Project #14

Blog Post #10

1.
The cartoon to the right, 'I'm a Papermate I'm a Ticonderoga', was created by John T. Spencer. His cartoon is creative and humerus to those who have a technological schema. This drawing is meant to mock of the commercial, "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC".  This is a commercial which shows viewers the positive aspects of buying a Macintosh and negative aspects of buying a PC, but Spencer's cartoon identifies an issue many individuals have. Purchasing technology on the basis of price can be an unwise decision.

2.
When looking at John Spencer's blog I found some extremely interesting posts. I noticed that every post on his blog spoke about pencils, but it didn't take me long to realize that Mr. Spencer was using pencils symbolically to depict the use of technology in the classroom. I read Mr. Spencer's post, Remember Pencils Quest?, which depicted a classroom scenario in which students researched pages of information. Mr. Spencer, through his post, illustrated the need for technology in the classroom, and he depicted the benefit that technology provides the researcher. Dr. Strange was right, I did enjoy all of the posts on John Spencer's blog.

4.
I would like to introduce you to Dr. Scott McLeod. He is currently the Director of Innovation for Prairie Lakes Area Education Agency 8 in Iowa, and he is a specialist in the areas of educational leadership and the use of technology in the classroom. In fact, he blogs regularly about the use of technology in the classroom. His blog, Dangerously Irrelevant, is filled with posts about technology in the classroom. One of his posts, Don't teach your kids this stuff. Please?, lists the excuses that misinformed individuals use against the idea of including technology in the classroom. I feel that technology is an important aspect of today's classroom. Without technology being taught in the classroom students leave school unprepared to be successful in the modern world.

Project #11

Blog Post 9

First Year:

Mr. McClung’s reflection posts can be very helpful references to refer back to when writing my own reflections. Mr. McClung begins his first post by introducing a common theme which has robbed the classroom of its creativity. This theme is when teachers prepare lesson plans to quote rather than to teach. McClung provides proper methods of teaching such as, be flexible, communicate, be responsible, don’t be afraid of technology, and never stop learning. Each point made in this post is wonderful advice to all teachers. As educators we should continually want to learn and enhance our teaching methodology.

Fourth Year:

In the post about Mr. McClung’s fourth year as a teacher he explained how he found himself struggling to appease his fellow educators. McClung continued trying to appease his colleagues which negatively affected his teaching methods. Later in the year he began to realize his main purpose as an educator which is to teach students rather than appeasing colleagues. McClung found himself in a rut as he taught the same lessons each year, and he found no challenge in this method of teaching. McClung is an educator who continually has an urge to learn and challenge himself.  Many educators do not have the urge to challenge themselves which will ultimately be a disadvantage to them in the classroom. As an aspiring educator I find McClung’s reflection posts encouraging and motivating. Teachers who reflect upon their years of educating will find ways to improve their teaching methods as they learn new ways to handle situations.

Project #12 Book Trailer

C4T Post #1

C4T

This afternoon I visited the blog Keeping Kids First, which was created by a teacher from North Carolina name Kelly Hines. On the website there was a post titled Pencil Metaphor which caught my attention. Kelly Hines wrote about the different characteristics teachers have when being introduced to new technology. There was a drawing of a pencil which had different tabs by each point of the pencil. I began to read through the tabs and found the descriptions true. I consider the metaphor to be creative, humorous, and flexible. The metaphor is flexible because it can be used to discuss numerous topics. One topic I, as a teacher, could use in my elementary classroom would be cooperation. The students who are working with their group would be the sharp end of the pencil because they are willing to help finish the task. The students who have the mentality of "their way or the high way" would be considered the eraser part of the pencil. I enjoyed reading Kelly Hines post about the Pencil Metaphor and cannot wait to read further in her blog.
Here is the comment I left for Kelly Hines.
"Hi, I'm Katelin Brown from EDM310 at the University of South Alabama and I think this metaphor is wonderfully creative and very accurate.  It's very difficult to explain the characteristics of people who are introduced to new technology.  After reading all the points in the photo, I also began to remember certain people, whether it be positive or negative.  I enjoyed reading this post and Thank you so much for sharing!!"

C4T #3
Today I was given the opportunity to read and comment on an exceptional blog post written by Kelly Hines, who is also an educator. Her post was very informative about the author, Peter Reynolds, and ideas to use in the classroom. Kelly provides a link to Peter's website where an individual can learn more about him and what he does to help students. I have heard many educators comment on how his book has made a positive influence in the students. The Dot book has made such an impact it is celebrated on September 15th each year. I appreciate Kelly Hines for informing other educators and I about this great book. As an educator, I will introduce this book to my students and celebrate Dot Day each year.

C4T #4

Frank Nosches is an educator who loves to teach science and shows his passion through his blog Action-Reaction. He has many resources for other educators looking for activities, worksheets, or ideas on teaching a science lesson. I wanted to learn more about what his lessons entailed so I began to search through his blog and found something very interesting. Frank had posted a video clip titled Physics of Angry Birds Lesson on CUNY-TV, which amazed me because he was using technology, not specifically created for the classroom, to teach physics. I was so excited to hear of an educator using the application in the classroom I had to leave him an encouraging comment. I congratulated Frank on his technique of teaching his students about the laws of physics. I also thanked him for creating a lesson which incorporated a popular application that the students are familiar with. I enjoyed learning about Frank Nosches and his enthusiasm to make science fun and educational for his students.

Blog Post #8

#1 Dr. Richard Miller is a professor at Rutgers University who created a two part video titled, This is How We Dream. 
As I watched the video I began to understand what he was speaking about. Dr. Miller makes excellent points about technology advancements throughout the years and societies benefit from these advancements. Miller's main point is the impact that technology has had on writing.
In this two part video Miller communicates his belief that we are experiencing the greatest change in human communication. I agree with Dr. Miller because people are now writing and communicating quickly by the use of technology. Individuals are able to express themselves intellectually through multimedia. As an educator I can use multimedia to communicate with employers, students, parents, and other educators.
This type of writing is not traditional but it is beneficial.  Students are writing blogs, creating videos, and posting pictures while receiving feedback from other people in the world. In my classroom the students will be given the opportunity to communicate using multimedia. Students should be given the chance to write and receive feedback from others. I also believe that writing blogs and using media will teach students to be cautious of their writing technique. As a future educator I understand the need for using multimedia in the classroom.

#2
Carly Pugh's blog, number twelve is wonderfully written and extremely informative. This post is almost overwhelming because of the mass amount of information and insight she gives to teaching. She challenges educators to find their teaching philosophy and present it by creating their own playlist on YouTube. Carly creatively developed an idea to make educators pause and reflect on their teaching technique and how to constructively use multimedia.


#3
The videos The Chipper Series and EDM 310 for dummies were entertaining and creative. The first video depicts an individual who wasn't capable of keeping a job, arriving on time, or being respectful to those around her. This character is known to procrastinate and not finish the tasks started. The second video is humorous because it could be a potential commercial for edm310 to sell a book called edm310 for dummies. The two characters in this video illustrate how unhappy they are with the class and all of the work they are having to do. I enjoyed watching the videos because they have something to teach individuals who will be taking the class.  If I were to create a video for the class I would compare procrastinating students to students who finish their work on time. Before enrolling in edm310, many individuals warned me to not procrastinate and try to stay ahead. I knew the classwork would take a great deal of time to finish but as the semester started I began to understand this fully.

#4
The video Learn to Change, Change to Learn took my breath away because it had educators being completely honest about what needs to happen in a twenty first century classroom. The students are now learnin outside as well as inside of the classroom. They also made clear that students should bring what they learn to the classroom. There have been students in schools who have been handicapped by a school system which believes in a 'vending machine approach', which is an approach to learning that involves a student delivering information rather than processing information. This type of approach reminded me of how Dr.Strange spoke to our class about Burp Back Education, which is when a student is fed a tremendous amount of information then expected to recall the information. I am excited to hear about educators willingness to incorporate a new teaching method.

#5
Today I am participating in a scavenger hunt. In this scavenger hunt I am to fulfill five tasks through using Discovery Education's Web 2.0 Tools.
1. The first task is to create an account and social platform for other teachers, parents, and students to communicate with me and each other.  The website I signed into is Edmodo, which is an excellent resource for any educator. This website is filled with appropriate educational materials, and it is simple to use when communicating with other teachers, parents, and students.
2. The second task was to locate a website which has an amazing tool to create videos like Teaching in the 21st Century. The website with this feature is ANIMOTO,which allows people to create fascinating videos.  There are three different packages available for anyone who wants to create videos, as an educator I will be utilizing the free package. This package allows students and teachers to create thirty second videos with limited video styles and limited music tracks. This is wonderful for the classroom because it allows the students to be creative and gives them restrictions. 3. The third task was to create a comet strip on the website Make Beliefs Comix. This website challenged me to be creative by only providing a small amount of characters and backgrounds. This is the comic strip I created which tells students how to deal with bullying.

4. The fourth task is to find a video tool on the Discovery Education website. The website I found with a wonderful video tool is VoiceThread.  This tool has many features which will enhance your video perspective. This site provides ways to have conversations over the internet by using a variety of media options. VoiceThread also has the ability to hold a conversation. This allows the individual to leave and return to the conversation without losing any information. There are many aspects about this website that I really enjoy, and I plan this resource in my classroom.
5.  The final task is to create a poll at Polleverywhere.com. This site made it easy to create a poll but deciding on a question can be tricky.  Here is the poll I created, enjoy! poll

Last C4T

I enjoyed reading Angela Maiers post, Even Oscar Winners Want to Matter, because it touches on a topic many teachers and individuals overlook. I didn't know of Choose2Matter and had learned of it by this post. I have become a fan of the revolution because it caters to the needs of students and children.  The way it caters to children is by treating them as though they matter.  Her post was enlightening and had shown me the impact the words you matter can make in someone life.

In the post, 5 Ways You Can Be An Innovated Genius, the teacher wrote about the book, Red Thread Thinking: Weaving Together Connections for Brilliant Ideas and Profitable Innovation by Debra Kaye.  This post included a description about how the book reveals different ways to activate an individuals own knowledge and resources make connections for different ideas.  She discussed the five topics which are look for new ideas within those that already exist, ask unexpected questions, look what can play into people’s existing behavior, sleep on it, and think that you are a genius.  After reading these points, as an educator I felt very motivated.

While searching through the blog created by Kelly Hines, Keeping Kids First, I found the post Will You Rondee?!, This posts caught my attention and curiosity because I have never heard of a Rondee. Kelly explained the different aspects this tool is used to communicate, which is similar to Skype. This tool, Rondee, allows people to participate in conference calls online or from a cell/home phone. Rondee can also be used in the classroom to show students how to set up a study group. Teachers can use this tool to have meetings with the grade level team or converse different teaching ideas and methods with other educators.

On the blog Action Reaction, I had read a post titled Learning Analysis. This post  was humerus because it depicted a conversation between a mother and son reading the results of a computer-base math test. The results were not helpful to the student and his mother because it did not explain why he was struggling in his algebra class.

C4KSummary for February

I was given a students blog post by the name of Lyesha.  She wrote about a few sentences about herself and family.  The student showed how much she loved and enjoyed her large family and friend.

The second student, Aidan, had posted a video on his blog. The video had members of his class telling about themselves and things they liked.  At the end of the video they created their own Harlem Shake video which was created in the classroom. I enjoyed watching how creative the students decided to be when recording the video.

The third students blog I have read was Kaleb's.  He wrote a simple post about his family and how much he loved them.  He also wrote about how he like playing with remote control cars.  I congratulated him on writing a great blog post and encouraged him to continue posting.

Project #8

Blog Post #7

Randy Pausch was a computer science professor at Carnegie-Mellon University, and Randy would often lecture on time management.  His last lecture, on achieving your childhood dreams was amazing and inspiring. While teaching at Carnegie-Mellon he taught students about virtual reality, but he wanted to leave behind something more. Randy would also teach his students about life in general.
Randy was a brilliant man who had accomplished many things, but he did accomplish things which were unplanned. Some of the dreams he wanted to achieve from his childhood were not accomplished for various reasons.  Instead of interpreting this as failure he viewed it as a learning experience. Randy taught people how to be optimistic through his own personal optimism.  He taught his students to have fun and be happy with whatever happens in their lives. Randy even made the comment "I'm dying and I'm having fun" because he wanted people to stop being an "Eeyore", as he called it, and start enjoying life.
I also noticed that Randy taught his students to respect others. He gave his students the opportunity to grade one another based on characteristic issues such as team work. Randy enhanced his students awareness of professional conduct because he saw the great benefit of professionalism. The first video I watched of Randy Pausch was about time management. While watching his last video I began to realize that this lecture seems to connect back to his lecture on time management. Randy taught many people about time management and achieving their goals. As an elementary teacher I would implement these teaching methods in my classroom as often as possible. I believe young students should be taught about optimism, respect, and time management.

Project #9 PLN

In developing my personal learning network I realized how organized it can make someone. I decided to sign up on the website Symbaloo to start my PLN. I chose this cite because it neatly organizes everything with logos and color scheme.  The logos make it easy to see and locate on the screen. I added different types of education and entertainment textiles to the grid provided.  In the future I plan to add and learn more about this tool so I can be aware of how to use it in my classroom.