Final Report on PLN

I use Symbaloo for my PLN and I currently have 50 tiles on it ranging from entertaining things like shopping and horoscopes to blogs I found interesting and things I can use in my future classroom to educational blogs like the EDM310 class blog and some of the ones I have commented on that stuck out to me as useful. I am happy to say that I have my Symbaloo as my home page on Mozilla to remind me every time I open the internet to do my work since I am a huge procrastinator.

C4T #2 - The Power of Educational Technology

Digital Ethics - Exploring how kids use Digital Media
In this post Liz Davis talks about a workshop she attended so that she could get some ideas of the technology she would like to incorporate into her class. Then she mentioned that it is hard to do so since there is not a designated computer time at the school she teaches in. I left a comment saying that I would like more details about the material covered in the workshop so that maybe I could one day use it in my classroom even though she said that it was aimed at High School students, I figure that I can switch it up a bit and make it work for Elementary School.

Blog Post 13

For this post we were supposed to "fast" from technology and then right a report on our success or failure. I am happy to say that I was successful in completing this project. My laptop messes up a lot and likes to shut itself down regualarly so staying away from it for 24 hours was not a problem. Plus given that my mother and sister like to have me go out and about with them made things simpler; we spent a lot of the day in our pool and sitting on the back porch talking. I think the part that made this fast so easy for me is that I don't like watching television I would rather lay in bed reading a good book, granted most of the time I listen to music too, but my MP3 player broke this week so everything was in my favor.

I think that when my future student arrive in the classroom they will be only slightly uncomfortable with how little technology is present, especially since I want to teach Kindergarten; they barely use technology at that age, I think the thing they will miss the most will be television, but that is where educational movies and some YouTube clips will come in handy.

C4T #4 - Trails Optional

Mobile Blogging - Word of the Day
For this post the author was talking about her nephew wanting to start his own blog all on his own. She helped him set it up and it is up and running today, it is a blog that does a word of the day - one that he finds interesting and something that related to his day - and is accompanied by a picture.
I commented saying that I find it wonderful and fascinating that a 10 year old would want to start an educational blog alone when most want to use technology for only fun things.

Lure of the Labyrinth & Villainy, Inc.
In this post Jay Deyenberg talks about two games that have come out that can be used to help teach math in late primary and early middle school classes. You go on a mission in each of these games and you have to solve math problems to finish them.
I commented telling her that i thought the games were great as they would catch student attention and make them look forward to doing their work instead of looking at it as something that needed to be finished.

Project #15 - SMARTBoard Lesson

C4KSummary for April

For most of April  EDM310 students participated as mentors in the World Blog Challenge.
 
I had a student named Matt S. to comment on. I found that he did not blog very much, but when he did it was about one of his many interests. He had one about camping that I commented on, he talked about the spot that his father chose and the things they did while on the trip. In my comment I told him that the spot was great and that I used to love to go camping when I was younger.
In the other post on his blog that I commented on he talked about his legos. I told him that I still have some and asked if he had played the Lego games that have out for Xbox 360 since another of his interests is his system. In both of my comments I mentioned that he should make a new post answering my questions but it didn't work since he still has not blogged again, which makes me sad.

The other blog I had to comment on was Billy's. He is a Year 3 at Pt England School in Auckland, NZ. His post was a video of him talking about himself. He tells his biography including where he goes to school, his age, his mothers name, the amount of siblings and animals he has and some of his favorite things. In the comment I told him that he did a great job on the video and that he must love his family for him to mention them in a biography about himself. I also said that he needed to work on speaking up so that we could hear what he had to say a bit better, but that all in all it was a great video.

Progress Report for Final Project

Facebook is the way we chose to communicate with each other as one member is only going to be here for the filming as he is going over seas soon. The rest of us are brainstorming through Facebook messages to come up with an idea for our final project and for the lesson we want to do project 15 on. You can find more information about our progress on group member Katrina's Blog: http://williamskatrinaedm310.blogspot.com/2012/04/progress-report-final-project.html

Blog Post 12

Part 1: The Description

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. I have always had a hard time being the person to come up with ideas or make decisions when hanging with friends, so I'm not very confident in the assignment I have created.

I noticed that a lot of the times for our blog posts we either have to watch a video or read an article, so I have decided that this is a good place to start. I went online and started searching for videos on technology and 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 changes they saw in the video and which ones they participated in, whether it was getting a desktop or cell phone, or even the CDs and movies bought for the different posters in the background. They may even be put into groups and asked to make a video similar to this for different time periods. If that was the case then they would also be assigned the behind the scenes video.

Part 2: Doing the Assignment

I loved watching this video, and I can say that I remember using all of the technology in the "change" during this video. I had a tape player when I was about 7 years old, and got my first CD player a year after they were introduced. For floppy disks, I had to use them the whole time I was in Elementary school. I don't really remember what I used in middle school but I'm assuming that I started out with floppy disks and then we moved to CDs. I know there are teachers, even at colleges, that still have their students turn in work on CDs today. Flash drives became very popular very quickly while I was a teen and they are still what most people resort to today when they need to save a paper, music or movie off of their computers. I can honestly say that for the posters in the background I was a fan of most of the movies and singers. I listened to every new Britney song when they came out and I loved Shakira's music. For the movies, I loved The Lord of The Rings trilogy but didn't really care for Avatar. I think that if MWS Media were to do a video of the changes made in the last year there would be almost as many.

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.

Blog Assignment 9

Mr. McClung

In his reflective post of 2008-2009 he talked about making sure the lesson was student centered that way you keep their attention and know that they are comprehending what you are trying to teach them instead of just focusing on making it through the lesson. He also mentioned tying not to be too controlling when it does come to the lessons, let there be room for some flexibility because not everything is going to go according to plan every time! To him it is important to practice your communication skills constantly because they will be very handy in your career as well as an open mind for technology. He finally discussed why it is good to keep expectations for students at a normal place and to keep learning as an educator.

His reflective post for 2010-2011 was very student based. he wants teachers to always remember that it's about the students when it comes to teaching.
Change is not always something that people like but he thinks that you should at least try to be optimistic about new ideas, but know that not everyone will be.
Stay true to yourself instead of trying to fit in with the crowd is very sound advice that he gives in this post.
Although most people will find this hard to do because it may mean watching your students struggle, you will need to resist the urge to do the work for students when trying to help them because they will not learn this way.
Make sure to stay motivated and not passive once you've been at it for a bit was the last advice he gave in this post and I agree with him that a lot of teachers become comfortable with their jobs and fell into a routine.