Final Project #16

C4T #4 Summary

Post #1
Kelly Hines' blog Keeping Kids First talks about a pencil metaphor that someone created to describe how people embrace technology. Each part of the pencil represents the different ways people respond to technology. A few examples are the hangers-on, the wood, and the lead. The hangers-on know the lingo but just do not actually do anything to help. The wood are the people that would use technology if someone would give them the gear, set it up, train them, and keep it running. The lead represents the people that are the first to take on the technology.
My response to her post:
I introduced myself and told her I was from the University of South Alabama in EDM 310. I told her how interesting I thought her blog was. I have seen many metaphors but this one seemed the most accurate and interesting to me. Many times during my college years I have found myself at each stage. Well each stage except the lead stage. I told her that I was excited to follow her blog as I receive my degree and begin to teach.

Post #2
Kelly Hines has decided to take a fresh start this year with a new blog In the Trenches. There is an article about Techy Ice-breakers. It talks about how ice breakers are a great way to start a class and shouldn't be reserved for the first hour of anything. I went on to read the article at Educators Technology. It gave ten techy ice breakers for the twenty-first century teachers.
My response to her post:
I told Mrs. Hines that I love ice breakers and plan to use them in my classroom. Ice breakers can be used in the beginning of the school year to allow students to get comfortable with each other. They can be used all during the day and school year to get students motivated during lessons.

Final Report on PLN

My PLN has grew since the beginning of the semester. Symbaloo is my favorite place to organize my PLN. I love to color code my buttons. I use Symbaloo for my educational needs as well as my personal needs. Symbaloo is my homepage. I like that I can click on a button to get to my pages directly. It saves time so that you do not have to search for the page you want. I plan to continue with my PLN after this class and hope it continues to grow.

Project #15 Smartboard Instruction Part 2

Blog Post #13

Brian Crosby
Back to the Future by Brian Crosby was very interesting. The beginning of the video he tells how he asked his fourth grade students questions that they should have been able to answer. He asked them if they knew the city they lived in, only nine knew the answer. He asked them which state they lived in, twelve knew the answer. Three students knew the country they lived in. There were twenty-four students in this class. Ninety percent of the students had attended the school since kindergarten. The majority were second language learners and were at risk due to poverty. The students need to be able to answer these simple questions even with the factors they are faced. He decided he needed to make sure he did interesting and intriguing activities to insure that the students will actually learn. They students conducted an experiment with a balloon that had a gps enabled camera. The students were able to track it on Google. They were to write a story about the journal as if they were the balloon. They used many free internet sites to use in their stories.
Mr. Crosby stated that he was told he would have a new student that his class would never meet due to her having cancer. They just needed her on roll so that she would qualify for home study. He didn’t like the idea of not meeting her. He decided to use technology to be able to include her in the classroom. I imagine that was great therapy for her as well as learning experience for her and the other students. I am excited about the use of technology in the classrooms and can’t wait to have my own classroom.

Paul Anderson
Paul Anderson ‘s Blended Learning Cycle video was very interesting. He was talking about how he has mixed blended learning with the learning cycle to create his blended learning cycle. He says blended learning is using mobile, online, and classroom learning in the classroom. The learning cycle he uses includes the five E’s engage, explore, explain, expand, and evaluate. He uses the acronym Quivers to explain how he comes up with the steps the students take. Qu is the intriguing question that the students are given. I is for the investigation/inquiry of the students as they form their own questions about how they think this works and why. V is for video. The students are given a formative video to watch after they have formed their own opinions. E is for elaboration. The students are to do more research on the topic to go beyond the facts in the video. R is review. The teacher takes the students individually and talks with them to see if they completely understand what is being taught. S is the summary quiz that the students will receive after the teacher feels that the students understand the concept. I really like his ideas and feel that I can and will use this in my future classroom. I hope that I can find a way to use it in other subjects besides just science.

Progress Report on Final Project

My group has decided on the movie. We will meet this Tuesday to discuss our ideas and plan everything out. We hope to record it by the end of the week so that we can both edit it. Once we have it edited and our pleased with it we will publish it. We hope to have it published by the middle of the next week.

Blog Post #12

Part #1 Create an Assignment
Watch You Can't Be My Teacher by Darren Cannell. Make a quality post stating your thoughts of the video. Do you think that you will be ready to be someone’s teacher?

Part #2 Do the Assignment
The video is short, cute, and to the point. I like how it is set up. I like that it is actually a child in the video. He is stating his feelings. He wants his teacher to be technologically literate. He wants to know that his teacher will know about the internet and internet safety. Students of all ages are very interested in the internet. We need to show them everything that is available to better their education. We do not need to be that teacher that is scared of the internet or the one that just simply over looks it because we did not have it in first grade. We owe it to our students to find the best possible way for them to learn. I believe today that includes technology. I hope to be technologically literate by the time I begin to teach. I will not know everything that is out there for my students but will continue to learn.

Blog Post #11

Ms. Cassidy is from Saskatchewan, Canada. I loved her video Little Kids…Big Potential. The video is about the students and shows how they enjoy learning. She has many computers, cameras, overheads, and other technology pieces for the students. They used many different types of media. They used the Nintendo ds to help with problem solving skills. They used the wiki for research. They were able to ask opinions of people from around the world for the wiki. The students seemed to really enjoy the blogging that they were doing. They talked about having family members comment on their blogs. Many students may have family and friends in different parts of the country or world and this can give them the opportunity to share their work with them. The website that she uses allows the students to see how many views their post receives. They are very excited to see how many people are interested in their work. The students are allowed to put their first names but not their last names for safety measures.

She teaches them to only post positive comments to each other.
Ms. Cassidy talks about in the Skype video that the students we are teaching today are born into technology. It is the only way that they know. They have never known anything except technology. We have to educate ourselves and transform our way of teaching to fit them. Technology is here to stay and we better get on board before we get left behind. The parents are also able to keep up with their child’s progress while viewing the blog.
There may be some parents that do not approve of their children on the blog or internet. This can be worked around hopefully. If the parents allow it you can have the students create a blog but set it to private so that no one will ever see it. The student will not have the page views or comments but maybe the parents and the teacher can comment so that the student will still have interaction and not feel left out.
Funding and technology availability may be an issue. If you can get at least around four computers it can be turned into a center activity. This way everyone will get a chance to work at the computers even if it’s not at the same time.

C4T #3 Summary

Post #1
Kathleen Morris has a blog named Primary Tech. Her blog has many inspiring post. The benefits of educational blogging was the first post that I read. She had a diagram summarizing nine major benefits to educational blogging. Social skills and confidence was the first benefit on the list. This is very important for every student to have in order to be successful. Internet safety is something everyone should be aware of. Literacy and math skills can easily be taught using a blog. Students that are homeschooled can use blogs for a great interaction tool. ICT skills are taught and used with blogging and this is something that every student should learn. Having a classroom community can help keep parents and students involved and interested. A blog offers an authentic audience for the students to have. The global connections that a blog can have can be one of the most interesting things a blog can offer a student.  

              My response to the teacher was:

Hello my name is Marie Allgood. I am an EDM 310 student at the University of South Alabama. I have been assigned to your blog. I will posting to my blog http://allgoodmarieedm310.blogspot.com about your blog on April 7^th. I am on my journey to become a teacher. Your blog is very informative to me. This is the first semester that I have been able to learn about educational blogging. I have never been one to blog but I am learning how interesting it is. Your blog post helps to see why I need to incorporate blogging into my classroom. I am very excited and eager to have my own classroom to begin blogging with.  I have my own children and have thought about helping them to create a blog since they do not do this in their classrooms. Thanks for taking time to keep a blog for others to enjoy.

Post #2

Kathleen Morris has been working on a project called Our World, Our Numbers Global Project. The students are in primary classes and are from three different continents and five countries. Students from all of the classes are collaborating and connecting with each other. The classes take turns with a “lead” mathematical topic. Through the blog post the students are teaching each other different math lessons. The parents and teachers are engaging in the blog posts. The students have the opportunity to learn though the eyes of others in different parts of the world. This project will conclude in mid May. I can’t wait to read about how it turns out.

My response to her was:

Hello my name is Marie Allgood. I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I have been assigned to your blog and I am so happy about it. I will be making my summary on your last two posts on April 7, 2013. Please feel free to view my comments at http://allgoodmarieedm310.blogspot.com. I really loved the global project. I can only imagine how amazed and excited the students are when they see they have new comments and post to read. I imagine the students are eager to learn new things so that they share it on their blog for others to learn. This idea seems to be a great way to get the students involved and eager to learn. I love that you have so many different classes working on this project instead of just two. The multiple continents make it very interesting to me also. I am very excited to follow this project and see how well it turns out.

 

C4K Summary for March

C4K #4
Somehow while posting my February C4K summary I posted number five instead of number four. I will post number four this time instead of number. I hope this is okay.
Bayleigh is in Ms. Vannoy’s first grade class. She had a real sweet and simple post about her family. She said she loves her family and they are sweet. She says they help her do stuff she can’t do.

My response to her was

Hello Bayleigh. I am a student at the University of South Alabama. I am going to be a teacher one day. I love my family very much also. I have a big family and we help each other all of the time. Do you have any brothers or sisters?
She replied that she has a brother.

 

C4K #6
Drew is in the 6^th grade from Waukesha, WI. His post was about a book he had read. He was to decide if he would be friends with the main character. He said he would be friends with the main character Matthias because he is someone you can rely on. He said Matthias was really adventurous and he liked that.

My response to him was

My name is Marie Allgood. I am a student at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. I am in college to become a teacher. It is very important to have a good friend that you can rely on and trust. I enjoy friends that are adventurous and make me laugh. I hope that you many friends that you can laugh with. I am so happy that I was able to read your blog. You are doing a great job, keep up the good work.

 

C4K #7
Eli is in Ms Lentine’s class. His post was about science fair background, William Kamkwamba. He feels that William wasn’t successful the first time because he didn’t have all of the needed parts or the engineering background. He says if he could change one thing it would be the houses. He would make them more efficient.

My response to him was

Hello Eli, my name is Marie Allgood. I am a college student at the University of South Alabama. I am studying to be a teacher. I am so happy that you have your own blog. I enjoyed your comments. Keep up the good work.

 

C4K #8
Atze is in Mrs. Krebs class in Western Iowa. Atze went to a presentation about a holocaust survivor named Philip Gans. Atze says we should all remember our past no matter what it is and learn from our mistakes.

My response was

Hello Atze my name is Marie Allgood. I am an EDM 310 student at the University of South Alabama. I am studying to be a teacher. I really enjoyed reading through your blog. I agree with many of your opinions throughout your blog. Everyone has a past rather it is pleasant or not. Our past helps to mold who we are. I hope you continue with your blog.

Project #14 SmartBoard Instruction Part 1