Blog Post #10

Do You Teach or Do You Educate?
While watching this video, I realized that I shouldn't have changed my mind in the beginning. I thought I wanted to be a pediatrician but I soon realized that I was not going to be able to deal with seeing very sick children or even the thought of seeing one die on me. I went back to my original plan, becoming a teacher. I chose to become a teacher because I knew I wanted to help children. Not only help them but to teach them and advise them to become anything they want to be.
This video showed the difference between teaching and educating. I think that I have the power of both. You must have both qualities if you are in the education field. One might out way the other but you have both qualities. I will make sure I both advise and impart knowledge into my students.

Tom Johnson's Don't Let Them Take the Pencils Home!
In Mr. Johnson's post he disagrees with Gertrude, his school's Curriculum Instructional Interventionist Academic Specialist. She argues that students in low income areas should not use pencils because they would just use them as entertainment. Johnson responds by stating, "I don't hold them accountable. I try and find projects that keep them interested. But if they choose to play Hang Man or go on the pen pal networks, I'm okay with it. There's probably some learning that's taking place that we don't realize."
I think Mr. Johnson uses sarcasm to make his point. Like many others have quoted "don't be scared to learn," and students are always learning that's why we are there. We can advise the students to learn in a creative way. I feel if they use pencils or not they are still learning. Bringing your pencils home in order to do your school work will result in a good grade but if they don't then it will result in either a failing grade or a grade they don't want. I don't think by using pencils will lower test grades. For me for example, when I write or in this case type it stays in my memory therefore, my test scores go up. So in this case a lesson was learned whether it’s part of the curriculum or not.

Blog Post #9

What I've Learned This Year By: Mr. McClung
For my blog post #9, I chose to do Mr. McClung's "What I've Learned This Year 2008-2009" "What I've Learned This Year 2010-2011." In his first blog post from 2008- 2009, he summarizes on his first year of teaching. While doing so he also gave some good pointers to teachers who are coming in. First, you must "know how to read the crowd." He states that "teachers become so concerned with the delivery of the content that they are missing the most important aspect of teaching, and that is checking for student comprehension." I agree with McClung fully. Teachers of today teach according to these CRTs or EQTs. To me, I don't think students really get the comprehension when taught that way. His next pointers are "be flexible, communicate, be reasonable, don't be afraid of technology, listen to your students, and never stop learning." All McClung's pointers are very helpful for first time teachers. It should be about the student, listen to your students, and also never stop learning. You are never to old to learn and everyone wants someone to listen to them.
The second part 2010-2011, was about the third year of his teaching career. After accepting many new jobs, McClung states that this end of the year reflection was easier. The best quote that he said was "I guess the moral of this lesson is that you cannot allow others to stifle your own excitement and joy that you experience in teaching or any other facet of life for that matter." I totally agree with that. Many people go to school to become a teacher but people start talking about the money or how bad the kids of today is so they find another major. I think that if you are passionate and want it to be a career and not a job, then keep that major. His pointers in this post was first "know who your boss is, don't think everybody will be as excited about change as you are, don't be afraid to be an outsider, don't touch the keyboard, and don't get comfortable." I think that McClung is a good inspiration to future teachers. Every future teacher should follow these pointers.

Project #13 Smartboard Part 1

Blog Post #8

Richard Miller: This Is How We Dream Parts 1 and 2
As I began watching Miller's video, I instantly became bored. His voice did not catch my attention but his video itself did. Pushing myself to pay attention to what he was saying, turned out that I enjoyed the video. He has very good points where he makes us, not only as future teachers but Americans, think about how we write and read now days. If you sit back and think about it, do you really see that much pen and paper in classrooms now? Just being enrolled in EDM 310 should give you the answer to that question.
Miller encourages everyone in the education field to learn how to write in the multimedia format. This format allows you to not only publish your writings in a book but also online. Everything we use in today's time in some way has to deal with technology. If you were to walk into a classroom and look around the first thing you won't see is a chalk board. There is something like it though, called a smart board.
I honestly can say that I agree with Miller, due to the fact that technology grows all day every day. In a few years, who knows there might not be something called pencils and paper. Besides, who wouldn't want to learn and write the multimedia way? Using pictures and videos can really get your point across instead of just writing it on paper and turning it in. I will definitely be teaching my students this method.

Blog Post #12 by Carly Pugh
I can honestly say that Carly is ready to become a teacher. As a teacher you have to think of ways to keep your students interest and Carly did just that. The playlist idea would be a great idea as our final reflection project. That way it shows Dr. Strange all that we learned and help us put to use what we learned. She took Miller's words and ran with them. She did everything he told us to do when writing with multimedia.
Her links were great. Not only did they help her put her point across they helped make the post more enjoyable. She had categories from humor to serious. I loved the video "leave your mark" because you should think outside of the box and do something in life that people will remember you by. I walk around town and see so many people on the streets and think to myself "I wonder what they had planned for their life when they were younger?" This brings me to the video “when I grow up” and “Don’t laugh at me." I will definitely be showing these three videos in my class.

The Chipper Series and EDM 310 for Dummies
Watching both of these videos showed just how I felt at the beginning of our EDM 310 class this semester. As the class went on I noticed that it became easier. Notice I said easier not EASY! In the video "The Chipper Series," Chipper procrastinates and when confronted by Dr. Strange she comes up with an excuse like every other student has ever done. Like many students who get fed up with not being able to stay on task with their school work, Chipper drops out. After her idea creating her own school that allowed students to come, go, and do as they please failed, Chipper returned back to Dr. Strange's EDM 310 class. In the video "EDM 310 for Dummies," the two girls were at the beginning feeling just like I was, frustrated. As the video progressed it showed that Dr. Strange had come up with a book EDM 310 for Dummies. This book broke EDM 310 down that the girls were able to succeed in their work. I think I could do one of these videos. My group and I came up with an idea for one of these videos. I honestly want to do the playlist project that Carly mentioned in her video.

Learn to Change, Change to Learn
In this video, a variety of different educators gave their opinion about how they felt about the way kids are being taught today. I both agree with this video. I agree with the fact that, yes teachers should become technology literate so they are able to teach kids of today's time. Kids are very technology literate and like one of the women from this video said "Kids are very rich developers through their emails, texting, and social networking, but yet all that is band from the classrooms." I agree with her. I am glad that I have learned some ways to stay connected to my students outside the classroom from EDM 310. I believe that educators should use something inside the classroom besides books to keep their students attention and involved.

Project #12 Book Trailer

Short Movie Project #11

Blog Post #7

Randy Pausch was an inspirational speaker. He spent his life inspiring others After being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Pausch lived his life every day like it was his last. In this video of his last lecture, he talks about his dreams, him helping others achieve their dreams, and lessons he has learned along the way. This lecture was not to be sad he simply did not want anyone to feel sad for him or his family.
"Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things." When Pausch said this I honestly felt like he was talking to me. I believe that if you truly want something you would not let anything stand in your way to get what you want. This was a very inspirational quote because everyone should live by it. Teachers should live by it inside their classrooms so their students this will believe that they can be anything they want to be if they put their minds to it. He spoke frequently about his students and the adventures of discovery they made together in the field of the virtual world. He mentioned that when he gave his first assignment, and the students turned in videos that amazed and awed him, a fellow employee told him not to let his students know that they did a great job because they may not work as hard. Instead he repeatedly told his students to do better.
"Alice", the project Randy was working on at ETC was "millions of kids having fun while learning something hard". Another one of Randy's quotes was "When you're screwing up and no one is saying anything anymore, that means they've given up on you." This quote ties into the previous quote I mentioned above. If teachers let their students know that it is okay to accept constructive criticism; without it you would never know your flaws. He encouraged other teachers to allow there students learning occur during something fun. Like everything else, when the going gets tough "experience is what you get when you don't get what you want".
At the end of his lecture, Randy made a great point, "Don't bail the best gold is at the bottom of barrels of crap." Everyone goes through hard times in order to get to where they wanna be in life. He also said "don't complain; just work harder." Even after so much criticism Randy got to where he was by working hard. As Rafe Esquith mentioned in his book "kids these days don't want to work for it they just want their life handed to them on a silver platter." I was very excited to have watched this video. I plan to bring these lessons into my classroom and hopefully my students will learn from them so they can pass them on.

C4T Comments for Teachers #2

For the past month I have been following Tom Hobson's also known as Teacher Tom blog posts. Mr. Hobson is a pre-school teacher who was against small areas for small children. I also is against that small children should be taught in a small environment. It gives them no room to grow or be a child. His first post was The Best Of All Possible Worlds. In summary, this post was about a teacher who never lost the site of teaching no matter how small his classroom space was. Like many other classes Teacher Tom's class was moved into the gym where the little ones were able to move about and do fun activities. Teacher Tom mentions that his class has the best of all possible worlds because they can now run around, build block structures, and do gutter activities without knocking or hurting anyone else. For instants, his student Violet was building blocks and accidentally knocked them over, instead of hearing a cry Hobson heard her tell him that it was okay because she could rebuild it.

Hobson's second post was titled Soon It Was Someone Else's Turn. In this post he talks about how children are sneaky but cute. In his class he has a hamster wheel where his students (yes, 3-5 years old kids) are learning how centrifugal force is being used. Connor, one of his students, claims the wheel as his own and would not let any of the other students play with it. During the next class time Connor saw Gray, his classmate, playing with the wheel and instantly went charging for it. Like any other adult would do, Teacher Tom told Connor he would have to wait until his turn. Like any other 3 year old Connor didn't like that decision, so he waited beside Gray. While both boys helped each other with the task of keeping the car rolling on the hamster will, Hobson praises them a little to quickly. After hearing Hobson say "Connor helped Gray by holding the base so it wouldn't fall over," both boys pulled but Gray was quicker. Getting impatient Connor left to find better things to do. When told by Hobson that it was now his turn to play with the wheel, Connor no longer wanted to play with the wheel.

Reading Tom Hobson's posts while looking at the pictures let me know instantly that I was finally in my right major. I can not wait to become a teacher so I can watch and observe the little ones.

Project #10 PLN First Progress Report

When starting EDM 310 I had no clue what PLN was. I just kept hearing other students and teachers at my mom's school saying "I have to add that to my PLN." Now I've learned that PLN stands for Personal Learning Network. I created my PLN and so far it has been a great help! No longer do I have to think hard of what page of the website I love. Now I just click on my PLN. When asking around which PLN system to use, symbaloo or netvibes, many of my classmates said symbaloo would be a better choice. After watching the video of the 7th grader, I chose symbaloo. This creates easier access to the websites I use the most. Not only have I added facebook, twitter, and my g-mail but also, my school email and my shopping website as well. Even after EDM 310 class I'm sure I will continue using my PLN!

Timetoast Timeline Instruction Project #9b

Project #8 Podcast Group

Timetoast Project #9a

C4K Comments for Kids

On September 13 I left a comment on TomJoe's, a student in Mr. Harris' Room 19, Class Blog. The topic was Where in the world ? Slovenia and Kazakhstan. He gave the demographics of both places. At the end he talks about rugby, a sport that in the United States will be called soccer. I told them rugby is not a popular sport in the United States but we do have a sport like it called football and I am a huge fan of it.

On September 24 I read I like my iPad by Mr.Capps and Mrs. Yim. The kids from a Baldwin county school got iPads in their classroom and they were the first ones to use them. I comment, "I enjoyed the facial expressions on the students faces. Watching the video encouraged me to become a teacher even more. Ms. Buffett did a great job by giving these kids the iPads. By the looks on their faces, they were ready to learn. I will continue to stay posted to see what more these kids have for me."

On September 28 in Mrs. Dahl's class my student, Ocean, did a book report on Superfudge. The book is about a kid who mom was having a baby and he did not want her to so he decided that he would leave. I commented saying what a cool name. I am glad to see you enjoyed the book. Most importantly I am glad that you actually read the book to enjoy it. I became a Judy Bloom fan after reading this book. Continue reading it is a great way to go on adventures without leaving home. Have fun reading kiddo.