C4T # 4

I was assigned Ms. Jenna Bentleys' blog for this  C4T. This particular post was titled My Nellie Bly Learning Centre. This has been a project that she has been working on for the past month or so for the Night of the Notables. I had to look at some of her previous post to understand what exactly was going on. She picked Nellie Bly, who is a feminist, stunt journalist, and a writer, because she sees her as being eminent. The project included a game. This particular game was a spin the wheel and you would land on one of four points in Ms. Bly's life. You would then be asked a question and would have to put yourself in her shoes to give the best answer. The game was put in place to start conversations about Nellie Bly.

My second visit to her blog she posted "To Fight for Something as Opposed to Fighting Over Something." She claimed that the minority are more likely to fight for something than to fight over something. Also, the claims that the minority of the minority are the ones that actually make a statement. She give the example of the Founding Fathers. I agree with her on that and I also believe that anyone can put their mind to something that they are passionate about whether or not they are the minority. I was interested by this post also because I just got through studying the relationship between Britain and the American  Colonies. I found this neat because I knew exactly what she was talking about.

C4K #'s 8-11

C4K #8/ I was assigned Mrs. Yollis' Classroom Blog as this weeks comment for kids. Her post was informing people of their Family Blogging Month. This for for the family members and friends of the students to comment on their classes blog. Included in this blog was two video's one was how to leave a comment and the other was what to include in your comment to make it a good comment. I thought the second video was very helpful due to the fact I have problems trying to figure out what to comment about. I have included it in the C4K Summary because I think everyone should watch it.



C4K #9/ This post was a video made by Room 13. It was their Photo Challenge. They took a snake stuffed animal and was assigned to take as many pictures of it everywhere on campus. They were pretty creative doing this project. Some examples and my favorite was when they put the snake on the garden hose roll-up holder and on the water fountain. I think this is a great way to get students out of the classroom and yet still doing something educational.


C4K #10/ This post was quite interesting and unlike any other post I have read so far. It was by Sam. In this post, he wrote a story about how he had spaced out and was all the sudden Ramses II. He went from one scene to another through a time warp. In the comment I left him, I asked him what sparked this idea. I was very curious because I have never really heard of a story like this before. Although, it was quite interesting and well wrote.


C4K #11/ I was assigned Ms. Naugle's 5th Period class. Her students did a Pumpkin Project on whether or not pumpkins float in water. They brought pumpkins of all sizes. The student I was assigned was Dairon. His post was well wrote. He was excited about his pumpkin floating and he even estimated that their was at least 100 seeds in it.

Additional Assignment #3

Sir Ken Robinson's: Changing Education Paradigms
  This video was amazing. Not only the message, but the art as well. I like some of what he says about ADHD. I do believe children are getting so distracted about all the other fun stuff that they do lose track of what they are suppose to doing which is schoolwork, because sometimes it does get boring. I do believe that students may sometimes need help with focusing, but not to the point that they are not all there. Meaning, not to the point that they are so drugged up they can not think straight. It does happen, because I have seen it. He states that the system of education is modeled after Industrialization, age group, bells, etc.  I have never thought of that, but he's right. I can see how schools are like industrialized factories.
Another thing that caught my attention in this video was Divergent Thinking. They completed a  longitudinal test on a group of children starting at the age of a  kindergarten student which scored at 98% then tested that same group every three to five years until the age of 15 and their divergent thinking deteriorated.
He makes a point that I agree with and that is "Collaboration is the stuff of growth." Sir Ken says that, "Great learning happens in groups." I believe this is true because when you put a group of minds together not only do you have an array of ideas, each person has their own talents. For example, one person could be the artist, one the narrator, idea generator, designer, author, and sound effects. All these positions are just as important as the other. Thats why I believe in collaborative projects because their are to many positions for just one person to fill. If I were to choose a position, I would like to be the narrator.

Blog Post 13

ALEX stands for Alabama Learning Exchange. This is an extremely useful site for teacher as well as parents. There are so many features that this website has. I will explain a few of them. When you go to the home website there are many choices you can choose from.  There are Courses of Study, Web Links, Lesson Plans, Professional Learning, Podcast Treasury, ALEXville, and a Search. I will go into detail of a few of them.
I will begin with Courses of Study. Once you click on it, you will see another set of options to choose from. They are all subjects such as the basic ones along with technology, health, languages, etc. You will need to choose one of the subjects and the grade level or type you are interested in and you will find all the topics that go along with that grade or level of math.
Secondly, I will Lesson Plans. ALEX gives you options on how you want to find lesson plans or you can log in and create your own lesson plans. You can search by subject, grade, school,etc. Once you have made a choice go to display results. Under the results, it gives you the entire lesson laid out for you. How much time, objectives, activities you could do are all included along with so much more.
This website is packed full of ideas and helpful things you could do that I can not begin to explain all of the. The most I can do is point you in the right direction in hopes you will check it out.
I am so glad that I was made aware of this sight before I started teaching. There are so many helpful ideas that are encompassed in this site. I will definitely utilize this site when I become a teacher.

Additional Assignment #5

Tom Johnson's Adventures in Pencil Integration:
Just Teach Them To Solve For X
In this post, he is explaining to a fellow teacher why metaphor's are important to learning and life. Using metaphors are confusing, dangerous, and often times messy but he relates these facts to reality. He talks about how life is not easy and sometimes very hard, so he wants to teach his students to use metaphors to help show them that. 
Sketchy Portraits: 8th Grade Identity and Pencils
In this post, Mr. Spencer is referring to how the attitudes of students coincide with their confusion of how things are changing in society. He compares a fourteen year old to a toddler to prove the point. The point being that the fourteen year olds want to be treated like both an adult and a kid. 
He Just Likes the Class For The Pencils
This is my favorite post of the four that was assigned. Mainly because of his way with children and how he treats them. He takes into account that he is not always right and does make mistakes, but he also apologizes which is essential in gaining a trustworthy relationship with students. I know I always had respect for teachers who acknowledges when they were wrong. 
Another thing I like about this post is that he does not "shame and blame" the student. That is no way to gain respect or help the student in any way. Teachers need to try and  find out what exactly that particular student is having trouble with and why in order to help them. I think Mr. Spencer is a great teacher that works hard to help his students. 
The Medium Shapes the Learning
Mr. Spencer is trying to show that teaching with different mediums will give you a different learning outcomes. I completely agree with this post. I immediately compared this post to an Art class that I have recently taken. We learned many art mediums different artist of different time periods used. Each medium produced a unique outcome. Depending on which medium you teach will give you a unique outcome. 

Blog Post 12

Read Who says elementary students can't blog?. Write a short paragraph telling me about your thoughts on this post.

Who says elementary students can't blog?
I definitely believe that students can blog. I would have never even thought of it before this class. Edm310 has opened my eyes to so much that I did not even know was out there. I think it is great that students are involved in such things. In this post it shows. It helps them realize that their words do mean something and can be heard. Teaching this to students at such a young age will, I think, be beneficial to them as they grow and learn new and exciting things. Hopefully, upcoming teachers realize that and strive to help their students be aware of the fact that their voices can be heard.  

Project #15

Who Will You Choose To Be?

Project #6

How is Edm310 Going for You?
I thought I would do a survey on something that coincided with this class, so what better thing to do than to ask how the class was going. For the most part, my group was doing well. I have included a link to my Summary Results Form to show in detail all the statistics. Overall, my survey turned out to be pretty good. I only had four people that have yet to answer it.

Summary Responses

Project #16 Progress Report

I am working on the Final Project with Hailey Rascoe, Leigh Setser, and Christie Odom. We met tonight, November 8th, to discuss what we were going to do. We are not quite sure yet, but we plan to meet next week to discuss topics and how we are going to go about completing it.

Blog Post 11

Little Kids... Big Potential
I think this is an amazing video. I wish every school was able or propelled to have classrooms, such as this one, at least one in every grade level. I thought it was such a blessing for this class to have access to all the computers and technology and be able to use them. Not many schools can afford this.
 For these students to just be first graders they are already technological advanced. When I was in first grade, my family did not even own one. I remember playing stick and a blocks game on a family members, but that was the extent of my knowledge of computers. I think that schools should do everything they can do get students computer savvy, because it will be a huge part of their future.


Ms. Kathy Cassidy Skype Conversation 2/17/10
This was a video of a Skype conversation between Ms. Cassidy and Dr. Strange. Dr. Strange started the conversation by asking her how she got started in technology and how long she had been doing it. Ms. Cassidy replied by saying ten years and that she had been given five computers, but she could not put any programs on them. This in turn sent her on a technological journey to learn about webpages, blogs, etc. She claims she has a lot of support from parents, administrators, and that divisions technology coordinator. He of which has helped her a lot and encouraged her blog and what she is doing with these students.
She has several comments on what she thinks about some of Dr. Strange's students views on technology in the classroom. She believes and clearly states that they are wrong. Technology is not going away and that they would be handicapping their students as well as themselves.
Dr. Strange refers back to his two questions. The first one is , "Do you believe all teachers should be technological literate?" I love her answer to this question which was if you can only do spreadsheets and word processing that is not technology today, that was twenty year ago. Teachers should continue to learn because technology is constantly changing. The questions the students asked her were pretty good questions. The one that was asked about the students safety and privacy on the internet would have been one I would have asked.
This was a great Skype interview. I think it would have been more beneficial for students to have been assigned this to watch before we were assigned our Skype interview.

Blog Post 10

An Open Letter to Educators By: Morgan Bayda
 This blog post was an eye opener for me. Sadly, it was the truth. I am currently taking five classes and two out of those classes are hour long lectures with no discussion. It is very hard to stay awake in those classes. I think that every class should be discussion because you learn so much more that way. You are hearing it, thinking about it, and having a discussion about it. After doing all that you pretty much know it thoroughly. Discussing something helps me remember better because I have to think about first. I do not know if I would go quite as far as Dan went, but something needs to be done about todays education. There students should be taught more than just facts, there should be more applications involved to better understand. 





Don't Let Them Take Pencils Home By: Tom Johnson
  This post was a story of two teachers. One teacher was upset because another teacher was sending pencils home and apparently doing so causes low test scores. It amazes me how teachers worry so much about test scores and not so much about the students. To me, no two students are the same. Each students learns better in different ways. For example, students can be visual learners, auditory learners, kinesthetic learners, and finally read and write learners. Some students are very smart, but when it come to test they may not do as well. That why I believe that grades are not as important as how well the student participates in class.

My Sentence
Try to be a better person today than I was yesterday and encourage everyone to do the best they can and never give up.

C4T # 3

  I was assigned Live the Conversation which is a blog by Becky Goerend. She is a 6th grade teacher in Iowa. The first post I read was about her being a little frustrated and in a slump. She was informing us on a few things that is helping her deal with it. One was making a playlist with the students favorite school appropriate music to help calm them during study hall. This gives her a little quiet time. The other idea was instead of writing what their independent reading was about they were giving options on how they could do it. She gave them the option of video, letter, or a post on the classroom blog. I left her a comment agreeing with her that options and choices have everything to do with how the students function. I said that there has to be some variations in the classroom to keep the students attention.


My second visit to her blog she had posted that if you give students a meaningful project, they will take off and amaze you. Her students had been given four student AVerPens, one teacher AVerPens, and a document camera. The only instructions that was included was to the document camera. The students divided up into groups that were grouped by their strengths and weaknesses not by groups of friends. They have already made a lot of progress. They have learned how to charge the pens and how to hook the document camera up. Children are amazing and are very smart. Teachers need to know that and guide them more than anything . Students will not learn if everything is done for them.

Smartboard Project #13

Leslie Ketchum, Hailey Rascoe, Leigh Setser

C4K Summary #'s 3-7

C4K #3 I was assigned to read/watch the ninth post on the archive list. It was movie called Terrible Pirates and was based on a lesson they were doing in school, Mighty Mariners. It was made a old time silent movie. The children did a great job acting. There were different scenes, but I must say that the damsel in distress was my favorite. Technology is awesome and I think it is great for the kids, because they can have fun.
C4K #4 My assigned students has not kept up with his blog, so I viewed a daughter of an EDM310 Alumni's blog. Her name is Kyla Carpenter. She is a extremely intelligent second grader.  Kyla has already completed several videos, voice threads, as well as a Google presentation. Her most recent post is a video called the Secret Act. It was a video in a short story form of a trick that her dog can do. She put all the toys in the dog kennel and locked the door. Then, she walked out of the scene and her dog came in opened the door and pulled her toys out. It was so cute.
C4K #5 I was asked to view two students blogs for this assignment. One being a high school student and the other being a 7th grader from Australia. First, I read the high school students blog. I wish that I had thought the way she did when I was in high school. She views education the way it should be viewed, a opportunity that should be taken advantage. She gives a perfect example of the women in Saudi Arabia. They are not allowed to do anything without a mans permission. How will they ever know that that is not the way it should be if they do not have the opportunities to learn. Here I am a women and I am in college and I take it for granted. She has greatly changed my views of school.
 She also says that if students do not learn for themselves then they will believe everything that they are told and not have their own opinion about things. That is very important. I am a prime example. I have always been told who I should vote for, what political party, etc., but how can I argue why I do those things if I cannot support my views. Having your own opinion is vital in society. She is a very bright girl and I look forward to hearing more from her.
  The second blog I was assigned was Lauren. Her most recent post was dealing with anger. They were studying anger issues in Skills For Life. I gave her some pointers on helping her deal with her anger issues.
C4K #6 This C4K, I was assigned a student named Quinn. She has not had anything in particular posted on her blog. She does, however, have one poem on there that I commented on. It was about her playing volleyball. I left her a comment telling her that I liked her poem and that I knew what she was talking about because I played volleyball and basketball in high school.
C4K #7 I was assigned the October 7th post on Mr. McClung's Blog to look at. It was titled Global Pool of Money. This post was about the past weeks topic in class which was the recent recession that America was in and how it came about. He went through the chain of events in laymen terms for the 8th graders so they would understand. Mr. McClung  started at people going to the bank for loans, which they they knew they were not good for, to that loan being sold over and over again and finally landing in the hands of big time investors. The problem they ran in to is the people who asked for the loan never paid up.
 This happens all the time. People get way in over there head in debt that cannot be paid and others end up having to pay for it. The best thing people can do is buy under there means so that when hard times come you can still pay for what you owe.

Skype Interview Project # 12

Leslie and Hailey's Skype Conversation
How is this semester going? Featuring Brianna :)

Short Movie Project #11

Love Your Neighbor By: Melody Carlson

Blog Post 9

"What I've Learned This Year" By Mr. McClung
I very much liked this post. I love that teachers care that much of their students and show it by trying to find ways to improve different areas. He gives seven different thoughts of what he learned his first year of teaching. These different things are advice about student teacher relationships, co-worker relationships, just some tips to follow. I'm just going to touch base of a few from the group.
Be flexible with your students. No matter how much you practice a lesson it cannot be perfect because it all depends on the students. Listening to your students is one of the most important ones. You must be able to listen to your students concerns in order for them to learn. Your students will respect you for it in the end and know that you care about them. That means a lot to students. Don't be afraid of technology because it is not going to go away. Technology will continue to grow and it is best to accept that fact and use what is given. Be reasonable is also a big one. Do not set your goals too high for your students and you won't be disappointed in the long run when they do not reach them. You are just setting yourself up for failure and heartache because you believe that you did not do your best, when you did.
These are just a few that I thought were important. The most important I believe to never stop learning yourself. As a teacher, your job is to teach and be there for these children. If you stop learning about knew things it will be the students teaching you more than you teaching them. Mr. McClung gives you some hints to being a great teacher and educator and I recommend you keep them handy and remind yourself of them. Thats what I'm going to do.

Blog Post 8

1. Richard Miller: This Is How We Dream Parts 1 & 2
  Mr. Miller was talking about change in how literature has changed and how it is continuing to change. He introduces knew ways that he is learning to write articles and books using the internet and only that. There is so much information there that is accessible and he believes that is should be taken advantage of and I completely agree. He also makes the point that books are going slowly drifting out of the circle. Multimedia writing also gives the options of video, photos, etc. Having those options give more room for explanation of the topic.
  I wish that I could say that I am ready for multimedia writing, but unfortunately I am not yet. There are a lot of things I have to learn before I can put together something like he was showing. I have no doubt that multimedia writing is in our future. I also have no doubt that my students will be capable of multimedia writing.
2. The Chipper Series, EDM 310 For Dummies
  The first one I watched was The Chipper Series. It was a great video and very creative. I liked everything except for its repetitive script. It shows that you should always take your work seriously, because if you do not you could end up with a job that you don't like. You should work as hard as you can and do the best you can the first around, so you do not have to start at square one again. The second video assigned was Edm for dummies which was very entertaining. We are encouraged to think outside the box and use our imaginations and this video is the prime example of how you do that.
  People can take several ideas from these videos to help them with their movies and podcasts. I personally would not have thought of either of these. It shows students examples of creativity along with showing them that you don't have to go by the book.
3. Compare and Contrasts of Critiques of Smartboards 
  These two Critiques of Smartboards blogpost are completely against smartboards in classrooms. The first one was Why Smartboards are a Dumb Initiative. He argues that smartboards are not replacing something that is broken, it is just making it more expensive. Also, he argues that Administrators need to be able to show in numbers objects that they have bought. Although he makes a good argument that you should not replace something that is not broken, Smartboards are an efficient way to do lectures. You can go ahead and have you lectures notes already completed before class and saved which makes class go by more smooth and quicker than having to write and erase the entire class period. It is more efficient, I think.
  The second one is Why I Hate Interactive Whiteboards. This post was more along the lines of a tangent. He clearly states his opposition to Interactive Whiteboards. He believes that they serve absolutely no purpose in the classroom other than being an expensive object that can be shown off by Administrators at meetings. He argues that the Administrators put them in their classes and does not even evaluate the progress of them and how that are helping classes.Here is a blog I found that is Pro- Interactive Whiteboards, Teachers Love Smartboards. The title tells it all.

Timetoast Project 9b

Additional Assignment #2

How Kids Teach Themselves By: Sugata Mitra

  Children are amazing and are sometimes not given credit for how smart they truly are. What Sugata does is prove just that. He sets children up with computers with high-speed internet to show how they can learn without instructions and teach others how to do something. Without ever seeing or using a computer before and not knowing what the internet was, they figured out how to browse, record themselves and play it back, play instructional games. He gives perfect examples on how motivated learners can teach themselves regardless if they are adults or children. I believe that children are more apt to learning and teaching themselves than most adults. Adults are most of the time already set in there ways and hard to change their ideas. Children are creative   and are into everything. In order for students to teach themselves, there has to be nobody there to instruct them on how to do something. They have to be in an environment where it is either they learn for themselves or not at all and most people will learn and teach themselves. Internet plays a big part in learning. It is how you connect with people and things all over the world. Without it there would be no contact.

  I believe that anyone who is motivated to learn will learn. They will go to all ends trying to figure it all out and will not stop until they do. I would motivate someone to learn by giving them something that interest them. If it is interesting they will want to learn more about it, but if it is not then they more than likely will not care. I am motivated to learn because I love children and want them to have the best opportunities in life that they can get and it start with grade school. I have to be a great teacher in order for them to have a good education. I have to have a good education in order to be a great teacher and that starts with being a motivated learner. 

  Teachers play a major role in their students life. They are with them all day long. It is important to have a good teacher/student relationship because if you do not it affects the students by not wanting to listen or not going to the teacher when they need help. 

The most important point that I took out of this video is not limiting a student. Expect more from them because they are smart and their brains are like sponges.