Blog Post #10

Do You Teach or Do You Educate?

This video made me think about the meanings of teaching and educating. As the video showed us there are many different ways to define both terms. To teach is always described as you doing something to cause someone else to learn. To educate is like you being there for the student not only teaching them one subject but giving advise and guiding them along their journey letting them open their eyes to different views.
I really like the quote that was used in this video by Peter Brougham-- " Education makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern but impossible to enslave." -Peter Brougham.
This quote says that Education makes the person who they are, so if they have a someone who teaches them and not educates that makes the difference in who that student becomes and what they do with their life. I became an education major to make a difference in many lives whether it be the students I have in my class, their parents or others in the community. I want to be the reason they love school and they are excelling because they are engaged in the material and are understanding what they are doing.

Tom Johnson's Don't Let Them Take Pencils Home!

This is a great article and I am glad that we got to read this blog. I believe Mr. Johnson is right and more often than not teachers fight the problem rather that finding the solutions. Yes, a pencil can be used as entertainment but if teachers were keeping their students engaged with what they are teaching "pencils" wouldn't be the issue of low scores on standardized tests. I think teachers need to stop trying to control what goes on outside of their classrooms and worry about what could keep the students attention. If the teachers are worried about why their students aren't doing the homework assigned they might want to change that up as well and make sure it is keeping the students entertained and engaged in the material. Although, I think writing to a pen pal and playing Hangman is a way of learning also.

C4T#3

I was assigned iLearn Technology for my thrid C4T.

This is a great blog! This blog is about all different kinds of new technology or websites that you can incorporate into your lessons and use in your classroom. It’s a fun way for students to learn and a way for them to understand with interactive pictures and audio. This blog has great information and ideas of how to integrate these sites into the classroom.

Oddizzi

Oddizzi is a great tool to use in your class when talking about geography and places around the world. You can also use Oddizzi for teaching about different cultures. Students can see the physical features and global features of places all over the world and it will give them information about each place and if they want to know something specific. With this website there are also fun characters that help students through the site “Odd and Izzi.” I went and took a look at this site it was pretty cool and looks like it would be really interesting to kids. I believe that this site can help teachers teach geography and get kids interested in how things are in different countries. This site you have to pay for but they do have a free trial to test and check out to see if you like it and all. I think it would be worth the money to help the kids learn using a different tool!

My first comment left on iLearn Technology's blog.
My name is Kimberly Lefferson and I am a student at the University of South Alabama and currently enrolled in EDM 310. I have read your post and looked at Oddizzi's page also. Its a great site, and just the demo itself got me so interested. I am glad I got to read about this new technology. I believe this is a great way to help our students especially with geography. Im glad I have come upon your discovery. I will definitely pass this on as a great suggestion for teachers.

Draw A Stickman

This site is a great tool to use in Language Arts/English! It works with problem solving, story building, and following directions among other skills. This site is called Draw a Stickman. It is a cool website. I went and created a stickman and went through a whole story. It’s a good way to have kids list or find the parts of a story (the beginning, climax, ending)etc. It’s a great tool to get kids excited about writing/ creating a story. This site starts where you draw a stick figure and then goes through a few challenges and has you draw different things the stickman would need. It’s a great way to have kids work together and decide what they should do to help the stickman (problem solving).
I have bookmarked these different pages and I will have to remember to try and incorporate these tools into my lessons in the future as well as keep up with iLearn Technology’s blog!

My second comment left on iLeran Technology's blog.
My name is Kimberly Lefferson and I am a student at the University of South Alabama. I am currently enrolled in EDM310. This site "Draw a Stickman" is very fun and inviting for kids. I went and did one myself. Its a great way to have the students problem solve and think about what they can do to help their stickman. This site is another great way to incorporate technology into the classroom. This would be a great tool to use in a Language Arts/ English class. I am glad that you found this site and shared it with everyone.

Blog Post # 9

What I've Learned This Year (2008-2009)

I have been inspired by what Mr. McClung has told us about his first year as a teacher. When thinking about teaching and getting into student teaching and such I think about how administrators and supervisors will think of me, but just like Mr. McClung said "its not all about you (as the teacher) its about the students and what they are comprehending." I also know that no lesson is perfect. Just remembering times in high school when teachers would be ready to move on to the next thing and we would have to spend more time on something maybe a little confusing the teachers would have to adjust their lessons to what us as students needed to work on more. Teachers definitely have to set high standards for their students. I believe this is a great teaching philosophy because this way the students know you believe in them and have faith that they can succeed with you helping them get there. I have learned so much in EDM 310 so far about all the new technology not only new things like computers, iPads, phones, but also about twitter and blogging lots else. Like making book trailers I feel that is a great thing to get kids excited about books. I believe just like we need to talk to friends and such, you students also like to talk to you. Students look up to teachers so much. Listening to your students mean so much to students also. I believe that there is no way to just stop learning. Without a doubt I learn something new everyday not just because I'm in school but in life in general.

What I've Learned This Year (2009-2010)

Adapting to anything is going to be work, but it seems like Mr. McClung has done a good job to adapt with moving to another school. It was a big change for him to go from teaching science a subject he knows well to teaching three subjects all in one year with two very new subjects he had never taught. It sounds like he did a great job of adapting. As I stated in the last post there is not a perfect lesson. We all as teachers will have to overcome the fact that some things just don't work out as planned and lessons are one of those things. It may not be every lesson but most of them. So we just need to learn to accept it and not stress about it. Manipulating the way and style you teach is a different aspect also that has to be worked on but once you get it and see that the students understand better it makes it all the work worth it. It is great advice that Mr. McClung gives us about "finding your school mom." It is great to find a 'mentor' that will be there when you need help and is there to guide you in learning all the things you need to know about your new school. I believe that teachers should not show or act like they are the best they can be. We are always learning something new and it shows our students that its okay to act like that. Students look up to teachers so much so that the way we act and show ourselves is the way they're going to think that's how I want to act or what I want to be like when I grow up. I think its a great idea to give students roles throughout the class. It does give them ownership and leadership qualities but it also gives them that respect of what your doing to help them learn and to be respectful. Being a "control freak" I believe gives off the vibe of let's act up and try and push the teachers buttons. Nothing ever goes perfect as planned. I haven't learned much about scope and sequence yet but since I have read this post and Mr. McClung said its important I will definitely be paying attention when this topic comes up as well as any other topic because our teachers are here to help us as well as we will be there to teach and guide our students. The topic of "not losing site of what's important" is a big deal. It is something that pushes me through school.

I had a friend that was talking about quitting school and I talked to her about it, and told her not to lose site of her goal to be a teacher. We talked about how she will influence so many kids and how they need great teachers to look up to. I told her that if she quit school that she wouldn't ever accomplish her goal to be a teacher and help influence and form any students. I believe that she is going to stick it out, and I am very proud because that is something for us all to think about when we are having a bad day or are just down. That if we finish and accomplish our goals to be teachers we will be influencing so many children and making sure that we teach them to the best of our abilities! As a student I am learning so much and am excited to get out and into my very own classroom. I am glad I read these posts about Mr. McClung's years of teaching it gives me hope and shows me it will all work out we just have to keep our heads high and do our best to give our students the best education.

Project # 13

Project # 11 Short Movie

Blog Post # 8

This is How We Dream Part 1 & 2

Richard Miller gave a great presentation of what we have to work with these days and how we use our resources. It is true that most of the time now we barely use paper, pens and pencils. Now we use our computers to type everything up faster. It is also true that most of the books we use in class or even just books for free time reading can all be found online in some form or fashion. There are tons of books you can download to your iPad or computer and read and then there are also the ones you can download and listen to. Research has also been made a lot easier, in some ways. Most everything in the public libraries and also in University libraries can be found online. This makes it so much easier to access things from virtually anywhere and at anytime. There are many ways to make sure we understand different subjects and material, by watching other professors lectures. One way to find these lectures would be using a new tool ItunesU. Its amazing what we can see already that will be used and being created for the future. So many new technologies as well as now collaborating with the web itself. It's crazy to hear that actually is being done.

Blog Post # 12 by: Carly Pugh

When reading this post I understood what she was saying about making a playlist but I didn't know how incredible this idea was until I saw Carly's playlist itself. When thinking about Mr. Millers expectations of the new writing in multimedia it really does come close to compare. In this post Carly explains her teaching style or what she wants her philosophies to be as a teacher within using other peoples videos they have created. I think this idea is a great one. Sometimes when you can't explain how you are feeling and then you are watching TV or listening to the radio and you hear a song and it fits how you are feeling exactly to a T. It happens a lot to me. Its better to explain through others work put together as one. This activity puts a personal touch to your teachings and philosophies.

Chipper Series and EDM for dummies

These videos were really entertaining. I really liked both videos and thought about what difficult children would be like in my class one day or children that just didn't feel like it was necessary to do their work. I think Dr. Strange did a great job when it came to handling Chipper. I definitely thought about how I wouldn't want a child like Chipper in my class, but those children are the ones that bring you the most satisfaction when they realize that you were right the whole time and do know what your talking about. EDM for dummies was a funny video! I like how these videos have a humor to them and also get the point across very clearly.

Learn to Change, Change to Learn

In this video teachers describe how school is nowadays. These teachers describe the students using all this technology to communicate to one another, but how it is all banned from actually using the technology in the classroom. I know that it's getting better in how many schools are giving students computers and classes are being donated iPads, but if this is what the future is bringing I definitely think that they should be able to use all this technology inside the classroom as well. I believe its (us) as teachers that need to change our ways of teaching like all the videos we have watched thus far has mentioned that times are changing and we are going to be the teachers of "networked students." I also believe that it should not only be the teachers just changing their ways but we also need the parents cooperation. Their children will definitely be able to teach their parents something new everyday about all this new technology, but they need to have some sort of resources for their children as well. If everyone as a community works together I believe that the students will have many opportunities and have successful school careers.

Project # 12

Project #9b Timetoast Instructional Timeline

Blog Post #7

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieveing Your Childhood Dreams

First off I'd like to start off by saying Randy Pausch is so inspiring. I really like how he shared his childhood dreams and went through every one with us. He showed us exactly how he achieved his goals. I have found what he said about his NFL dream to be very true. "About if people leave you alone and don't tell you what your doing wrong "ride you hard" anymore then they have given up on you." I truly believe that the ones that love and care about you the most will push you the hardest because they want to see you achieve your dreams. I thought it was comical when Paush had the stuffed bears brought out to show for proof. When he got turned down by Disney he didn't get upset he just tried to think of different ways to achieve this goal. To me this is a quality of a role model. I like what Jon Snoddy said, "Wait long enough and people will surprise and impress you." From this video I learned it's okay to run into hardships it makes you stronger and able to do so much more in the end. I enjoyed what Pausch said about enabling others childhood dreams. It's inspiring to know as future educators we can help kids create or make them understand its great to have dreams and if they work hard enough they can achieve them. The projects and worlds that were made were amazing and so cool. I think its great that the "ETC" is going global. "Alice" seems really cool it sounds like its going to be a big hit and being educational is a great aspect! "NEVER GIVE UP" on of the big things that was pushed in this video along with other aspects to success. This video was long, but it was well worth the time to watch it. Especially since it was extremely inspiring if I haven't said that enough.

My PLN Post #1

For My PLN i used Symbaloo. Symbaloo is really easy to use and it helped me get all of my resources organized. With Symbaloo I can put both my favorites websites and pages I use daily together in one location. For my PLN I added the websites I use for school and those I have been visiting for EDM310 and EDU301 to my Symbaloo also. Some of these websites are Google, USA Online, EDM310 class blog, YouTube and many more. I may just be creating my PLN but it is growing with everything I learn and add to it.

C4T#2

The teacher I was assigned for my second C4T is Mr. Karl Fisch. "He has been a teacher for many years and now is a director of technology at a high school(Karl Fisch, About Me, The Fischbowl)."
The first post I commented on is one about reflective blogs in Algebra. Karl Fisch gave his students a writing/blog assignment their first day of class. This assignment was about setting goals for the semester. The three types of goals they were to set were: 1. A goal related to the class (Algebra) 2. A goal related to their semester in high school altogether and 3. A goal related to something outside of school. Then at the end of his post he encouraged his viewers to take a look at his students goals for this assignment. So I went and looked at some of his students goals they were pretty realistic goals they can achieve if working hard. I commented on this post stating that I was a student at the University of South Alabama and am currently enrolled in EDM310. I told him I think this is a great way to kick off the semester or the beginning of a new class with the kids making goals for themselves. It gives them something to work toward and see if they can accomplish their goals. I believe if more teachers gave this assignment out in the beginning of a semester it would give the teachers a better understanding of their students and see what they're willing to try and accomplish.

The second post I commented on was very interesting to me. This post was about a homework assignment his daughter Abby brought home. The assignment was one where she was assigned a certain country and had to find "interesting and relevant" facts about her country. Her country she was assigned was the Bermuda Islands. Mr. Fisch helped his daughter find some facts from websites they looked at pictures of Bermuda and also looked up its location on Google Maps. Mr. Fisch then states " Now, at this point, it's an okay if not particularly engaging assignment and, again, I don't know where the teacher/class is going next with this." Then he asks his daughter "if she would want to try and talk to someone in Bermuda and ask them some questions." Abby agreed, so Mr. Fisch sent a tweet out saying "My daughter is researching the Bermuda Islands for social studies. Looking for 10 specific, relevant facts. Anyone from Bermuda out there?" Within in a couple of minutes he had a reply from someone suggesting another person that actually lives in Bermuda. Then a few minutes later they got a reply from the person that was suggested(@Bermyguy). @Bermyguy asked "what do you need to know." Mr. Fisch and @Bermyguy agreed to a Skype conversation the next day. Mr. Fisch's daughter thought about some questions to ask Shannon (@Bermyguy) for the next days Skype. In this Skype conversation, which was posted as a video on Mr. Fisch's blog also in this post, Abby got to see what Shannon's house looked and sounded like and learned some very interesting facts. "Did you know that in Bermuda they collect their rain water for all their water needs?" So after talking/Skyping with Shannon, Mr.Fisch and Abby were talking about the how they use the rain water and Abby said "Wow, they must get a lot of rain." So when thinking back to the whole assignment I believe that actually skyping with Shannon had a bigger impact on Abby than finding her facts mainly from websites and seeing still pictures of Bermuda. It's great that others would take the time to help with a school assignment like this one! I think it was great for them to share the experience and I told him that I thought it was a great suggestion for the teacher.

Blog Post #6

The Networked Student

This video was so interesting and really made me think about teaching in the future as well as the few videos in the past we have watched. First I learned the meaning of Connectivism. I also learned that PLN means personal learning network. We have a PLN in this class, or I have started to create one with the many bookmarked pages and searches within different blogs and such. I think its amazing how learning is changing. This video was about a boy who didn't have a textbook whose teacher rarely lectured he only went to class 3 days and had online assignments to do the other 2 days. This video really made me realize that teachers of a networked student will be teaching the students of the future how to assess the credibility of websites and when they aren't facts but just opinions. Teaching students this we will be introducing a PLN, but they will make their own depending on what they are studying and what not. Not only can our students use computers and the internet for resources but also Ipods. Ipods/MP3s offer many apps that can support their learning. Asking NEVER hurts. If you don't know something then it is a good choice to ask and make sure that you know exactly what your doing is right. During this video the student created basically a textbook for himself with all of his resources. After all of this work and making his on PLN he uploaded his hardwork to a blog so others who need help with that specific topic can view his work and his findings.
*Why does the networked student even need a teacher?*
They need someone to teach them how to build this network and how to take advantage of their learning opportunities. The teachers want their students to leave their classes maintaining their learning network and use it for their futures.

A 7th Graders Personal Learning Environment or PLN

She made a Personal Page with all of her resources and social networks on so these pages would be of easy access. She made a Glogster also which is something new to me. I think its very interesting and will be looking into them some more. She stated that they use Skype for asking experts for help. This seventh grader also stated that using her computer meant there was a lot of freedom. They have the freedom of how to do it and when to do their assignments, but they have so much freedom that they feel the responsibility to do their work. She also stated that they have access to all kinds of resources from Facebook to other social networks. Although technology can be distracting when things finally get done they look neat. Her personal learning environment is much like my personal learning network. My PLN consist of all my resources needed for school but also includes my social network pages.

C4K Summary (September)

C4K # 1
For this C4K i was assigned Aneisha @ PT England School. She wrote about her experience with cross country. She wrote a story about how one day she didn't realize she had cross country at school and her mom made her go. She had to run and she didn't like running. I told Aneisha I enjoyed her story on cross country. I am not much of a runner either but when I was in fifth grade in our PE class we had to run a mile every now and then. I told her in my class we used to make it a competition and to see who was the fastest in the class. I encouraged her to keep up the good work and some times we have to do some things we might not want to.

C4K # 2
My assigned kids blog for the week didn't accept comments so I chose to comment on another kids blog. Her name is Abbie. She wrote about visiting Florida and described why she wanted to visit there. She said was because she could go to the beach and a pier with an amusement park on it. I told her I was born in Florida and loved going back and visiting. I also stated I loved going to the beach also. I told her that I would be interested in keeping up with other posts she wrote and told her to keep up the good work.

C4K # 3
This C4K i was assigned to the St. Elmo Explorers. I enjoyed the video. The children seemed to be having a good time making the video and creating their self portraits. I was assigned Dana for this C4K. I really liked her self portrait and her descriptive words about herself. I told her she did a great job and to keep up the good work.

C4K # 4
About My Avatar--Amber
This weeks C4K the student I was assigned had to describe the Avatar she made for her blog picture. She described her avatar as resembling herself. She also described her likes and put her avatar in a warm surrounding because her favorite season is summer. I stated that she had described her avatar very well and that my favorite season is summer too. I told her to keep up the good work.