Friday, March 30, 2012

C4K Summary

The first student I commented on was Awais. He wrote a short little story about toys, a white ball, and a spider.
I complimented his story and then said he had a good sense of grammar and a good vocabulary.

My second student was a girl named Molli from Vermont. Her post was about how much she liked where she lived. I asked her if there was any specific things she liked to do where she lived.

 Vermont Countryside

The second time I posted on Molli's wall I discussed about how we both had big family's and our fondness for German Shepards.

The third time that I posted on Molli's wall she had an in depth paragraph about the different reasons smoking is bad for your health. I told her that I agreed with her that smoking is something one should avoid.

My final C4K was on Vinolia's blog. She is an elementary student from New Zealand. She had a video about herself on her blog post. I discussed a few of the things she mentioned in her video. She seemed like a very friendly little girl.

C4T 3

My teacher this time was Angela Rand. She discussed how she enjoyed having online conversations with people, and how it was difficult to judge their intentions. I told her that I wasn't fond of conversations over the internet for that very reason.
Circle Charts of PLNs


The next post she discussed was about PLNs. I told her we were also useing PLN's, and that I thought they were potentially very helpful.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Blog Post 8

This is how we dream.
Dr. Richard Miller talks about how to use multimedia. I feel that technology is shaping the way we write. This is another video geared at having new teachers use technology in lieu of classic teaching methods. I think that these methods could be useful IN COMBINATION with traditional methods.
I think these methods do have an upside. It may be useful in making students pay attention in class. They will adapt to this more quickly than the teachers. Technology is very commonplace now.
Honestly Dr. Miller's video hasn't really changed my mind about technology in the classroom. I do thing that technology should be used in hte classroom. I just don't support it as whole heartily as most people in this class seem to. If I plan to teach I will need to be technologically literate.

Carly Pugh Blog Post 12
Mrs. Pugh seems to be a very prolific writer. Her writing seems to verge on satire at times. Her post seems to have been made to be seen alongside Ms. Miller's video. She was discussing the new technology that can be used in writing. Students would discuss how they wanted to teach with a variety of media.

The Chipper Series and EDM 310 for Dummies
The first one starts with Chipper having a conversation with Dr. Strange about not doing her work on time. This video is mostly used to discuss the importance of doing your work in a timely manner.
EDM 310 for Dummies is used to show the ways in which EDM 310 functions.This was an amusing video, and I also would like doing things like making videos in classes.

Learn to Change, Change to Learn
In the video Learn to Change, Change to Learn,the changing nature of education is discussed. This is the latest video in EDM310 that I have watched discussing how education is changing. Change is good, but in many instances it is hard and we should be prepared for that.
A classroom should not be just a room with four walls, as the video states, it should be the world. There are so many opportunities in the cities around the world to learn in a non traditional sense.

For the Scavenger Hunt I found a website called Edmodo. It's like Facebook. I set up an account as a student and I can make it tell me when anyone attached to my account updates. This website helps me organize everything I do. I can talk with other students for help with homework. This website helps me by giving me practice quizzes. This is a great organizational tool.


The comic creator I found was Memebase.

Ragecomic




The tool that I had never heard of was Free Stock Photos. This site has an enourmo. You have to set up an account, but it is free. It has a lot of different types of pictures that you can use on your blog or website.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Blog Post 7

The Networked Student

Wendy and Alex Drexler use little paper figures to highlight a Personal Learning Network. It discusses an American Psychology who doesn't have a textbook and does not attend lectures. She decides to use a PLN to gather all the resources she would get with the textbook and lecture. They then discuss the various reasons a teacher might be needed.

I think a PLN is a decent idea in this context. I still think you should attend classes,but this would be a great way to gain information you might have missed because of sickness or prior engagements. I really only think this should be used as a supplemental tool for college. I don't think is should completely replace classes.

I could never imagine more than a handful of high school students actually attempting this. They'll do the bare minimum to get a passing grade, if they do that much. Some of the high achieving students would gain a lot from these networks, but the majority would get their grade and then promptly forget they ever existed.


A 7th Grader's Personal Learning Environment

This 7th grader shows us the Symbaloo PLE she had set up for her science class. She had links to her class's blog, her own blog, learning games, sites about animals which she used in her research, a note taking program, and the email addresses of scientists who she consulted with about her bloag on the Box Jellyfish which she called a "Glog." I liked Evernote, a program which allows you to save anything from any website you visit and link it back to the PLE so you can give credit to the source in a simple manner.
Jellyfish anatomy

Project 9b

Saturday, March 10, 2012

PLN Post 1

Right now my PLN only contains people in my family and some students I met at South.
Computer Network

PLN Post 1

Right now my PLN only contains people in my family and some students I met at South.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

C4T Post 2

The teacher I hat for my second C4T post was Kelly Tenkley.
Her first post was about BBC Bitesize. It's a game that helps students learn to convert fractions to decimals. It seems to be a very entertaining game. I commented on how I thought that this was an entertaining game, and that I thought it would be helpful in classes.\
CARTOON NOUN PEOPLE

Her second post was about the Grammaropolis website. It is a website that helps people with Apple products use games to teach children how to use grammar correctly.

She likes to talk about new and useful ways to use Apple software to teach students. All of the technology she mentioned was amazing and, I think, potentially extremely useful for classrooms.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Blog Post 6


This is Randy Pausch's discussion about life and education. The lecture was given at Carnegie Mellon University. He is famous for his work in virtual reality, among other things. The reason he was allowed to give this lecture at such a young age was he was dying of cancer at the time. He only had about six months to live. He gave this lecture in hopes to change the education system for his children. His lecture was about childhood dreams, his and others, and how they can be achieved if you try hard enough. This lecture tells you how to be able to achieve things as a child and as an adult. There are many ways that this lecture made me think in ways that I never had before and these are a few of the reasons.
Randy's Face





The most interesting thing, to me, that Randy talked about in this lecture was about building a virtual reality world. The project started with fifty random students being chosen and put into teams that would change after every project. He said one of the things he learned he was told by his mentor. After students turned in work that was way beyond his expectations his mentor said if you don't know where to place the bar that they should strive for don't place one at all. He then told Randy to go to class the next day and tell them that they did good, but he thought that they could do better. What this means to me is that teachers should do everything they can to give their students all of the help they require. Teachers should never hold their students back in any way.

"When you're screwing up and nobody's saying anything to you anymore, that means they're given up."
One of the first things that that Randy talked about was the kind of man his football coach was, and what he expected of his players. His coach expected all of his players to give everything they had when they were playing for him. His coach wouldn't just scream at them for making a mistake. His coach would tell the players the mistakes they made and how to fix them. Randy said that coach Graham was a major role model in his life. Coach Graham taught him that you can criticize someone and still care deeply about them. The educational system needs more people who are willing to take the time to help a child to learn how to properly fix a mistake they made. The easiest way to improve yourself is to have some one that is willing to help you change the things that you can't change yourself.


The last of his subjects that I want to discuss is the ability to apologize. He mentioned a few times in his life that he new he had done something that he needed to apologize for, the most prominent being when he waved the fellowship he had won in the face of the man that would decide if he would be admitted into Carnegie Mellon. He said the look on the interviewer's face immediately told randy that he had just made a mistake. He apologized and said he wasn't trying to talk about the money he had won with the fellowship, he was trying to say how he felt, as one of fifteen winners in America, he felt honored when he won it. In all I found this to be an amusing and informative video.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

C4k summary for February

Children at School


His first post was a very simple one so all I did was look at his past posts, introduce myself and tell him that his art was well done and that he should keep doing it if it was what he enjoys.

On Jaden's post he talked about the basketball player Jeremy Lin. All I did was ask him about how much he likes basketball. I asked him if he just liked Lin or if he enjoyed basketball in general.

On Kai's post he talked about a story he read about magic. I told him I liked the story and he should keep reading stories like that. Here is the story.

On Omar and George's blog I commented on his wide assortment of intrests, and told him that I liked that, after trying to come up with a subject for a paper all day, he chose to write his paper on not knowing what to write his paper about.

Video Podcast Post