Blog Post #6

Asking Questions: What questions do we ask? How do we ask?

Being able to ask questions is very important. It is not only the ability to ask questions but it is also the ability to know how to properly ask questions. In the video Asking Better Questions in the Classroom, Joanne Chelsey talks about the importance of asking questions that are open-ended as opposed to close- ended.  She said to try not to ask children questions that they could answer with a simple yes or no. The teacher needs to ask them questions that they can discuss. Each question should be an invitation into a discussion. As teachers, we need to encourage our students to think and debate.

There were some very good tips in Asking Questions to Improve Learning.  This site showed simple strategies for asking questions. One tip was to avoid asking leading questions. This means to not ask questions where the answer is being hinted in the question. This does not allow for the student to come up with an answer on their own. Another tip was to make your questions specific. Vague questions tend to be confusing and misleading. If the question is specific the student can better understand the topic, therefor deliver a more thoughtful answer. As teachers we need to realize that  with better questions come better answers.

Project #8

Blog Post #5

Langwitches Flat Stanley Podcast
This is was a fun page to read and an awesome podcast to listen to. It is about a 1st grade class that makes their own podcast about Flat Stanley. Flat Stanley is the main character in a book called Flat Stanley. He is a child who gets flattened by a bulletin board and goes on many adventures. The children got to make a podcast about their own Flat Stanley and all of the adventures that they sent him on. This podcast was very inspiring and I would love to try this with a class of my own one day.

Langwithces Listening-Comprehension-Podcasting
This was a very informative page about the importance of listening and speaking skills. The children in a 1st grade class incorporated these skills is the development of a podcast. I loved how the importance of listening and the repetiion of words for language-learners was highlighted. The children recorded a story that they had been learning as a podcast. They even recorded certain parts in Hebrew! This was an amazing project!

Langwitches Podcasting With the First Grade
This was an awesome page about the same 1st grade class doing a podcast on the book Vacation Under the Volcano. The two main characters in the book were children named Jack and Annie. The children recorded a podcast about them interviewing the main characters. This is a great way for the children to get involved in the books that they are reading in class. This was a major success and I cannot wait to try it with my class one day.

Project #7

My Sentence Is

My Passion Is

C4t #1

The teacher that was assigned to me was Lisa Thumann. I really enjoyed her post. She talked about how she is going to be addressing the Common Core differently. Her team has decided to form the Common Core Communities of Practice.  They are going to focus on creating a collaborative, creative workplace for teachers to connect. I really liked how she discussed the Common Core because we just had an assignment about it this week.

Blog Post #4

21st Century Tools

Brittnee-

Promethean is a company that is designed to make many different tools to help students learn. They want to take learning to the next level in the 21st Century.Their goal is to bring together data, resources, tools and expertise. I chose this program, because of the major differences they have made in bringing children together to work in groups and learn at their own pace. The more the children are engaged the better they learn. Promethean uses tools like, ActivTablet which is the same thing as an iPad and they also have an ActivBoard, this is similar to a SmartBoard. On the site you can watch videos of children learning with these tools and see that they are really understanding what the teacher is talking about. These children want to be called on to go to the board, because they want to draw or play the games that can be loaded. The tool that is most fascinating and the one that I would want to use is the ActivTable, this table is a multi-user interactive table designed to promote student collaboration, engagement and student-led learning.I chose this tool, because children use this table to help each other learn and it is a great tool to use for students to become more interactive with students. If a child does not understand something while is it being taught, they can go to the ActivTable and get help from other students.

Amber-

Flipping the classroom is an amazing 21st century tool. The whole purpose of it is to make sure the teacher addresses each child's academic need. I believe that this tool really helps students learn and grasp the subject before it is taught. The object is to have each student watch a video of their own teacher explaining the lesson for the next day. Many 21st century teachers choose to flip their classroom because only 10% is application and the other 90% is teaching or concept. To me that is entirely ridiculous. That is another great example of burp back education. Also, there is not enough time for differentiation in the classroom today. This great tool allows students to watch, rewind, pause and post questions about the topic at hand if they are confused. Students who have mastered the subject may also work ahead. They are able to watch the video as many times as they want.  Many teachers find that after they have flipped their classroom all students become engaged and challenged. This makes for an effective differentiation. Now instead of teaching 90% of the time, teachers realized they have more time to help children apply the skills they have learned. They also have more time to cater to every child's needs. I believe that “Flipping the classroom” is a very effective tool and I hope to use it.

Hannah-  

Prezi is a presentation and software tool. It allows you to turn boring slideshows into something more captivating for your audience. Many people use Powerpoint to express their ideas through presentation. Prezi is so much more than that. Prezi not only allows you to express your ideas but, but it also lets you share them on the cloud. One of my favorite parts about Prezi is all of the animation and decorative options that it gives you. The templates are really fun and interactive! I would use Prezi to present textbook information to the class.  Textbooks can be so boring. This will definitely spice it up! I am also going to make it an option for my students to use Prezi to present information that we are learning in class. I chose this tool because it is great for capturing the student’s attention. I think that the students will enjoy Prezi and actually be excited to make a presentation using it. I found the tutorial on the Prezi website to be very helpful.This is a great tool and I think that every teacher should incorporate it in some way in their classroom.

Project #3 Presentation

Blog Post #3

The video What is Peer Editing? was very useful. I enjoyed how it was to the point. It emphasized the importance of staying positive and polite. When I peer edit these two things are my main concerns. I do not want to hurt anyone's feelings. This video relayed that if you show your peer the positives and the negatives of the paper, you are less likely to offend them.

Peer Edit With Perfection was a detailed explanation of peer editing. I thought it was slightly repetitive but it got the point across. My favorite video was Writing Peer Review Top Ten Mistakes. It was funny and gave very informative examples of common mistakes in peer editing. The child acting was also surprisingly very well. This is a video I would want my class to watch before sending them to edit their peer's papers.

I loved reading Paige Ellis's Blog Post #12. My favorite part about her post was getting to see the conversation between Paige and Dr. Strange. She had the same worries that I do now. Her post helped me realize that everyone needs constructive criticism. We make mistakes and it is perfectly acceptable for someone to help us fix them.

Blog Post #2

Mr. Dancealot
This was a very fun video to watch. It showed a teacher that was trying to teach the class how to dance by just speaking and showing them diagrams on a powerpoint slide. When it came time for the students to actually dance, they had no idea how to do it. The teacher was teaching at them and not with them. Even when they tried to get up and learn the dance the teacher made them sit back down. It really shows the power of incorporating effective teaching methods into the classroom.

Teaching in the 21st Century- Brittnee
 I think that Kevin is right, things are changing and that everything is moving to all sorts of different types of media. Kevin Roberts is basically saying that one day teachers will no longer be needed. The video shows that children will be using computers more. Even though children will be used to using all kinds of different technology, they still need someone to show them how everything works. Using all kinds of different things in the classroom would be handy, but in some parts of the world children have never even seen a computer. That’s why we as teachers should have the knowledge of all the the different types of advancements so that we can keep the kids up to date as well as ourselves. We are now a filter to education rather than the only source. 

Networked Student- Hannah
Wendy Drexler's "Networked Student," served as an eye-opener for me. Everything that children will be able to do online now, and even more so in the next few years, makes me wonder if children will even need a teacher. All learning can be done online. This is if the children find reliable sources. They can communicate with the teacher and other students using any social network.

 As of right now, I am not sure if I am prepared to be a teacher of the networked student. Up until the past few years, I have not been a networked student myself. I have also learned more about the use of the internet this year than I ever have. There is still so much more that I need to understand. Hopefully, by the time I graduate, I will be prepared to be a teacher of the networked student.

 I really enjoyed watching "A seventh Graders Personal Learning Environment." She had all of her sites organized so well. It made it so much easier for her to find everything she needed. She had her school work separated from her leisure activities. I would have to say that her PLE was more organized than mine but it made me want to change mine for
the better.

Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts- Amber 
Harness your students digital smarts is a video about technology in the classroom. Teacher Vicki Davis teaches her students to use their creativity as they use their computers. They create blogs and comment on other students blogs. They are a  very interactive class and are technology savvy. I think that is important in the classroom today. Vicki Davis is a great example of a 21st century teacher. She is open minded and allows the students to teach her as well. We both have something in common. I believe in learning together instead of standing in front of a classroom teaching and having students feel inferior to me. Vicki Davis inspires me to become a open minded teacher and more importantly have FUN in the classroom. 

Blog Post #1

If you built a school, what would it be like?

What I want my students to know

I want my students to know how to have fun while learning. I think that the best way to do that is to incorporate the tools that children have fun on at home into the classroom. This means bringing in computers, cameras, tablets, and hopefully ipads.

What I want my students to be able to do

I want to emphasize the importance of reading and I want my students to be able to take advantage of the technology that I bring into the classroom. I want them to be able to use the technology in the most effective ways.

The primary way I want to teach my students it
I really want to teach my students how to use technology. I use technology everyday and I know that they do to. The use of technology is just growing and I think that it is one of our duties as teachers to grow with it.

The tools I will use in the classroom are
I want lots of books. I know that books are available through technology but I love paper books. I also want plenty of computers, flip cameras, and tablets. It would also be amazing to have a smartboard but i am sure that is just wishful thinking.

The role my students will have in the classroom
My students will play a huge role in the classroom. They will learn to set up the computers and even teach the class using them. I think that the students will have a lot to offer. I really want to focus on their  independence.

Krissy Venosdale had a great blog. The blog was very inviting due to her use of colors and styles of text. Her content was also amazing. I love how she made a comparison to Willy Wonka The picture that she paints of her dream classroom is beautiful. It makes me want to come in and teach in her classroom. Sugata Mitra's speech was very intriguing. He made some points that really stuck with me. One point was that he said "Schools as we know them are obsolete." As scary as this is, it is completely true. Overall this video was inspiring.

Blog Post #14

I thought Jose Picardo's "Top 10 Tips for Using Technology in the Classroom," was very informative. There are many tips that he talked about that I never would have thought to incorporate in a classroom. One of the tips that I liked was the use of music and iTunes. As a lover of music I think that this would be a great way to keep children interested in certain topics. I also really liked how he included Skype in one of his tips. Skype is a great way for children to communicate with others all around the world.

One of the other tips that Picardo suggested was to use social networks. I think that this is a great idea because so many children already use social networks. You can make small groups, communicate easily with your students, and set the privacy to whatever you want. He also talks about using the smartboard more efficiently. This is something that we have been working on recently in EDM 310. I cannot wait to use a smartboard in my class.

Blog Post #15

Final Project

Blog Post #13

I chose to do option 4 for my blog post assignment. The book that I chose to read was called 1984. I read this book once before in the 8th grade and hated it. I disliked it so much that I could not even make myself read it. I believe that now as I have grown older I have developed an appreciation for the book. It is interesting to compare this book in retrospect to EDM 310. I believe 1984  looks down on technology to some degree.

The book is about a man named Winston Smith. Winston Smith is a low- ranked member of his regions party. The party's leader is called Big Brother. Big Brother is apparently watching you wherever you go. Big Brother knows everything that you say and even everything that you think. Winston does not like Big Brother. He meets a girl named Julia and they start to have an affair. Winston also keeps an illegally bought diary of his illegal thoughts. Winston confides in a man named O'Brian who he is sure is a member of the Brotherhood, which is a group seeking to overthrow Big Brother. Unfortunately this is not the case. Soon after meeting O'Brian, Julia and Winston go to there usual meeting spot in a room above the store where Winston bought his illegal diary. The shopkeeper turns them both in and Winston finds out that O'Brian was secretly a member of the reigning party. O'Brian tortures Winston until he finally begs him to torture Julia instead. With Winston's spirit crushed he has now been defeated and is a loyal supporter of Big Brother.

Progress Report Final Project #16

My partner, Jenna Reynolds, and I have discussed most of what we will be doing for our final project. I think we are going to choose one of the classes we have taken in the past and reform it while incorporating the use of technology. We have a class picked out and can't wait to use the smartboard again.

Blog Post #12

Watch the video The Role of Technology in a Society. Discuss whether or not you agree or disagree with the message. Argue your point and follow the requirements in Writing a Quality Blog Post.

The video The Role of Technology in a Society was interesting because it was a different take on technology. Throughout this class we have been watching videos about how technology can be helpful, so it was interesting to see how it could possibly be hurtful. I do not agree with much of this video. I do not believe that technology has affected society in that many bad ways. If anything society has been great for us in communicating, research, and creativity.

The whole incident with the child that killed his parents over a video game was bizarre to me. This could have happened with anything. He could have killed his parents over a toy or just not getting his way. While the maker of this video has a good point about the addiction of technology, I do not think it is as drastic as she makes it seem. I am a firm believer that family should come first and technology should not get in the way of this but there are many ways to incorporate the use of technology in family situations. For instance, playing a family game on the Wii.

Blog Post #11

Getting to see the different types of technology that Ms.Cassidy used was amazing. I never thought that a person would be able to incorporate that many different things into a class of 1st graders. The children seemed to love working with the computers and the smartboard. I think that I could use many of the types of technology Ms.Cassidy used in my own classroom. If I had to pick one, I would use blogs. One of the children said that his blog helped him to spell better and this is something that I have never given thought to . Another thing that I thought was interesting was the incorporation of the Nintendo DS into the classroom. This seems really fun and effective.

The problems that I think I would encounter would be finding the appropriate time for each child to use the same amount of time on the computer. It would be up to me to make a schedule so that every child could get all of their work done. Another thing that might pose as a problem would be the Nintendo DS. While I think this is creative and fun, I could see the children fighting over it. I would probably resolve this by setting turns for the children to take on the DS. I think by incorporating all of these different types of technology into the classroom the children would benefit by gaining communicating, researching, and writing skills.

Blog Post #10

As a teacher I intend to educate rather than teach by making sure that the tools I use to educate are up to date and relative. From being in Dr.Strange's class I have learned the importance of incorporating technology in the classroom. I did not have this very often growing up and I feel like I was missing out. I do not want my students to feel this way. Technology is such a big part of our society that I find it almost unfathomable to teach without it.

Another way I want to educate instead of teach is to make sure that the children can relate to the material that is being relayed. I am sure that this will not happen for all lessons but I at least want this to be possible for most. For most of my classes all I did was memorize. Much of the material that I would "learn" would go in one ear and out the other. I want to make it possible for my students to relate and remember what the lesson was on. I feel as though I can do this by making the lessons more enjoyable and creative.

Tom Johnson's "Don' Let Them Take the Pencils Home," was very informative. The argument that Johnson wrote about was whether or not children should be allowed to bring pencils home from school because they lower test scores. This argument had a message in it. As teachers we often look at the problem rather than the solution. If we do not take a step back and look at how we can fix the problem, than it just keeps reoccurring.

Gertrude is the name of the woman who is trying to keep the children from bringing home the pencils. She argues that the ones who bring home the pencils play games with them rather than learn. Johnson argues that even if they are playing games with the pencils, they can still be learning. If the play hangman they are practicing writing letters and spelling words. There are so many different ways of learning.

Blog Post #9

The first post of Mr.McClung's that I read was "What I Learned this Year (2008-09). " In this post McClung writes about his first year teaching as a stand alone teacher. He talks about how the student comes first and we as teachers often forget this. Teachers make lesson plans and get so worked up about how they will get evaluated that they forget how the student will interpret it. We cannot get stressed to much about the lesson plans because they will never be perfect. The important thing is to make sure we realize our mistakes and learn from them. He also mentions technology and how we should not be afraid of it. We as teachers need to embrace and take advantage of it.

This is probably my favorite blog post that I have read this semester. It was great getting to hear about a teachers first experiences in a classroom. It prepared me for some things that I will encounter when I start teaching. I really enjoyed how he incorporated the importance of communication in his blog post. I agree that most conflicts can be resolved through communication.

The second blog post that I read was "What I Learned this Year (2009-10)." This blog post was about Joe McClung's second year teaching. He moved grades form 6th to 8th. He writes about the transition and the hardships that he had to overcome. McClung also talks about teaching subjects that you really have no idea how to teach. This is helpful to many people because I am sure most teachers have to deal with this at least some point in their career.  

This post reached out to me just as much as McClungs first post did. He wrote about another important thing to do when it is your first year teaching, and that is finding a friend in a school mom. I know this is important because my mom was a school mom. I can remember how much she helped my teacher and how grateful my teacher was. Another topic that I enjoyed reading about was discussing current events in school. McClung says that so many of these children do not think for themselves and we as teachers must figure out a way to help them do this. 

Blog Post #8

Richard Miller's "This is How We Dream," hit home for me. As a lover of books myself, I feel that it is important to have a love for literature. Miller also spoke about how you can by any book now virtually, for only a fraction of the price. I have a Nook and I love it! There are so many paper books that I have purchased that I have never even opened. I have never really thought about it, but this is a waste.

 Miller also talks about how we share knowledge infinitely through the internet. This means that anything you put on the internet is there forever. It is never really deleted. This is amazing to me. This is one of the reasons why it is important to be smart about what you put on the internet. It would be awful to put something horrible on the internet and know that it can never be erased.

 This video was an eye-opener. It made me realize that times are changing. Every day they are making new technology, always something to replace whatever came before it. The way we use to do thing is dying. Pretty soon we will not even need paper anymore, everything will be done through the internet. This is why it is so important to be technologically literate.

 Carly Pugh's blog post was informative and very well written. The assignment that she came up with would be a great one for this class. She does come close to writing with multi-media. It was like she was writing with videos. She put text with it, but there was a video every few sentences. I think that she did an amazing job with getting her point across.

 The video "Learn to Change, Change to learn," had some great points. One man in the video talks about how they are blocking blog posting and other creative outlets for children in schools. We should be incorporating those in our schools. I really appreciated how another man talked about how most children today are in a "nearly now" state. He also says that this is a great state for learning. Simply put, times are changing and technology is a part of this world. We should embrace it.

 Personally I loved "EDM 310 For Dummies." I thought that this video was clever and creative. I would love to be in a video people can relate to. When I first started EDM 310 it was a bit overwhelming. This video made excelling in the class feel possible.