Blog Post #10

Do You Teach or Do You Educate?

By watching this video I realized that there is a difference between being a teacher and being an educator. I have never really thought about it being two different roles. I have just always thought of a teacher and educator as being one. I am so glad that I got to watch this video, it really showed me how wrong I was.

Now that I an aware of the difference I am glad to say that I want to be an educator for my students. I don't want to just be a teacher and give my students instructions. I want to be a role model for them and inspire my students to learn. I also want to be there with guidance for them. I feel that all teachers should watch this video and learn more and educating not teaching. When I have my classroom of students I want them to know that I am an educator not just a teacher.

Don't Let Them Take the Pencils Home!

Tom Johnson's post was mainly about how people tend to focus on the problem more than the solution. When a problem occurs it is best to focus on how something good can come out of it, or even work to make something good come from it. Like in this post, taking pencils home was not such a bad idea because he did not care what they were doing with the pencils because it was keeping their minds busy. I hate to think that there are teachers out there who are more concerned with the test scores. Let students "bring the pencils home". They are learning something even if they are using their pencils to play Hangman!

Summary Post C4T #3

1.) I was assigned to read Ms. Liz B. Davis blog post "The power of educational technology"

The article is based on one school in one town in Arizona, hardly a statistically significant sample. The only reason given for the failure of technology is a lack of increase in test scores in a district that already had high test scores. Finally, there was no test comparing the technology skills of students in this school to any other school in the state.

I enjoyed reading Ms. Davis's article. I agree with her reasoning of the article. I too disagree, I believe that technology is great! It should be should in schools and just because one school in a small town did not see a difference, this should not affect other schools thinking about technology. Children these days are growing up in a world that is full of technology. Technology is a great source for learning.

2.) I was assigned to read Ms. Liz B. Davis blog post "Marching Backward into the Future"

I have really enjoyed reading Ms. Davis's blog post. I enjoy reading articles about technology. Technology is our future. I like how she talked about how when she first started teaching she could not imagine iPads or Kindles. Until I got to South I had never had a smart board in the classroom and it wasn't until emd310 that I actually used one. There has been so many new types of technology come out just in the past decade. I liked how she said "everything we look at is shaped by our experiences." I have never thought about it that way.

“We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future.”
(Liz B. Davis)

Project #13 SmartBoard Instruction Part 1

Blog Post #9

After reading Mr. McClung's What I've Learned This Year, I found that he wrote about some very important rules to consider when teaching. Mr. McClung wrote these rules after his first few years of teaching in Noel, Missouri. It is great that Mr. McClung decided to blog about some of the things he learned because now we, as future teachers, are able to get some knowledge of what to expect.

One important rule that he wrote about is that it is not "all about the teacher". In his first few years of teaching he thought that it was all about him, the teacher. He saw teachers who were more worried about how they delivered the lesson than how their students comprehended it. "In order to be effective you have to be able to let your audience drive your instruction." Teachers have a tendency in wanting to make the perfect lesson. The lessons we make will turn out different than how we expected, and that is okay. We will learn how to make the situation a learning experience even if it does not go exactly the way we planned it to.

Another important rule Mr. McClung wrote about was our expectations of our students. Teachers seem to have high expectations for our students and sometimes if they do not meet the goal they are punished. Mr. McClung states that when a student does not meet the goal that has been set, do not punish them, instead help them to get back on track and maybe meet the goal next time.
"Our job as teachers is to simply pick them up after they fail, dust them off, and encourage them to try again."

A third rule he wrote about was "Do Not Be Afraid of Technology". As future teachers, we need to be aware and prepared of the technology that is available for us to use in our classroom. He explains that even though we may not master technology, at first, we still should keep working with it. Technology will help us and our students learn and grow, so we should start learning as much as we can about it!

The last few important points that Mr. McClung made was to listen to our students. Something so simple makes all the difference. It helps to get to know our students in order to build a good relationship with them. Also, if we are taking a interest in their life outside of school their parents will love that too. Students will grow closer to us and want to listen to us if we listen to them. Also, Mr. McClung wrote about never stop learning. This is one of the most important rules, in my opinion, because we can never learn to much. There is so much that I am going to learn in my next few years at South and I will not stop learning after graduation.

Project #11 Short Movie

Project #12 Book Trailer

Blog Post #8

This Is How We Dream Parts 1 and 2

Richard Miller’s video, This Is How We Dream, is showing how multimedia is being used in classrooms all over the world. EDM 310 is similar to this video because we do not use books to find answers or information, we use the internet. Students in EDM 310 learn so much because we are watching or reading something online and having to blog about what we just watched or read. I believe having to search for our answers online with little guidance helps us grow.

Using the internet makes research much faster than going to the library and searching for books. With the internet you really have an endless amount of material to choose from. Also, people come together online which makes learning more fun because you are able to share what you with people all around. This idea gives everyone the ability to share information through things such as: blogging, skype, podcasting, and more.

Will I use multimedia in my classroom? Yes, most definitely. I believe multimedia is a great way to incorporate different ideas into the classroom. It would make the lesson so much more fun and interesting and would be another great way to engage your students. With multimedia you are able to combine audio, text, images, and animation together into one. I would love for my students to use multimedia as well. Assigning your students to a multimedia projects have many possibilities for learning things such as: working together in groups, the importance in research and planning, presenting information in a different way rather than on a poster board, and creatively constructing something.

Blog Post#12 By Carly Pugh
In Carly's blog post she talks about ways to better teachers in their classrooms. She decides to make a YouTube playlist. I enjoyed reading her playlist. It had some great videos on it, that I think would be really helpful to a classroom teacher. A YouTube playlist would be great for any teacher. They would always be able to go back and review videos on how to teach something. She made a great point by saying, "good teachers teach by example." That is so true. There are always room for improvement.

The Chipper Series
The overall message from the two videos was to do your work on time and to work hard at what you are doing. The Chipper Series, showed many different things. One of the things it showed was EDM 310 can be overwhelming at times, but it is not too much and it can be done. Also, Dr. Strange talked about the importance of deadlines. He said that deadlines are there to get you to turn your assignments in on time. In the video, Jamie Lynn was upset with Dr. Strange because “he wasn’t doing his job”. She felt like Dr. Strange was not teaching and making us learn and figure everything out on our own. I feel that Dr. Strange is making us grow as students and as future teachers by making us figure things out on our own. It gives me a feeling of accomplishment after I finish my blog post, my projects, and other assignments because I know I could have had help if I needed it, but mostly I did all of these things all on my own!

EDM 310 for Dummies
EDM 310 For Dummies was very funny and entertaining. I believe that we all probably feel stressed out and overwhelmed at times. However, if you stay on track, keep up with deadlines and assignments, and do not procrastinate then you should be doing just fine.

An idea that I had while writing this blog post would be to show the different websites that I have been introduced to in EDM 310. Before EDM 310, I was unaware of all of the resources that were online and available to use in the classroom. I think it would be great to share the websites to others and show other students and teachers so they would be able to incorporate them in their classroom too. Websites I would include would be many from my PLN because I found many useful websites while it. I would talk about PBS Teachers, Wordle, National Geographic Kids, Story Starters, and others in my video and the importance in each. It would be good to add lessons and how you could use the web sites in your classroom.

Learn To Change, Change To Learn
What an awesome video about educators speaking of the changes that could be made in the classroom. One of the things I found interesting in this video was the quote, “Technology is not a choice, it has created a world.” This is very true because technology is simply not a choice of whether or not to use it in the classroom or not. If you are a educator not using technology there is so much that you and your students are missing out on. Another thing I found interesting was when one of the educators said, “All of the social networks that kids are using and are good at are banned from schools”. Students are good with social networking and it is something that interests them, so why not incorporate it in the classroom somehow?

A final quote that I found important was, “It’s not about memorizing the facts that they will need to know for the rest of their life, it’s about knowing how to find information, how to validate it, how to synthesize it, how to leverage it, how to communicate it, how to collaborate it, and how to problem solve with it. That’s the new 21st Century set of literacy’s and it looks a lot different than the model in which most of us were raised under.” This was probably the most important thing that was said in this video, to me, because it reminds me of EDM 310. When the educator said this quote it made me think of Dr. Strange explaining to the class what EDM 310 was all about. It is important because it talks about how remembering facts and memorizing information is not what should be important in the classroom.

Project #10 First PLN

Making my PLN was very fun and interesting because it is such a great organizer and way to keep all of your important websites together. I decided to make my PLN using Symbaloo because it seemed pretty straight forward and easier than Netvibes. Symbaloo will be very useful inside the classroom and outside the classroom because it keeps all of your websites together on one.

As of right now I have about 20 titles added to my Symbaloo. I added websites such as: facebook, twitter, gmail, google, South Alabama homepage, the EDM 310 class blog, and others. Also, I added websites that I thought had good teaching ideas. Symbaloo has a lot to offer. I will continue adding tiles to my Symbaloo as I find anything interesting.

Project #9b Timetoast

Summary Post C4T #2

1.) I was assigned to read Ms. Mary Worrell's blog post " Paper Reinforcers"

I enjoyed reading this blog post. It was neat how Ms. Worrell first started off by talking about how her school was without technology. She used paper reinforcers as a metaphor for technology. Before technology and especially computers, everything was done with pen and paper. Now that we have all of this nice, new technology it is another learning tool for students in the classroom. Students today have never lived without technology. It is part of their everyday lives. I believe technology is a great thing. I love technology but there are still those few things I would rather do with pen and paper.

Ms. Worrell also talked about in her blog post and podcast. She described and discussed a few ways that she has used podcast in her classroom. She believes podcast are a great new way of technology. I told her how I have never podcast before this edm310 class, and still do not know much about them and how much they can do. From what I have heard from friends and teachers, podcast is a great form of technology. Teachers can record books for the children to listen and follow along in their books. I hope to one day use podcast in my classroom!

2.) I was assigned to read Ms. Mary Worrell's blog post " Reading the gender binary"

Ms. Worrell explained the differences between boys and girls in all aspects, not just the learning and schooling part. She discussed how the times have changed in the fact that boys and girls are coming out as whoever they are. They are not letting what other people think of them affect them. Boys are coming out as gay. Girls might even be "girl-friendly" or tom boyish. Children are going to be who they are and not let other people affect them.

Children are complex as they explore their identities. Are are misconceptions that girls are better readers than boys, but that is not always true. Every child has different strengths and weaknesses. The classroom should be one place where every child comes for the same thing, to learn. It should not matter race, religion, nor culture. Every child should feel welcome and comfortable in the classroom.

I am glad I got to read Ms. Worrell's blog post. It was something that I read and re-read to understand and consider for my classroom. I want my classroom to be all about learning. I want it to be fun and exciting so my students will want to learn.

Blog Post #7

Randy Pausch’s video, The Last Lecture, was very inspiring. He made some very good points and he seems like he was a wonderful educator. Randy Pausch used different methods when teaching which made his course even more fun and interesting. His love and passion for teaching showed through him and that is truly a way that students get excited about learning. The Last Lecture was about Randy’s childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others, and lessons that you learn as you go on to be an educator. Also, he shared that we will be able to use the methods, he told us about, to enable your own dreams and the dreams of others. He talks about his own childhood dreams and shares his life situations which make it easier to see that your childhood dreams can come true.

One method that Randy Pausch discusses in The Last Lecture is the importance of enabling childhood dreams. He says that enabling a child’s dream can often be better then enabling your own. It is so important to help children reach and get to their dreams because that is something they strive for. As future educators, we have to have the drive to help every student accomplish their dreams and goals. Part of our job will be to enable the dreams of each one of our students.

Another method that Randy Pausch spoke about was a different meaning of brick walls. “The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. They are there to keep out the other people. ” With this quote, Randy gives brick walls a whole new meaning. This is such a motivational quote because we all reach “brick walls” in life but we have to decide how to get over the wall. We have to work hard and push through the wall to make it to the other side, to what we want. This quote has a lot of meaning behind it because it could be a great illustration for our students, as well as us. Teaching our students about the importance in “brick walls” and how to get to the other side is a good way to help them accomplish anything they want!

A final teaching method that Randy talks about is the importance in creativity and having fun while teaching. Teaching is so much more than books, paper, pencils and chalkboards. It’s about engaging your students in learning and having fun while doing so. Randy Pausch sounds like he was a very fun, creative, lively, loving, passionate teacher. He had the motivation and the skill to make students want to learn. I am a firm believer of keeping your classroom alive with creativity and fun! Don’t get me wrong, I understand learning is serious business and we will be preparing our students for the future. But who says that learning can’t be fun? And if there is any opportunity to make the lesson interesting, I’m going to take that opportunity and run with it.