Sunday, March 25, 2012

Tuesday, March 06, 2012

Blog Assignment 7

Wendy Drexler


I think that for us to be teachers of networked students we are going to be those that answer questions that our students cannot find online or just to point them in the right direction. There will also be the challenge of us having to sit back and be a guiding light for our students instead of being in the front of the classroom giving a lecture to students who are barely paying attention or zoned off in their own little world like we were in school. The most difficult thing that people are going to have to get used to from this change IS the fact that teachers will no longer be in the front of the class giving lectures, instead they will be off to the side on the computers right along with students letting them figure out for themselves how to do an assignment and only stepping in on really difficult portions.
On the other hand, I think that while this type of learning is just now getting off the ground it will still be in the first steps by the time I get in a classroom so I know that I will be getting used to it right along with all the other teachers and that hopefully if it does not work there will be a way for some teachers to stay in a traditional education setting. While I have this hope, I can look around out how fast things have progressed and know that this will not be true and that everyone that is now in school to be in the education field and current teachers will need to get used to teaching from a distance.

The Seventh grader's PLE and my PLN
symbaloo logo



I learned from the video that the seventh grade student uses Symbaloo to track all of her web searches down and last semester since I had not started bookmarking my sites yet decided that it would be a good place to start. I went to Symbaloo and created an account and now I can get to everything I need to help me with this class at the click of a button, especially since I thought it would be a great idea to go ahead and set my Symbaloo as the homepage on my browser. From last semester I learned that it's important to keep a running PLN and so far I have managed to update mine every 2-3 weeks.

Sunday, March 04, 2012

C4KSummary for February

Comments For Kids Picture

There were three C4K's assigned for the month of February. Here is the summary for the three.

C4K #1 - Mary H.
In the post I commented on Mary wrote about her experiences with playing cricket. I commenting letting her know she should add more detail but that she's a great writer.

C4K #2 - Julianne
This student is studying abroad right now and blogged about how different it is. She also wrote about how difficult it is to concentrate on studying while the sun is shining and it feels great outside. I commenting telling her I have the same problems with concentrating but to keep trying and to always put her studying first.

C4K #3 - Sania
Sania's post was a reading response to the story by Mark P. entitled The Harp. She made sure to not only summarize what she read but to give her opinion on what she thought of the story and what she predicted should have happened. I commented letting her know that she needed to work on her sentence structures, but that she is a great writer.

Thursday, March 01, 2012

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
Randy Pausch Kisses wife at last Lecture



*Before I get started on talking of his teaching techniques I just want to say that it makes me sad that he has already passed away because it seems like Dr. Pausch would be a fantastic person to befriend.* Now back to the regularly scheduled program.

The first technique Dr. Pausch discussed in the lecture was the "head fake" which he started to learn at the very early age of 9, from his football coach. The "head fake" is indirect learning while learning something else, his example for football was that while the team is learning the game they are also learning things like teamwork and leadership. This would be used in my classroom by putting the students into groups and making sure the "quiet" one was the leader so they would learn to take the lead and have their opinions heard.
Hard work was something Dr. Pausch really focused on in his classroom and I think that that was really important because people need to put their best foot forward including in the classroom. Hard work would be ingrained into my students because you should never try to coast through with an attitude of "I got a passing grade, that's good enough for me".
To Dr. Pausch, getting feedback from the students help not only him, but also his students see what needed to be worked on and make that improvement. He got feedback through bar graphs that let everyone see how easy they were to work with and so they wanted to improve where they were if there overall score was not very high. I've been learning in my Evaluations class that keeping graphs or checklists to keep some feedback or progress on each student.
The most important technique he used in the class, at least to me, would be having fun. While it doesn't really sound like a technique to me, if you really think about it for some time, you will be able to see that it is as most teachers don't care whether their students are having fun or not so they are miserable and not really doing their best in class. I aspire to be just like Ms. Honey from Matilda with making my classroom as fun and happy as I can. I want them to feel creative in my class!