Project 9: Skype Interview

Blog Assignment 9

What I Learned This Year
By Mr. McClung

When I read the title of this blog post, I'm not sure what I was expecting to read, but it wasn't what I found. I loved this post and I bookmarked the link so that I can go back to it and remind myself of these very important points on being a better teacher. I really like his "Be Reasonable" point. I know from personal experience that teachers often have very high expectations for their students. While it is great to have high expectations, it sets students up for disappointment when they do not reach their teachers expectations. They will, not only feel disappointed in themselves, but they will feel like they have disappointed their teachers. Even if they may have slightly disappointed their teacher, they need to be feeling encouragement from their teachers.

Another good point that Mr. McClung made was "Don't be Afraid of Technology". This is something that we are learning in this class and most of our blog assignments have been focused around proving why we should not be afraid of it. I understand this, however, I understand that there are still a large amount of people who are still afraid of technology. But I think teachers, whether in-training or many years experienced, need to take EDM310 and learn how to do some of the things that we are learning. Technology is very useful and pathetically, it is not being utilized. So as Mr. McClung said, "...so jump in head first...the water feels fine."

Another wonderful point, "Listen to Your Students." He points out that we, teachers, may be the only person that does. We do not know the life that our students go home to and we may very well be the only person they have to talk to.

Last, but not least, he states that we need to Never Stop Learning. As I have said in previous blog posts, it is important that we, as teachers, keep our education up-to-date. No one ever finishes learning. Learning is a never ending adventure.

Comments for Kids 2

C4K 4:

My student's blog was a child named Raenan. He is a year 6 student at Pt. England School in Auckland, NZ, and his teacher's name is Mr. Barks. Raenan is nine years old and wants to be a fireman when he gets older. In his spare time he enjoys rollerblading, riding his bike, and playing his PlayStation2. In Raenan's most recent post, he embedded a video of an interview with the famous swimmer, Hayley Palmer. Hayley is a nation and international swimmer who has won a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games and went to the 2008 Olympics. I am not sure why Raenan shared this video in his blog. Therefore, in my response to him, I told him I enjoyed watching it and also asked him why he choose to share it.

C4K 5:

This student's blog was by a child named Victoria. She is a year 8 student at Pt. England School in Auckland, NZ. Her teacher's name is Ms. Tito. When I went to Victoria's blog, her most recent post was done on March 1, 2011. In her post she wrote a prayer for the people in Christchurch who were victims of the devastating earthquake. It was a very touching and genuine prayer asking for God to touch the families who have lost loved ones and to help them stop crying and be happy again. She also prayed that the people who were still stuck under the building to be okay. In my response to her post, I told her that her prayer was very touching and that it was very kind of her to take time to pray for these people.

This was the attached picture to Victoria's blog post.

C4K 6:

For this assignment, I was given a video to watch that students in New Zealand made. The video was filmed by Mitchell and Kris who attend Melville Intermediate. They are in Room 8 and their teacher's name is Mr. Webb. These students researched the sport Handball, which is a game they play for fun on their lunch breaks. After watching their video, the game Handball, reminds me of a game we play here called Four Square. I commented on their post telling them who I was and that their video was interesting. I, also, told them that watching their video proves how interesting the different games cultures play are. They did a great job in filming their video and I really hope they enjoy having technology incorporated into their classroom and learning experiences.

Project 13: SMART Board Lesson

This was a collaborative project, using the SMART Board, by Jenna Baxter, Kelsey Robinson, Kristan Steele, and Woodie Holloway.



     After teaching our lesson, we sent our test to our "students". Three, of our four, students answered all of the questions correctly and the fourth student only answered one incorrectly. Great job! The following is a summary of the test results in the form of graphs:

Which planet is farthest from the Sun?
  

Which of the following planets have moon(s)?

Which planet is closest to the Sun?

Which planet(s) have rings?

Which planet(s) can support life?

Which planet is called Earth's "sister" planet?

How many planets are in our Solar System?

Several of our questions could not be put into graph form so this does not show the result of all of them.

     I really enjoyed my first experience with a SMART Board. I have never been taught with one or used one. If given the opportunity, I would definitely love to be able to have a SMART Board in my future classroom and I know I would use it regularly. In creating this survey/form/test, I learned a new way to create a test and another interesting thing that I can do in Google Docs.

Blog Assignment 8

This is How We Dream 
by Richard E. Miller


     Richard Miller points out some things that really show how our learning has changed. Quite often, we do not carry pens, pencils, books and paper to class; we simply carry a laptop. This video was made a few years ago and we can even assume now that iphones, ipods, and ipads (and other similar devices) have replaced some of the laptops carried to class. The devices we use to learn are forever changing and expanding, becoming more compact and easier to carry but able to do much, much more.
     We have the means to communicate "instantly and globally." You can easily do research for a paper or project without actually touching a book or stepping foot in a library. Libraries are becoming more and more available online. You can, virtually, "go" anywhere while, literally, going nowhere. You can learn from reading text about a specific historical "happening" or you can learn by visually viewing videos or images that you find on websites all over the internet.
     "Ideas do not belong to us individually but they belong to us as a culture. We as educators must be in the business of sharing ideas freely." This is such a powerful statement by Richard Miller. The internet, this virtual world, allows us to share our knowledge with people all over the world. As educators, if we are not sharing our ideas with other people, how can we even begin to say that we are doing our jobs?

EDM310 for Dummies and The Chipper Series

     I watched both of these videos at the beginning of the semester and they were a funny, but helpful, way to introduce us to EDM310 and how important our education is. EDM310 for Dummies gave good advice on how to stay SANE during this semester. It prepared you for what was to come during the semester and gave useful sites that would help along the way. The Chipper Series was a humorous way to show how important it is to go to school and get your education and the troubles you may experience if you do not.
     I would like to participate in an instructional video that more clearly explains to the students how to use Twitter. For the first few weeks of the semester I could not figure out Twitter to save my life. I had a friend, that is not in EDM310, show me how to use Twitter and now I understand. Had we been  provided an instructional video explaining these things to us more clearly, I would have used it and greatly appreciated it.

Learning to Change, Changing to Learn

     This video discusses the ways technology can enhance the education of our young people today and how many schools make them give up these ways during school hours. Texting, blogging, emailing, skyping, and so much more, are often banned when inside the walls of a school (where they could be most useful). These technologies and devices allow students to learn outside of the classroom; so why are we forbidding them INSIDE the classroom? I agree with everything said in this video. Allowing these things to be used in a classroom will allow students to learn on a much broader level. When we do not allow them to do these things, we are preventing them from learning to their full potential. I think teachers all over our country need to watch this video and think about the BENEFITS that cellphones and computers can provide for our students, our future.

The Secret Powers of Time
by Philip Zambardo

               and
Drive: The Truth About What Motivates Us 
by David Pink

   The video The Secret Powers of Time was very creatively made. I enjoyed watching it and was a little disappointed when it ended. In this video, Professor Philip Zimbardo discusses the different types of people in the world and the things that they focus on: the past, present, or the future. He discusses religion, family, education, success, and money. He uses statistics to show us how people's values and lifestyles have changed. When he mentioned the number of people who do not have sit-down family dinners, I thought about his statistically numbers. Twenty years ago, 60% of American families had sit-down family dinners. I was just being born twenty years ago but I remember having sit-down family dinners when I was younger. Now that I am older, my parent's are divorced, and my sister has moved out, it is normally only on holidays that we have sit-down family dinners. The number of people who sacrifice family time, sleep time, and friends to be successful is sad but impressive. It is unfortunate that success sometimes requires sacrificing all these things at some point in your life. I really enjoyed this video.
     David Pink tells us in the beginning of his video Drive: The Truth About What Motivates Us, that he wants to talk about how we are motivated and two specific studies: If you reward something do you get more of the behavior you want? If you punish something do you get less of the behavior you want? If you reward something you do not always get more of the behavior you want. If you offer really big rewards to people for certain challenges, sometimes they will try too hard, get frustrated and end up failing. When you ask someone to do something that requires creativity they do not do as well with monetary rewards. It makes sense to me! I enjoyed this video, as well, but not as much as I enjoyed the first video.

Project 11

For this assignment, I chose to discuss why I wanted to be a teacher.

Blog Assignment 7

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

      Randy Pausch tells you that during his video he will discuss: his childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others, and lessons learned. He begins by talking about his childhood dreams: be in zero gravity, play in the NFL, author an article in the World Book encyclopedia, be Captain Kirk, win stuffed animals, and be a Disney Imagineer. He achieved all of these dreams except for playing in the NFL. However, he uses the quote, "experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted." to describe how he feels about not achieving it. Although he did not play in the NFL, he discusses the football coach he had and talks about the critics that we encounter in our life. His coach was a critic to his football. We, as educators, are critics to our students. I think it is important to point out to our students, at an early age, that we are not there to tell them they aren't doing well to be mean/hurtful but because we care and we want them to be successful. Pausch says that critics are simply people that are trying to help us because they care about us and love us; when people stop criticizing you when you are doing something wrong, they have given up on you.

     Pausch points out that no matter what we try to achieve in life, we will most likely run into "brick walls" here and there. He says brick walls are there simply to prove to us how much we want something and to stop those who do not want things bad enough. This is very accurate. Throughout my life, I have hit quite a few "brick walls." It is important, though, that we teach our students to not give up until you reach the other side.

     Randy Pausch proceeds to tell us how he created a class called Building Virtual Worlds. In this class, there were 50 students chosen at random to work in groups for two weeks. Every two weeks the assigned group and assignment were changed. This forced students to work together as a team, multiple times, with different people. In doing this, you learn people skills. You learn how to interact and work with other people. They also learned how well other people were able to work with them by putting data into bar graphs. Seeing where you need to make improvements to yourself can help you be a better teammate and a better (future) teacher. This will not only benefit the students in the classroom but in life as well. He makes a very true statement when he says "The best gift an educator can give is to teach someone to be self-reflective."

     He also talks about the use of technology to involve a large group of people at one time. Using interactive learning can really keep the attention in a classroom. If you give all of your students something to do to interact in the learning process, they are more likely to walk away remembering more than they would have if they had watched the instructor lecture while flashing a power point slide show. Allowing students to have fun while they learn something that would, otherwise, be boring is truly great.

     Towards the end of his lecture, he talks about the role of parents and mentors. I can honestly say, I do not know if I would be as passionate about my education if it were not for my mother. My mother has played a huge role in my life and has always encouraged me to do my best and achieve what I know I am capable of and even more. As for my mentors, I would say that I have had two teachers who have played a very big role in my wanting to become, not just a teacher, but a life changing teacher. I had a teacher in elementary school who started my love for education. She made learning fun and she loved coming to work everyday and working with her students. The second, would be my English teacher from my junior year of high school. Not only was she an amazing person who was there for her students unconditionally, she made learning enjoyable. I only hope that I can have as big of an impact on my students lives as they have had on mine.

     I only have one more thing to touch on. Randy Pausch had 10 cancerous tumors on his liver but he did not let it stop him. We can all learn from this; every single person can learn from his attitude. He is dying and he knows it and yet he is so content with where he is. We can go through life and let one small thing put us in a horrible mood. From now on, we should think about Randy Pausch when we are feeling a little more like Eeyore than Tigger.

Comments for Teachers 2

I was assigned to comment on Ms. Angela Maiers blog for this weeks assignment and after reading her most recent post, I am more than thankful that I was assigned her blog. Her post was titled World Read Aloud Day 2011: Words Changing Worlds. She says, "World Read Aloud Day is about taking action to show the world that the right to read and write belongs to all people." World Read Aloud Day is on March 9, 2011, and you can find links (for more information about participating) in her blog. Attached to her post she has a video and this is what she said about it, "See first hand how the simple act of reading a book aloud to a student unleashes the full power of words and changes lives in the process." I encourage you all to watch the video. As I watched it, I was truly touched by the pure enjoyment of children having a story read to them. The video tells you several devastating facts:

• Over 72 MILLION children around the world are NOT in school.
• 759 MILLION people worldwide are illiterate and two-thirds of them are women. 
• 10.3 MILLION teachers will be needed worldwide to achieve universal primary education.

"Together we can ensure that all children will learn to read stories to change their lives. And tell their own stories to change the world." This video is truly inspirational and I think every teacher and teachers in training should be required to watch it. I am not going to lie, I was even a little choked up while watching and I cannot wait to make a difference, even in the lives of just a few children. The following is a little bit of my response to Ms. Angela Maiers blog post and the video:

"...After reading this post, and watching the video, I cannot help but to think of all the people who CAN read and write but take it for granted. When you think of the number of children, and adults, who cannot read or write and would love to have the opportunity to learn but do not have the means, it is depressing. However, to have people like Pam who go all the way to Kenya and read such an encouraging story to young people is truly amazing. The response to Charlotte's Web from Diana should be looked at as motivation to all of those who CAN read and encourage them to teach others. After hearing the story she sees the importance of bravery and if you can positively influence just one child's life by reading a story, well, it cannot get much better than that..."

Now I leave you with these two questions and I would love to hear your answers:

• Are you taking your literacy for granted? 
• How can you make a difference?

All literacy begins with the alphabet.

"WRAD Assignment: What would you miss most if you could not read or write?," is the title of Ms. Maiers second post that I commented on. In her post, she simply asks you to think about this question and then answer it. Doing just that, I decided I would be devastated without these abilities! Think of all the simple things that you would not be able to do. You would not be able to read a simple recipe, write a distant loved one a letter, or even read what you are right now. In my response to her post, I stated that as a person that has had the pleasure of these abilities, I know I would be devastated to no longer have them. However, a person who has never experienced these luxuries, doesn't know what they are missing out on and how horrible is that? It is up to us, the future educators, to change that. I have always loved to read and I will always love to read. I just can't imagine life without a good book in hand! So what would YOU miss most if you could not read or write?

Project 10: PLN- Progress Report 1

It has taken me a while to figure out exactly what my PLN is but I am catching on. I have found the website "Symbaloo" to be very useful. So far, I have added a few websites to my Symbaloo webmix. I have created several webmixes. My first webmix is for my personal use so that I can get to my most frequented pages all from one location. I have titled my second webmix "EDM310 PLN" and I have added the websites that I most frequently use for this class:

• blogger.com- for my EDM310 blog and the EDM310 class blog
• twitter.com- used to follow EDM310 staff and other students
• gmail.com- which I use for all of my emailing for this class
• youtube.com- which is also used to upload videos for EDM310
• dropbox.com- for use in several classes to have access to documents at any computer

Comments for Kids 1

C4K #1:

My first assigned kids blog was a child named Anthony. Anthony's school is located on the West Coast of Canada in Comox Valley on Vancouver Island. He plays a wide variety of sports ranging from soccer to skiing. His favorite subject is math and he likes to spend his summer vacations traveling to Mexico with his family. He says one of his favorite things about winter is to build snowmen; if it snowed here, building snowmen would be my favorite too!
I read through his blog to get to know him and I read several of his posts. One of my favorite posts was his post about healthy eating habits. He stated that eating healthy was important to him because he plays sports. However, our assignment was to comment on the most recent post. Anthony's most recent post was his weekly joke. I was humored, but taken back, when I read his joke about passing gas. Not sure if it was appropriate for me to comment on this, I discussed it with the EDM310 staff who made a good point. This types of situations are going to come up in the classroom and it is a good idea to learn to handle them now. I told Anthony that I enjoyed his blog and that he was doing a great job. I, also, nicely pointed out that while some jokes really make us laugh, some jokes are more appropriate when not associated with school. When thinking about it, I would say I was lucky to be faced with such a situation early on.

C4K #2:

My second assigned kids blog was for a child named Vaifoa. Vaifo is in year four at Port England School in Auckland, NZ. His teacher's name is Miss King. His post was titled My Holiday. On Vaifoa's holiday, he went swimming, he went to KFC for dinner, and on Christmas day, he went with his mom and got a bike. He also had a picture embedded into his blog. In my response to Vaifoa's post, I complemented him on the creativity he used in his picture. I, also, told him that his holiday sounded like fun.

This is Vaifoa's Picture

C4K #3:

My third assigned blog belongs to a student named Jesiah. He is, also, at the Port England School in Auckland, NZ, and is in year six. His teacher's name is Mr Somerville. His post was about a cookie and how the cookie resembled earthquake's and the moon. He said that his cookie had craters like the moon and crevices like earthquake's. He also used the "tawny" to describe its color and stated that the cookie was spotted. What vocabulary for an elementary school student! I was impressed. In my response, I told him who I was and why I was commenting on his blog. I then agreed with him that the crevices in his cookie resembled the crevices that are sometimes left on the ground after earthquakes.

This is Jesiah's cookie.

Project 9b

Sources used for the information in this timeline are:

• www.imdb.com
• www.depthsofcinema.com
• www.welt.de
• www.wikipedia.com
• www.hepburntribute.com
• www.heritage.images.com
• www.blogs.timeslive.co.za
• www.audreyhepburn.com
• www.biography.com

Project 9a

Blog Assignment 5

100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better 
By Valene


I have previously owned an iPod Touch and I now own an iPhone. Therefore, I have personally experienced the educational benefits of having such a device. I have downloaded study guides and audio summaries for several different classes and you can easily study on the go. There are so many different applications that can be downloaded and used to help teachers or students and it does not hurt that you can also have fun with these devices. Being able to purchase books for personal or educational use is easier and cheaper on these devices. You can get sparknotes, podcast help, and so much more!

The Education Podcast Network

WOW! This website has so much information on podcasts. You can spend just a few minutes on this website and learn so much about podcasting. You can find out what a podcast is, how to make one, and view podcasts made by students and classes. There are so many podcasts on this site for your viewing which can help you learn more in case you are wanting to do your own podcast. I would definitely recommend this site to anyone wanting to do a podcast but not knowing where to start. I have a feeling I will be coming back to this website for my own personal use.



The Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom
By Joe Dale

There are so many ways podcasting can be beneficial in a classroom, if used properly. Podcasting can make learning more fun for our students. As we all know by now, technology is an easy way to grasp a students attention because it plays such a big role in our lives today. Podcasting also allows students to be interactive with other students that are not in the same classroom. One of the biggest benefits I liked from this video was a child who is sick and unable to come to school. Instead of having to wait until they return to school to get their work, they can simply watch a podcast that explains the same material to them while they are at home. This will help prevent a child from getting too far behind while trying to feel better. Parents can also watch podcasts that explain instructions for assignments and know exactly how to help their child and know what their child is doing in the classroom. This video also provided helpful links about making podcasts.

Project 8 Podcast

Click here or the picture below to listen to our podcast about E-books in education.

This podcast was a collaborative effort by: Jenna Baxter, Woodie Holloway, Kristan Steele, and Kelsey Robinson.

Project 6- My Sentence

Blog Assignment 4

Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please?
by Scott McLeod

     Scott McLeod is an Associate Professor in the Education Administration program at Iowa State University. He is also the director of CASTLE (Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education.) He has received national awards for technology leadership work.
      In Mr. McLeod's post titled "Don't teach your kids this stuff. Please?", he discusses various flaws to the technology that is commonly used today and says not to teach your kids these types of things. However, at the end he states that he is teaching his own kids these things. So the point is, technology, like anything, has its ups and downs but not allowing your children to use technology will, more than likely, harm them in the long run. With as fast as technology is advancing and with how much it is used in almost any work place, it is easy to say that technology is a necessity.
     Although technology is good in many ways, we cannot ignore the bad things. There is the risk of cyberbullying, inappropriate content, etc. However, the downs to technology can almost all be prevented by teaching children the proper ways to use the internet and enhancing privacy settings and parental controls. We cannot focus on just the good aspects or just the bad aspects and we cannot replace everything with technology.

The iSchool Initiative

     The iSchool Initiative is a video by a high school senior with an extraordinary idea. He could not be more right about schools having budget cuts, getting rid of teachers and making classes larger. Larger classes can save money for a school system but it provides less time for the students to get more individual time for extra help. Using an iTouch in the classroom can make a huge difference.
     Using the iTouch can save a ton of money for the parents and the school and it can make it easier for parents to help their student stay on top of their school work and due dates. Being able to use books on the iTouch rather than having to use textbooks has many pluses. You would not have to spend all the money on textbooks, it would be better for the environment, and less to have to carry around. Not having to buy graphing calculators, books, or nearly as much paper, can adjust the budget enough to possibly be able to have fewer budget cuts.

Lost Generation

     This video was, sadly, true. It is very sad to me that so often these days, family is not more important than work and family is put second, sometimes even third or fourth.  My experience working in a daycare I too often saw parents who cared more about their career than they did their own children and it broke my heart. As much as I know I will love my career as an educator, my family will always come first. I was raised that way by my mom; she was always there for me any time I needed her and I will do the same for my children.
     So I agree with her completely. You cannot assume that an entire generation is the same way and will live the same life. Anyone can change the world if they set their mind to it. Therefore, I, also, refuse to be part of the lost generation. Money does not make happiness and happiness does come from within. Family will always come first to me.


 


Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir

     This video is the perfect example of how advanced technology is. It is truly astonishing that you can do something like this and not even be in the same room or the same country. Twelve different countries and 185 different people singing together but never having to leave home. Without technology, this would not have been possible at all.

Teaching in the 21st Century

     This video is full of valid information. Teaching in the twenty-first century is so different than it was years ago. Technology has come a long way and we are able to access it anywhere. At anytime, we can get the answers and all the facts that we need off of countless websites. The only problem is, how do we know which websites hold valid and truthfully information.  In the twenty-first century, this is where teachers come in. Teachers should be teaching skills, rather than facts. We know that students will find answers on the internet, so it is time that we show them the proper ways to go about getting them.
     We use the internet to get the answers we need so would it really be fair to tell our students they cannot? Absolutely not. It is time to accept that the internet is used to do just about anything and showing the students how to pick the correct websites and information is the next step.

Blog Assignment 3

A Vision of Students Today by Michael Wesch is such a reality check about living the college life. I relate to almost all of the things brought up in this video. Spending hundreds of dollars, sometimes per book, on textbooks that are "required" for a class and yet, never opening them. I work everyday and at least twenty hours a week. In the video, they calculate the average amount of time students spend doing various things during the day and it adds up, exceeding the number of hours in a day. I am up by seven almost every morning and by the time I finish my necessary daily things, I realize it is already the early hours of the next day. I get a couple hours sleep and I am up doing it all over again. Needless to say, I do not obtain the recommended eight hours of sleep a night. When thinking about the amount of money we pour into our education and realizing that half of it has nothing to do with what we will do with our lives gives me a headache. Most of us will spend years trying to pay off our college debt after graduation.
     Technology is a requirement in college. It may be minimal, just having a computer to type up your papers or having access to a computer often enough to email teachers daily, but it almost forces you to buy laptops. So these laptops and computers that are basically a requirement, can, unfortunately, also be a distraction. I often see students using their laptop to do things that do not pertain to the class that they are in, therefore, not paying attention to the professor. This video was very much like my own personal college experiences.


It's Not about the Technology by Ms. Hines is so very true and I think every teacher should read it. Yes, technology is changing greatly and quickly, it is not just technology that needs to change. Teaching methods should change too. I agree with Ms. Hines that teachers should be learning too. Education is never ending, we are never done learning. So as teachers, we need to be continuing our education with up to date methods in order to give our students the best education they can receive. I could not agree more with Ms. Hines when she states if a child hasn't learned then no teaching has occured. This is so true. Not all children learn the same way so not all children are going to learn and grasp the material if it isn't taught in a variety of ways.
     All too often students find themselves in classrooms with teachers who have their mind dead set on one way to teach. They do not want to budge from their ways and learn the new ways. However, it is time that teachers adjust their ways to better teach their students. Ms. Hines makes a perfect example of this when she talks about putting technology in the hands of teachers who are not willing to use it. It is a waste of money for sure but it is more so pathetic. I think if teachers would rewind time and put themselves back in the desk as a student and then think, as a student, would I be able to learn from a teacher like me or should I change to better the education of my students? I think things would be a great deal different.


      In Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?, Karl Fisch states, "If a teacher today is not technologically literate - and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more - it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write." He then asks if his statement is a bit extreme. I think not. His statement is very true and not too extreme at all. If we teach as technologically illiterate teachers then how prepared will our students be when they are done with school and if they are not prepared, then have we really taught them anything worthwhile (or even at all)?
     If there is technology available that can help to better educate children, teachers need to learn how to use it and then use it in their classroom to better the education that children receive. He makes a very good point that education is continual, not just for students, but instructors as well. It is necessary for a teacher to be able to teach their students the necessary skills and in order to do that, we must know them in the first place; without knowing these skills, we cannot teach children the things they need to know.


     Gary's Social Media post just goes to show exactly how fast things are changing. It truly is astonishing. As a teacher, I will have to keep up with the new technology in order to help my students learn. Not everything in the classroom should be technology, but this day and age it surely helps to keep the attention and eagerness of students.

Presentation Project 5

Comments for Teachers 1

I was assigned Royan Lee's "The Spicy Learning Blog" for my comments for teachers assignment. The first post I commented on was titled "I Heart Chart Paper and Sharpies". In his post, he discusses the different high-tech tools that can be used to do digital collaboration, mind mapping, and brainstorming. He talks about how easy it is to access these tools but that it is also good to use the "old fashioned" pen and paper. He makes a very true point that "When you get groups working with these tools, behavior is physical and social, a great combination for learning."

My response to this blog post was total agreement. I think it would be a blessing to be able to work in a school system that can afford to have technology incorporated and provided in the classroom. I also think that it is important to know how to do things without technology. Putting pen to paper to come up with ideas is a great way for students to interact with each other and not only technology.

The second post I commented on was titled "Conversation". In this post, Mr. Lee talks about the importance of conversation and how, "It makes learning extremely personalized yet collaborative, loud yet quiet."

I loved the "...loud yet quiet" part. Take a minute and let your mind wonder on what this could mean and the different ways "loud yet quiet" can be taken. I saw it as actual noise volumes but also as the size of your audience "hearing" what you say. A conversation face-to-face can be loud in volume, yet quiet in the sense of how many people are hearing you. However, a technological conversation, such as this, can be considered loud because it is viewable to people all over the world, so many people can "hear" what we have to say.

Blog Assignment 2

     After watching Did You Know 3.0?, it is astonishing to me how far technology has come along. In just a single year, 365 days, so much can change. This video brings your attention to how much our society has become reliant on technology for almost anything. While these technologically advances are useful, what is it teaching society? 

     The video asks, "To whom were these questions addressed before Google?". I find it sad that I actually had to think about the answer to this question. It seems as though our society relies on the internet to just spit out an answer to everything rather than actually finding it out for ourselves. Technology is forever changing. Changing the way we think, changing the way we get through the day, changing the quality of our education.

  
      Mr. Winkle Wakes by Mathew Needleman talks about how different our world is from just one hundred years ago. Not only has technology changed the way society's young people are educated, it has also greatly changed the way our world makes business transactions and manages health care problems.
      Business transactions can be accomplished much faster and more accurately than they were done years ago. Instead of having to actually meet in the same location with a client or business partner, you can simply download a program, push a few buttons, and all of a sudden you are talking face to face with someone from across the world, or just across town, without having to get out of your chair. Mr. Winkle was understandably overwhelmed with how much things have changed. Sometimes, I even find myself overwhelmed with the forever changing technology and find it difficult to keep up with everything.

      I must say, I agree 100% with Sir Ken Robinson, that it is very important to embrace one's creativity and to encourage creativity in children. He is without a doubt correct that our education systems discourage creativity; I have personally experienced this. Schools teach children that there is a right and wrong answer for everything and there is not. For example, having a multiple choice question on a test that begins with the phrase "in your opinion". Opinions are never wrong. Opinions can only be different. So, to ask a question like that and then tell the student they are wrong is absurd. It is very important to remind people, especially young people, that it is more than okay to think differently than the majority.
      Robinson mentions that art's are at the bottom the curriculum in most education systems and he is very right. When schools have to make funding adjustments, the arts are the first to go. However, arts are just as important as your maths and sciences. Arts embrace a child's imagination and creativity and we really need to encourage those in our young people today.
      Robinson points out a very valid fact that the majority of adults are so afraid of being wrong. We tend to conform to what is "right" or "normal" just to avoid being different or shamed. We need to start reminding people that different, is not wrong. Different is what get's us to where we are now compared to where we were twenty years ago. Because someone challenged opinions and thought differently, we have better technology and better medicine today. Many people could benefit from listening to Sir Ken Robinson's video on creativity. I think any teacher or teacher in training could benefit greatly from this and when I start teaching, I will, to the best of my ability, encourage imagination and creativity.

     Creativity and imagination fall hand-in-hand.  In his interview with Cecilia Gault, Sir Ken Robinson states that one of the "three myths of creativity" is that only certain people can be creative. I very much agree with him. Every single person is creative in different ways, with different things. Cecilia also asked Robinson how he defined intelligence. In my opinion, intelligence can be defined in so many different ways. All to often, people are categorized as "not intelligent" because they are not good with math, or science, or history. It is important for people to recognize art as a matter of intelligence as well. People are different and we all succeed at different things.
     I agree with Sir Ken Robinson and Cecilia Gault that it is time for us to catch up with other countries educational success! We need to develop more ways to keep students in school to lower our drop out rates. We emphasize so much on failure and I think this factors into our countries drop out rate. Why do we punish a child so severely for falling behind? The child is always punished for a "failing" grade but is it entirely the students fault? Maybe the flaw is not always in the student, but maybe in some of the teaching habits our school systems have developed. Instead of shaming the student so much, maybe we, as teachers, can help develop better ways to teach them.

     Vicki Davis makes a very good point that not all students can learn with just a pencil and paper. She is doing an amazing thing by exposing her students to a portion of the technological possibilities that are out there. She develops her lesson plans based on how ALL of her students learn and I think other teachers can learn from her. When you think about how technology is so greatly involved in young people's lives today, it only makes sense to embrace that and USE that technology to teach them.
     Not only is she helping them learn better in the classroom, she is exposing them to other cultures and how other cultures learn by connecting them with other students all over the world.  In my own personal experiences as a student, you always have the teachers who are dead set in their ways of teaching whether if clicks with the students or not. I think it is important to do your best to fulfill the learning needs of as many students as possible. A good teacher wants his or her students to succeed and these days, that involves using technology!