Final Project # 16

Our Tips For Surviving EDM 310



This was a collaborative project by Courtney Starkie, Joshua Ragsdale, and Jacob Webb

Comments For Teachers # 4

     I was assigned to comment on Dr. Baggett's blog. The first post I commented on was titled "Leading by Example and a Pointer Finger: Enriching our Lives through the Arts and Technology (high and low)". This post is about Ricky Trione and how he overcomes his disability to achieve his goals in life. He is blind but still paints and uses both technology and his fingers to show people how to paint. I commented and told Dr. Baggett that it was wonderful that Mr. Trione was achieving such great things despite being blind. I also pointed out that it would be easy for someone with a disability to never try to do something that others said was impossible. I also said that he was an inspiration to many people.

      The second post I commented on was on her post about lbiyinka Alao. He is Nigeria's Ambassador of Art. He visited the University of South Alabama and showed his paintings on African life. I commented and said "Hi Dr. Bagget, I am a student in Dr. Strange's EDM 310 class. I enjoyed all the pictures you posted of lbyinka's art. His work is beautiful to look at. I have a friend that is from Lagos, Nigeria."

Blog Assignment # 14 ( Special Assignment On Metaphors)

     I really don't know why I missed this metaphor. I went back and read it again and now I understand Mr John. Spencer's blog post. I guess I was just in a hurry do get the assignment over and did not take time to really try to understand what he was saying. I now see that he was talking about technology and was using the pencils as a metaphor.

     I have heard some metaphors used lately now that I am looking for them. I hear them more often now that I am watching for them. I was watching a basketball game and the announcer said the shooter is on fire. I know that the shooter is not on fire but the announcer is implying that the shooter is making most of his shots. Another one I hear often is that America is a melting  pot. I know that this is a metaphor to describe that America is a place of many different people and cultures.

     We should first teach students what metaphors are and show them many examples. One way we can do this is by encouraging them to read blog posts like we do in this class. The blog post by Mr. Spencer has sure helped me understand more about metaphors. Another way to help or students understand metaphors is to use them ourselves when we teach and see if they are understanding and recognizing them.

     We use metaphors to make someone really think about what is being said. It grabs the attention of people when we use a metaphor and makes them put their thinking cap on and try to understand what is being said. I believe metaphors can sometimes confuse people as it did me, but they are intended to help someone learn and we should use them when needed appropriate.
    

C4K Summary - Post 7,8,9 and 10

C4K # 7 

     I commented on a blog about the Missouri Compromise on MR. McClung's world. The class made a video where they were talking about the Missouri Compromise. I am a history major and had also been learning about the Missouri Compromise in class at USA. The video had three girls talking about the three components of the compromise.I commented and told them I enjoyed  watching the video they made. This video was under the section of Arkansas History in Mr. McClung's class blog.  

C4K# 8 

     The second student I commented to was Zoe. Zoe is a 6/7 year student at an International Baccalaureate school in Adelaide Hill, South Carolina. Mrs. Pam Thompson  is the teacher of this class. Zoe wrote a blog post about sports day being cancelled because of bad weather. he seems disappointed but realizes this will give her team more practice time. I commented and said I was sorry that the sports day was cancelled. I also told him that his blog was cool and really well organized. I asked him what sports does he play. 

  C4K# 9 

     I had to view and comment on Mrs. Yollis' 3rd grade classroom blog. I was very impressed with this class blog. It was better than most classroom blogs I have seen. It is very organized and very detailed. This class blog has won many awards for being excellent. I have actually used this blog this semester at times. I used the HTML code post and referred to it many times when blogging. There is also a video about the state of California on her blog that I watched. This gives you some information and facts about the state of California. There is also a link thatI found interesting that shows different clocks to let you know what time it is in other parts of the world. This can be helpful to students to let them know what time it is in their friends world. Mrs. Yollis' also emphasizes making quality comments when blogging. She refuses to post comments that have grammatical errors in them. She also has a video on her class blog that teaches how to make a quality comment.
     I commented on the post about family blogging month. I told Mr. Yollis' that I enjoyed reading her class blog and that I had found the post on HTML code very helpful to me. I also mentioned that I had actually visited Los Angeles, California last year. I told  Mr. Yollis' and class that their class blog deserved the recognition and awards that it has achieved.

C4K#10

     I commented on student in Mr. Yollis's class named Grace. She wrote a blog about her stuffed animal named Bunny. She had received Bunny from her aunt when she was born. They are both nine years old. She shows pictures of bunny dancing and playing the piano. She also mentions that Bunny plays hide and go seek. At the end of her post, she asks the question do you have a stuffed animal? I commented on her post and told her I did not. I told her if I was to get one it would be an elephant. I mentioned to her that I played the piano also. I ended by telling her that her blog looked great!

     

Blog Assignment # 13

     ALEX stands for the Alabama Learning Exchange and is a great resource for teachers and students to use. I had heard of ALEX before but did not realize what a valuable tool this is for teachers. It has a lot of helpful information that teachers can find instantly online. It has many great lesson plans that you can use. One thing I really liked was the web links which you could find useful and interesting web pages outside of Alex that are related to education. You can also sign up for an Alex account and login to ALEX Personal Workplace. Here you can create a personal workplace for storing and submitting lesson plans.
     I am sure I will be using this great website in the near future when I start teaching and probably some before. It will for sure be in my personal learning network. Today, teachers have so much help and resources they can find on the internet. I think that teachers need to take advantage of sites like ALEX. I think teachers in the past before their was internet would love to have something like ALEX to use. We are very fortunate to be living in times where we have so much knowledge at our disposal.

     ACCESS is another website created by the Alabama Department Of Education on November 1st, 2004. It is available to all Alabama public school systems. It helps students who may be struggling in a particular area by providing web courses. It also provides teachers with additional multimedia and tools to enhance instruction. It also allows to students to study something more in depth with advanced classes.It is a great website that provides an equal opportunity  for every Alabama high school student through 21st century technology.(ACCESS website) http://accessdl.state.al.us/Overview.html

Progress Report on Final Project

I am trying to figure out who I can be in a group with to do the final project with. I have talked to someone about doing this project with and am awaiting an answer. I am a little bit behind on this project due to thinking we were still in the same groups that we started the year with. So if anyone has room left in their group please let me know ASAP!

Project # 15

Blog Post Assignment # 12

Blog Post Assignment: Watch this Video and write your reaction to it in at least two paragraphs

What Does it Mean to be Literate in the 21st Century?

      
    
    This video raises the question of what does it mean to be literate in the 21st century. Many teachers answer this question in this video. Many of the answers that the teachers give are different and reflect their opinion. I think this video is trying to convey that some people are moving forward and understand that in order to be literate today you must be using technology. Others unfortunately still want to view literacy as the same thing it was many years ago.


     Being literate is different today than it was in the past. Being literate in the 21st century involves knowing and using technology in multiple ways. In the past it only involved only whether someone could read or write. We live in a different world today. Today if you do not know anything about technology or how to use it, many people would possibly consider you not literate. I don't think teachers can sit back anymore and refuse to incorporate technology in the classroom. We are living in different times where a student need to be technology literate in order to be literate. Teachers can actually learn about technology from many of their students. Many students in this generation have grown up using the internet and technology. I think it is vital for teachers to learn about technology and to use it in the classroom. We can no longer pretend that is not necessary. 

Project #14 Teach Someone

Special Assignment

     Mr. McClung's blog is very organized and well structured. It is very evident that he is a very organized and likes for things to run smoothly. I can also tell that he wants students and parents to have access to the class blog so they can keep up with assignments and to know what is expected of them. I believe Mr. McClung is a very good educator because he requires students to learn through collaborating with one another and by using technology. He is also encouraging students to be very organized which will help them in other classes and everyday life. He requires each student to purchase a day planner. I think he is preparing students how to learn independently.

     I think Mr. McClung has some very basic rules in his classroom. The first one which says follow directions quickly is the one the one that stuck out to me. I think this lets students know that they need to pay attention to what is being said and to be ready to learn. Another one I like was the one that said make smart choices. I think that gets the students attention. I think these rules are very different from most classrooms and it might make students a little nervous at first until they see the reasoning behind the rules. I think by requiring each student to purchase a day planner he is trying to prepare his students to be organized like he is.

     The penalty for late homework or assignments is very strict and requires students to be responsible and turn their work on in time. Dr. Strange's  penalty is light in comparison. I do find it interesting that middle school students have higher expectations on them than some college students do. I think this is good in a way for the students in Mr. McClung's class. It teaches them to very responsible and professional at an early age.

     I really like what Mr. McClung says about his class blog. He wants it to be the central tool used by students, teachers, and parents to keep up with what is happening in his classroom. I hope one day I can also use a class blog that benefits my students and others. I think the class blog in my EDM 310 class is a lot like his. I would be lost without our class blog and confused. It helps me to stay on top of things and to be better organized.

     The first useful link I discovered on Mr. McClung's list was the The Plagiarism Checker. This tool helps teachers find plagiarized text in homework and in essays. All you do is just copy a paper or text in a box and it checks it for you. I imagine that Mr. McClung uses this because he teaches history and grades a lot of papers and assignments. This will be a great tool for me to use since I plan to teach history one day. Another link I looked at was the translation website. I really liked this one. I like to look up what a word is translated to in another language. On this site you can put a word in a box in English and it will translate it into Spanish. You can do this for many different languages. Mr. McClung probably uses this because many times when studying history you might need to know what a word is translated into in another language. I think this tool will be very helpful to me one day as a teacher.

     I really liked the search engine on Mr. McClung's blog. I could not find his safety tips for internet use and had to use the search engine to find it.I also like that he had different categories on top of his page and that you could just click on them to go there. I think his blog is extremely organized and easy to navigate through. I also like that he has useful links on his page with material that might be helpful for other teachers and students. There were several that I liked and will be using one day.

     Mr. McClung's blog is very useful to parents, teachers, administrators, and students. It allows everyone to see what is happening in his class. His students can always use the blog to keep up with their homework and assignments. Parents can also see what their children are learning and doing on a daily basis. I think his blog also helps me as a future history teacher. It gives me some ideas and gives me some tools that I will use one day when I teach.

     I think Mr. McClung's blog is better organized than most blogs I have visited in the past. I think he has spent a lot of time developing his blog and making it easy to use. His blog seems to give the visitor a better perspective of what is happening in his classroom than many of the other blogs I have visited. I just think that he has really put a lot of effort in his blog than most do. I think some people just set a blog up and forget that it is there and never update it. He seems to continuously be working on his blog and making it better. I enjoyed viewing Mr. McClung's blog and learned a lot by looking at it. I think it will be something that I can model my class blog by one day.
    
  

Blog Assignment # 11

First Graders in Ms. Cassidy's Class

     This video is about all the technology that Ms. Cassidy's first grade class is using. I was surprised that such  young students were using so much technology. It appeared that each student had a personal laptop. They were blogging, skyping, and even using a nintendo DS to learn in the classroom. I wish I had these things in the classroom when I attended school. I do not think this is a good representation of every school. Many students in schools do not have access to these technology tools. I think it is great that these students have all these tools to help assist them in learning. They are on their way to being technology literate at a very young age and way before I was at their age.        

Skype Interview with Ms. Cassidy

      I enjoyed watching this interview. Ms. Cassidy seems like a great teacher who has incorporated a lot of  technlogy in her classroom. She talks about how her students are blogging and using other tools in technology. I think she is a good example of a teacher using technology responsibly in the classroom. She only allows students to use first names and does not post pictures with names. I think it is great that she is using technology and also protecting her students when they are online. I also like the idea she raises in creating  seperate accounts on a  social media site. One for personal use and one for educational use. She also talks about how students like blogging because it is available for many people to see and comment on. If they were just writing on paper, only a few people would ever read it. 

     One thing I really liked that Mr. Cassidy said was that "collaborating is not cheating". I think some people are worried that people will cheat and copy other people's work when doing so much online work. It is not necessarily cheating when you collaborate and use other people's ideas. I don't personally think you can cheat easily in a course like EDM 310. You have to think for yourself and be creative in this class. This video was definitely worth my time watching and will help me as a teacher one day in my classroom and incorporating technology. 

Comments For Teachers # 3

     I commented on  Mr. John T Spencer's blog. I commented on a post he made about joining the Acceptable Use Committee. He posted a dialogue of a conversation during a committee regarding the Acceptable Use policy of the district. After researching Acceptable Use policies to have a general understanding of the conversation, the post made by Mr. Spencer demonstrates his beliefs that teaching ethical behavior should be used over setting use policies and that he made a mistake joining the committee. I replied in a manner defending the use of setting rules and boundaries for students not only for their protection but to keep students off websites that are not school related. In my opinion teaching ethical behavior alone will not keep students from doing right and wrong.

      The next post by Mr. Spencer that I commented on was titled "5 reasons for Leaving The Pencil Conference Early". This post was about Mr. Spencer leaving the pencil integration conference early. He listed five reasons.

1. Many presenter's I've met were unaproachable.
2.Many presenters were arrogant
3.Many presenters fail to grasp complexity,paradox,and mystery.
4.Many presenters speak like addicts
5.Many of the New School folks won't admitthat there are some great ideas from the past-whether the idea is ten or two thousand years old.

     Mr. Spencer lest the conference early and felt like he could learn more from his daughter than this conference. One thing I like is when he said that many presenters want to claim they love social media but then shy away from using it themselves. I commented on his post and told him I did not blame him for leaving the conference. I told him that one should practice what he preaches. I think it is very hypocritical to advocate something when you are not doing it yourself. I also told him that no one likes listening to someone that is arrogant.

Blog Assignment #10

An Open Letter to Educators

     This post was about a guy named Dan Brown who made a video describing how schools in general interfere with education. He talks about how the world is changing and you must change with it or you will be left behind. Education in many schools are refusing to embrace the change and are being left behind. Many classrooms still resemble the classrooms of twenty years ago. Little has changed in many schools despite the world around it changing at an astonishing rate. Dan brown has dropped out of school because he feels like it is hindering his education instead of helping it. That is sad to me. Schools should be a place where you are learning new things and things that are relevant to this ever changing new world we live in. 

     Morgan Bayda talks about this video in her blog post. She agrees with Dan Brown in many aspects that the schools in North America are falling behind the world. She talks about how she is bored in most of her classes and can hardly pay attention. She feels cheated by the University in many ways. She is not challenged to learn in most of her classes and just sits through boring lectures. One class is different however. Her Ed Computers class is much different. She is constantly collaborating with other students and other people in the world through blogging, using Twitter and many more things. This kind of learning is relevant to her and she is learning new things. 

     I enjoyed this blog post and it seems to paint a good picture of what most classrooms are like today. We must change our education system and make it more relevant to this generation of students. We can no longer sit back and use the same methods of teaching that have been around forever. I also feel like most of my classes are a waste of my money. The same information I am getting from my teachers is already available to me on the internet. Why do I need to pay someone to learn things that are already available to me online. I hope that one day as a teacher that I will be encouraging my students to learn things that are relevant to them and things that challenge them. I do not want to be known as a teacher that hinders someone's education.

Don't Let Them Take Pencils Home

     This post was about a teacher that did not want to let students take pencils home because she feared it would lower their scores on a standardized test. Another teacher thinks it will be fine and that it will be beneficial to let the students take pencils home. I think we focus on the problems too much as a society instead of a solution. Almost anything in life can be used for good or for evil. We cannot just assume that letting the students take their pencils home will have a negative impact. Creativity is something that we must never discourage from our students. If we take away tools that allow them to be creative and learn on their own, how can we expect them to be creative. We cannot assume the worst in every kid because of another situation. We must be careful as educators to not take away something from our students that might be beneficial to them and encourage learning.