Project #16

C4K # 3

Josh's Blog

Post:

I live in Bellevue,Nebraska. Our football team is Nebraska Huskers. Our state capital is Lincoln. Nebraska’s 1′st city is Bellevue. The motto is “Equality Before The Law.” The Platte River goes across Nebraska. The state fossil is the mammoth. Our state tree is Cottonwood. Our state soft drink is Kool-Aid. A landform is the TableLands with flat tops. The state beverage is milk.

What city do you live in? What landforms do you see? What state do you live in? What’s your state symbol? What is your state sport team? How big is your state?

Comment:

Hey Josh, 

I enjoyed reading your post! I have never been to Nebraska before so it is nice to learn some fun facts about your state. I am originally from Biloxi, Mississippi. However now I live in Mobile, Alabama, which is only forty-five minutes east of Biloxi! I moved to Mobile in January to attend the University of South Alabama. I live along the Gulf coast Plain, which is very low marsh land. For my home state, our state symbol is the Confederate Battle Flag! My state is also the thirty-second largest state in the United States. Another really awesome thing is Mississippi’s state beverage is also milk! Josh, what is the one thing you like most about your state?

Andrew's Blog

Post:

About My Holiday’s Over the Holiday’s I went to the village cinema with Liam in 4KM and saw the Croods. Also I went to Khancoban in NSW with Bailey, Sean and my Dad.I didn't get a fish but Bailey caught a trout and my Dad caught a trout too.What did you do on the Holiday’s? 


Comment:

Hey Andrew,

My name is Jerica and I am a student at the University of South Alabama. I love your post and I am so glad to read that you had a lot of fun on your break! However, I am super jealous because we do not have a break until the second week in May! Like you, I also love to go fishing and to the movies. Did you like the Croods? I've wanted to go and watch that movie with a couple of my friends one weekend!

I am looking forward to hearing from you! 

PLN Final Progress Report

My PLN is a life saver for me! I have the hardest time keeping up with everything and staying organized at the same time. My PLN has allowed me to stay more organized, which I am very thankful for. Before EDM 310 I honestly had no idea what a PLN was. So that was one of the many things that I have leaned in this class. I enjoy having all my different types of social Medias that I use, all in one spot. I have also been adding different teacher's blogs that I have found inspiring and that will help for my future! I will continue to use my PLN throughout my teaching career and I will continue to build upon it! 

Blog Post #14

CourseSmart E- Teacher knows if you have done the E-Reading

CourseSmart is a new technology that allows educators to track their students' progress with digital textbooks. CourseSmart goes further by individually packaging for each professor, information on all the students in a class. More than 3.5 million students and educators are experimenting with CourseSmart text books. Among the Colleges that are experimenting are Clemson, Central Carolina Technical College, and Stony Brook University as well as Texas A&M- San Antonio.

As a teacher, this new technology is great! CourseSmart monitors students on a more efficient level. It allows me to be able to compare students who actually do the work and read the assignments differ from those who choose not to do the assignments. CourseSmart also helps with figuring out which students are struggling with the work, so that way I am able to work one on one with those particular students to help them establish effective ways to study and understand the material.

If SmartCourse applied to me as a student I wouldn't really like it. I wouldn't like the idea that teachers would be able to keep up with my every move with every assignment. Although, if my teacher had us use CourseSmart it wouldn't be too big of a deal because the way I do things now with how I prepare for class and assignments works for me and my grades reflect that.

If I were to talk to the teacher of the class that is described in this article, CourseSmart E I would ask him:

• Why did you decide to use CourseSmart?
• What do you like most about CourseSmart?
• Has CourseSmart had a positive or negative impact on your teaching and how you present your material?
• What impact has CouseSmart had on your students?

If I were to interview students in his class, I would ask them:

• What do you think about CourseSmart?
• Has CouseSmart changed the way they do homework and assignments? If so, how?
• Do you think that this is something that should be used in everyday class? Why or why not?
• What is one positive and one negative thing about CourseSmart?

CouseSmart sounds like a really amazing tool that teachers can use to collect data from their students. However, like I said before, as a college student CourseSmart will not change or have an affect on how I prepare for class. CourseSmart seems it would best benefit students that are struggling with the assignments and have poor study habits. The great thing about this is, teachers will be able to work with the student(s) on how to prepare for class and help them figure out the best study strategies!

Project #15 Part 2

C4T #4

For the Love of Teaching

Post:
Mrs. Diane talks about using the Kagan Structure with in her classroom for Math stations. This enables students to work in groups of two, use technology through checking answers on the iPad with QR codes, and keep students engaged! Mrs. Diane breaks down the basic steps as to what the Kagan structure accomplishes.

1. Holds students accountable for doing their work
2. Ensures that all students are participating 
3. Allows students to check their answers through QR codes (which will let students know that they are doing their work correctly)

Comment:
Diane,

My name is Jerica Gary. I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I absolutely love this post! The Kagan structure that you use within your classroom sounds like a great idea. I like how it enables you to work with all of your students different personality types. This method also mixes the best of both goals that as a future educator I will do my best to accomplish which is, incorporating technology while keeping students engaged!
Thanks for such a great post!

Post:
For Mrs. Diane's second post she talks about using a multifaceted approach when teaching. She explains step by step how she uses the method in her classroom. There are seven steps that she uses to inspire her students to become more engaged with math!

• Step 1: The Beginning- within this step the teacher is to sit down and analyze what the students need to know and design a lesson plan around the content, language, and personal interest. 
• Step 2: The Language- prepare the students for the vocabulary that they will be tested on
• Step 3: Data- create a quiz, note the questions that the kids missed the most by creating a tally chart... if there is a trend, re-teach!
• Step 4: Morning math talk- create four math problems and have them displayed on the board for the students to solve, these problems include content the students need work on the most based of the data collected in step three
• Step 5: Homework- Students are to have six to eight problems a day, four days a week, the homework covers current content, spiraling content, and content that needs to be reinforced

Mrs. Diane stresses two important things to always weave into when creating math problems. First use student's names, friend's names, teachers, and interest into the word problems that are used in morning work, daily instruction, quizzes, and homework. Second, wrap your content around real world situations and themes. 

Comment:

Mrs. Diane,

I absolutely love this post! Your multifaceted approach seems easy and straight forward and I really appreciate how you explained every step and gave examples. The two things that really stuck out to me that you said was, " In stations, use students names, names of their friends, other teachers, and school staff in problems because they will more engaged with more brain involvement because their work will become meaningful." This is absolutely true! I could remember when I was in sixth grade and my math teacher would do that for us and it was very helpful for me. I would understand the problems a lot easier and it would help me perform better on my test.

The other thing that I really liked was when you mentioned teaching the "language". It is extremely important to familiarize students with the vocabulary that will be used on the quizzes or the exams that way students will not freeze up or become overwhelmed.

However, I loved your post. Thank you for sharing such valuable information.  Please feel free to explore my class blog at garyjericaedm310.blogspot.com. 

Progress Report on Final Project

Our group decided to go with option B

For our group Introduction we will all be sitting in chairs, when giving advice to future EDM 310 students, current EDM 310 students, and outsiders that are trying to understand what EDM 310 is all about! In this video will explain why we are making this video, go into depth about why we encourage students to stick with the class, who it will be helping and how it will help future educators, and last wish all those taking the class the best of luck! So far we have been using Google + to discuss what we are all going to talk about. So far so good there are a couple of things that we need to come to an agreement on but for the most part everything is running along smoothly! Starting on Monday our group will be meeting at 2 pm so that we can start videoing ourselves for the project. Because, this week we are working on finishing up our project 15, that way we will be on time with project 16 and will have it posted hopefully by next Thursday.

Blog Post #13

Brian Crosby is a fourth grade teacher in northern Nevada. His Blog Learning Is Messy was created back in 2006, were he expresses the importance of creativity! For our assignment, Dr. Strange assigned Mr. Crosby's Back To The Future video to inspire the class on active learning. Within his video, he talks about how active learning is empowering children to learn on their own through twenty- first century tools and become lifelong learners. Mr. Crosby talks about the importance of being connected so that students can imagine and be creative. Creativity is important because that is where students learn to become passionate about something. I love the examples that he shows which include, sending up a hot air balloon over 100,000 ft and how an aluminum can crushes from the pressure change.

Mr. Crosby students all have their own blogs where they summarize and share what they have learned with each assignment assigned in class. The students loved that they had an audience and that they were able to connect with students from all around the world, from New Zealand, England, Scotland, Thailand, Australia, and Canada! How awesome? Another thing that I really enjoyed about this video was Mr. Crosby shares how he uses technology with one of his students who is suffering from Leukemia to join in and participate with the class through Skype, so that she can experience a somewhat normal routine! The best part about it is that, Not only are the students learning but they are learning how to change each other's lives!

In the second part of our assignment we were to visit Mr. Andersen blog and watch his video called the Blended Learning Cycle. Within this video he explains that blended learning is taking the compelling parts of online, mobile, and classroom learning and combining them with the learning cycle (engage, explore, explain, and expand upon).  To make things easy, Mr. Andersen came up with an acronym, QIVERS, to help him remember the steps to the blended learning cycle. QIVERS stand for:

• Question: something that really get their interest 
• Investigate: Why? What? How?   
• Video: which students can watch them independently
• Elaboration: reading on the topic and going in depth  
• Review: meet individually to check their understanding  
• Summary quiz: to test their knowledge 

I thought that this video was very interesting, it taught me a new way how to flip a classroom with teaching science using his method. The blended learning cycle is a very good and structured way to educate students. I like how Mr. Andersen goes into depth with his method and makes it very easy to understand. I also really like how he gives concrete examples. 

Blog Post #12

Food Network Math Challenge!

I have absolutely no idea what grade level I would like teach, however I do enjoy math so my assignment will be on creating a Food Network episode! For this assignment you are to pick your favorite thing to bake, whether it is chocolate chip cookies, Funfetti cupcakes, a pie, or even a pizza! Whatever you decide to make, has to be homemade (not frozen or pre-made and ready to heat up in the oven), this way you will be able to incorporate your measuring math skills!

For this assignment you must film yourself making whatever you decide to bake. Make sure you have someone assist you such as a family member or friend. This video must at least 6 minutes minimum and 10 minutes maximum.

The following steps are required:

1. You must introduce yourself and the name of your show
2. Tell your audience what you are making and why you chose that recipe 
3. You must have all your ingredients displayed and utensil out 
4. Explain step by step what you are measuring and how much your recipe calls for 
5. You must be creative and dress the part!
6. Last you must speak clearly for your audience to understand what you are saying (make sure there is no background noise)

Watch How To Bake A Simple Cake (the first 7 mins and 30 sec) Take note on how she explains every step and has everything displayed at the beginning of her video!

Blog Post #11

First Graders In Mrs. Cassidy's Class

When I watched the video that Mrs. Cassidy created with her students and saw what her students do on a daily basis, I was blown away! I absolutely loved her classroom and what she was exposing her students to such as, blogging, Wiki, videos, Skype, and even Nintendo DS. Mrs. Cassidy's students were interacting with one another and engaged in everything that was going on. This is what I have always pictured my ideal classroom to look like and be! When watching the video, one of her students invites you into the room, and it was like opening your mind into a wonderland of learning. As the video went on the kids one by one explained how much they enjoyed blogging. They enjoyed blogging because they were able to share their work with the world. The students also loved how their family and friends were able to read and leave comments on their thoughts and experiences throughout the day.

Blogging is something that I will definitely create and use with my future students! I think that it is absolutely important for students to be exposed to what technology has to offer because kids and technology go hand in hand. One of the great benefits that Mrs. Cassidy points out about blogging is that the parents are able to stop by and look at the classroom blog whenever they want, to see what their child has been learning in school. Another reason that she pointed out why blogging is so important to teach students is, it improves their writing skills and creativity. When students know that they have the world as their audience it encourages them to put forth their best effort. Even if there are mistakes in a child's work, that is fine because it gives that student an opportunity to learn! Also, blogging improves creativity by branching off other student's ideas and helping that students go above and beyond to what they never thought was possible.

Another very important point that Mrs. Cassidy expresses in the interview with Dr. Strange and his students, was that she had a support system behind her when got started with bringing technology into the classroom. Her support system was the technology coordinator at their school in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada. She was very fortunate to have someone to support her through the process of bringing technology in the classroom, because he was the one who took care of talking with the administrators for her! This is extremely important because unfortunately there are still administrators who believe that technology should not be introduced in the classroom. However as time goes by technology will prove itself that it is here to stay and will weave its way into every school across the world!

The last thing that caught my attention was Mrs. Cassidy kept expressing how important it is to change, because the world is constantly changing! It is important to always keep educating yourself and put forth an effort to become lifelong learners, not only for yourself but for your students!

C4T #3

Dorothy Burt's Blog

Post #1

Within Mrs. Dorothy's first blog post that I read, she talked about rolling over individual blogs. What this means is for example, if a school principal requires all teachers to have their students create a blog for the grade level that they are in they must do so. This is a great way of keeping track of students progress! However, instead of having the students start over each year and creating a new blog, teachers would simply transfer all their passing students blogs onto the next grade level. This way students can build upon what they have already created! Mrs. Dorothy lists the four stages of what teachers should when preparing their students blogs to "roll over" into the next grade level.


Blog Rollover - Workflow
Step by step to transitioning the student individual blogs at the end of the academic year to their new class/teacher.

• Stage One: Getting Organised Get all the documentation sorted BEFORE starting the rollover process so it happens in a methodical fashion

• Stage Two: Passing on a class set of blogs to the new teacher(s)This really should be done by the teacher who taught the class in the PREVIOUS academic year.

• Stage Three: Updating information on the new set of blogs The classroom teacher has just been made Admin of a whole new set of student blogs. Now the header information, which displays publicly, needs to be updated.

• Stage Four: Publicity Spreading the word about the children’s blogs is an important way of supporting their learning.

My comment went as followed:

Hey Mrs. Dorthy,

Like Tonya, I am a student in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama. I was assigned to explore your blog and comment on your latest post. My personal blog is garyjericaedm310.blogspot.com. Also, feel free to visit our class blog at edm310.blogspot.com.

I truly enjoyed reading this post. I agree with you on the importance of students creating their own blogs to use as an ePortfolio, and at the end of the year allowing their teacher to roll over their student’s blogs to the next grade level. Blogs as ePortfolios is an easier way to document any student’s progress. It is smart and efficient.     

Thank you for laying out the steps on how to roll over students blogs. This post is very insightful. I am looking forward to your next post!  

Post #2:

In Mrs. Dorothy's second post that I read she talked about how students continued to blog over their summer break and during the holidays! This was very exciting to her, as it should be to any teacher who wants to aspire their students to become life long learners. She goes on to talk about how amazed she was with how much effort students were putting in their post. Not all of them were perfect but, anyone who read what they had to say could tell that the students were excited to shared their outside the classroom experiences with the world! Mrs. Dorothy talked about how she was able to keep up with what the students were blogging about thanks to her Flipboard app and her Twitter feed. And since the students took the time to connect with us, she took the time to share their links, which can be found here.

My comment:

Mrs. Dorothy, I absolutely love this post! I love that all your students are showing interest in blogging throughout their Holidays, and most importantly that you are able to keep up with what they are sharing through your Twitter feed and Flippboard app. The one thing that really jumped out at me in your post is, "inspire them (students) to become lifelong learners." I am also glad that you took the time to share some of the students work! I went through a couple and I have to say, I am very excited to see that they took the time to share with the world what was going on in their lives outside of school! Thank you so much for an awesome post!

C4K #2

Goldie's Blog 

Goldie was the first student I was assigned to comment on. In her post she introduced herself and listed things that she enjoyed doing such as, read books, going swimming, ice fishing, hunting, and running. She went on to say that she had three brothers and one sister, her favorite color is green, and she used to live in New York. I followed with a comment on introducing myself and explaining to her all the things I love to do. I told her that like her, my favorite color is green and I love to run as well. I asked her what her favorite part about visiting New York City was.
March 
100 WC Week 8 ‘If we Share…’

Elliana's Blog

The second student I was assigned to comment on was Elliana's blog. I absolutely loved her post that she had written. Her teacher assigned her class to right a poem on sharing! This is her poem:

If we share the world would be a better reality and a better world.

If we share everyone would go to sleep full, happy, warm and always looking towards a brighter future.

If we share people won’t wake up and think there’s nothing to live for.

If we share there would be no such thing as going hungry, famine or even poverty.

If we shared there could be world peace, and everlasting happiness and losing the thought of the bad things in life.

Sharing is the key to a better future, and no one can take away my belief in that.

I started off my comment by introducing myself and how I thought it was awesome that she lived in Australia because I have always wanted to go on vacation there! I explained to her that I absolutely love what she had written. Everything that she pointed out about sharing was completely true! My favorite line is, "If we share everyone would go to sleep full, happy, warm, and always looking toward a brighter future." I ended with telling her what a great job she did and to keep up the good work!

Alexa's Blog

The third student blog that I was to comment on was Alexa's. Her post was on Autism, for Autism awareness month. Their teacher assigned them to visit a documentary website called Wretches and Jabberers. Her assignment for her students was, they were to watch a couple of the videos on this page and to come up with questions to ask Larry and Tracy, who were the two men the documentary website was about. Alexa's questions were:

1. What do your families think of your journey in the film?
2. Have you ever communicated with people like this before the film?

Alexa also went on to give her thoughts on people with autism. How she thought that people who have autism had something wrong in their brain and she had also thought that there was only one type of autism. 
She also listed that one thing she thought was interesting while visiting the website and watching some of the documentary videos was that Larry was an artist and had some of his paintings featured in Musée de l’Art Brut.

My comment was simply introducing myself and explaining to her what I knew about autism followed with a question, as seen below:

Hey Alexa, I am a student at the University of South Alabama. I am majoring in Elementary and Special Education. You have a lot of great questions, and I hope I can help you out with a few. I have never personally experienced someone who has had autism yet. However, I do know that it is a brain development disorder, which causes difficulty with social interaction, verbal, and nonverbal communication as you have seen in Larry and Tracy's documented videos. There are many different levels to Autism, and each individual is different. Although, it does not surprise me that Larry is an artist and has his paintings are featured in Musee de l'Art Brut because I have always been told by my elders that people with Autism normally excel in visual skills, music, math, and art! Anyway, great post! I enjoyed reading your thoughts and questions. I also think that it is great your teacher has assigned this assignment to your class. What is the one thing you enjoyed most about this assignment? 

Blake's Blog

My last student was Blake. His blog post was about blogging. His teacher asked him the following questions: 

What do you think you as a student gain from blogging with students and others outside of the school?

Is it worth the time? Why or Why not? 

Blake answered the questions by saying, "I think people gain some communication skills from talking with people outside of school. It is worth the time because you can learn more about people outside of school. 

I followed with a comment saying, He was absolutely right. Through blogging, people get the opportunity to meet and learn all sorts of interesting things about others that they wouldn't have gotten the chance to if they weren't exposed to blogging, such as knowing where they came from, life experiences, future goals, certain interest, and knowledge in areas that others may know little about. I shared with Blake how I recently started blogging and how I thought I was going to hate it, but I turned out the exact opposite! I ended my comment with a question asking, what has he learned from blogging?