Sunday, November 13, 2011

C4K #11 Mrs. Yollis' Class Blog

Mrs. Yollis is the type of teacher that we, as future teachers, hope to become. Not only do she teach her students by using technology but she also involves their family members, classrooms from all around the world, and others who are interested. Her entire focus is on her students, something we need to see in more teachers.
After exploring Mrs. Yollis' classroom blog, I notice that Mrs. Yollis has a lot of links that she encourages her students and other visitors to look and learn from. You can tell that she took time putting together her class blog and updating it on a daily bases.
I read her Meet Mrs. Yollis page and learned that she has been teaching for 25 years. She recently received a masters degree in “Integrating Technology in the Classroom.” Travel is one her and her husband's past time. Their favorite vacation spots are: Hawaii, Montana, Alaska, Belize, the Arctic Circle, and San Diego.
The video How to Comment was a video made by her students. The video included five tips on commenting. Those tips were: compliment, add new information, make a connection, end with a question, and proofread.
I also enjoyed How to Shoot Great Digital Images. It's a video of her students teaching how to take great pictures. Some tips include inhale, exhale, then snap the shutter button.
In the sidebar of Mrs. Yollis’ blog page contains items such as a cluster map. Her blog had 75,589 visitors between January 7, 2010 and November 13, 2011. Where as for EDM 310 only had 51,262 visitors between January 9, 2010 and November 13, 2011. The sidebar also contains awards that her blog has won. Such as Edublog, including first runner-up in 2009 and 2010, a lifetime achievement award in 2010, and also the best overall for elementary in 2009 from Digital Voice Awards.
Mrs. Yollis' class

Progress Report on Final Report

Our final project will include myself, Dominique Spence, and Gretchen Mcpherson. We will be doing our final project on the skills we have learned in EDM 310. We plan on using the green screen, Imovie, and podcast to enhance the effect of our project. Our project is a surprise so we don't want to tell too much. Stay tuned for more!
Top Secret File

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Blog Post #12

While watching Steve Jobs' Inspirational Speech think of are you motivated enough to motivate your students. As he stands before the graduating class of Stanford, he tells them three different stories. Each story has its own moral. Listen and pay attention closely for I want you to describe in three different paragraphs on what you think each moral is.

Before watching this video, I just knew that Steve Jobs was the guy who invented Apple. Since I am becoming a bigger fan of Apple I decided to Google him. Turns up there is a lot to learn about the late Steve Jobs. Like Bill Gates, Jobs is also a college drop out. Many parents force their kids to succeed in college but I have to disagree by saying college is not for everyone. Bill and Steve prove that point clear. Even without a college degree they were able to become successful legally.
In Jobs first story it was about his early part of life. His biological mother wanting his adopting parents to be college graduates so she would be more comfortable with her baby living with them. Although his adoptive parents were not college graduates (adoptive father high school drop out), they still encouraged Steve to go to college. A prestige college at that where they were paying tuition out of pocket. Six months into the semester Jobs decides to dropout but become a drop in student where he learned calligraphy. This was the first skill he learned for Mac. The moral of this story was knowing how to connect the dots. Steve said "you must trust in yourself enough to know that later on down the road the dots will connect." I agree. When doing the connect the dots puzzles I always start from the end and work backwards to the beginning. This scenario even plays with my life. When I was old enough I planned out my entire life. To where I live, who I want to marry, to what I want to be. Although I have changed the pattern of my 'dots' I know that they will still make the same pattern in the end. With that being said it leads to Steve's second story.
Steve's second story was about love and lost. You must love what you are doing. Starting Apple at the age of 20 in his mothers garage, he found what he love at an early age. Ten years later he lost it. He learned that being let go was the best thing that happened to him. He created two different programs Next and the other one is like the new Disney, Pixar. Pixar became large where as Next was bought out by Apple. "Sometimes life will hit you in the head with a brick but don't loose faith." In the end he never lost what he love. This moral ties in to what I have believed in for a very long time. A career is something you love where as a job is something you are just doing. Yes, we all know that some teachers do not get paid that much but if you love it why should the pay matter? My major was once where I knew the pay would be good but the classes stressed me out and did not bring me enjoyment while taking them so I switched to where my heart was, teaching.
The last and final story was about death. Like Steve, I live by the same quote "live every day like it was your last." After being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Steve never gave up he just kept living like it was his last. He said that even though he was face to face with death it wasn't nice. "Nobody is ready to die not even those who want to go to heaven." He encourages that you should follow your own heart and mind to not to live in any one else shadows. Like Randy Pausch, it is sad that Steve Jobs past on. It is great that they left a great legacy for many people to come.
Randy&Steve

Sunday, November 6, 2011

C4K Comment for Kids #2

For the past month I have been following two different students. On October 24 I commented on Charlotte's page. Charlotte is a student from 2KJ
"My name is Raven. I am a student at the University of South Alabama that’s located in the United States. I am currently enrolled the class EDM 310 which teaches future teachers how to stay in contact and teach our students by using technology. When I was in grade school my family and I went to the New Orleans zoo or to Biloxi, Mississippi. Yes, there are penguins in other countries. No, I have never been to Phillip Island but will look into going there one day because your slide show seem like you had a lot of fun. Keep up the good work." Her response was "Hi Raven,
Thanks for your comment on my blog i loved it! i love to hear from people all around the world! hope to hear from you soon,
Charlotte."

On October 27 I commented on "We've got the Write Stuff," a year 4 class at Pt England School in Auckland NZ. My comment was "Hi!
My name is Raven and I am a student that's enrolled in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama located in Mobile, Alabama. I really enjoyed your post about the Canadian flag. I love how you had the flag move along the mountains while you talked about it. I have never been to Canada but I do have a lot of Canadian money. Keep up the good work, kiddo!"
kids commenting

Friday, November 4, 2011

Blog Post #11

Save the Children
After watching the video "First Graders in Ms. Cassidy's Class," I realized that Ms. Cassidy has a class of intelligent 6 year old students. In Ms. Cassidy's first grade class they know how to use blogs, webpages, wiki's, and skype in order to communicate with students from other places. In my class I would like to bring blogs, webpages, and skype into my classroom. I would use the blogs for my students assignments on a daily bases to teach them how to read for comprehension and write correctly. The webpages would allow my students to check and follow what will be going on in class. The most important thing would be skype, because I would like for my students to interact with students in other places who are on the same level as they are.
Of course nothing ever goes exactly as plan without a little trials and tribulations to get to that point. My problems would consider between both student and parents. After graduation, I would like to start off by teaching here in Mobile but then move to Georgia where I will educate in one of the rural areas because I volunteer at my mom school and seeing those kids not having the same opportunity I had in elementary with playing guitars, recorders, learning Spanish. I want to give back to my community. This will be a problem because after school is over many of my students won't have access to a computer unless they go to the nearest library but what if their parent don't have transportation? Not only would this problem stop my students, parents might get upset because their child couldn't do their work. With that being said this should encourage the parents to get on the band wagon so they can't complain why their child is "left behind" technology wise. In order to solve my problems plan A would be to encourage my students to do fundraisers where it will allow them to afford a computer inside their homes. If plan A fails plan B would be to go to my school system and government where I would argue the "no child left behind" act. Like the teacher from the movie "Freedom Writers," I will stop at nothing to better educate my students because by all means the children are our future.
Freedom Writers

C4T #3

For the past couple of days I have been following the "Tech for Teachers" facebook page. My first comment was on a video titled "Play Again Film Trailer." This video was about children not going outside to be apart of nature anymore. Now days kids spend majority of their time watching television or playing video games. Yes, they make video games such as the Wii or Xbox Kinect where you are the controller. When I was growing up I know I got a bike as a present either every Christmas or every other Christmas. Where as kids now don't ask for bikes, skates, jump ropes, side- walk chalk to make hop scotch. They just ask for games and more games. I am curious on how children of today's time would react if there was no such thing as Wii, XBox, or Playstions? Sounds like a great idea.
The second video that I watched was "Why Let Our Students Blog" by Rachel Boyd of New Zealand. In summary of this video, Rachel gave a couple of good reasons to why our students should blog. Not only should they blog to communicate or to expand outside the classroom but "to give them skills useful for their digital future." I agree with Rachel because while being in EDM 310 I have learned more things about what I can do with my laptop than I did in my computer class. Not speaking bad of my computer class. Kids can learn a majority of things from blogging and also meet new people.

Uncle Sam