Project 15 - SMARTBoard Lesson

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Blog Assignment 13

I chose to do Option 2 for this assignment. For this option we were to read My Teacher Is An App by Stephanie Banchero and Stephanie Simon and then write a summary of the article and our reaction.

A.) The Summary

Ms. Banchero amd Ms. Simon take us into the world of virtual schooling. They do this in the beginning by letting us see how different the siblings Noah and Allison Schnacky are doing their work in their Florida home one afternoon. Then the facts come. Starting with the number of online schools in many states and how many students are attending them. They then talk about the percentage increase for those attending them in the last three years, which is 40%, they are now up to about 250.000 students that attend full time online schools. Some of these schools are state run but for a lot of them, the school has hired for-profit companies like K12 Inc., and Connections Academy. These companies do the hiring and curriculum and the schools just provide the students.
They went on to talk about the standardized test score and how many of the students that are taking full time online classes have low scores. They went on to quote superintendents and teachers about the schools being completely online.

B.) Reaction
Part of what was discussed in the article was that teachers were 80% of the budget and the budget was the problem. Also that Teachers were less needed in the online classes. This made me worry that I am going through all these classes and studying like crazy for no reward at the end. As more and more classes and schools go online teachers are becoming less and less needed. My biggest concern is that by the time I finish school there will be no teaching positions open for me to show what I have learned and make some of the problem schools better for students.

Final Project Progress Report

Our group has decided that we are going to plan a lesson incorporating technology. Each one we use will be appropriate for the different classrooms we are going to be in. This will give everyone the chance to glimpse what their future classroom is most likely going to be like.

Blog Assignment 12

For this we are supposed to come up with an assignment that has not been done but that Dr. Strange may use in the future. For me I couldn't think of anything and so I waited to get ideas from other people that are in this class. Looking at their posts I saw that many of the classmates I follow were going along the same lines of setting a video to watch and then making an assignment around it.

I have decided to try the same thing. I found a video on YouTube about technological changes over the last decade. This video should be watched by students who can then discuss the technological changes over a different period of time. They may even be put into groups and asked to make a video similar to this for those time periods. If that was the case then they would also be assigned the behind the scenes video.

Mrs. Yollis' 365 Project Blog

For this blog Mrs. Yollis is having her students bring in pictures of interesting things that they themselves or their family members do and she puts up a new one everyday. Her blogs are so organized and have visitors from all over the globe just like the EDM310 Class Blog.

Blog Assignment 11

Kathy Cassidy

The video Little Kids... Big Potential by Kathy Cassidy is about her first grade class and the technology they are already using in it. She uses wikis, blogs, videos and Nintendo DS' in her classroom and her students seem to not only enjoy using them but learning as well.  In my future classroom I hope I am actually able to use all of these things and the SMARTBoards. This way I would be technologically caught up with the way teachers should be at the time. By this I mean that by the time I get into a classroom they should all be running pretty much on technology alone. Textbooks, notebooks and pens should be for those that need a bit more time with learning the different subjects.

Dr. Strange and some of his former students in EDM310 also did a Skype interview with her and they discussed how long she has been using technology in her classroom and why she started. Dr. Strange also made sure to ask her the two important questions in this class: "What is technological literacy?" and "Should all teachers be technologically literate?" I agree with Dr. Strange and Ms. Cassidy that they should be and that it is more than just being able to use the tools in Microsoft Office.

Blog Assignment 10

Do You Teach or Do You Educate? By Joshua B. Bloom

I intend to educate instead of just teach by making sure that I have enough time to go to all my students and see if they actually get what I have been lecturing about instead of just giving the lecture and moving on to the next subject. To me, a lot of students nowadays are like this and it needs to be changed with the educators of the future, which I consider myself since I am in school to become an educator. This will help with students actually getting to learn the material.

I think the other big thing that I will make different as an educator not teacher is to help students know that they don't have to accept everything they hear from the teacher as a fact. Sometimes teachers are wrong and they will need to be told. The video listed the second definition of a teacher as someone who will "encourage someone to accept as a FACT or principle" To me, teachers should not be encouraging students to just accept a fact, they should be wanting them to make sure it is one through questions and research to help get them thinking.

Don't Let Them Take The Pencils Home!
Tom Johnson's Post has him talking to a coworker about finding the solution to the problem of students not learning but instead goofing off in class. She is more worried about bubble tests that don't even show how much a student learns and he is worried about getting them engaged in different activities and projects that will get them thinking. This approach lets us see that he is for learning in different ways and that things need to change in the schools. It also shows that people will not be there to help take the blame when things don't go the exact way they want them too but when things turn out for the better they will be beside you taking some credit for the success you earned. This was shown in the post by Javi saying "your" instead of "our" when she finally gave up arguing with Mr. Johnson.