Final Reflection Video

Blog Assignment 14

Jose Picardo - Box of Tricks

Jose Picardo's educational blog, Box of Tricks, had many posts all about using technology in the classroom. There was one talking about iPads, another on Tripico, even one on a Voki Classroom. The only technology listed on there that I was familiar with was the iPad. So I looked up the others after finishing the posts on them and found that Triptico is an interactive resource application that teachers can use on their SMARTBoard, or as they're called in the post, Interactive white boards. Then I found that Voki is a free avatar service. It lets you create them, put your own voice with it and then post it to any profile you wish including social networks websites, and blogs. The classroom version of it lets teachers manage their classes and students as well as automatically make lesson plans. Both of these tools are something that I will be keeping in mind when I am in a classroom.
The long list of resources we had to look at included things like photo editing sites, sites to make powerpoints, sites to build your own flash games along with many other things. I made sure to bookmart that page to my browser as well as put it on my Symbaloo webmix. I am certain that I will use many of the resources listed on it in the future.
Finally we had to watch his video Top Ten Tips For Using Technology In The Classroom. In it he made sure to mention things such as podcasts, wikis, blogs, music and interactive exercises as well as a few other things. He made sure to give a brief reason why they are useful in his classroom. His final reason was the gadgets that your students have and are familiar with. If they already know a lot about it then they will find it easier to use. I think that they are a very good idea to use while teaching.

Final Project Post

The Learning Leos' Final Project


We decided to do a video on the importance of time management for this class.

Final PLN Report

As of Now I have 46 tiles on my Symbaloo and I use most of them on either a daily or weekly basis.

21Apples

Preventing Racist Halloween Costumes

Mr. Grover posted about the Students Teaching About Racism in Society (STARS) program at Ohio University making a campaign about culturally stereotyped Halloween costumes. At the end he asked what your school does to go about getting into a mess with Halloween costumes. My comment for this post told him first that I thought the post was great and then about how students here will stereotype cultures too when the girls are not dressed in revealing "animal" costumes.

Pearson's Free OpenClass LMS For Google Apps

Mr. Grover made a post about a new Google Apps for Education tool called the Pearson OpenClass LMS. He mentioned a few other the features it has and compared it to other programs such as Moodle, Blackboard, and HaikuLMS. I responded by telling him that it was a great and helpful post and that I look forward to future posts that have helpful tools in them.

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.

Project #6 This is My Sentence

Art Viewer Summary Post

In the first post I had to comment on for this week there were many pictures of still life sketches that his class had made. He said that the objects were spread out over a span of one and a half desks and they could do it from any perspective. My comment on this post told him that I thought his students did a wonderful job on all of the pictures that were posted. I also told him that I was going into elementary education and that I would try to do something like that with my students although I don't know how it's going to work out since I want to be all the way down at kindergarten.

The second post I was able to comment on from this blog was titled "The finished coke bottle" and it was just a picture of Mr. Burrows' finished painting of a coke bottle, lime and lemon. My comment on this post let him know that I loved the painting and that he did a great job with using mostly cool with a hint of a warm color.

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.

Project #13 - SmartBoard Instruction

Project #11 - Short Movie

Project #11

This is a short movie that I did with Xtranormal.com where I talked about the teachers that have influenced me.

Angela Maiers Educational Services, Inc.

Angela Maiers

Her first blog post that I commented on was talking about the project she has going called Project: You Matter. There was a video on this post that had information telling you what the project was about and how everyone can help and is important. I commented telling her that I think it's a wonderful project that I will incorporate into my classroom and that she needs to keep up the good work in the classroom and on her project.

The second post was called "Tools I'm Lovin'" and it was talking about how youtube now has a teacher channel that makes it faster and easier to create and show videos in the classroom. I commented letting her know I was glad she shared it on her blog and let her know I would most likely be using it in my classroom as well.

Project #10 PLN Progress Report

So far I have 36 tiles on my Symbaloo and plan to expand it further, not just for my learning places but on biographies and websites for those that have influenced my learning experiences.

Project #9b

https://technologicalexperiences.wikispaces.com/

I created a wiki for my Instructional portion of project 9. It will be about all the technology I have come into contact with throughout my life.