Summary C4K November

For my first C4K#8 i commented on a little girls blog who is in Kathy Cassidy's 1st grade class. I had to comment on a picture the little girl drew with a title of "I can look with my eyes." I told her what a wonderful job she did and how her blog was looking very good.

The next C4K#9, i commented on a kid named Tyler's Blog. His post was of a story that he possibly made up or read, but either way it was a very interesting story about 3 boys getting stuck on an island looking for a control tower. The kids met a snake, killed it, and lived happily ever after. I commented telling him that was a fantastic story and that he had a great blog. I asked himif he made the story up but he never got back to me on that..

Next C4K#10 i commented on Alexie's blog who is a student in Mrs. Parris's class. The post was about planting some cress seeds at school and watching them grow on a piece of cotton wool. She said that the very next saturday and sunday the seeds started to grow. I told her that we plant seeds on my farm and that when they spill into the back of the truck that the seeds will grow in the back just like its on the ground.

The C4K#11 was to comment on a student in Mrs. Huebner's 2nd grade class named Amy. Her post was about what the kids did in class that day, which was to skype with a man named Christopher Lee who happens to be a relative of Christopher Columbus. They talked with him about Columbus and learned many new things about him. I commented saying that what they had learned was very interesting and new to me. I told her that i was unaware that Columbus had a son named Diego as well.

For the C4K#12 it was the special assignment to comment on Yasmines blog. Her post was a video about a little girl riding and training her little horse. I told her that it was a very interesting video and that the horse in the video was a very talented for doing what it did in the video. I told her what my favorite part was and asked her how she found the video.

Additional Assignment #5

The Medium Shapes The Learning
This post was about using other means and tools such as technology in our lesson plan and in our work in the classroom. He suggests that it isnt the tool that we use, it is simply the fact that whichever you do use will end up reshaping learning in ways that we sometimes fail to recognize.

He Just Likes The Class For The Pencils
In this post he discusses how he runs his classroom, freely when you obey the rules but stict if necessary. He also presented a situation where a student didnt know why he love the teachers class, but he did. Most of the other teachers thought he only loved his class because of the resources he had in his class such as computers, but in reality it wasnt just the computers. The student loved the class because the teacher actually understood, respected, listened, gained a relationship with them, and was their friend. I believe this is how every teacher and classroom should be ran and i hope mine is as well.

Sketchy Portraits
In this post he uses a pencil as a metaphor for middle school students lives. He says instead of being a black and white world(ink) they now see gray(pencil) meaning that they see uncertainty. He explains that its just their age the way they act and that at this age they want to be treated like adults and like children, hence the gray. The teacher he talks about sees that it can only be one way or the other and he says that she is writing the world in ink and that there is no room for gray areas or uncertainty in the world. He is sketching it out in pencil and that he is able to see both sides of the situation, which i believe will help in the long run.

Just Teach Them To Solve For X
In this post he makes an interesting conection with the use of metephors and the meaning of the variable "X". He has the students use metaphor to understand the value of "X" not just simply learn how to solve for it. I believe this will help his students become a step ahead because he is teaching them to understand the work and data not just plug and chug memorizations. The value "X" is abstract in math and he says that metaphors are humans ways of making sense out of the abstract, and this is why he has his students do what they do with metaphors in math class, all to help them understand.

Blog Post #13

In researching what the Alabama Learning Exchange(ALEX) is i found that it is a very useful site with many resources available for teachers. It allows you to research different courses of study, lesson plans, web resources, podcasts and more. I did a search and found a lesson plan for a science curriculum, 11-12 grades, biology and physics as the subject. I found all sorts of different lesson plans that can be used in my classroom once i become a teacher. When you go to an actual lesson you like, it gives you an overview of the experiment, objectives, equipment, resources, procedures, and strategies for each lesson you want to choose. I think this will eb a very useful tool in my classroom because as a science teacher i will always be looking for new fun labs to do in my biology, chemistry, and physics classes to keep them more interesting and to actually change things up for the students every once in a while.

The course of study link allows you to select your certain field and then gives you basically a whole semesters lesson guide to your certain subject. So you can use this as a guideline to create your lesson plans for the year in your classroom. This website also has links to presentations to help you plan for and recieve grants. It gives you presentations on grant-writing tips, grant project frameworking, and more. You also have access to English Language Learners(ELL) resources where they give you information on practices, organizations, and how to involve parents of ELL students. It also gives you links to pages to find tips, tricks, and tutorials on a variety of technology tools.

Project #15 Book Trailers

Questionaire Results Project #6

In doing this questionaire i was investigating what students thoughts were about online classes. I found that in our class the majority of the students were juniors so that gave me the opportunity to assume that these students have had both online and lecture classes. About 32% had at least 3 or more online classes. Of my twenty two responses, 73% didnt like to take online classes and i would fall under that category as well. About 60% of the students thought that not getting the teacher-student interaction in the classroom affected their learning ability. The same percentage thoguht that online tests however were easier than regular lecture tests. 68% of the students found it harder to contact their online teacher for help than the actual lecture teacher. 73% of the students decided that it depended on the subject whether online classes were harder or easier. A shocking 100% of the students thought that they gained more practical knowledge in a normal lecture class than an online class. 50% of the students said that they would never take an onilne class again if given the choice. 55% of the students thought that it depends on the subject whether online classes are a good way to learn or not.

This helped me to gain insight on how other students feel compared to my thoughts on online classes. For the most part, my answers for the questionaire reflected the general popululations answers that i have listed. Therefore this helped me to know that it is not just me that believes this way, it is others as well. I also learned that 68% of students found it harder for them to contact their teacher in an online class than a regular lecture class. I felt this way too because of a certain online class that i had in the past but i felt that it may have just been me. So when i asked this question i was shocked to find out that many others had this problem in a lot of different classes as i did.

Final Project Progress Report

For project #16 i am working with Cole Mashburn. Our idea now is to make a video showing the uses of technology in the classroom (all different tyes) while at the same time explaining how technology could help a teacher if he/she decided to use it. So it is sort of an instructional/persuasive video for teachers not using technology yet. Ideas include: the pros of making a blog, using smartboards, skype, blogging in general, google earth and lit trips, twitter, etc.

Blog Post #12

Read the post at http://teachingwithtechno1ogy.blogspot.com/2010/07/equitable-access-digital-divide-and.html . It is a blog post of Whitney Beaulac who is a student at SNHU and is trying to become a teacher. She is in EDU-685 and the purpose of her blog is to track the discussions for that class on how technology is utilized in the classroom. Comment on her post whether you agree, disagree, or have any questions or comments for her post.

Summary C4K #3-7

I was assigned to comment on Stevensons Post. It was a video that a student from Pt England School in Auckland, New Zealand. In this video he read a story about Kupe and his journey across the pacific ocean. I commented on his post and told him what a great job reading he did and that i didnt even think i could make that journey.

My next blog was of a 5th grade girl. Her name was Paige. She had posted on her blog a little sales pitch for what her product was, what kind of sales she had for her product, and hy you should buy it. It was all about sports equipment. I told her that she did a great post and that she could have a career in being a sales representative. I told her that her post made me want to buy some of her product!

My C4K#5 was to comment on Caitlyns Blog. She is a student in Miss W's class in Australia. Caitlyn posted about three things that make her angry and how she deals with anger. She explained one certain instance where her sister took something of hers and didnt tell her until after Caitlyn herself didnt need it anymore. She said that they started arguing and she started to yell at her sister. I told her that in reading her blog it actually kind of made me laugh. The reason for this of course is because i too have a sibling at home, a younger brother. I told her that he does the same things to me as her sister is doing to her, but i told her that she shouldnt be so hard on her sister because if she is planning on going far away for college she is going to miss those times she has had with her sister. The only thing she will remember is fighting so make good memories while you can!

My next blog was HannahK's Blog. She is a 6th grade student in Iowa. Her blog post was about her favorite cousin. She told of the fun times that her and her cousin have together and of the times that they sometimes get in trouble. I told her that i too have a favorite cousin and that we have the same kind of relationship. We love going and riding four wheelers and fishing together and occasionally get into a little bit of trouble. I also told her of how we used to spend the night out in our tree fort. I said that it was some of the best times i had as a kid.

My last comment was on a middle school student who has just created a blog for the first time. His name was Nagrom. His post was simple since it was his first ever. He did actually incorporate a picture into his blog and he asked that we comment on it and suggest names for his picture. I told him he did a great post especially for his first time since he put that picture up. He said that he liked the picture because it had lines going every different way and so many name suggestions were like geometry or complicated or even tapestry.

Project #14

Summary Post C4T#3

 

I was assigned to comment on two blog posts of Mr. Michael Kaechele. His blog page is called Concrete Classroom. The first was Ode To Concrete. This post was something he wrote for the national day of writing. He gives a few examples of what concrete is and what concrete isn't. He loves it and so he believes concrete is beautiful, hard, natural, and aggregate just to name a few things. I told him that i have never looked at concrete in the way he suggests. I am from the country and so looking at concrete i see his other examples of what concrete is. Things like ugly, a symbol of industrialism, and weak. However in looking through his photos, he has helped me to see it in a different perspective.

The second post i commented on was The Alchemist and Louis L'Amour. This post was about his reaction to the reading of The Alchemist. He poses the question of "Do we allow space in schools for pursuing dreams." He didnt think so and explained why. He thinks that it is because schools are far too often focused only on covering the curriculum and meeting standards. I told him that i agree with him fully and that schools should allow students to expand explore different areas and ideas. He posted that he loved the quote by Louis L'Amour of "More important was that school was interfering with my education," on why he dropped out of school and pursued other things. I told Mr. Kaechele I believe that it is the standards and curriculums that schools must follow that turn kids away from schooling, hurt their chances of finding what they really want to do, and even make them drop out and leave school for good.

Blog Post #11

For this blog post we were assigned to watch First Graders in Ms. Cassidy's Class and Ms. Cassidy's Skype. Her techniques for teaching with technology in the classroom are very useful to everyone. I believe her use of blogs and a classroom webpage was fantastic even for such young children because kids love to play and love to explore on computers. So for her students to be able to use computers and internet probably helped them to be much more interested in the material and much more enthused about schooling in general. I think that for older students in a high school setting, playing on computers is more of a distraction than an actual fun learning experience because most of the students in schools now a days probably know more than the teacher does anyways. However, i would be very interested in using blogs and classroom websites as a technique for my classroom so that i can put up extra resources, homework assignments, and even quizzes for students to take at home. I would also use it for a place that students who were absent could go and see what we did in class that day. She puts on her blogs videos for her students to go and watch about ABC's and reading practice and these are all extra resources that are helping her students get a step ahead on other students in other classes. For my classroom i would use it to put up instructional videos on how to do projects, how to complete certain homework examples, and upcoming events. Wikis also would be a good resource to use in the classroom as she did for any age student. This would be useful in helping students to do research for projects or research papers. And skype to me would be very useful because you could have a guest speaker without ever having to leave the classroom or having that person travel all the way to where you are.