as Hannah was in, but this time it was the class blog. Mike Gwaltney's AP history class based out of Oregon, blogged about a documentary made in the 60's called A Class Divided . The documentary was about a teacher doing an experiment on her third grade students to see if separating them by eye color would effect how they treated one another. One day the teacher treated the blue eyes superior and the next the brown eyes. The blog stated how children that had been friends for years turned against each other in hate. The purpose of this lesson was to teach self worth and no group of people are better than any other. Twenty years later these students got together and remembered how this lesson has impacted their lives today. I commented that I really enjoyed this blog post and would like more information on where I could watch this. Elisa, a student in the class, wrote back with a link of the documentary.  A Class Divided Documentary.