Final Post

Teacher #4 summary

Mrs Ann's first post was on different websites that could help you as a teacher. they ranged from making your on comic book strips (The Comic Creator)to 8 Google Tricks for Your Classroom that can help you with your google searches.

Mrs Ann's second post was on this cool little website that can help erase little blemishes in

a picture like if you wanted to take out a branch or power line. The website is called WebInpaint. She claimed that it was very easy and most importantly, free.

Final PNL

My PNL has grown a lot over the semester. It started with me not even know what a PNL was to using different aspects of PNL. I have learned how to use many technologies that i think will defiantly help me in the future. I now have and account in Twitter, Screentoaster, and Skype. I am also following several people from teachers to fellow students to sports blogs.

Final Project #16

AA 5

from : Adventures in Pencil Integration

Just solve for x

In this blog he was making his students use metaphors to help understand x and not just solve for x. He believes that if you can teach the student to understand x, the student will be able to solve for x. "Catch a man a fish and feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, you feed him for a life time." I think this would be a great metaphor for the blog. People tend to do better with stuff they know and understand rather just memorized.

Sketchy Portraits: 8th Grade Identity and Pencils

in this blog the writer was comparing the pencil to life. He said that the child's life goes from black and white to gray like the lead of a pencil. He uses several descriptive words to describe the pencil that could also be life or school.
He Just Likes the Class for the Pencils

he talks about how the class room is ran freely when everybody was following the rules but strict when they are disobeyed. He talked about a student that loved this class because the teacher listen to him, respected him, and was his friend.
The Medium Shapes the Learning

He said that we should use other tools like technology in our lesson plans and in the classroom. He said that it doesn't matter what we use, it will shape the life of the student, whether we realize it or not.

Blog #13

According to Bessemer City Schools ALEX is "a project of the Alabama Department of Education, is designed to index and share many types of educational materials and information through a time-saving, one-stop resource for educators, parents, and students."

ALEX is composed of eight different sections: Course of Study, Web Links, Lesson Plans, Search, Personal Workspace, Professional Learning, Podcast Treasury, and ALEXville. Course of Study shows many subjects. Not only can you choose a subject you can also choose a grade level. Then you look up what you are looking for and click on the lesson plans and they can help you with teaching that material. Web Links shows you web links for the lesson that you are teaching. With Search, you can search ALEX's database for information. Professional Learning allows you to work on you profession teaching skills. Podcast Treasury is an archive full of podcast about a lot of different things. ALEXville is where the State makes the announcements.

ALEX can be very useful when you first state teaching. It can help you grasp how to make lesson plans, how to approach the students, and it can be a valuable resource when you need to look a video on a certain topic via the search database or the podcast treasury.

Project 15

Project 6 Google Docs Form Analysis

Final Project Progress Report

For project #16 i am working with Cody Coleman. Our idea now is to make a video showing the uses of technology in the classroom (all different tyes) while at the same time explaining how technology could help a teacher if he/she decided to use it. So it is sort of an instructional/persuasive video for teachers not using technology yet. Ideas include: the pros of making a blog, using smartboards, skype, blogging in general, google earth and lit trips, twitter, etc.

Blog Post #12

Blog Post #12 Due 11/14

In this class, we have discussed how teachers can use class blogs to keep everybody up to date. Mrs. The Adventures in Mrs. Ripp's Room is a great example.
Go through Mrs. Ripps blog and write a paragraph on what she does or uses to keep her class and parents up to date with the class.

Project 14

Blog #11

I thought it was a pretty cool video. I thought she did a great job at teaching the students how to use this technology. These students have a better grasp on new technology than most adults. Learning technology like this when you are young will really help them out in the future. She help emphasis the use of technology from the very beginning with the use of Google Earth. I thought it was a pretty cool video.

I am a PE major. I personally was wondering way i really needed this class. I thought that Mrs. Cassidy explained very well how we (PE majors) could use blogging. She said we could use twitter, facebook, and blogs to keep people up to date about when and where people need to meet if there is a scheduling change.

Blog #10

I thought that Dan Brown's tactics are a little outrageous. Even if the the schooling was getting in the way of education, companies look for diploma's and degrees. they look for schooling. In this time, it will be harder for Dan Brown to get a high paying job over some one who as been schooled. Overall, i thought the blog was good. Most of the time in history classes i just get the review sheet and look everything up on Wikipedia and it would be a lot faster than actually looking the terms up in the book. I do think that technology should be intergraded into classes more than they are. Learning things on the internet can add a diversity of ways to learn unlike the traditional classroom.

In Daniel Pink's video, he leaves us with two questions: "What is my sentence" and "Was I better today than yesterday?". I think that these are very good questions that invoke a lot of thinking. They help up unclutter our very cluttered life. I am not sure what my sentence is but i tend to believe that i am better than i was yesterday.

Project 13

Skype Interview

Blog # 9

This was a blog about what Mr. McClung had learned in his first year of teaching elementary education. He broke the blog down into seven different points. With these seven points, he shows how we need to focus on the students learning the material rather than us, the teachers, teaching the material. he said we should not get caught up trying to make a perfect lesson plan, because there is no such thing as a perfect lesson plan. Things will always come up when you are trying to teach. The students might not learn the material as quickly as you had hoped so you have to be flexible with your plans. He said we need to listen to our students. I think that if we connect with our students it will be easier to teach. They will want to listen to you, because you listened to what they had to say.

Project 11

Blog #8

Richard Miller created two video's to show the uses of technology in the Humanities. The first video he shows how he was able to create a paper on the Virgina Tech shooting without going to a library or buying a book. He was able to go onto the internet and find what he needed. In the second video, Richard Miller shows how technology is constantly being changed and updated. He shows how efficient it is to use technology correctly. He also talked about converging Humanities with the sciences. He believes it would be great if they did come together because everything would go better and faster.

I think the primary message of the two video's is that technology is something you have to learn hands on. It is something that is hard to teach and is easier to learn by trial and error.

http://www.whiteboardblog.co.uk/2009/07/20-interactive-whiteboard-resources-for-teachers/ was a site that supported smart boards. They should how smart boards could be used in ways that a normal board could not. A smart board is more interactive than a regular projector or chalkboard. In the other postings, they complained that smart boards are not much different than regular white boards.

additional assignment 2

I think that he makes sense. It involves a lot of trial and error, but if you want to accomplish something using the computer sooner or later you can do it. According to the speaker there should be no interference from the adults and the kids have to be interested. Computers play a huge role in the learning. It is fun to play and learn things about computers or the internet when you want to learn them. When you do not dread what you are about to do, you are most likely to have fun at what you do and learn it easier. The way to motivate someone to learn is to get them interested in something they like. I am motivated to learn by wanting to graduate. When I study, i am teaching my self. The reason why is so i do good on my test. A teacher is suppose to guide you or help you in the right way. If you are stuck, he/she will help you around the problem. Other questions or issues are raised by this video i think are: are teachers teaching too much, and if so how do they get the students interested in what they need to learn.

Project 9b

project 10

My PLN is a lot better than it was at the beginning of the year. If you were to ask me what a PLN was i could not have told you. I have learned several interesting things from teacher and students i have had to follow. I am getting better at using technology to make school work easier and get done quicker. Overall my PLN is not that great but it is getting better.

blog #7

Randy Pausch is a professor at Carnegie Mellon. He is dying of liver cancer and he was giving his "last lecture". The title of this lecture was Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. During this speech, he talked about different things he learned through out his life.

At the beginning of the speech, he was talking about childhood dreams and how to accomplish it. He talked about how you need to be specific with your dreams. He said if you run into brick walls it is ok because "Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things".

"Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want." I thought that was a pretty cool quote. He was very much with the never give up attitude. If you fail, you know know what not to do next time. He wanted his students to never quit just because they had ran into a "brick wall".

I thought the head fakes was a good way to conclude the speech. He not only talked about how to use head fakes; he used one to finish his speech. I thought his speech was a very interesting speech. I did not look forward at watching a hour plus video, but it was well worth it.

Time Toast Project 9a

Group Project

Please Click "Podcast" for Link to View

Podcast

http://gallery.me.com/jstrange#101216

Blog #6

Networked Student

This is about a guy who goes to a physical class one day a week, and he goes to a virtual class two days a week. While online, he learns how to research, share, and differentiate information. He learns how to use tools such as Google scholar, skype, itunesU, and wiki. The narrator called this a Social Network.

I think this is a good idea. This concept helps people work on their research skills. It allows for people to do more hands on with technology. By becoming hands on with technology, they become able to do their work faster. The faster one can do his work and it be correct, the better chance someone has to work his way up the ladder. It also helps with problem solving. It makes the student have the think through problems they may encounter along the way.

The point of the teacher is like what the narrator said. They will help when someone is stuck and just can not find a way around the problem. They will also serve as a valuable resource and source of wisdom.

7th graders PLE

Her PLE is closely related to our PLN. She blogs and does reports like we do. Like us, she has the freedom to do her work when she wants to do it and where she wants to do it. She is suppose to check a blog site every day like us. So her PLE is very similar to our PLN

The Machine is (changing) us

I liked and agree with his early point of the video. Most people just do or say what the tv tells them. We have become so dependent and have built our society on the television that it has reached the point what ever it says goes. People are forgetting how to think and reason for themselves because it is easier to let other people do it for you. I thought it was cool when he was talking about "context collapse". You can see this all the time on youtube. I thought this was a really cool video and i think it did a good job explaining the change in communication.

C4T

In his first article, he talked about how the more confidence a student has the better the student does in class. The better the student does in class, the less problems the student has in the classroom. On the flip side, the worst a student does the more self-control problems they have. They get flustered easier and lose their temper quicker, because they do not have that confidence that keeps them thinking in a positive manner.

In the second article, Larry Ferrlazo talked about a new search engine called Untabbed. When you click on a site, a small screen pops up to show you what the site looks like. This allows for someone to be able to find a website faster and surf the web faster as well.
You can try out untabbed @ http://www.untabbed.com

C4K #1

The student I was assigned to was danielstudent. It was him talking about his family and the sports that he liked. I commented on the size of my family and which sports i liked.

The second post was on judging. He talked about how he has but that we shouldn't judge. I commented on him agree with him.

Additional Assignment #1

Google Square has an easy to read table of pretty much anything you need to know about anything. This tool would be very useful in Pojects on states, countries, or pretty much anything

Wolfram Alpha like google square also gives you a lot of information on the subject at hand. It also gives you maps that will help you learn where the item you are looking for is.

I have heard Wolfram Alpha but i had never heard of Google Square.

Your comments did clarify some things dealing with the population of India vs United States.

Statistics are a very important piece of information, but people do tend to try to bend them to make the statistic support there claim.

Blog #5

Eagle Nest Radio

I thought it was a fun way to learn about history and science. It allows the students to learn but do it in a way that they do not realize they are learning. I think they did a great job setting up the pod cast.

Langwitches

I thought it was cool how she explained how she was able to increase the students communication and technological skills by doing these podcast.

The Benefits of Podcasting

This is a neat way to share information to the students. I thought the example of the sick student was a great one. There is no denying that podcasting can be very beneficial in the class room. Pod casting can make it easier for the student to stay caught up when they are sick, or must be gone for a prolonged time.

100 ways to use Ipods

I have learned there are a lot of things you can do with a pod cast or ipod. You can learn to speak different languages. There are programs available for elementary school to medical school.

Blog #4

Don't teach your kids this stuff

This Iowa State Univeristy professor Scott McLeod did a great job with his poem. I liked the satire of the poem. In the poem, he points out all the negative aspects of the technology. Although there are negative aspects to the technology, people still need to know how to use technology to be able to make it in the world.

I think Scott did an excellent job of getting his point across. I thought he ended the poem off well with ' cause I'm doing all of it with my kids/can't wait to see who has a leg up in a decade or two/can you?" This question really sums up his whole point. The point being that: though technology my have its bad sides, you are not going to make it if you don't know how to use technology.

The iSchool Initiative

As a concept, this sounds great, but I do not think it will work right now. I do not think you can replace the class room learning experience with an itouch.

Although this concept would be a great aid to learning, I do not think it would be the best way for right now. You would have to wing people into this system of education. Change does not happen over night, it takes time. Maybe years from now we might have some way of learning that is somewhat like this, but I do not see this happening any time soon

The Lost Generation

I thought this was a great video. I thought they did an excellent job of getting their point across. The use of saying the lines backwards really caught my attention. It helped in proving that if we reverse and stop the bad we are doing the future will be brighter.

Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir

This video show's the power of technology with people who know how to use it. I thought it was really cool that he was able to put all this together just with the use of the internet. I would class this video as a great feat for technology and how it can unite the world to accomplish one goal.

Project #5

C4T #1

I commented on Brian Crosby's post:

A “Forgotten” Best Practice – Making A Difference In Students’ Lives

This post was basically talking about how some students are labeled as bad students because they do not do well in class. Brian said that we need to look where the student comes from and family situation before we judge the student.

In primary education, knowing the students background is sometimes very important. A student might miss behave not because they are “bad”, but rather they would rather stay at school in after school detention than go back home. As educators, we should be aware of this and be able to help the student in his or her situation. I do not think that one can be taught to teach in the class room, but rather they learn to teach by teaching.

"The Important Book" a Writing Lesson

In this post, Brian talks about how he has taught his children to want to write and find mistakes. He has them post their reports on his class blog. By doing this, he makes it where they want write and write correctly. He say's by doing this he has improved there English levels. He also say's that he uses it because "it fits a skill set my students don’t have", so it is not for every student. I commented on how he said you have to let "a certain level of 'mistakes' go by-the-by". If you start off strict and hard you are just going to make the student want to do it less.

Blog #3

"Vision's of Students Today"

This is a very interesting piece of article that may be valid to majority of students but not all. For example, I do not own a lap top that I can take to class, but with saying that, I do notice that many of those who do bring laptops to class do play games and get on social networking sites. I also see many who use them for class work as well.

Overall, this video does illustrate a good point of the use of technology to in the classroom, or the lack there of.

"It's Not About the Technology"

I think Kelly Hines is correct on her post. Everybody always talks about how great this technology is going to make learning. The technology is only as good as the teacher using it. Technology is not the answer to all of the worlds problems. Most of the time the people are the problem.

Even if they come up with newer technology, they problem still exists, the teacher who does not want to change with the time. Though technology can be very beneficial in the class room, I agree with Mrs. Hines in that "it's not about the technology".

"Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?"

Karl Fisch's analogy comparing technology literacy of the 21st century to that of literacy in the 20th century was a good one. I have never thought about technological literacy's importance in that way.

Teachers do need to become technologically literate. Students now days are being "forced" to use new technology anyway. As a educators, we should be teaching the students the new technologies that they will be using.

Social media count

Mr Gary Hayes' social media count is a very extraordinary chart. It shows just how much as a society we depend on the social sites and the internet in general. As teachers, we need to be aware of this change in society and technology. Though we are not to the point of all having to be technological genius in the classroom, we (educator's) do need to know how to use technology.

wordle post #1

Blog Post #2

Did you know?

First reaction was "thats interesting". I thought it was cool that somebody was able to obtain all this random information. I find it very interesting that information that is taught one's freshman's year is outdated by his or hers junior year of college. The piece about how the "top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004" is mind boggling. Its scary that our technology is growing that fast. Overall it was a mind opening video.

Mr. Winkle wakes

During this video, Mr. Winkle wakes to find that technology has changed everything from work to hospitals, except school. This video like the previous video shows how the technology has changed everything except the learning experience. I think thats the point of the creator of this article is trying to make. He is trying to point out that schools need to change and use the new technology instead of staying back in a "technological" dark age.

Sir Ken Robinson: The Importance of Creativity

Many of Sir Ken Robinson's points relate to the other two articles. He is mainly saying how education now is outdated. He talks about how the structure of the education system was built on the industrial revolution; a concept I never have thought about before. The fact that the world has changed dramatically in the last hundred years should be a reason to change the system. In to days world, everybody want everything to be efficient. What is efficient about an outdated school system. If we, as educators, want to be able to educate and instruct people on how to make it in todays world, and to how to keep up with the times, we need to keep up with the times.

Vicki Davis: Harness your student's digital smartness

Vicki is reiterating what all the other videos have discuss, use of technology in the class room. She shows how children from a small rural town can be connected to the rest of the world and learn how to teach new technology. This makes sense. Learning technology is like swimming, you throw the student in the middle of it and at first they will have trouble staying on top but after time they will start to learn to master it.

Personal Blog

Hey, I am Sam Wicker. I am a sophomore. My major is Physical Education. I am from Smithdale, Mississippi, and now live in Semmes, Alabama. My father and oldest brother graduated from USA. My other brother also attends here. I am the 4th of 5 children. I have numerous family members that are in the education field , so education is in my blood.

I am a huge supporter of South Alabama Athletics. I have been to every football game (plan on being to ever home game and at least one away game), most of the home basketball games, and various other sporting events. For football and some basketball games i paint up and wear a toga to the games. I am an active member of the Wesley Foundation and consistently participate in their intramural sports teams and ultimate frisbee games.