Comment For Kids Week 10.

I was assigned to comment on 2km at Leopold Primary School in Australia. Their class skyped in with Mrs. Yollis' class in America. They learned that Mrs. Yollis class says the pledge of Allegiance every morning. Mrs. Yollis' class sang the national anthem of Australia.

Comments For Teachers Week 10 and 12

I was assigned to blog about David Hopkins Blog.

Week 10

In week 10 David posted a blog about an interesting topic about creating a polaroid for a presentation. It's a free application for your desktop called poladroid. The program is real easy to use and the video of how to use it can be found on his blog.

Week 12

This week David talked about using google earth in the classroom. He list a few ways it can be used but gives you the link to about fifty ideas. I think Google Earth Ocean would be a great way to explore the ocean in a science class when you come to that topic. In a history class you could view some battle sites in a major war. That would allow the students to have a visual picture rather than just reading about it.

Blog Assignment Week 12: Kaia

Kaia took some pictures herself and her dad was trying to teach her that things some people view to be ugly can be beautiful if viewed correctly. Technology these days is so amazing. Even though Kaia doesn't really know what she is doing she is making connections with people worldwide through a computer screen. I am just amazed how much we can learn from using technology. We can learn new things with just the click of a button or share things we have learned with somebody on the other side of the world. Don't get me wrong I think we should still learn in the classroom, but I do think technology should be a major resource to learning.

Comments for Kids Week 12

I posted a comment on Angellina's video. She did a mihi, a greeting, in Maori which is the native language that is dying off. Check out her video.

Survey: Are you phisically Active

I took a survey of 23 students in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama asking people if they are physically active. Fourteen considered themself physically active and nine did not. Six worked out by walking,four weightlifting, and the rest were walking. Eighteen students said they spend three or more hours a day in front of a computer or television, probably do to EDM. I consider myself a very active person and I wanted to see how active others were. I found that most are not as active as me, but some of them are. I would like to encourage you to just take an hour a day doing something physically active. You body will appreciate it.

Time Toast Timeline

This is a time line of my life. Here are some key dates things occured in my life, such as school, places visited, ect. Some may find my life boring others may find it interesting.

Week 10 Morgan Bayada

I agree with Morgan Bayada and Dan Brown's video to a certain extent. I am right there with them when they talk about sitting in a room just listening to a lecture to just memorize facts. I think that is a waste of time because if I ever needed this information I could just find it online, but there are some classes I must say that are not like this. For example a math class. I can not learn how do do something without someone showing me how to do it. In a class that requires an application it requires thinking not memorization. For the classes that have nothing to do with my major I just study to get by because I really do not care about the theme of some poem or something like that. I do think that we learn from other students more than we do a professor because we each have a question and can find the answer together. We learn more from finding it ourselves than someone telling us in a lecture. A PLN is a great way to learn as a student and as a teacher because a teacher may have a solution to a problem and can share it to other teachers who may be going through that same problem.

Comments for Kids Week 9

I commented on a video in Ben Wildeboer's science classroom. It was on some alkali metals. The students did a great job uding props and descibing the metal

Week 9 ALEX

ALEX

ALEX stands for Alabama Learning Exchange. This is basically a resource an teacher can use. There are eight different categories on the home page such as course of study, lesson plan, podcast, and so on. I personally enjoyed looking at the lesson plan section. I think this could be very useful for teachers, especially new teachers. I found this website very user friendly and very helpful.

Access

Access distance leaning will provide equal access to high quality instruction, deliver quality learning opportunities, and greater equity for all Alabama public high school students through 21st century technology. This seems like it is more for the upper level honors students from what I can see. I am a little confused about this website and is it really useful.

Comments for Teachers: Paula White

Week 7: Sparks of Learning

Paula White makes a comment that "we as teachers often sit down, roll over, and play dead when we should be questioning, expressing our opinions, trying new ways in our classrooms and sharing with our peers. WE are the experts in our jobs and we should be educating parents, students and our administrators NOT to expect the same thing we have always seen or done in schools." This is so true with todays teachers. I see teachers expecting different results without changing the approach. Change is resting on the teacher's shoulders.

Paula also makes a comment that teachers are not to be dictators. No one wants to follow much less listen to a dictator. Teachers need to be encouragers and to develop relationships with students. One of the main reasons I am going into education is to be a role model to the male students, especially those who come from a single mothered home. There are so many young men that I think if they just had a good father figure then they would turn out to become beneficial to society rather than a burden.

Week 8: Being Connected in Jammies

In this blog post Paula White said she just stayed at home all weekend and was like a hermit. She did not leave the house. Even though she stayed inside, she had a productive weekend. She skyped, worked on some blogs and school assignments, and talked to her students using wiki. She worked with other teachers in planning events and creating things.

I do not think I could spend a weekend like this. Even though it was productive, she was inside all day. I am the kind of person who likes to be outside. That is one thing I do not like about all this technology. People get so caught up they can't stop and enjoy some fresh air.

Week 9: Learning, Mistakes, and Being Smart

In this poast Paula White tells about what Carol Tomlinson said at a conference. She quotes several phrases from Carol Tomlinson. I personally like the one "Teachers often teach as though all students are the same. Like bowling we roll the ball down the middle and hope we hit the students" There are several other quotes on her blog Paula White

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Wow! This man has a great outlook on his life. He seems to have a good attitude about the circumstance he is in. He talks about achieving your childhood dreams. He tell us what his dreams were and how he accomplished them.

In his lecture Achieving Childhood Dreams he talks about his childhood goals. The first of his goals was to be an astronaut and he shares that he was able to go to this zero gravity place at NASA. His second childhood dream was to play pro football, and he talks about the lessons he learned from football. He also wanted to be an imagineer and then he began talking about what he had done in the virtual world.

I personally liked the quote about brick walls. He said they are not for keeping people out but to show people how badly they want things. He also said that any thing is impossible. This is so true. If you are determined to do something and put your mind to it, then you will most likely accomplish that task.

I think the Alice way to teach computer programing was an excellent idea. He basically "head faked them by allowing them to make their own game and while doing that they learned computer programing. I think as teachers we need to use these "head fakes" in the classroom. We need to make learning fun. I think the more fun or enjoyable we make learning the more the students will want to learn.

Comments For Kids Week 8

Lakisha wrote a poem about called Rainy Days. She did a great job.
Rainy Days

PLN

For my PLN network I have started a twitter account and am following some of the people Dr. Strange suggested. I wasn't to fond of the idea of twitter but it os starting to grow on me. Sometimes people will post a blog or a website on twitter and some of them are things to learn from. Since I am a secondary math education major I am using a few websites I have found as part of my PLN. I am nowhere at the point I want to be, but it is a working progress and in the future I hope to have many resources through my PLN.

Week 7

This is How We Dream

In part one Dr. Miller began talking about incremental changes into today's reading and writing. Writing used to be done by pen and paper now a person can use other information and copy and paste and it saves tons of time. Research is available everywhere due to the use of laptops and wireless, instead of only being able to research inside of a library. Collaboration is another incremental change.

In part two Dr. Miller talked about sharing ideas over the web through itunes u. He talks about a classroom that not only uses word processing but all digital multimedia. He uses youtube and blogs as a form of publication. I think this would be a great classroom to be in. He wants information to be shared all over the globe.

The Networked Student

This would be a great way to learn. The idea of connectivism is for a person to develop a PLN and to share ideas through the PLN. This makes the classroom very student active. This seems as if it is a very progressive classroom and the student decides what he wants to learn. I don't think i would want to teach in a classroom like this.

Toward A new Future of Whatever

Michael Wesch says media shapes our conversations. He says television is a major creation of our culture. We are a coherent culture these days. Michael Wesch showed a picture of one of his classrooms and an American Idol auditions and compared each other. He said people feel they are insignificant because they feel there are others out the exactly like me and you have to be on T.V. to be significant. I think people do not realize how important they are. I think a lot of people think the world would be the same without me, but I think that is the wrong attitude. Wesch talks about the the progression of the word whatever. I thought this was an interesting video.

Comments for Kids Week 7

Jordan a student in Mrs. Kolbert's class is getting ready for the science fair and wants his classmates to choose a topic and post them in a comment.

Here is a link to Jordan's blog. Jordan

Technology and Itunes

Dr. Alice Christie

I personally enjoyed the section on educational technology. Today all students know how to use technology and to become an effective teacher one must learn technology. Dr. Alice has many different links on her website that one can follow to learn a little about that subject.

I particularly liked the photography section. This makes learning more fun for the student because it is not just a lecture class, but a hands on class. I am a visual learner and I think mist people are. If I can put a picture with a subject and am more likely to remember it.

ITunes University

I personally enjoy itunes university. It is free to download a podcast, and if I miss a class I can download a lecture and won't fall behind. Even if I don't miss a class I can still download and refresh my mind. This is an introduction to itunes u CLICK HERE

Being in secondary education I think this will be very useful to me as a teacher. I can put my lectures up for my class to listen to maybe just to refresh their memory, and I won't have to re-teach everything to someone who missed class. They can just listen to the podcast and then come to me if they don't understand.

IPOds in Learning

This is a link I found that tells you how ipods can be used for learning. IPOD in Education The two main ways it talks about is audio books and podcasting. I had never thought about an audio book, but I used to listen to books on tape all the time when I was younger. Now they are just on an ipod.

Podcasting is probably the most used form of education on an ipod. This is probably the most effective way of teaching these days because students today are lazy and don't want to go to class so now they can just download the lecture onto their ipod. Some people download them just to gain more knowledge not just to pass a class.

Week 6 Comments For Kids

These students are very creative. I thought it was cool that other classmates could leave a compliment and give a few ideas about what they could do better in their writing. I wish my classes diid this when I was in school. I think doing this and getting feed back from other students helps all the students improve in their writing

Mrs. She, Wikipedia, and Mr. McClung

Mrs. She's Class

These kids are awesome. I can't wait to follow their work this year.

Wikipedia Scanners

I also was always told never to use wikipedia as a source because anyone can edit a page. This information is great to know that I can find who has edited the page of if they are a credible source. It is funny that these sources that edited the page use it as advertisement or try to make it sound when they refer to themselves. Maybe this new scanner will help eliminate the amount of edits and the sources will become more reliable.

What Ive Learned This Year by Mr. McClung

Mr McClung hit the nail on the head. I especially enjoyed two quotes from his post. The first is "Our job as teachers is to simply pick them up after they fail, dust them off, and encourage them to try again." We as teachers need to be encouragers not the big bad teacher. The second quote is "In order to build the respect that we all seek in a student teacher relationship, it is important to take interest their the lives of our students." We need to listen to our students because we may be the only person who does.

My Family and Interests

Benefits for Podcasting in the Classroom

Now I realize how important podcasting is. After watching this video it gave me a different perspective on podcasting. I thought podcasting was boring, but Mr. Dell made it fun for the students.
By watching this video I earned many benefits I had never thought about. The first was it can be used for students that miss school due to an illness. Probably the most important benefit is that it made learning fun for the students, and when children are having fun that makes the learning experience all the better. Another important benefit I never thought about is that parents can listen do what they children are learning in the classroom. Parent involvemet is so important to a students learning success.