1. By looking at all of the aspects of Mr. McClung's blog, I came to the conclusion that he is a very organized person. Everything on his blog has a place that it belongs in. The way that his blog is put together allows for the students and everyone else to interact with it better. I may not be as organized as Mr. McClung, but I appreciate how easy it is to find things on this blog. 2. As an educator, Mr. McClung sounds to be an amazing teacher. He seems to really be enthusiastic about his career, and wants to make school fun and exciting for his students. In my opinion, he is exactly the kind of teacher that will go far in his field, and do it while having fun along the way.
3. Mr. McClung’s “rules” show how much he trusts his students to follow directions, and to think for themselves. By looking at his rules, one can see that he expects them to be polite in the classroom by raising their hands to speak and to leave their seats. Also, it seems to me that he wants his students to make the right decisions by themselves. My initial reaction to these rules was, “That’s it?” I was surprised that those were the only rules that he had set for his students. As I sat and thought about it, those rules seemed to be the right rules. As teachers, we should be able to trust our students to make right decisions, be polite, and follow directions. If students can follow these rules properly it makes our life as teachers, and the lives of our students’, easier.
4. The first thing under “Everyone needs” was a Daily Planner. I believe that this is the first requirement, because everyone needs to be organized. By having a Daily Planner, students will learn to be organized and to write down assignments for future references.
5. Mr. McClung’s penalties are each day that the assignment is late, it drops a letter grade. Compared to Dr. Strange, it is the same basic principle. Dr. Strange says that if you turn your work in late continuously, you are most likely guaranteed a failing grade in the class.
6. What he hopes to accomplish with his blog is encourage the use of technology and blogging in the classroom. As a future-teacher, I see his blog as an inspiration. I am greatly interested in implementing technology into the classroom. Blogging is also a good way to approach the use of technology for learning in the classroom. In the future, I wish that I could do as good of a job as Mr. McClung in using technology and blogs effectively in a classroom.
7. The two sites that I reviewed in depth were “Plagiarism Checker” and “Convert PDF to Word.” The link for “Convert PDF to Word” led to a converter for PDF files. It is a free site, where the process is in three steps. First you select the PDF file, decide if it is to be in .doc or .rtf format, and then provide an email where the word file should be sent. This is a very useful tool in my opinion, because some people prefer to have a word document instead of a PDF file. The link for “Plagiarism Checker” is self-explanatory. This site is a free plagiarism checker. It is simple as cutting and pasting the essay into the text box, then clicking the check button. This is a good tool for teachers and students. Students can use this to make sure that their papers are not plagiarized. I think both of these links made his list, because they can serve a constant purpose. It is very beneficial to have access to these two sites on a regular basis for different circumstances. 8. The rules that Mr. McClung sets forth for safely using the internet are very helpful in most cases. It is better to not use a full name when commenting on other blogs, but in some cases one has no choice but to. It is a good thing that for his students that he has a generic email for students to use. The disadvantage of this is that not everyone has the advantage of having a generic email just for comments of outside blogs. Overall, I do not see the need to add or take away any of the rules that Mr. McClung has for his students on internet safety.
9. When I looked under the category of Videos, I found some very interesting posts. There were history lesson, news reports, and my others. One of the posts was called “The End is in Sight.” This post is talking about the class’ continued lesson on the Civil War and Emancipation Proclamation. There were two videos in this post. One was telling about the Emancipation Proclamation, and the other told about the impact the document had on slaves at the time. This was a very interesting way of showing what the students were learning in the class. 10. One thing that I liked about Mr. McClung’s blog is that there is a feature where you can talk with him. I find this to be interesting, because it allows for direct contact with him where people can ask questions in regards to his blog. I find that this would be something interesting to have in Blogger to allow for a faster information transaction to occur between the owner of the blog and the person questioning.
11. Mr. McClung makes his blog useful by allowing for people to look at see what his students are working on in the classes. This blog shows that he is doing more than just teaching the students, but encouraging them to do their best in what they can do. Parents, teacher, administrators, students, and others can use this blog as an example of teaching methods, and a source of information for
12. His 8th grade blog is different, because the students do not seem to post at all. This is interesting; because of all the blogs that I have commented on, most kids have to post. This blog is mainly set up as a way to keep up on information in the class. In the Arkansas History section of the blog, is full of resources that talk about the subject and tells of what is to be expected in class. This blog reminds me of the EDM 310 class blog. It is there as a way to pass information to his students and to remind them or certain topics that he may have forgotten to mention in class.
13. Overall, I enjoyed reading Mr. McClung’s blog. It is a very useful tool for any educator, and the way that it is set up allows for efficient use of the blog.
