Blog Post #15 Final Reflection

After going back and reading my blog post #1, I would not change a thing about how I would want my future classroom to be like. Even though I don't want to change anything from my first post, being in EDM 310 allows me now to elaborate on how I can accomplish my goals that I covered in my first blog post.

I still think that group activities will be beneficial to my students. My students will be involved with podcasting, bringing their imaginations to life by using green screens, using Skype, and blogging. All of these will be important tools that will be incorporated into my assignments that my class will collaborate and do in groups except blogging. Blogging will be done individually. I will establish a class blog where each of my students will have assignments in which they will have to discuss with the world as their audience. Blogging will allow my students to become better writers and also by having a world audience it will encourage them to go above and beyond with each assignment.

Podcasting, Skype, and using a green screen is a great way I have experienced to involve a whole classroom to work together to accomplish a common goal. Podcasting, Skype, and using a green screen will help my students with what I talked about in my first blog post. Using these tools will help my students to be more sociable (if needed), learn how to work well with others, and be able to expand their minds to go above and beyond with the help of their classmates and others!

Below is a summary of my experience in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama, where I was introduced to the four major components that I will be incorporating in my future classroom.

Project #13

I am a proud member of team jags! There are three of us which include me, Chelsea Strong, and Cari Raymond. For our Project #15 we used different types of social Media to collaborate together with so that we could organize our project. Project #15 is a follow up of Project #14. For Project #15 we were to come up with a lesson plan from whatever subject and grade level and teach it on a Smart Board. My group collaborated for this project by using Google Docs, Google Hangouts, text, and email. We used Google Docs for typing out each of our parts that we were going to teach on the Smart Board, so that when we met up to film our presentation we would be organized. We used Google Hangouts to ask questions to one another about the project and to make sure that our projected flowed well together. Next our group used text. Text was for quick reminders of when and where we were to all meet up at for filming. Last, our group did use email. The emails were used as another form of reminding each other of where our meetings and filming were going to take place. Even though I thought communicating through the different social Medias was going to be a hassle and time consuming, I was completely wrong! Using the different social media was very convenient and very efficient. I also enjoyed this project because we were presented with a challenge of communicating through social media instead of in person and I'm proud to say team jags succeed!

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? 

Blog Post #10

I'm a Papermate. I'm a Ticonderoga

In this blog post of Mr. Spences, I'm a papermate. I'm a Ticonderoga. It supposed to be a mock of the, "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC" commercials. The papermate is the PC and the Ticonderoga is the Mac. As you notice in the picture above, the PC is the heavier character and the Mac is the slim "cooler" looking character.

Why Were Your Kids Playing Games?

I love how this story is told and the sarcasm within. The basis of this story is that the principal walks by and sees a classroom where the kids were laughing while playing a game. The principal then calls the teacher into his office to talk to him about what he saw in his classroom. The teacher begins to explain that the students were working on an advanced simulation and the kids were drawing and reading. The students were engaged and having fun. The principal interrupts the teacher and explains that games are not allowed in the classroom period!

When students are engaged in the subjects they're learning it encourages them to actually want to learn what you're teaching and to put forth an effort in their work. No student likes "burp back" education, meaning doing the same routine everyday where teachers lecture, and students memorize the material and recite it back. It is important to make learning fun and keep your students engaged.

Don't teach your kids this stuff. Please?

In this post Mr. McLeod talks about the challenges that teachers face with dealing with social media. How the older generation looks at computers and everything that comes along with them to be bad, that children are not trustworthy. They will abuse the freedom of using the Internet in the classroom. However, as teachers it is our job to educate students on both sides of the spectrum, the good and bad that comes with social media. Although as teachers, we will not be able to educate students on every bad and good thing that comes with multimedia, it is worth it to teach students everything that we know and can learn together as a class. Multimedia is constantly changing and as teachers we need to not be afraid on jumping in head first and taking the challenge to learn all that we can to benefit our students.

 

Project #11

Project #14 Smart Board

Project #12

Blog Post #9

Mr. McClung started teaching in the fall of 2009. After his first year of teaching he decided to summarize his experience and what he has learned over the school year in a blog post. In his first post, What I've Learned This Year (2008-09) starts off with an important decision that Mr. McClung tried to model throughout his first year as a teacher, stay positive! Mr. McClung starts his summary off by talking about, how to read the crowd. He explains one of my worst fears as becoming a new educator, creating a mindset that was all about the teacher. Meaning, he was so focused on how he was being assessed by his superiors, that he lost track of the most important thing of all, his students. That is one of the things I fear most when becoming a teacher, that I will be so focused on what my superiors will be thinking that I will lose track of my students comprehending what I'm actually teaching. Mr. McClung's summary goes on to talk about how no lesson is perfect. The lesson you teach and the one you plan are always different. And how important it is to remember that when things go wrong, simply work with it and try to better the situation and ALWAYS do it with a smile! Another important thing that you are always to remember as an educator is to always listen to your students and show interest in what is going on with their lives. It is important to do so, so that you can build their respect. When Mr. McClung shared what one student of his wrote on a survey:


I know my teacher cares about me as a person when he
- Listens to what I say

This really touched my heart because he points out something extremely important that most teachers forget about. "Listen to your students because you may be the only person who does."
The last thing that Mr. McClung writes about is, it is never too late to change your way of thinking. As teachers we are continually in a learning environment so we should soak up all we can, we owe it to our students.

In Mr. McClung's latest summary, Version 4 (2011-12) he talks about two things that he has experienced throughout his fourth year as a teacher, the first thing that he talks about is how he was looked at by his peers. Over the years as a teacher Mr. McClung has never taken into consideration what his peers thought about him. He was always concerned about what his students and his superiors thought. He goes on and talks about how this thought drastically changed his mood for the worse throughout the school year. After getting over the anxiety that this thought has caused him he comes one conclusion, to stick to what has gotten him this far, which was making his students happy. As long as you stick to this rule and remember who you really work for then you should never divert down the wrong path. 

The second thing that Mr. McClung talks about in this reflection is, challenge yourself. Over the last three years Mr. McClung has taught social studies and Arkansas History. This year he really noticed that his core subjects that he taught started to become routine. He began to depend on old lesson plans and his creativity was starting to diminish. In other words he was becoming too comfortable with his teachings. Luckily he was presented with an opportunity to teach pre-AP civics and American Government. With teaching these new subjects it will challenge him to come up with better lesson plans and to be more creative than he was with social studies and Arkansas History. Mr. McClung stresses on how important it is to challenge yourself with new things so that you never lose sight of what is most important, which is to inspire your students and make them excited about learning and making them want to come to class.     

C4T #2

Mr. Guhlin's blog Around the Corner

Post #1
Slide Show Presentation on 5 tips to quizzing success in the BYOT Classroom

1. Schedule your quizzes 
2. Differentiate with small groups 
3. Experiment 
4. Pick the right Quiz Tool
5. Quiz for content and Insights 

Comment:
Hey Mr. Guhlin, my name is Jerica. I am a student at the University of South Alabama in EDM 310. I have been assigned to explore and comment on your blog.
I enjoyed watching your slide presentation. For our EDM 310 class it was mandatory that we had to set up a Twitter account, and to be honest I didn't like the idea of it and thought it was pointless. But now that I have started following educators my whole outlook on Twitter has changed and I now see why it is so important.
Also your 5 tips to Quizzing Success in the BYOT classroom were very insightful. I have never heard of Edmodo before. I will definitely be doing some extra research on this tool.
I am looking forward to your next video!

Post #2
#iPad video tutorials- Social Media, #Twitter, #Google, #FTP, #Dropbox, #Evernote and More!

Mr. Guhlin had a brief meeting on using Twitter, Evernote, etc. to build your PLN; He crafted an Explain Everything (iPad app) video. Then, while sharing it with a colleague, she started asking questions and he ended up throwing some other videos together.

These videos are helpful and are in no particular order.

1. Using Readdle Documents to Put/Get Files via Files Transfer Protocol (FTP) 
2. Using Readdle Documents to Put/Get/Manage Files (such as photos/videos in your camera role) on Dropbox.com
3. Content Curation with Evernote, IFTTT.com, and RSS
4. Sharing Evernote to iPad plus more stuff having to do with RSS
5. GoogleReader and the iPad
6. Twitter on iPad

Comment :
Thank you so much for posting these tutorial videos! They are easy to follow. I just recently bought an iPad and these tutorials have made it easier to navigate through the different Social Medias such as the ones you have listed.

Blog Post #8

Richard Miller: This is how we dream parts 1 and 2

Richard Miller starts off in his first video by talking about incremental change. Incremental change is described as having to change our work space from paper and pencil to the desktop. He talks about how students can do anything without even stepping into the library these days. Students are able to research the riches of the world from any computer or cell phone at anytime, from anywhere. One of the many beauties about teaching students in the 21st century is with using social networking tools the information updates instantly.

The second point that caught my attention was when Dr. Miller points out that as future educators we must be in the business of sharing ideas freely. It is important for us to be this way so that we can fully give our students the best education possible. Collaborating and building off others ideas allows teachers to be fully educated and well rounded in the classroom, which is key to any student's success.

Another great point that Dr. Miller points out is, "the limits and restrictions are largely ones that we put on ourselves." This is complete true! As a future educator I will always encourage my students to go above and beyond. Learning has no limits. That is why it is so important for students to interact with one another and share their own individual ideas about a project or an assignment so that they can challenge each other with new ideas and bring them to life!

Carly Pugh's Blog Post #12

For this assignment Dr. Strange gave instructions that we were to read Carly Pugh's blog post #12 and evaluate how close she comes to Dr. Millers hopes for writing with multimedia (shown above).

Carly's post gives a great example of using multimedia! She was very creative when organizing her thoughts on this post. Blog post #12 talks about her assignment she would create for edm 310. She thought outside the box so to speak. Her assignment was very catchy. Carly's idea was to create a YouTube play list that consisted of at least 5 of the 10 topics she listed in her post and the actual play list need to have a minimum of 10 videos. These videos are to describe your teaching philosophy and things you have learned in edm 310. With this assignment it allows students to collaborate by using multimedia with no limits as to how the students want to express him/her self.

EDM 310 is Different

These videos, The Chipper Series and EDM 310 for Dummies made me laugh, especially edm 310 for Dummies! This video made me laugh because it portrayed my reaction when I first started this class! I was a bit overwhelmed with all the material and had a hard time trying to keep up with all my different social media accounts. However, after watching these two videos the idea that popped up in my head was to create a student acting out two separate outcomes that any student could have in edm 310. The student could either follow all the requirements for edm 310 or not to follow all the requirements in edm 310. That way it would encourage students to stay on top of their assignments and focus on time management.

Learn to Change, Change to Learn

I agree with the message that this video is talking about. Most of our school systems are still teaching students with industrial learning. As in memorizing material and going over the same routine every day with in the four walls of a classroom or in other words the "burp back method." Industrial learning is what needs to change because students have a richer environment outside the classroom rather than inside the classroom due to technology. The reason for this is because many schools do not believe in teaching students through different technologies and using social media within the classroom, this limits and hurts students. It is important to change the way students are taught so that the role is switched to where students can get a richer environment inside the classroom rather than out.

Web 2.0

For the scavenger hunt 2.0 we were to find three items within this website and write about them. This assignment was created by an edm 310 student back in the fall semester of 2011.

1. The first site that I found was called Voicethread. This site helps make it easy for teachers, students, and parents to communicate, collaborate, and connect. It can be used from any computer and web browser. iPads, iPhones, and iPods can be used to access this site as well. The benefits of Voicethread are, it is free, it allows individual creativity on the student's part, and it is easy to operate. This site can be used at any grade level from elementary school through high school. I could incorporate this within my class by giving out assignments that require my students to watch a video I have posted and have them upload their answers or opinion by a certain date. 
2. Animoto was my second item. This site allows students to make and share photos or videos online. This site breaks down how to make a video with three simple steps which will allow students to create, customize, and share videos. 
3. Last I created a poll asking, 

Blog Post #7

Randy Pausch Last Lecture

I absolutely loved this video. Randy Pausch was an amazing teacher with the extraordinary ability to inspire students to go above and beyond and to never give up on their dreams no matter what the obstacles. He was a very inspirational person never setting certain standards for his students. Randy Pausch always believed in being creative and working hard to achieve goals. He impacted millions of people around the world with his lectures. By watching this lecture it made me realize how fortunate I was to still be healthy and enjoy what God has in store for me in my future and to never take anything for granted. 

Randy Pausch's last lecture was very moving. In his last lecture he talked about his childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others, lessons learned, and how you can achieve your dreams or enable the dreams of others. Randy Pausch started off by talking about his childhood dreams of being at zero gravity, playing in the NFL, being an author of the world book, meeting Captain Kirk, win big stuffed animals, and being a Disney Imagineer. When he talks about wanting to be at zero gravity he tells how NASA used to have this program called, "The vomit comet" for training astronauts. This allowed anyone who was in this to get twenty-five seconds of weightlessness. So he put a team together and submitted a proposal to NASA and they won. However, this was where Randy Pausch talks about hitting his first "brick wall." 

 

He talks about how brick walls are there for a reason, to give us a chance to show how badly we want things. This is very true and is a good quote to have in my future classroom. So that my students will be able to read and be reminded of how important it is to never give up on their dreams. As a teacher I will try my best each and every day to encourage my students to always find a way and to never give up. That if things don't work out the way they planned, step back reevaluate the situation and try another way. The important thing is to never give up!

Another valuable lesson Randy Pausch talked about, was when he was at football practice and his coach kept correcting him and punishing him by making him run drills all practice and when practice was over, his assistant coach came up to talk to him after practice and told him, "when you are screwing up and no one is saying anything to you anymore, that means they gave up." Dr. Pausch goes on to say that it is a bad place to be when you are messing up and no one bothers to correct you. Your critics are the ones that are still saying they love you and still care about you. I will always make sure to never give up on my students. I will do my best to be honest and critic my students mistakes to not only further their education but to hopefully encourage them to become better students. 

The thing that Dr. Pausch loved was being not only being a great father and husband but was also being a great Professor. Being a Professor is what helped him to help others achieve their childhood dreams. Shortly after becoming a Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, where he helped his students achieve their dreams by creating a class for virtual worlds. He didn't really know where to start with teaching this class, so what he did was split his class of fifty students into random groups of four and gave them two weeks to create their own virtual world. After two weeks the students were to present this work and he was blown away with what his students came up with, the work was completely beyond his imagination. This class exploded, students from all departments would gather at the end of the year to watch all the virtual worlds the students made. This class brought the University together! 

Last he talked about his lessons learned. He talked about the important role of parents, mentors, and students. Dr. Pausch also mentioned how he enjoyed working for each and every boss that he had. He reminds everyone to always have fun with whatever you are doing no matter what, "You can either be a Tigger or an Eeyore" and to always help others. Last, Dr. Pausch talks about telling the truth, being earnest, always apologize when you mess up, and focus on other people and not on yourself. These are great points to always remember and to always do your best to apply these with each and every day that you are given. This lecture was not about how to achieve your dreams it was about how to lead your life. It was very unfortunate that Dr. Pausch passed away during his prime from such an aggressive cancer but he did leave behind a legacy that will always be remembered and talked about for years and years to come. 

Project #9 Personal Learning Network

My PLN is slowly developing with each day that I spend time on it. I have to be honest; I was very overwhelmed with it at first and still am somewhat. I used Symbaloo to create my PLN. I really like the layout. All my resources are available for me to use whenever needed. My PLN has helped me to become even more organized than what I was before and it has also helped me work a little more on my time management. I will definitely be using my PLN throughout my teaching career. I will also expose which ever grade I decide to teach on how to set up and use a PLN for our classroom! 

C4K Summary #1

Ellie in Ms. McCall's class


I commented on a student that was from Ms. McCall's k-2 classroom in Phoenix, AZ. Her name was Ellie F. She told a story of a day swimming at the beach and how she was out in the water and a shark crept up on her. But she didn't panic, she swam calmly to the shore and went and ate snacks with her friends and had a wonderful day. I commented back saying that her story was very creative! And that I was glad she did not panic when she saw the shark. She was very brave!

Anphernee in Mrs. Miller's class

Amphernee wrote a post about things that expresses himself. He wrote the following, "I express myself by the hobbies I like and what I do on my free time. The things I do expresses that I'm just a guy from the country." I commented back to Amphernee saying, I express myself through hobbies as well such as reading and cooking! I asked him, what hobbies does he do to express himself?

Podcast Project #8

Project #10 Finding the Right Tool

My major is Elementary Education. Although I do not know what specific grade I would like to teach yet, I wanted to try and find a fun site that would be able to cover all subjects taught in k-3rd grade. So that my students would be able to review by playing educational games or watching videos on how to break down problems step by step. I started searching and came across a web site called BrainPOPJr. This webpage covers all subject areas such as: Science, Health, Reading & Writing, Social Studies, Math, and Art & Technology and more. The only down side is BrainPOPJr. is not free.

How would I use this in my classroom?

1. I can show the videos and do activities as a class using a white board or smart board.
2. Students can do these activities at home to help review and study for test
3. I can use the accompanying lesson plans to help plan my lessons 

Blog Post #6

The Networked Student

 

This video is about a high school student that is studying Psychology. He is in a class where his teacher barely does any lectures and the class is essentially a green classroom, meaning there are no books or paper required. All of the work, reading, and assignments are online. The student's teacher is a student of connectivism. Connectivism simply means that learning occurs as part of a social network of many diverse connection and ties. The teacher empowers her students to take charge of their own learning and to make connections with others who will strengthen their learning process. 

The student starts off by making a PLN (personal learning network). He finds valid sites about his topic of study by using Google scholar and the school's library data base. When he finds sites that are worthy, he post them to his social bookmarking sites. Next the student creates a blog where he takes his knowledge of Psychology and shares his opinions with the world. The student also learns that through iTunesU he can access thousands of courses recorded by actual professors.

Why does a networked student need a teacher?

A networked student such as this Psychology student needs a teacher for guidance. 

Students need teachers so that they can effectively learn how to access all kinds of information that technology has to offer. It's our responsibility as teachers to show our students how to communicate properly, how to differentiate good information from bad, to be respectful of others, and to help students organize all their information and how to apply these skills for their future. 

A 7th Grader's Personal Learning Environment (or PLN)

I am truly impressed with this video. Her PLN looks to be like mine for EDM 310. However, I do wish I was able to be educated on things such as PLN when I was going through middle school, even high school. This seventh grader has a bright future because she is in touch with all the latest technologies and knows how to use them properly and effectively thanks to her teacher! It is engaging for students and it's a new way to stay organized and teach students how to become responsible. 

Project #6 "This Is My Sentence" Video

Blog Post #5

If I Built a School

Krissy Venosdale has been a teacher for ten years and is currently teaching special education. She is very creative and full of life. Her blog, Venspired was inspired by her students and the continuous learning that occurs in her class daily.

Her blog post, If I Built a School was very creative. In this post she talks about her dream of building a school. It starts with her receiving a letter from someone extremely wealthy. In this letter, there is a post-it note that reads, "Follow your dreams, and build a School." Mrs. Venosdale then begins to paint a beautiful and elaborate picture of what her school would be like. She explains how "creativity would be oozing out from every pore", that there would be colorful walls, comfy seats, nooks, and crannies where every student could collaborate, discuss, and dream. How every room would be state of the art, with all the latest technology! She would have a school bus ready at all times to take the students on unlimited field trips, when necessary. My favorite part was when she reveals that she would have a tree house in the Library! What better way to inspire children to read than that!

I share some of these same ideas with Mrs. Venosdale when it comes to building my own school. I don't know all the ins and outs of making a school but I do know that I would create a place that is bright and colorful with classrooms that have all the latest technology, which would be at the students disposal at all times. The students will also be allowed to pick the theme of each classroom and decorate them accordingly with their crafts and art work. All the students would sit in big comfy computer chairs at their own individual desk. I would make sure that my school is on the outside of town so there is peace and quiet, so that there could be beautiful gardens and trees where hammocks would hang from so that students would be able to read, collaborate, and relax. My cafeteria would have top culinary chefs that would prepare healthy food for the students and faultily and for my Library I would also have a tree house along with big comfy couches and bean bags.

Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir

This video is amazing. I would have never imagined something like this would be possible. Eric Whitacre got the idea of starting a Virtual Choir from a friend who emailed him a link of a fan singing one of his pieces called Sleep. After listening to this fan sing he immediately got the idea to get people from all over the world to send in videos singing his pieces so that he can put them together to create a Virtual Choir. For his first Virtual Choir he took 185 individual voices from 12 different countries that have never met and put them in harmony with one another. The piece was very beautiful and innovating.

Teaching in the 21st Century

I agree with Kevin Roberts's position on this video. Due to all social media, such as: Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, cell phones, Google, etc. being able to access where ever you are, whenever you want is a drastic change from where we use to be a decade ago. He is pointing out how important it is for all teachers to be technological literate because "teachers are no longer the main source of knowledge, we are the filter." And as a future educator it is my job to be able to teach my students how to use these resources correctly.

Flipping a Classroom

This is a great and innovated way of teaching. I love how this helps out all students on every level in math, whether they are lower-level students, mid-level students, or higher-level students. Flipping allows students to move at their own paste, and also allows them to have control over the lesson by, stopping the video, rewinding and playing back key parts, or even fast forwarding. It's also great for parents that want to be more involved in what their child is learning in Math at school. These videos , Why I Flipped My Classroom and Flipped Classroom - FAQ by Katie Gimbar are very helpful and shows a new way to teach students math.

       

Blog Post #4

Podcasting with First Graders


Podcasting addresses the following skills:

• listening
• speaking 
• presenting 
• comprehension 
• story telling 
• performance 
• voice acting 
• oral fluency
• media 
• technology

Silvia Tolisano is right when saying, "Believe it or not, but having an audience matters... even to six year olds."

She started off by picking a book that her class would enjoy reading called, Vacation under the Volcano by Mary Pope Osborne from the Magic Tree House series. She broke down the book by chapters and discussed it as a class, then she had her students come up with questions and answers. Once the whole book was completed the students were rotated and recorded so that each student participated. Silvia Tolisano's results were amazing. The students paid attention to what was going on the whole time and were really interested in editing parts of the podcast. My favorite part about her findings was when she mentioned that the shy students were fully engaged as well and "coming out of their shells."

1st Graders Create Their Own Read-Along Audiobook

Teaching first graders how to podcast is amazing. I enjoyed listening to all their books they recorded. I could hear in their voices how excited they were. The students were fully engaged in the activity and were very creative when bringing their characters to life. This is a new and inspirational way to get all students involved with reading even for the students who don't like to read. Recording the student's voices will encourage students to want to read better. Also, creating a booklet is a definite plus for the students so that they are able to follow along.

Listening-Comprehension-Podcasting

I loved this post from Silvia Tolisano's blog because she fully explains why it's important for younger students to learn about podcasting. That in order to learn a new word a student must review the word multiple times and listen to the context it was written in. Silvia points out that tone matters when teaching students new words. That the words surrounding the definition as equally important as the word being learned.


 

Project #5 Presentation