Saturday, April 30, 2011

C4T #4 Summary Post

Intercepting the Web

For my last comments for teachers, I had the pleasure of being assigned to Jenny Luca’s blog entitled Lucacept – intercepting the Web. The first post that I commented on from her blog was called CCAEducause 2011 – The Game Has Changed. This post was very informative of the various types of technology that can be used for educational purposes. CCAEducause 2011 is an education conference that focused on higher education in Australia. This blog post talks about the many uses for technology in libraries, classrooms, and various higher education institutions. Overall, this post made me realize how many different uses there are for technology to be used in higher education.
In the next post called English teachers rejoice! Vocabulary.com is here, Ms. Luca spreads information about a new vocabulary resource. Vocabulary.com is exactly what is says, a vocabulary website. After I read her post on this site, I decided that I was going to visit it. When you first enter the site, it allows you either search for a word or take a vocabulary challenge. The vocabulary challenge tests you on your knowledge of words and their meanings. This is such a great tool for any English teacher and their students.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Project #16: What Technology Do You REALLY Use?

For our final project, my group is conducting a survey to see how real world classrooms are using technology. If you are an educator, plan on being an educator or are even a student in a classroom, please take a moment and complete our questionnaire.

Thank you in advance!

Lisianna Emmett, Michelle French, Tracy Hunt, and Jennifer Silcox

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Blog Assignment 13

Alabama Learning Exchange (ALEX)

ALEX, which stands for Alabama Learning Exchange, is an online database and resource service that is available for students and teachers.  There are various sections on the site that are available.  Under the section called Web resources, there are many online sources that are available to learn more for specific subjects.  The sources are split up into categories such as teacher resources, administrator resources, and student resources.  This is helpful because it allows for the students and faculty of different schools to use the site effectively.  A way for teachers to use this site is that it has a database for different lesson plans that have been created for different subjects.  It also has a feature where teachers can create their own lesson plans to share with other teachers. 

There are other sections on the site that are useful as well.  There is a category titled Podcast Treasury.  In this section, teachers and students can select a subject and find many podcasts for that subject and on many different topics within that subject.  When I become a teacher, I will mostly be using the English/Language Arts sections of this website.  This would be helpful because it would allow me to find ideas for activities and lessons for my students to participate in.  The resources section will be used to keep myself updated on all of the current materials that I will need in my classes.

ACCESS
Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators, & Students Statewide (ACCESS) is a program that allows for students to take classes online.  When I was in high school, I actually got a chance to use this specific program.  I used this system to take AP US History and German I.  This program gives students the chance to take various courses and work at a semi-decent pace.  When I was looking around the site, I noticed that they offer 14 different AP classes, 52 general classes, and graduation exam remediation modules.  This is a system where the students are doing mainly self-learning.  

Friday, April 22, 2011

C4K 7-10 Summary

Kids and Technology
In my seventh comment for kids, I commented on Mr. McClung’s class blog. The post is called Talent Show. I was assigned to comment on the 8th grader that played a song by Weezer. I did not really recognize the song, but it was played well. The student seemed to put a lot of effort into that song that they were playing. Overall, I believe they did a great job, and I would recommend listening to it.


For my eighth comment for kids, I got to comment on Charlotte’s blog. Her post was called Rocking around the clock. In this post, she tells of the time where she got to learn a dance routine to the song Rock around the Clock. In her post, Charlotte seemed to have fun while learning the routine, and was also excited about her upcoming performance. It is good to see a kid get so excited about learning new things.


My ninth comment for kids was to tour Mrs. Yollis’s class blog and comment on it. In the case of Mrs. Yollis, she uses her class blog to inform people on what her students are learning, and as a way to communicate with people outside of her class as well. She allows for her students to be involved by letting them comment on the blog, and she has a section on her blog that is dedicated to her student’s blogs. By showing what her students are learning, she is also involving the parents in that way. Another thing that I noticed was that Mrs. Yollis allows students from around the world to post on the class blog. For instance, there is a post called “Where is Nonnon – Dove e’ Nonno – Courmayeur, Italy.” This was posted by a student by the name of Nonno who lives in Italy.


Mrs. Yollis has many different instructional posts and videos on her class blog. There is the video on how to comment, a post on how to learn HTML code, a slide show on California, and a video on how to shoot great digital images. All of these are separated into sections at the top of her class blog. When I was watching the videos and reading the information, I was surprised at how informative it was. In the slide show about California, I did not know most of the information that was presented in it. In Mrs. Yollis’ section on HTML code, I learned some code for symbols that I did not know before. The video on commenting was very informative and it shows exactly what it expected of someone when they are posting on her blog.


Another part of my assignment for my ninth comment was to comment on Mrs. Yollis’s post entitled Quality Commenting During Family Blogging Month. This post is full of examples of quality comments that have been found on Mrs. Yollis’s class blog. It uses examples to show what kinds of comments are acceptable on her class blog. This in turn shows what you should not write as a comment on her class blog. I was just fascinated with how many comments there were from different places, and how well the comments were written. In the future, I hope to allow my students do something similar to this, and allow them to write comments as good as the ones that I read.


My last comment for kids was written to Grace from Mrs. Yollis’s class. Grace’s blog is called Grace on the Go! The post that I commented on was titled Quality Comments. Her blog post was very informative on what is an acceptable comment on a blog. She tells how you should make a connection, leave a question, and use proper grammar when writing a comment. Also, it is mentioned that if you receive a comment on your blog, you should reply back to them. I found her post to be informative and interesting. I was certainly surprised to see how well Grace had written her post, compared to the other kid’s blogs that I have seen this semester.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Blog Assignment 12

Watch Salman Khan's video called "Let's use video to reinvent education".  After you have watched this video, answer the following questions in a blog post.
1. Who exactly is Salman Khan?
2. How can Mr. Khan's program be used effectively in your future classroom?
3. What advantages and disadvantages do you see for using this type of program in the classroom?
4. At the rate that education is becoming more involved with technology around the world, do you believe that education will eventually turn into a "global, one world classroom"?


Salman Khan

Salman Khan is the founder of "The Khan Academy."  The Khan Academy is a free education platform which contains over 2200 educational videos for different subjects but mainly focuses on mathematics and the sciences.  I believe that Khan's program can be used in classrooms to allow the students to think ahead of time about the topics that can be discussed in class.  As Khan was saying in the video, one teacher told him that his videos were being assigned the night before, and the teacher was taking the next day in class to work on the homework assignments that they would have given the kids.  I believe that it could be used effectively in my future classroom; by allowing my students to look over the information in the videos beforehand, that they would be prepared for the next day. 
There are advantages and disadvantages that can be seen in using this program.  There is the fact that students would be going at their own pace in this program.  In some ways that is a good thing, and some ways a bad thing.  It allows the students to fully grasp the subject before moving on, but it can also be seen as that the students do not really have to work on it at that current time, and they would proceed to procrastinate for as long as possible.  An advantage that I see to this program is that the teacher can check on each child's progress, and offer help to that student in that area.  In my opinion, I do not think it is even possible to comprehend a "global, one world classroom".  It seems that there would be many problems and questions that would arise from this situation.  Questions such as: Who would teach the students in a "global, one world classroom"?

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Project #16 Progress Report

Progress Report
As of now, the group I am in is formed. It is made up of Lisianna Emmett, Tracy Hunt, Jennifer Silcox, and myself. We are currently gathering ideas for what exactly we are doing for the project. We have a wiki which we will be using to discuss our ideas. The wiki says it is for project 15, but it is being reused for this project.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Project #15

For my groups Project 15, we worked on the USA First Gift video contest.  I am sorry to say that the video will not be available for viewing on Youtube until the contest is over.  Until then, it is located on the EDM310 Family computer in the lab.
Smiley Face

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Blog Assignment 11

Kids and Technology
By watching Ms. Cassidy’s video, and Skype interview, I now have an idea of how she uses technology in the classroom.  Ms. Cassidy teaches her first graders by letting them blog and comment on other’s blogs as well. They use wiki pages in class to learn different things.  Everything on Ms. Cassidy’s Class blog is there so that the students can learn.  Ms. Cassidy also teaches her students to talk to people through Skype, collaborate through the Internet, and has even allowed them to create videos to show what they are learning.  The uses for technology that is being used is letting the kids have fun while learning. 

Some of the things that I would like to implement in my class are the use of technology, and making it a fun experience for my students.  I find that creating videos, using Skype, and blogging are a good way to start using technology in the classroom.  Some benefits that I anticipate by using Ms. Cassidy’s approaches would be that it allows for the students to be excited about learning.  They way that she using technology in class shows that her students want to learn.  As a future-teacher, I want to see my students want to learn.  I do not want them to think that learning is a chore or boring subject.  I believe by using these approaches, it will make so that my students will look forward to learn each day.

Project # 14: Teach Someone Something

Special Assignment: Mr. McClung's World

Mr. McClung's World
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.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Blog Assignment 10

An Open Letter to Educators
In Morgan Bayda’s post An Open Letter to Educator’s, she tells of her experiences as a student. She recounts how that when she was in her education class for computers, they were encouraged to talk to people and to communicate with other students. While she was able to do this in this class, it seemed to her that they were not encouraged to talk to anyone but the professor in her other classes. In my opinion, it is better to talk and communicate with others in the class and even people outside of the class to be able to succeed in classes such as EDM 310. Morgan’s computer class seems to be similar to our EDM 310 class at South Alabama. After watching the video by Dan Brown, I seem to understand why Morgan found the video to be interesting. He surely had an interesting view of education and how it is applied. While I may not agree with him on all that he said, I can see where he is coming from. Information is easier to come by now than it used to be.


No pencils
Tom Johnson’s post Don’t Let Them Take Pencil’s Home is very entertaining. Most of the arguments seem to make no sense. The argument that says, “I have a journal article about how students who use pencils at home have lower standardized test scores.” This makes no sense in my opinion. How does the fact of students using pencils at home relate to them having lower standardized test scores? For all we know, there could be an alternate reasoning as to why their test scores are lower. Overall, I found this to be an enjoyable article to read.

C4T #3 Summary Post

The third teacher’s blog that I was assigned to this semester was Lee Kolbert’s A GeekyMomma’s Blog. In her post Are You a Good Teacher, she asks what defines a good teacher. Since I do not have any experience in teaching, I do not know first had at what a good teacher is. From a student’s perspective, I believe that a good teacher is someone that can keep a class engaged and wanting to learn more. Other ways to define a good teacher would be their attitude and teaching styles.


Ineffective meeting
In her second post Meetings: Who Owns The Problem? she tells of her concerns regarding meetings. When reading her post, I was amazed at how many distractions there are in meetings. Texting, grading papers, and laptops are just a few of the problems that were addressed in her post. In my opinion, people should not be doing any of those things during a meeting. It is very rude towards the person or people running the meeting. Ms. Kolbert mentions a post written by Chris Brogan. The ideas that were brought up in this post were interesting. Brogan mentions to schedule for brevity, keep agendas taut, and to table anything that doesn’t fit the format. These ideas allow for meetings to flow better and to make them not as bad as they could possibly be. It is better to keep to a schedule tight, not add irrelevant information to the meeting, and mention the purpose of the meeting beforehand.