Blog Post #15 Final Reflection

Project #16

Our iBook

Our iBook has a Peter Pan theme and consists of collaborative work within our group along with individual projects and blog posts that we were assigned throughout the semester in EDM310. Our group name is San Francisco and our group members are Emily Huff, me (Emma Elwell), Briley Lovett, and Lauren Reid.

C4T #4

Angela Maiers blog post, Broke, Busted, and Disgusted-Can We Spare Students This Fate?, focuses on liberating your genius from the bondage of debt. No one wants to waste time and a lot of money to go to school for something you do not love. That just piles on the debt, especially if you are not finically capable of making money saving decision. Maiers expresses how important it is to teach student's as much as you now know to benefit them in the future.

In her most recent post, Choose2Matter LIVE, she describes the conferences she has been traveling to. She begins with asking her audience, "What matters most to you and why?". There is no right or easy way to answer this to most students. The process of answering this question is the first step in unlocking the unique genius in each student, by focusing them on their values and purpose, and fostering self-awareness. Students have learned that each of them has a unique genius to contribute to the world, teachers have remembered why they chose education as a profession, and everyone who has witnessed one of these experiences has been utterly transformed.

C4K April

My first C4K assignment for April is Mororoa. Mororoa has been blogging since year 6 and is now a year 8 student at the Pt England School in Auckland, New Zealand. Mororoa's blog post is a rubric on how to write a good paragraph. Her topics are punctuation, main idea, juicy words, and if it makes sense. Once again the student's from Auckland, New Zealand have impressed me. Mororoa has very good points to judge in a well written paragraph. It's definitely a great rubric for young students.

My second assigned student for April is Teija. She is in Miss Nalder's year 4 class also at the Pt England School in Auckland New Zealand! Her blog post is about legan and illegal images. She states that she knows her pictures are legal because she uses the insert tool to search for a legal image that then inserts into your draft of your blog post! I didn't know you could do this! This is very informative, fast, and most importantly legal! great job Teija!

Blog Post #13

Instructions: Watch Doris Fromberg's youtube video What Kindergarten Should Be and write a blog post on what you learned from this TED lecture. This assigned is specifically for Elementary Education majors who wish to teach kindergarten.

My Blog Post:
Doris Fromberg starts off her What Should Kindergarten Be? lecture with the obvious fact that children should learn concepts and skills in direct ways. Everyone needs to consider that young children learn in different ways, comparing physical experiences and comparing interactions with other people and their own feelings. They learn a lot through their imagination and pretense. Fromberg states, "engage in pretense". Research shows that high fantasy children, children whose families have pretended with them, tend to have more patience. Those high fantasy kids also are better with connecting making and are more pretensive. You always seem to see early childhood students sitting on the floor playing with building blocks. What other term for them than building blocks! Because physical activity with 3D materials is creating the spacial perception that they will need to understand concepts in some of the following subjects: mathematics, physics, chemistry, and geography.

The subject of surprising experiences really caught my attention in Doris Fromberg's lecture. If you have a group of students and you ask them which magnet with collect the most paper clips, they will more than likely chose the bigger magnet. Those students would normally pick the bigger magnet because they associate bigger things with stronger things. Therefore the bigger magnet will collect the most paper clips. But if you surprise your students by telling them that the correct answer is the smaller magnet, they don't expect it. This allows them to experience it and learn from it. So they expect, experience, and then compare surprise, learning, and assessment. Fromberg states that professional kindergarten teachers are always assessing their students to see how to further challenge them. Because if children feel competent, they know the possibility of them succeeding. Then they can continue forward with a higher percentage of dealing with an occasional setback easier.

Doris Fromberg's lecture was very interesting and extremely well spoken,as are all TED lectures. But she makes some very valuable points for kindergarten specifically. Furthermore her lecture is very informational and I recommend everyone take time to watch it if kindergarten interests you!

Project #12 Part B

Blog Post #12

What assistive technologies are available to you as a teacher?

Assistive technology is any object or system that increases or maintains the capabilities of people with disabilities, therefore these would be highly used in special education classes. Despite the high need for these technologies in special education classrooms, they would also be used in any classroom as well. For example, you may have a student who cannot see as well as others, so simply using an enlarged keyboard in the classroom can help.

A lot of assistive technology used in the classroom that most people have heard of are alternate input devices. These alternate input devices allow individuals to control their computers through means other than a standard keyboard or pointing device. These technologies include: alternative keyboards, electronic pointing devices, wands and sticks, joysticks, and touch screens. The one that I foundd most important in a classroom with disabled children would be wands and sticks. Some disabled children have a hard time using their motor skills. So any other alternative in general is good; however, a wand or stick can increase their mobility along with their knowledge. If a student had limited mobility another great assistive technology would be a voice recognition program. These programs allow for students to put data into their computer via command than to use the mouse or keyboard.

While watching, Teaching Math To The Blind, I was incredibly intrigued by how hard it is to teach math to the blind. Although it is difficult it is not impossible. Professor Karshmer explains they use little tiles, like game pieces in Scrabble, that have braille on one side and visible numbers on the other side. These blocks allow blind students to line up the numbers when adding and subtracting. The blocks used in the classroom are put onto a grid that will map onto the visual cortex with a two dimensional math problem. Another thing you can do with the blocks is scan them and the computer will say out loud the number that is on the tile. What an awesome way to teach the blind and it is very creative! I enjoyed learning about this so much because I have never heard of it!

It is so important to teach all your kids to your best ability. If that means using assistive technology, then so be it! These methods and devices are created to help those specific students who are disabled. I would definitely use these in any of my future classroom.

Blog Post #11

Collaborative Blog Post

Project #10

My interview for this assignment is with my Aunt, who is also a third grade teacher at Bonnie Ecole Elementary in Slidell, Louisiana. Mrs. Kathy Fortier has been teaching for thirty three years and thought she would be perfect for my interview! I chose to use both project-based learning and the use of technology in the classroom as topics for our interview.

C4K March

My first C4K student I was assigned was Nahea. Her recording was the first one she had ever done! Her story was about all the things she can do on the ipad. I am personally so proud of such a young person who has accomplished that and then be able to share it with us all the way from Auckland, New Zealand!

My next assigned student in Auckland, New Zealand was Charles. Charles is in Class 9 at Pt England School. His blog post was about his swimming lesson. He does a great job using adjectives to describe every little thing about what leads up to the swimming lesson and the swimming lesson itself. He also adds a reflection at the end of his blog post. His reflection was,"I think I did very good today". Charles seems like such a bright young boy who has such a positive outlook.

My third and final student assigned for march was Byron. Byron has been blogging since class four and he is currently in class seven/eight. Byron's blog post contained most important points on the subject of warriors versus dragons. It is such a great thing that student's can recognize what main points make up a summary. Or to be able to pinpoint the most valuable information in a certain topic.

I really enjoyed reading my assigned blog posts from the students all the way from Auckland, New Zealand. They show such promise in their work and it is really something these young students are technologically advanced. They are probably more tech savvy than some college students. In that case, these young scholars have substantially impressed me!

C4T #3

Brian Bennet's first post, The Problem with Evolution, discusses that sometimes teachers will go over subjects in the classroom that are just to vague. Since the subjects are so vague it is harder for the students to grasp the content of the material and really learn from it. Bennet then brings up the simulation called PhET Simulations. "They're interactive models of topics like evolution, but also chemistry, earth science, and physics, among others. These would be very helpful if you're in a science classroom. These simulation use repetitiveness which makes kids think it's a game. The simulations keep students engaged and lets kids enjoy learning.

Bennett's second post, Living the Connected Life, he describes the anxiety you get when you are not being able to know what is going around you all the time. For example, not being on your cell phone texting, tweeting, and face-booking. he also states that the use of all of these social medias increases your PLN. So, when you aren't connected you are missing out on some PLN opportunities. I really enjoyed both of Brian BEnnett's blog posts that I read. I really enjoy when I am able to connect to a fellow blogger!

Project #15

This project is another individual lesson plan based on the subject of health. It is a lesson plan specifically designed for third or fourth graders. It lasts up to two days, but can last up to three days if you need it to. The class is taught all about the food pyramid and the simple fact that humans need nutrients for the body. This lesson plan is great to instill in young kids so they can maintain a healthy lifestyle! To view the lesson plan, you can go to my Google site.

Project #12 Part A

Blog Post #10

What Can We Learn From Sir Ken Robinson?

Sir Ken Robinson's lecture, Bring On the Learning Revolution!, was absolutely engaging, extremely relatable, and funny. However, most importantly informational. He makes very valid points toward education in today's generation. Robinson states in his lecture that education should be changed. In order to do that, normally we would change it or fix what is wrong. However, in Bring On the Learning Revolution, the better solution would be to start new again. This brings the solution to a revolution for education. Robinson uses the saying,"rise with it not to it", which I love. It shows that you must start anew and act anew, by creating new ways for education.

One of the most important things I took from Sir Ken Robinson's speech was how the world sees education. For example, everyone graduates college in four years. I personally can relate to that because everyone learns differently. Which can lead to being a little behind others or more ahead than some peers. Society needs to know that it is okay to not be on a strict schedule when trying to complete school. You can get a degree right out of high school, or 20 years later. Human flourishing is not a mechanical process. You cannot predict the outcome of human development. Also, timing should not matter because as Robinson says,"a three-year old is not half of a six-year old". A three-year old is a three-year old, someone who may or not know things depending on what they have come across since entering the world. Once again, everyone learns everything differently and definitely at their own pace.

Sir Robinson's states the perfect example for how our generation is so technological. He asks the audience who all is over and under the age of twenty-five. After that, he asks, out of the above twenty-five year old age group, who is wearing a wristwatch. Someone who was over the age of twenty-five in the year 2010 was not born in such a technology savvy generation. Therefore, they have never depended on their phone for time. Those people depend on their wristwatch. Robinson has a twenty year old daughter and she stated to him that she does not need a watch due to the fact that it only does one thing. This is a prime example why our generation today is advanced in technology. Next, he talks about passion. He defines passion as something that excites our soul and that it is different in every person. Passion is when you enjoy something so much that an hour feels like five minutes. It is doing what you love. I love that Robinson mentioned that into his lecture because it is important to try and do what you love with your life.

Robinson's speech made a huge impact on me. I have never been able to relate so much with a lecture that we have been assigned to. There is nothing more rewarding than being able to connect with a speaker like that, and then being able to learn so much from it. I will carry what I have learned from Sir Ken Robinson's lecture into my teaching days and make sure to incorporate them into every day life and to always remember to keep my passion in mind.

Blog Post #9

What can we learn from Mrs. Cassidy?
In the first video with Mrs. Cassidy, She talks about many different things. Mrs. Kathy Cassidy is a 1st grade teacher and firmly believes that technology is an important factor within the classroom. Although her administrative staff doesn't discourage or encourage her directly, the parents of her student's find the technology a positive thing in the classroom. It allows for an audience and for the students to reflect on their own work. Most importantly, parents like the online work so that they are able to see the progress that their own children have made in the class. That is such a huge deal for parents to see their children achieving greatness. Technology is not going to go away. In fact, it will just continue to impact our classrooms more and more as technology progresses. Cassidy says kids and technology go hand in hand. So, the first graders sometimes seem to know more about some online programs than most of my peers do. It's amazing how fast they can pick up on online programs and it's because technology is a part of the every day life now.

During the second video, Cassidy makes a very good point of how to begin using technology in the classroom. It is good to start with what you are most interested in. For example, if you are interested in video you can start with iMovie or YouTube. Another example would be to use Blogger if you're interest is writing for your students. This is a very good place to start with your students. Then, once you start you can progress and add in more programs to your every day lessons. In the last video, she answers questions from John Strange's students. Cassidy informs us about how often she uses blogging. You can use Blogger every day in the classroom, once a week, or even once a month. When using Blogger, you can blog individually or as a group. These are different methods you can use in the classroom to accomplish different academic goals. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Skype sessions with Mrs. Cassidy and I can definitely say I learned from them. I'm learning so much in this course to use in my future classroom and I can't wait to put all of it into action.

Project #14

For project #14 we were instructed to create our own individual lesson plans designed for a specific project for the grade we wanna teach. My project is a kindergarden based animal recognition project. This project is over a duration of a week for about 20 minutes a day. It is designed for students to establish and learn shapes and colors that coincide with specific animals. To find my lesson plan, you can visit my Google Site.

Blog Post #8

21st Century Learning and Communicating Tools

The first learning and communicating tool I discovered was Edmodo. Edmodo is a online facebook-like environment where classes can connect online. It is very similar to blogger because you can access what other teachers are doing in their classrooms, collaborate on assignments, and discover new resources. Edmodo is used to get students excited about learning and keeping them engaged. Using tools online does help educational purposes more enjoyable for students. Kids these days love Facebook. So why not use a similar technological tool for learning? Technology creates a initiative to learn.

My favorite by far is Grockit. This is a website for online study sessions. On Grockit you can study for your every day class test or even your ACT or SAT. Grockit is most beneficial for college level students. Grockit is convenient, no boring classrooms and lectures! Grockit predicts your score based on your answers and tracks your performances and improvements, projecting accurate score improvements. Grockit study plans provide practice tests, personalized insight into your weak subject areas, review of your work, and the right tutor to help you. This is perfect for any struggling college student, including myself. Which is the most important reason why Grockit is my new favorite learning and communicating tool.

These two tools seemed most important to me because I feel like I would really use them. Finding these was fun because I did not know they even had tools like this. Usually I only hear about tools from my professors, but it was awesome being able to go find them all on my own. Especially to look for ones that I can use in the future or specifically for certain subject while I'm currently enrolled in college courses. It is very rewarding to find and be able to use these today and for the rest of my educational experiences.

C4T #2

The teacher's blog I was chosen to this week was Andrea Hernandez. Her blog Authentic Literature talk about her "parent connect sessions" every month. These sessions are where a small but dedicated group of parents joined us to discuss a variety of topics related to changes in learning and how their school would respond to those changes. Hernandez says that this "promotes initiatives, as that small group of parents acted as ambassadors spreading vital positivity and understanding throughout the parent community." This really opens up a great opportunity to be the best because of the parent's and teacher's opinions.

Andrea Hernandez's next blog, A Teacher's Ode to Read-Alouds. First of all, Hernandez believes that reading aloud is a vital tool for teaching anything and everything about reading. Reading out loud offers great opportunities to discuss vocabulary strategies! Vocabulary strategies used in the classrooms are things like the word wall. The word wall is where student's pick a word from the read aloud, that they might not know, and try to find a synonym of the word that they do know. Reading aloud also gives the opportunity for assignments afterwards, such as written responses and discussion. I loved reading this blog because I have never had this point of view on reading aloud in the classroom. It's a great perspective and has really inspired me to use this in my future classroom. Along with every blog post from Andrea Hernandez, they have all inspired me to use her ideas in my classroom!

Project #9

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Project #13

My group, San Francisco, created our Lesson Plan #1 on the subject of second grade science. The goal for our lesson plan is to bring forth as much information about the solar system to our students as we can. It is a project designed to last a week with a maximum of two hours a day to work on the assignments. Tasks that are assigned to this project include: physical characteristics of each planet that is assigned to each group, the distance each planet if from each other, and to be able to recreate a 3D model of assigned planet.

Blog Post #7

What Can We Learn About Teaching and Learning From Randy Pausch?

Randy Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon who developed pancreatic cancer and was only given a few more months to live. Randy Pausch says, "If you have one last lecture, what would you teach about?". Randy chose to teach about achieving your childhood dreams. His last lecture tells us a lot about what we can learn about teaching and learning. Taking advice from a World Book author and a creator of virtual realities wouldn't be such a bad idea.

Pausch's last lecture is very engaging while very amusing. He first brings up the importance of brick walls. Brick walls let us prove how badly we want things. How bad will you strive for success? What if something gets in your way? If something does get in your way of something you want. Randy says don't let it stop you from achieving your dreams; therefore, knock the brick wall down. Pausch continues his lecture with the importance of criticism. People in your life only criticize because they care. You have a problem if your teacher stop criticizing you. Its a sign they have given on the success you can achieve. A very influential quote Randy Pausch states is,"experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted". That is nothing but the truth because you may not get everything in life you always dreamed of, but you got the journey it took to try and reach those dreams. It's all about finding the positivity in the journey to your dreams.

Pausch introduces the act of a "head fake" in the classroom. A head fake is used to trick your student's into learning more than what they think they are. So your kids are learning algebra and after you have taught the lesson you assign practice homework. The practice homework is not due the same day as the lesson was taught, so it is up to your student's to complete the given work with a chosen group and have it turned in by a specific day and time. The fact that the assignment is outside of the classroom, and the students are divided into groups, it gives them a chance to learn much more than algebra. They have to learn organizational skills by creating time for their group to meet and complete the assignment. They learn teamwork by collaborating their knowledge and cooperation. Both organization and teamwork are inconspicuously taught while algebra is being taught. Head fakes are a great way for your students to learn indirectly!

Randy Pausch had such a positive outlook on life and teaching. I definitely plan on using his tactics in the classroom. Out of the lecture I took great joy in learning about head fakes. Only because I had never thought of it that way, which will come in handy when using project based learning in my classroom. All of his ideas I can put to good use in my classroom in the future and it is a great opportunity to learn from such a well known expert.

C4K February

My first week of C4K assignment's was the student Sophie, her blog was a video that demonstrated step by step how to write a thesis statement. It's amazing such a young child can accomplish what I'm just now learning in college while blogging. Her video was very well done and extremely helpful. I, as a college student, still use thesis statement's when I write papers. Sometimes when I have written a paper in a while, I forgot how to go about creating my thesis statement. But Sophie's video is a very good reminder just in case I ever forget again!

My next assignment was Seth's blog. Seth's blog post was a survey to learn a little bit more about me! The survey asks things like what my favorite dessert is and what games I like to play. Another interesting question was the population of the state I live in. I had no idea the state of Alabama had a population of 4822023! I guess you learn something new every day! His blog was different, it wasn't just something informative to read, but something I could actually participate in. Seth's blog post was by far my favorite because of how refreshing it was.

Sasha's blog post was all about the city Havana, Cuba and how she had visited there with her family She states all the many things she got to do and see while visiting this beautiful city. Sasha describes how much she hopes she can go back and how much she really enjoyed seeing how the residents of Havana lived. What an amazing opportunity to go outside of the country! I hope to visit more cities out of the country as well.

The anonymous author, LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL, describes in his/her blog how the suspense was in one of his assignments. I think it's great that the author gives perspective on how he/she would react in that kind of situation. They keeps the reader involved in their post by asking how they would handle that type of situation. I love that the author engaged the reader.

Blog Post #6

What is a PLN? A PLN stands for personal learning network, this network is the entire collection of people with whom you engage and exchange information online. People involved in your personal networks can be friends, family, peers, experts, and professors. Many teachers use personal learning networks to do many different things such as professional development and learning new technology to incorporate into their classrooms. PLN's use social networks like Twitter, Wiki, Facebook, blogs, and LinkedIn to communicate online. Along with professional development and learning new technologies, you can use PLN's to get lesson plans from master teachers and find links to interesting educational news. All of these things you can use in your classroom.

Very few people make it onto my list of PLN's, but that is only temporary. As my education furthers I would like to gain more personal learning networks than right now. I do have the honor of Dr. Strange being one of my personal learning networks. He has taught me so much in the few weeks I have been in his class. He has furthered my knowledge more than I could have expected. All of the teacher's blogs I have been required to comment on have become a part of my personal learning network too! Only reading just one of their blog's has given me information I can put to use in my classroom when I become a teacher. PLN's can really help me in many ways when I do become a teacher. I'd love to pass the information I have gained about PLN's to my students, in hopes that they can get a jump start on their personal learning networks. Therefore, the internet can become a great source for them to use.

PlN's can be formed piece by piece and in no hurry. Say you start with creating a Twitter account, and then you can build from there. Explore the Twitter world and then add another piece to you personal learning network, like Facebook. You can add something you have seen someone else has used or you can choose to try something new all on your own. The next step would be to fully branch out into the social networks to gain more people into your personal learning network. Since I am a lifelong learner, the tools I use now for my PLN will be updated by the time I am a teacher. So in the future I would love to use blogging as a way to connect with other educators on how their project based learning classrooms are going. PLN's are a great way to share what you have accomplished in your classroom and learn new information you may not have known!

Project #8: Book Trailer

Blog Post #5

In the first video, Project Based Learning Part One, conversations hosted by Anthony Capps, go over project based learning. How do you approach being a teacher who uses project based learning? First off, project based learning is constantly evolving but as of right now, the goal of PBL is to show that your student's have learn something. Project based learning is a means to get them to learn material. Project based learning is beneficial because you can get your student's excited about the knowledge! In project based learning, the teachers reward the student's for work that they accomplish. When using project based learning it is good to use something that will spark their interests and deals with the community to show how it would work in the real world. "Students are driven by content"(Capps). The most important thing about PBL is sparking a student's interest because what better way to learn than with something you are truly interested in. Anthony Capps student's, who are in the third grade, peer review their classmates papers, and are given the chance to reflect on their own work. Reflection of your own work is very beneficiary to see what you have accomplished and what you can improve on. PBL offers many situations in which you can revise and reflect. Even reviewing tests can show reflection by seeing the learning happening!

In the sequel, Project Based Learning Part Two, Capps is at it again! This video is a continuation of PBL, and starts off with the fact that everything does not go as planned! That's ok, and it's definitely okay to accommodate yourself with alternate assignments if given the obstacle. Project based learning really gives student's a sense of pride and ownership over their work, which really makes them excited about learning! It gives student's an opportunity to not be trapped with busy work in the classroom, giving them every reason to be engaged in learning.

My first thought when I saw the title of the video, iCurio, is that I have no earthly idea what this is and I'm about to learn something new! iCurio is a online search engine where you can look up media, audio, and video, kid friendly, information. It is also filtered for educational purposes to where younger grade levels can have access to the web. All grades can use iCurio, because it is full of information! One of the great aspects of iCurio is the storage capacity. It allows student's to organize the material they have discovered, giving them the opportunity to come back to it later. Since it is a login based tool, student's can access iCurio whenever they want to! Even if it is after class time, because sometimes you get wrapped up in what you're learning and then the bell rings!

In the next video, Discovery Education, is a short but sweet video on a special tool for project based learning. This tool brings experts into the classroom video. Students listen and watch more than they read and write these days. So informational videos are a good educational, project based learning tool. It really is a good tool for bringing text alive and giving the student's an enhance research experience.

The video, The Anthony-Strange list of Tips for Teachers Part 1, is a collaboration of Dr.Strange and Anthony Capps top five tips new teachers should think about. Tip number one is be just as interested in learning. You have to be the learner as well. Tip number two on their list is that is hard work, but fun. Teaching is a constant, rewarding process that never ends. Tip number three is to be flexible enough to adapt to surprises that may come along in the classroom. Everything doesn't always go as planned, and there always needs to be a back up plan! Tip number four is to get the kids engaged in learning!It's a good idea to use the "no child left behind" method to ensure all of your student's are engaged in the classroom. And last but not least, the fifth tip is reflection. Reflection is key in the classroom to give the student's the opportunity to self evaluate and improve their work! This is all such great advice that all teachers should follow along with myself. I'd love to use this as a guide when I first become a teacher!

In the next video, Don't Teach Tech-Use It, it's is saying to not teach technology, introduce it! You want your students to be introduced to different tools online so one day they can combine all of them into a project. It gives them the opportunity to be creative and express themselves. While you can't expect perfection the first time around, the video states that you can guarantee some student's efforts will surprise you!

In the final video of this assignment, Additional Thought About Lessons, it explains the four component of lessons. A lesson is four layers thick and in those layers is what your lesson needs to cover in the time period of a year. So the four components are yearly, and then you have units within that year. In those units your lessons should be broken down into weeks, and then from weeks you have your daily lessons. All of these things are there to ensure you cover all of the material needed. The video explains the importances of your daily lessons. They need to include a hook to spark the student's interests. From then you can continue to keep them engage in the material. Another key item to a daily lesson is measuring them at the end of the day so you know where to pick up the next time. It's all under the big picture of your yearly lesson plan to cover all of the necessary units.

My Sentence Videos

My Sentence Is...



My Passion Is...

Project #3

C4T #1

Hacking The Classroom

Howard Rheingold's blog "Hacking the classroom" is about beating the obstacles of technology. It's also about putting meaning into the classroom every day. Giving the students something to learn from, while creating a bigger picture that will engage them in learning. Using physical skills improves their fine and gross motor skills, excelling them towards a higher grader level. Instead of coasting by in school, you advance to another grade while obtaining all of the knowledge from the previous lessons learned. Teachers want their students to enjoy learning the things they are teaching in the classroom. They want it to be fun and for the kids to really get something out of and carry it on with them. What you come out of the class with is how you advance grade to grade. It furthers you in your education. Even if you're going into first grade or your junior year in college.

In Rheingold's newest blog post, Making A Stance Towards Learning, he talks about a more productive way to learn than mindless worksheets. A more hands on teaching method allows for students to really learn, specially if they share an interest in the subject. This hands on method is called "tinkering". He says take a chance with tinkering in the classroom, even if you don't know everything about it. It's beneficial to students to just mess with the material before you through all of the facts in their face. Just because student's tinker does not mean that the role of a teacher becomes less important. By letting them discover things on their own and the teacher being there for guidance, students can really learn.

Blog Post 4

What Questions Do We Ask? How Do We Ask?

What do we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher? Since questions are more important than answers it is key that the questions are effective. In the source,The Right Way to Ask Question in the Classroom by Ben Johnson,it does make sense that your students would get confused if you were the one who was supposed to know everything and yet you're the one asking the questions! Teachers need to come to grips with the fact that we may not know everything and our students know nothing. In most cases it is useful for a teacher to ask questions to check for the student's understanding, but sometimes you don't always get responses. You can ask if they understand all day in classroom, but according to the source they don't know they aren't understanding. Therefore you move on to the next subject and they do not learn. Classrooms should not be divided up by who is smart, who is not, and who doesn't care. The source says that after fourth grade, they know who they are and they play their roles accordingly. In this situation, this is where the student's are missing out on a lot of learning. The smarts ones get cocky and begin to intimidate those who don't think they are smart. And the ones who don't care need to find a reason to care. Education is very important and all students should have an equal shot of learning to their best ability. In these sources it always seems to go back to questions because it is one of the basic pieces to learning.

Three Ways to Ask Better Questions states and describes three actions that have the potential to our questioning. According to the source, "good questions make students think, they encourage participation and I think they improve the caliber of the answers students give and the questions they ask". The three actions are:

• Prepare Questions
• Play with Questions
• Preserve Good Questions

A lot of teachers don't prepare the questions they ask their students on a daily basis. Because they didn't prepare they can be unclear, which can bring about more confusion for the student's. If you prepare questions, you can expect them to be effective for the students. They can be engaging, and better yet, fun! "Playing with the question means leaving it unanswered for a while and using some strategies that encourage students to think about it." It allows for several answers to be given, that way you, as a teacher, can talk about the correct part of every answer. It also allows the students to continue their thinking if the question is intriguing enough. After you have prepared and played with questions, this is where you preserve the good questions. Use those questions as future reference so you can be sure your students are getting the full potential from them.

The most important thing as a teacher that you need to know about asking questions is simple. Are the kids actually learning anything? Questions are there to test the students on the knowledge you have given to them. If they don't know these answers, then they cannot progress forward. As long as your student's are learning, the questions are working. This makes you more of an effective teacher. As long as your students are learning all of the right things, you are being an effective teacher.

Blog Post 3

Peer editing is a teaching technique in which students read, and comment on each other's written work. Peer editing is always done between people who are the same age. In the video, What Is Peer Editing?, and the powerpoint Peer Edit With Perfection Tutorial, the authors point out helpful tips to a great peer review. One of the most important ways to peer edit effectively is to follow these three steps:

1. Compliments
2. Suggestions
3. Corrections

When peer editing it is very important to start with the first step, compliments! Tell the author what a good job they have done so far. Staying positive is another great way to have a successful peer edit! The Next step, suggestions, is key to helping your peer improve on their writing. Give suggestions on different word choice, details, and organization. These different things can really help good writing be great. After you make suggestions, you can move on to the third step, which is corrections. This is when you go in and fix everything in your writing. Most corrections go to punctuation, grammar, sentences, topic, and spelling. Make sure you are specific when correcting someone's writing! The most important things to remember are: stay positive, don't bash the author, follow the three steps, and be specific!

The video, Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes, is a humorous way to point out to reviewers what NOT to do. The most important thing you don't wanna do is not care because it will ruin the process. When peer editing, you don't wanna be too picky because a third grader will not be a perfect writer just yet! You also cannot be too social with others around you because you need to give 100% of your time and effort to the peer you are helping. Mean Margaret never ends up helping because her criticism is way too harsh for the classroom, no one would appreciate that. It's important to take your time when editing cause you want to do a thorough job and really be of help to your fellow peer. That's the whole point of peer review.

Blog Post 2

Mr. Dancealot

The YouTube video Mr. Dancealot portrays a significant central message of not being able to learn without a hands on experience. I came to the conclusion with the fact that all the students' professor did was lecture. He talked and talked all about the facts of these dances but never put those facts to use. He never let the students get up to try the step coordinates he showed on his powerpoints. Instead of going over the steps the students were sleeping and twiddling their fingers in their seats. I do not agree with his conclusion that they should be able to dance by the time the final came around due to the fact all the experience they had was taking notes. You cannot dance with a notebook if it is your first time. You must practice those dances because practice makes perfect.

Teaching in the 21st Century

What does it mean to teach in the 21st century? Kevin Roberts thinks it revolves around being engaged in the classroom. Engagement is key because it leads to problem solving, which is learning. Engaging in learning is passive and leads to solving problems, which once again leads to learning. It also requires more relevance, which is critical to learning. He says it is all about "meaningful and powerful engagement?. That is how you learn with technology.

Teaching in the 21st century gives learning a whole new spin. You can share everything via Facebook, blogs, and podcasts. These technological advances allow the student to have self reflection on the work that they have completed which is one of the most positive aspects of technology. Self reflection gives the students a chance to see where they have room for improvement. Although Roberts has an overall good view of technology in the 21st century in education; however, there is a negative side to all of these advances. With technology comes copyright issues, students using slander in writing, and students plagiarizing. These things can be avoided if the student's are taught what not to do when using technology and it is reiterated. Roberts thinks that technology will give education a huge advance. It creates six ways for kids to learn better. Those six ways are: create, evaluate, analyze, apply, understand, and remember. Instead of teachers pushing out facts for memorization for a test and then the students forgetting this information, it forces students to engage in what is going on in the classroom and actually obtain the information. I agree with the way Kevin Roberts sees education changing. Just as technology is making an advance in schools, it is also making an advance in the world. So, we adapt and we use the technology to our advantage. I agree that a more technological way of education is beneficial. More kids these days use tablets to play learning games. Those kids are learning at a very young age with the technology the world offers today and they seem to get the hang of it! If Roberts is correct, it will greatly impact me as a teacher. Things will be much different than the way I learned when I was in elementary school. Everything will be technology based in the classrooms. I believe there will always be hands on technological learning devices in the classrooms for the students' use, such as computers, ipads, and game consoles. As for my use, chalkboards have gone to dry erase boards and then on to smart boards, so I should expect something of more high quality technology to come with the future. With new technology comes new things that you must adapt to and learn how to use. As a teacher, you can't teach with a smart board unless you know exactly how to use it, otherwise your students will probably be just as confused. In the long run, using technology in schools can help you students more than it would hurt them.

Networked Student

The Networked Student describes student's without teachers learning through networking with other students using the technology the world offers today. The video mainly states that students can accomplish their own work without guidance from a teacher. Students use networking to access lectures from experts at schools such as Berkeley. They also use Google Scholar which is a web search engine that indexes the full text of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats. Using Google Scholar allows you so much access to educational books, articles, and documents. By looking up everything online, that is how they will learn. But why does the networked student even need a teacher? What if you did not have this technology on your own? How could you learn independently without the key source to all of this information? Students would need a teacher to help begin the process of creating this network. Teachers can also help provide learning opportunities that someone may not be able to do on their own. Teachers are there for the main purpose of guidance. How can you know the difference between right or wrong without a little help? You can also get guidance from online and networking; however, some sources give out false information. If you had a teacher, they could help you differentiate between good and bad information. They can teach you the respectful way to ask help from those experts that you have found using networking. Although networking is extremely useful, students will always need someone to turn to for educational and correct advice. That is where the teacher comes in; to help you maintain that network and instruct you to the future. My reaction is that is all makes sense for a networked student to not have a teacher, but what about the obstacles? Who will help you overcome them if you cannot do it on your own? In my opinion, thats where the teacher comes into place. For example, online courses are for the networked student, but it is never a bad thing to have a professor to call upon for help if you ever do need it.

Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts

In the video, Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts, the thesis is empowering students by making them learn. By giving the students new software and new terms that they have never seen before, it forces them to figure some things out for themselves. When the student's do figure it out independently it gives them a sense of empowerment. The author of Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts,Vicki Davis, even makes her students teach the class. This allows students to really learn the material correctly before presenting it to the whole class. There is nothing more satisfying than feeling accomplished with the work given to you. I think Davis has the right idea about harnessing students' digital smarts. She is teaching them how to learn and follow new trends with other people from all over the world. This is all very beneficial to the student. I really enjoyed her perspective on her methods and I couldn't agree more with her opinion. I hope to be able to teach my student's like that one day.

Flipping The Classroom

Flipping The Classroom is a informative video on the new innovative approach to classroom instruction. When I watch all of these videos I put myself as the teacher in an elementary level class. Flipping the classroom is extremely new to me on an elementary level, but it is not new to me on a college level. I doubt this will be very useful to me as a teacher because I don't expect a child below third grade to watch a video pertaining to the following days work. Although I do agree with homework being given out after instruction, class time is used specifically for instruction and that is how I plan to use it when I am a teacher myself.

Blog Post 1

EDM310 turned out to be very different than what I had heard about this class. I had heard that you normally do not have to stay the whole two and a half hours. Although we did stay the whole time on the first day of class, I would have felt even more behind if I had missed the information taught. The Rate My Professor website gave me the idea that this class will require a lot of effort at home, away from the classroom. Right it was! I expect to be working my butt off to achieve my teachers requirements in this course. Despite the large work load, I've heard from many students that it is a rewarding class to have taken. In the end, you finish being more knowledgeable about micro computing systems in education.

Initially my fears for this class are overwhelming and we have only had the class once. Everything thrown at you has me scared out of my wits that I'm in over my head. Having so many assignments makes me afraid that I will overlook an assignment and it will be too late to turn it in or do it right properly. Another fear I have is them changing something on the blog post instructions or the project instructions and me not knowing. All of these fears fall under the number one fear of not passing the class because I can not afford to be any more behind than I already am.

EDM310 is not like any other class I have taken. Other than my past computer classes, I have never taken a course that was predominantly computer based other than online classes. EDM310 is seventy-five percent computer based and twenty-five percent based in the classroom. Graduate students helping teaching the class doesn't bother me because I had several of those at the University of Alabama. I also took a class at UA where we used blogging and computers to teach students, which I find very similar to this course. Even though this class requires good time management, I think that will be the most difficult thing for me. I don't want to put everything I have got into this class and fail my other five classes. So it looks like I need to get better at time management pretty quick. But in order to help I've tried to plan out days to specifically work on these assignments way before they are due. I also made a point to make sure the due date is very visible and I see it more than three times a day.

I feel like I will always be having questions in this class, but what better way to handle that than to ask away! I'm going to take this class day by day and assignment by assignment. I'm also going to remember to take deep breaths! I have not yet received the email on the project due dates, but I am curious as to when the first one is due. I would like to know how all these skills can be used in the elementary education field. I'm sure there are ways I know nothing about. I can't wait to continue and learn with this course!

Practice Blog Post

My name is Emma and I've been a student for what seems like forever. I have lived all over the United States in some places like Louisiana, North Carolina, and Hawaii. I love horses and horseback riding, along with reading books, and the thought of going to Greece one day. Those are two things I really love to do when I have some down time. I ended up at the University of South Alabama after deciding that the University of Alabama was not for me. Louisiana State University is where I would much rather be because that is my mom's, brother's, and cousins alma mater and my whole family roots for the LSU tigers!

I've entered the field of education to inspire young kids who don't know what to strive for just yet. Which is one of the main reasons I would like to teach kids in the third grade and below. The kids are so innocent in life and what better way to help them than to guide them.
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Second Test Post

Second test post.

Test Post

Emma Elwell's test blog post.