Final Reflection

Skype Interview Project

Well, it's very late but it's here! I had a lot of issues with this project for some reason. I interviewed my cousin, Ginger Boyd, the first time. She is an elementary teacher in Slocomb. She has a class blog and tries to use as much technology with her kids as she can. It was a great interview, but you could not hear her for some reason. We also couldn't use Skype due to computer issues with my laptop as well as her laptop. We finagled a way, but fate was against me. So, I interviewed my brother Bill who  is a sixth grader at College Street Elementary. Even we had issues with Skype. I finally had a good recording so I went to the lab to upload it...once again fate would not have it. But, many thanks to Elizabeth, we got it to upload and thus I have completed all but one EDM assignment. Enjoy!

Blog Assignment 14

Technology and Education: Box of Tricks is SO KOOL. :) Jose Picardo has created a fabulous tool that educators should have. It has fascinating articles; I particularly enjoyed the ipad article. THAT is a long list of teacher technological resources. I noticed many programs that we downloaded for EDM 310 were on that list. I added the site to my symbaloo cube. I am also going to show my cousin who is an elementary teacher this site. She really enjoys using technology with her class, and this site would be a great tool for her.

Jose Picardo's Top ten tips... was a great video about what kind of technology educators should use in their classroom. His list made me think about what I have been exposed to in my classes. My French teachers have used music and youtube in many classes. It helps to listen to a native speaker because it helps learners like me articulate different sounds  that are common to that language. We also listened to music in one of my math classes when we took a test because it was calming and helped us concentrate more on the test and less on our nerves. For EDM, I have used everything mentioned on that list (Even if it didn't work entirely correctly). I think using a variety of the things on the list in class is a great idea. With that being said, I find it very odd that I used only one of the things listed in TWO technology classes in high school. Only one for two classes....Hopefully that has changed.

Final Project

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Final Report on PLN

Well I have been playing around with symbaloo. It is not my favorite, but there are many things that I like about it. The search box in the center is great because I can click on one of my cubes like facebook or the weather and the status pops up in the box. I created my own webmix and I am going to make another with links to teacher blogs and fun activities for the classroom. I am still using my ipad as well as my bookmark bar. I have even saved a few pages on delicious. However, I realize that it doesn't really matter what you use to create your PLN as long as you are collecting valuable and useful information to it frequently.
Speaking of which, here are some of the things I have saved to one or more of my PLN's. One of my favorite activities is Draw a Stickman that I found on a teacher's class blog. He had a lot of games that are great exercises for students (plus they are a lot of fun for anybody).Another spectacular site that we are supposed to blog about this week is Box of Tricks. This is a great place for teachers, students, and well, anybody interested in ways technology is impacting education. I have also saved Mrs. Yollis's class blog. Her blog contains fabulous tips for all about blogging. It is also the perfect example that blogging is great for kids, parents, and teachers. And of course I have added EDM 310 Class Blog.
PLN's are both new and old to me. I have made many in the past, but I never knew what they were called. It is like "head faking" :). I have created LOTS of PLN's this semester in several of my classes. Not all of them are just sites on the internet. My teachers, friends, and classmates are parts of several PLN's.

Comments for Teachers #4

Beth Kinttles's thoughts on technology is really that. Her post, Dreams do come true if you work at them, is about one young woman's journey to make displaced children from 28 countries feel at home and safe in the U.S. by playing soccer. The children are refugees and have all seen war and lived through horrific events that most people are fortunate enough never to be faced with. Luma called her soccer team Team Fugee, short for refugee. She was helping the kids find a sense of belonging, but she soon found out they had other needs that the public education system was failing to meet. The kids needed a school and a teacher willing to work with them. So Luma created the Fugee Academy. Her school is privately funded and she accepts no government funding. She just purchased 19 acres to build her dream school. However, it will take $5 million dollars to start building, but Luma knows they can raise that money in just a year.
Luma's story is truly inspiring and someday I expect to visit her school and see with my own eyes her dream come to life.

The second post I commented on was about Google Data Explorer. It is a really sophisticated tool that would benefit educators in all subjects. Basically, it is doing something similar to Wolfram Alpha. However, you can make your own data sets. I have played with a couple of different maps and graphs and it is really fun. I would love to see how it would work on SMARTboards. Let's see if I can get it to work later this week...

Special Assignment

Ok....I didn't get the metaphor. But, Dr. Strange has given many of us a chance to redeem ourselves. Thanks Dr. Strange. :)

Me going crazy. 

For starters, I missed the metaphor because I was thinking too literally. The video Are you an Educator or a Teacher? is what did me in. I was so stressed out about that video and trying to understand its message. (I get it now, by the way, thanks to Dr. Strange and Gina Phillips. Thanks!) Anyway, that video was part of the reason and I was headed towards a break in my mental and physical limit. I had many hospital visits the week after that. But, I am ok! So I was taking everything too seriously and simultaneously in self destruct mode. I definitely do not want a repeat of that experience. I also think that everyone else was going through a rough patch in the semester at that time. Maybe there was a trend?
What metaphors have I come into contact with this week? -Haha funny. Well there were many metaphors on Dr. Strange's post that I read; I still don't get the stork beak open and shut part though? I have also been reading my Bible at night and boy does Jesus love metaphors! When Jesus talks about eternal life he is not saying that you will not physically die, but that your spirit will live forever with God if you believe in Him. Another common metaphor that I hear in couple/breakup movies is "there are plenty of fish in the sea." Well I certainly hope so or else a lot of people would be hungry. Just kidding...but not really. It means that you will find somebody because there are so many people in this world it's almost impossible not to. One metaphor that I used a few weeks ago was "my head is killing me." I just had a headache, thank goodness.

So how would I educate my students about metaphors? Well here the waters get murky; I don't want to give too much away and upset some parents. I think I would do like Dr. Strange asked us to do this week. I would explain what a metaphor is and give a few examples maybe from a book or, ideally, a poem we are reading in class. I would then ask them to keep a log of what metaphors they have used, heard, or read. We would then have kind of like a show and tell. Only backwards. A tell-your metaphor-and show what it really means. We could make a game out of it too, like guess the metaphor meaning. I'm looking forward to this :)

Lastly, why do we use metaphors? Well if your five year old asks where did they come from, the conversation could get awkward quickly. Not to mention, it may be an overwhelming and much to mature idea for a youngster to deal with. (However, whatever you say please don't tell them they were in your tummy...that's just weird. You didn't eat them.) Metaphors also make things much easier to explain and make things comical and funny. They definitely help people flirt. They can also make things seem much darker. Basically, they have a way of materializing our thoughts and feelings to give them deep meaning. If you really think about it, metaphors are the paints and brushes for writers. Metaphors are one of the gears that makes not just our language, but all languages work.
I never really thought about how important they are. As a foreign language major, as well as an education major, I really see how key they are to all people from all cultures, in all religions, and in all tongues...Fascinating. :)

Blog Assignment 13

This blog assignment is the perfect example of our class motto: "I don't know; Let's find out." It all spurred off on a question a student asked. "How Much has China actually grown over the last three years?" Let's find out, shall we?

The red highlighted portion shows pop. from 2008-2011

The current population of China = 1.35 billion people (2010 est.). It is 1/5 of the world's total population! It has steadily grown over the past three years.

WOW. The U.S.A has 309 million people...India has 1.21 billion people. What a major difference! I knew the United States had a much smaller populous compared to India, China, and Africa. It still blows my mind. Now to Dr. Strange's questions:
1) Yes, I knew about WolframAlpha. I had used it back in high school for an assignment similar to the one above and something with math I think.
2) I think I have heard about Google Squared, however, I can't find it and cannot access it though the link. I found an article about it though and it is pretty interesting...Tech Crunch
3) The population of the United States is only 22.8% of China's population.
4) The Population of the United States is only 25.5% of India's population.
That is mind blowing.
5) The facts in Did You Know? 3.0 are right on target. I watched that video again and it gave me chills.
6) Yes. It will be useful for me when I want to find out statistics about the kinds of children in my class. It will be useful for my kids to see the world in a different view. I believe it will be a humbling experience for many of us to see that countries we consider "old world" are surpassing countries like our own. I am hoping that many of us will realize we need to become competitive with these other countries, because we are definitely not their competition, and we need to want to strive. Other than the chills, these figures make me feel like the future is in my hands and I need to direct it in the best direction.

Visitors :)

I just wanted to say that my blog is officially International! I recently had someone check out my post from Spain! How stellar is that?

Blog Assignment 11

So cute! Mrs. Cassidy's kids are awesome. I loved the video and see it as an extremely valuable tool to show parents, principals, and educators how technology can be used in the classroom. The kids were very polite and gave us some smart tips when it comes to technology. One great tip is to be nice when leaving a comment; don't be mean. Another key aspect that I love about the video is that the kids are telling you why using technology is great and what they are doing with it. When I become a teacher, I am going to post videos similar to this to show the progress the kids are making.
Something that blows my mind is that fist graders are doing this! Their reading and writing ability must be improving at a much faster rate because of blogging. I don't know if this is the case, but I don't see why it wouldn't be. I also think that the kids are more inspired to perform at their best because they have an audience. They are not just writing for their teacher; they are posting stories that is being viewed by people everywhere in the world. If that's not an incentive then what is?

This picture reminds me of Ms. Cassidy's  back yard!

"We have to keep learning." Yes Ms. Cassidy, you are absolutely right. As educators, we must keep learning for the sake of our kids. Just because we graduate from college with a B.S. or even a PhD we never stop learning and we should never want to stop. I really appreciate Ms. Cassidy's answer towards an EDM 310 student's cheating question. He asked "Will students be able to cheat on assignments easier by looking on past blogs?" Ms. Cassidy said that teachers should become more creative with assignments and that research and other works are becoming more collaborative.  

One of the impediments that I foresaw using technology in the classroom was the parents and the other teachers and principals. My cousin Ginger, said nearly the same thing as Ms. Cassidy. The parents are actually really excited about being able to keep up with what their kids are doing online. This makes me happy and more comfortable with talking to parents and students about accessing the internet. Maybe I should host a parents' night that teaches parents internet safety and how they can talk to their kids about technology as well? Sounds like a good idea to me! 

Project #15

Comments for Kids Summary (November)

Mrs. Yollis's class is awesome. I commented on Shane F's post, A Fun Halloween. His story was clever and funny. I also loved his adjectives to describe the pumpkin house. His character's ironic escape was funny too. Who knew that something as scary as a ghost could be scared away by part of a costume. :) Shane did a very good job and so did all of his classmates. I will follow Mrs. Yollis's example and have my students improve their writing ability while learning how to blog. This way they can get feedback from numerous people and also have a very fun assignment.

My second comment was to Josephine in Port England School in Auckland, New Zealand. She blogged about an immersion assembly titled Outta This World. There were five teams and each of their themes were about outer space. The assembly sounded like a lot of fun and an interesting way to learn about space. One group rapped about the planets and another did a star wars skit. I think this was a superb way to get kids involved with learning.

I had a great time seeing what kids are blogging about! :) this is something I want to continue in my classroom.

Luma's Story

This just couldn't wait for my C4T summary. This video is about a young woman who never expected to have dreams this big and this needs to be seen. As future educators, she should inspire us to be there for our kids and help us come to the realization that our kids are all going to be different. Some will have scars from the past and others will just need someone to believe in them. With that being said, please watch and enjoy the video.

Blog Assignment 12

Well I am a little out of order and behind schedule as the semester nears its close. However, I will finish everything and I will be satisfied knowing that I learned many things and did a little "head faking" this semester. Maybe I will have left behind something that others can use in the future; legacy is what this blog is about. I have looked at other student's blogs A LOT to find inspiration and sometimes just to get a clear idea of what I should blog about. I heavily believe that everyone can and should learn from the past in order to be prepared for and to be able to shape their future. Therefore, my idea for a blogging assignment is to read,explore, and learn about past students of EDM 310 through their blogs. This assignment would work best at the beginning of the semester. I believe this would help new EDM students feel more comfortable with the class, the future assignments, and their own ability. Here it is...

Pt. 1
1)  Go to the EDM 310 Blog and scroll down to the Student Blogs section. You will choose one student each from each of  the past three semesters.

2) Randomly select a name and go to their blog. They should have a post titled Final Reflection (if not, select another student from that semester.) Watch and/or read this post. Consider what they have learned and enjoyed from the class.

3) Write a paragraph for each student summarizing their final reflection (you should have written three paragraphs for this part of the assignment).

Pt. 2
1) Now write one more paragraph about some of the common things said in each video, write about what advice you took to heart and think will be helpful, and what you are looking forward to doing/learning this semester in EDM 310.

Progress Report on Final Project

For the final project, Lindsay and I are going to expand and elaborate on our Smartboard presentation. We are giving a lesson on the solar system at the 2nd grade level. We will  be giving basic facts about the sun, earth, and moon as well as describe the order of the planets (excluding Pluto). For our final project, we are going to elaborate on each of the planets. We will also discuss asteroids, meteors, comets, and perhaps even other galaxies. Those will be some pretty pictures :) Another topic we might cover would be satellites, probes, and space missions! I am looking forward to working on it.

C4K

Landen is a really cool 6th grader in Mrs. Gregory's class. He posts a lot of interesting science facts that impact everybody nearly everyday. The post I commented on was Ear Wax! Turns out that ear wax may be gross but it helps to protect our inner ear. Landen also tells how you can remove any unwanted ear wax.

I also commented on Jake's blog who is also a sixth grader in Mrs. Gregory's class. Jake has a lot of funny and interesting posts. I read many and commented on one about some of his posts. The post I commented on was him asking if he should blog about more than science. I told him that I enjoyed his science posts and I also gave some suggestions about new posts like posting video game trailers or talk about the history and significance of holidays that were coming up (like Halloween). I really enjoyed his posts!

Mrs. Gregory's Blog is really fun. I especially like her method to pick someone to comment on (and my nana would too ;)) It is a little slot machine that randomly turns to a name. However, she doesn't just have a 6th grade class to comment on so don't forget about her 7th grade class as well!

Mr. Avery's class blog is very tech fancy. His kids are doing all kinds of things with technology (even sharing)! I think the parents were thrilled with their children's progress and even learn quite a few things from them. I would love to try out the video time lapse with my family and friends. I also checked out the story bird site and i bet young families would love this. Not only would they be helping their kids to read but they would be creating something precious.

I love Mr. McCafferty's class blog. He has a lot of links to games that are fun, creative, and of course educational. The first post I was assigned to play was a golfing game with a duck. You have three levels that you can play. You get points, and whacky scenes, by answering the questions right. The questions involve place value and writing large numbers and being able to identify those numbers in numeral form. I played other games he had posted and they were very entertaining! I can't wait to show my little siblings. :)

Visiting Mrs. Yollis's Class Blog

Mrs. Yollis is the most famous person in EDM 310. I remember hearing about her the first day of EDM in the infamous commenting lesson. We also had to view a page in her blog to learn how to do HTML code. Now we visit her blog again to leave comments for her students!...and check out the rest of her blog. I clicked on many of the tabs and found that one, Educational Blogging Resource for Teachers, led to a wiki! I love this wiki. It has a ton of links on the side that completely justifies the fact that blogging helps kids learn and is also a lot of fun. But don't just take my word for it, click on the link and see :) The wiki, like her main blog, has a globe that keeps track of how many visits she gets and from where they come from. She has had over 72,000 visits! ♥ Isn't that cool? ★ I found out how to make these awesome symbols on Mrs. Yollis's HTML page. Another really neat thing about her blog was on the side under A Photo A Day. For 1 year people have posted a photo a day and now they are at 314 days and photos!
Mrs. Yollis's blog is a PLN in itself and I am definitely adding her blog to mine!

Comments for Teachers #3

Tom Schimmer's post, Nothing Fails Like Success, is great! He discusses why it is important to think about the results of success as well as the methods we implement in order to achieve it. His example is very clever. People who have the flu generally lose weight, so if you wanted to lose weight you could just contract the flu and viola! Obviously, this is not an ideal way to lose a few pounds. As for an educator, we must realize our students' learning abilities and strategies will be different. Some methods will be more successful than others. We also need to reflect upon our successes and failures in order to grow as educators. His message was great and by far my favorite blog this semester!

His other post, The System, is very inspirational and a great wake up call. He talks about how people will blame the "district" or the "system" like they are some kind of foreign entity unlike ourselves. However, we are the system! It is up to us to make a difference regardless of our social or work station. Even if we consider ourselves to be at the bottom of the social ladder or not have the highest ranking job title, we can still have an influence on people we know. It only takes a tiny little spark to ignite a great ravenous fire. In my comment I talked about how people just feel downtrodden and really just depressed. They feel like nothing they can do will change anything. History has proven them wrong and it will continue to do so.

Blog Assignment 10

Are you a Teacher or an Educator?" is a thought provoking video. I hadn't really thought of the difference between a teacher and an educator. Educator always sounded more sophisticated than teacher, but I knew they were synonymous. In all honesty, I'm struggling to see how they are different. I have been looking in dictionaries to try and find a distinct difference between the two and I cannot. Krissy's blog from the summer 2011 laid it out for me a little better. According to the video an educator inspires and enlightens, whereas a teacher is made out like they just hand out facts and expect students to believe it. I don't agree with this negative connotation of the word "teacher". And if it is going to be viewed negatively then shouldn't we all be saying "I am going to become an educator," versus saying, "I am going to become a teacher"? Maybe I'm taking this way out of context, but I don't see how two words can be synonymous and yet mean something very different. Please! Give me some criticism to help me see what I am missing.
I am an education major because I want to be an educator. Now, just to be clear, I want to inspire my students to learn for themselves and to come forth with new observations and ideas. I want to lead my students by my example. I want to show them that even though something may be hard to accomplish, it doesn't mean you can't have fun while attempting it. I want to guide them through their young stages of their educational journey and give them the tools they will need to continue growing their wealth of information and knowledge. I want to be positive with any and every subject so that my students will take on the same attitude as well. They are the future and I want a part in making it a bright one. This is why I want to be an educator.



Tom Johnson's post, Don't Let Them Take Pencils Home, made me laugh while making me feel like I shouldn't be laughing at all. I was even a tad aggravated after I read it because of Gertrude.
The post starts off with Gertrude, a fellow teacher of Tom's, who exclaims that he cannot let his students take their pencils home for the love of standardized tests. Apparently, studies haven found that children in low income areas that take pencils home score lower on standardized tests. This is absolutely bonkers to me and the point in which I stop laughing with the post. How do pencils have anything to do with scoring lower on tests?! But Gerturde doesn't stop there. She continues to say that kids aren't going to be accountable with their pencils at home and will just play "sick and twisted" games like hangman. At this point I go through comments and reread the post to make sure this isn't another sarcastic poem or something. Unfortunately, it's not. However, I found solace in a comment that was left by Lisa. She basically says that the same "pencil" argument could be made by substituting pencils with books. She is absolutely right.
Another excellent point Lisa makes is the similarities between what Ken Robinson says about killing creativity and Gertrude's attitude. Teachers should allow creativity to blossom within their classrooms. I believe that with creativity comes curiosity and the eagerness to learn. Why would teachers want to destroy that over a bubble test that doesn't truly reflect what a student has truly learned? Seriously, if all we cared about was a test score then wouldn't we teach our children how to take a test, how to fill in these bubbles, and how to watch the clock to see how much time you have left to bubble in how much you know about random facts you are supposed to regurgitate? Teaching is not about the tests, but about the students! And if students want to play games like hangman, write a fictional story, or draw fun little doodles with pencils or pens allow them to express themselves. They may not be learning about algebra or how to read music notes, but at least they are learning about themselves and each other.

Blog Assignment 9

Mr. McClung's post is a great journey. Once you read it, there is no wonder how he got the most influential edublog of the year award. At the Teacher's Desk is his summation of his first year of teaching. I can only imagine, for now, what it's like to be "thrown to the wolves". Not that the kids tried eating anyone, but I bet it was intimidating to stand and teach in front of them; especially by yourself and for the first time. You also have your own ideas about how things are going to go. You rush in thinking you're going to find the cure to cancer in a week until the first month flies by and your nose is still in the books figuring out what it is. Lesson plans are tough to keep on track, but I think it's even tougher to realize this is going to take longer than you thought. But that is only part of it. If your kids don't understand the material I think it's pretty obvious more time needs to be spent on that lesson. However, I can see how a novice teacher would begin to doubt themselves and their teaching ability. But Mr. McClung gives great advice, "Listen to your students." I believe this realization comes to many teachers, if not all, who are passionate about their kids' educational journey. When you do this the students truly have a sense that the teacher cares. This makes the extra time on lesson plans and everything worth it.

The second post I read was a well of knowledge. This post gave a more inside look at the inner workings and the foundation of the educational system as we know it; teachers and administration. I love his find your school mom tip. I think that is very good advice, especially when you are dealing with young adults who might be going through some really big emotional changes or if you are just going through a rut and need someone to talk to.  I can also imagine that fellow "grown ups" will have the maturity level of a sassy three year old. I believe it's something we all go through, but it's important to know what your real purpose at that school is. To teach and be there for the kids.
I really enjoyed Mr. McClung's post and I am sure he must have felt great writing them. I think this final reflection project will be fun and in a sense therapeutic. I know I have a great deal to consider and talk about in my reflection. Mr. McClung's posts have helped me to see that.