Monday, October 28, 2013

Summary Post C4T Teacher #3

For this C4t, I had a teacher named Krissy Venosdale who was the author of the website venspired.com. She is a teacher and feels strongly about wanting her students to succeed and also what they learn in the class. She wants her classroom to be the funnest place the child has ever been to and wants them to remember their experience forever. Although school isn't necessarily the "funnest place ever", she tries her hardest to make it that, and after reading her blog post, I truly believes she does just that.

My first post I read was about her child finding that place where she can be herself and feel comfortable. Everyone has that place whether it is at home, school, or at the library. She could tell her child was lost and she was waiting for her to find that place where she could just breathe. After school started and it had been a few months into school, her child finally found that place, which was at school. She could tell her child was in a happy place and right where she needed to be.

My Comment

I agreed with her that it is important for everybody to find their place where they feel most comfortable and can be themselves. It's nice to be yourself where you can act goofy and nobody judge you for what you do. It is also important for younger kids to have a place where they feel they are wanted and needed. I also told her that her post was very moving and inspirational.

My second post I commented on was called Through the Lenses. In this post, she stated how everyone needs to be different, and that different is good. She also wants schools to start being different when they are teaching their students instead of just test options A,B, and C; what about K and P. She used this stating that schools need to let the students dig deeper and let them remember what they are learning instead of just handing it to them. She also made a really good point by saying we need to stop being black and white, and instead be all the different greys there are!

In my comment to her, I told her how much I enjoyed this post she had written. I loved how she mentioned that there are hundreds of colors of gray, and we need to stop being black and white and be a gray. I also liked how she said instead of the answers being a A,B, or C, the students should be critically thinking to find out more.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Project 14

Project Based Learning Project 14

In this project, the students will work on this project in groups of three and each group will have students of all levels such as high, medium, and low. This project is for second graders introducing them to a number line and improving their addition and subtracting skills. They are going to create a "town" on the number line. For example, on the number 6, they can place the school there, and on number 4, the town hall can be placed there. I am going to handout a number line with numbers 0-12. Once they have the number line, I am going to place 6 QR codes around the classroom with addition problems where the sum equals a number on the number line. They are going to scan there QR codes with an iPad or tablet, for every group there will be an Ipad or tablet supplied by the school. I am then going to assign videos for them to watch on Icurio about number lines and how they work. Once they are done with this project, they are going to present it to another second grade class in the school via Bridgit.

Project Calendar



Project Overview

Stuents Guide

Blog Post #10

Randy Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Melon University who was diagnosed with cancer and was given 4-6 months left. He then decided he was going to give one last lecture of everything he has learned through life and who/what inspired him all the way up until now. Before he gave this speech, he made a $50 bet that he wouldn't fill the room up with people attending, and to his surprise, he lost the bet and every seat was filled. After I watched this video I became inspired and I am sure everyone who watched this does too.

Childhood Dreams

Pausch started off his lecture by telling us some of his childhood dreams he had while he was growing up. Some of them included being a football player in the NFL, seeing what it would feel like in 0 gravity, and authorizing an article in the encyclopedia. Pausch never made it to the NFL, but had great memories and learned much more from football than he imagined. He got his chance feeling what it would be like in 0 gravity, so one of his childhood dreams had been reached. His third goal was to authorize an article in the encyclopedia, and he also got his chance to do that also. Although achieving some of his childhood dreams were important to him, it was just important to him that everybody has childhood dreams. As educators, it is our responsibility to push our students to strive for their dreams everyday. No matter how crazy they could be, we are responsible for pushing them to achieve their dreams.

Pausch also talked about a head-fake he learned in football. Teachers give students head-fakes in the classroom often and the student then realizes after what they learned and what is important.I never knew what this called until I watched this and realized it was called a head-fake. Pausch used a head-fake on us in his speech and we didn't even know it until the end when he announced this speech was not for us, it was for his kids. I was so shocked when he said that, but then realized I could see why he would want his kids to see that.

This video was so inspirational and I wanted to learn more about him. I read the manuscript and I also read other stories about him. I learned so much from this video and I am so glad we were assigned to watch this. I did not know what to expect when I saw it was an hour long and had no idea what it was about, but after watching it I did not want it to be over!

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Blog Post #9

Back to the Future
The video Back to the Future focuses on Mr. Crosby's 4th, 5th, and 6th grade classes and how they use PBL. The majority of Mr. Crosby students are second language learners and are students of poverty. I was shocked that majority of his class was not aware of where they lived, what state or country they lived in, or what their address was. His classroom is equipped with laptops, interactive whiteboards, cameras, and their own blogs. This provides students the opportunities to think outside the box. "Creativity builds Passion." One thing we can learn from Mr. Crosby is that no matter where your students come from or what the situation may be, your students can achieve anything in the world. I also took from the video that when working with students you must be patient. Teaching and working with kids will be a difficult, so one must always do more then enough to help impact the students lives in a positive way.

Blended Learning Cycle

Paul Anderson is a high school AP biology teacher in Bozeman, Montana. Recently in his classroom, he has started a blended learning cycle which consists of work online, mobile, and classroom work. Anderson uses the acronym QUIVERS for the cycle he uses in his classroom. The first step is Questions; you have to engage your students by asking them a hook question. The second is investigate, inquiry, or experiment. After the question, you should discover more about the question. After investigation would be video, then elaboration, review, and finally summary quiz. Students must be able to review what they discovered and learned from the question. If you can’t review it, then you have not learned it. Mr. Anderson had many very good points in his video. Since he has started his blended learning cycle, he has had more success with his students and sees an improvement with them retaining and learning more information.

Making Thinking Visible

Mark Church is a sixth grade teacher at International School. In this short video, he shows how he used project based learning and critical thinking. The day before he assigned his project, he showed his class a video on early human beginnings. He then asked the students to get in small groups and discuss the video and come up with a headline that captures what could have started early human beginnings. After this assignment, they are then beginning their two week lesson on early human beginnings. This assignment made the students want to learn what exactly started human beginnings.

Authors: Autumn Sprouse and Jessica Mose

Sunday, October 13, 2013

C4T #2

For my second series of C4T's, I had the privilege of reading Liz Davis' "The Power of Educational Technology." Liz Davis is a teacher for an all boys school grade 7-12 in Boston, MA. Her blog had many useful and helpful blogs.

Summary of first blog

The first blog I read was about change. Change is a very hard task for some people and they do not like anything about having to change their schedules for something different. She gave a few helpful hints that she gave to the faculty and staff at her school of what they could do to prevent them being afraid of change. She says to celebrate small victories and take small steps to prevent being to overwhelmed and to accept the change. She believes that change can be a good thing and be positive about it!

My Comment

Liz, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your post about change and how to deal with it. Change does not bother me too much, I try to stay positive and open about change, but I can see why change does effect people, whether change is for the good or the bad. You gave positive advice that everyone can use. One thing that I do and remind myself everyday is to take one day at a time!



Summary of second blog

In this blog, she describes the 21st century in one word. That one word is TODAY. She also added what 5 things students should be doing/learning TODAY. Those 5 things include: inquiring, investigating, collaborating, creating, and communicating. These 5 things should be done globally and locally! The time is now!

My Comment

Mrs. Davis, I am a student in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama. I agree with you that students should be learning this today in the classroom. In my EDM class, we are learning how to incorporate all of these things in our future classroom, and these 5 points also prevent burp-back learning. I really enjoyed reading your blog and how you pointed these out while we are learning about executing them correctly! Thank you!

Blog Post #8

Blog Post #8

CQ Code's in the Classroom

By: Autumn Sprouse

The tool I have decided to use in my 21st centrury classroom is QR Codes. QR Codes are very user friendly and would be great for students at all ages to use. It would also make the classroom more interesting and learning more fun. An example of a QR Code is the barcode that is a square with little squares in it. It is very simple to make your own personal codes for the classroom. In Shannon Holden's video he explains how exactly to make a qr code. An example of using these codes in the classroom would be having a scavanger hunt around the room. They must find the first code to get the first question they are to answer. They then must go around the room and find the remaining codes and remaining questions. You could also put a math problem with the QR code and have them solve the problem when they scan the code. The students would scan the qr codes with a tablet provided to them by the teacher. There is an app for CQ codes that is free that every student would have to download. Also, every student in the classroom should have access to a tablet provided by the teacher or school board for them. This is a very fun way to have your students involved in the classroom and make them excited to learn!

Socrative

By: Jessica Mose

Socrative is a smart student response system that empowers teachers by engaging their classrooms with a series of educational exercises and games. Socrative runs on tablets, smartphones, and laptops. Teachers login through their device and select an activity which controls the flow of questions and games. Students simply login with their device and interact real time with the content. Student responses are visually represented for multiple choice, true/false and Short Answer questions. For pre-planned activities teachers can view reports online as a google spreadsheet or as an emailed Excel file. Socrative allows teachers to create their own questions within minutes. Teachers can design their own evaluation exercises in minutes by importing questions or inputting them on the website. The questions are automatically saved to your account, making it easy to access at any time. Once the exercises are completed, teachers will receive a report. The multiple choice will be graded for you. Questions can be multiple choice, short answer, or a combination of the two. It's your choice!

REAL-TIME FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT

Teachers can take a snapshot of the students thinking through real time formative assessment. It's super easy to gather responses and get whole class participation. All you have to do is choose a question type, ask a question, and wait for responses. When the students are asked a T/F question, see the results, and discuss the choices as they come to life on the screen. If teachers present students with a MC (multiple choice) question and see the results populate the bar chart as students select their answer. Short Answer gather open ended responses to any question you ask. Instantly project the student responses and then let students vote on the content. Exit Tickets, check in on your students' understanding as they head out the door. Gather responses on their comfort with the material as well as answers to questions you create in real time or prepare before class.

Project #9

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Blog Post #7

After watching PBL Part 1and PBL Part 2Dr. Strange and Anthony Capps talking about project based learning has given me an even better understanding of what project based learning is. Project based learning isn’t just giving a student a project after learning a lesson in the book to make sure they grasped the information. There have been many teachers in my past who have given out a project after learning about something, and expect us to take what we learned and use it in our project. When doing the project it is hard to remember what we covered and everything about the information because all we were taught was reading out of the book. This is an example of burp back education. There are a few ideas that make up a good project in project based learning. The first one is audience. If the student is given an audience to present their work, for example blogs, then that makes the student more determined to give it their best. Another one is student interest. You have to make the students interested in what they are learning and make them excited about wanting to learn about that subject. Project based learning would make the student excited about wanting to learn more and dig deeper to get more information on that subject. Another idea is community involvement. This is similar to audience because they are wanting to impress the person who is reading their information. Getting the community involved in their work can be so simple. One example Anthony Capps gave is writing a letter to congressmen Jo Bonner. This gave the student the excitement to make their writing better and make sure they used correct grammar and spelling of the word. When they received a letter back, he said his students were so excited to see that someone really did read their work and they will most likely remember that experience forever. The last one to remember about a good project is that it has to be driven by content. When giving a student the assignment, you can also make sure to incorporate the standards so the students are also meeting the expectation they are expected to exceed.

Icurio

n this video Anthony Capps does an excellent job describing iCurio. The purpose of iCurio is for students to search websites, images, videos, and media that have been filtered for educational use. . Mr. Capps discusses how the information pulled using this tool will accurate and appropriate. Not like Wikipedia where any and everybody can change the text of an article. Mr. Capps also discusses storage on iCurio, students are able to store different types of information they find. This is helpful, because I have been in that position where I have had to write down a website I wanted to use for an assignment, only to not be able to find that exact article I needed. This also helps with student virtual organization skills. Mr. Capps also discusses the historical figures feature. This feature allows students to search by criteria, for example, Indian women 1920. Overall, iCurio is a great tool that should be used in all classrooms.

Discovery Education

Also Discovery Education is an excellent tool that can be used in the classroom by teachers and students. This could be the connecting puzzle piece that your students have been waiting for. With Discovery Ed, there are narrow searches so that it can help you find exactly what you are looking for. When providing a visual to students to in the classroom, they retain more about it because they can think back when they saw that video that day. For an example of Discovery Ed, if you are teaching about rocks in the classroom, the teacher or the student can get on and look up the different rocks they talked about that day, so it gives them a better example and they can see a real life visual of the rocks.

The Anthony - Strange List of Tips for Teachers Part 1

By: Autumn Sprouse

In this video, I learned 5 important things all teachers should think about. The first thing is you have to be interested in learning yourself if you want to succeed in education. The second thing I learned was that it is hard work, but you can make it be fun. Like they say, you never work a day of your life if you love what you do, and you truly have to love what you do to make anything fun. The third thing I learned was to be flexible and unexpected things will happen. The fourth things is to get kids motivated and engaged. If they are not engaged in wanting to learn, they are not going to be motivated. They must be motivated to be fully engaged. The final thing is to reflect, revise, and share work with your audience. At the end of an assignment, revision can be done. The project might of not turned out how you planned, but you learn everyday in the classroom and you can make the changes in what needs to be done to make it more effective. Everyone can also use revision, you can only make it better! With the audience, why not share your students work with an audience? Showing your hard work with others is always important!

Don't Teach It - Use it!

By: Jessica Mose

In this video Mr. Capps discusses how to introduce technology to students. He basically says to start off small, as you would when introducing anything new to students. Gradually adding steps on how to better use the technology. He also says that teachers should allow the student to be excited about the technology and for them to talk about what they learned and share ideas. Mr. Capps makes the statement, "Don't TEACH technology INTRODUCE technology!" This saying makes perfect sense and self explanatory. I honestly never thought about how a teacher could make the mistake of teaching kids technology instead of introducing technology. But I feel a teacher could easily fall into the trap of teaching technology. For example, telling/showing kids how to exactly find the answer or complete a task. Doing this does not give that student a chance to explore the technology, and really learn from experience. So as a future educator I will not teach technology, but instead introduce technology.

Additional Thought About Lesson

By: Chelsea Powers

In this last video I watched, Anthony Capps said that each lesson should be 4 layers deep. The first layer is everything being tied together. The second layer is dividing the unit into 2 different sections. This will take 6-8 weeks so that everything works up to that final step. The third layer is the week. The fourth layer is the lesson. All of these are important and vital to the learning process. The fourth layer should contain something that will keep the students attention through this weeks process and to ensure the engagement of the students attention. During the course of the school year all the standards should be met.

Project #13 Plan #1

PLN Progress Report Project #3

For my Project Based Learning Plan, I decided to use Symbaloo. I found this to be the most helpful website when setting up my PLN. When I first started doing this project I did not realize how helpful this really would be. When setting your personal Symbaloo up, you can add or delete a tile and make it just for you. I decided to color code mine and put my social networks on top in white, and educational "tiles" on bottom and in teal. This makes for an easy find when I need something right then. I can definitely see this helping so much in the future and even right now.

Here is a picture of what my Symbaloo looks like right now and you can see how I set them up.



As you can see, I personalized my background to the beach; I always want to be at the beach! I also added YouTube, Gmail, The Weather Channel, and Etsy to my Personal Symbaloo.

For my educational "tiles" I added our EDM class blog, Discovery Education, and ICurio for easy future access. Symbaloo is very user friendly and easy for anyone to use!

C4K Summary for September

For the month of September, I was assigned four students all from different schools around the country and also in different grades. I really liked this assignment because it really showed me that teachers really do use blogging as a tool in the classroom, and by us commenting on their post, it also helps the students to really see that people from around the world can see what they are posting and it inspires them to do better in the classroom.

The first student I had was in 10th grade at Baldwin County High School in Bay Minette, Alabama. They were assigned to blog about what they believed. Emmy wrote how she believed that men should treat woman with respect instead of men that do not know how to treat woman at all. She gives the perfect example of telling her story of how she has seen it first hand with her mother being treated like that and how hurtful it was to see someone she loved go through that. She also mentioned how her dad does not have enough time for her and cancels plans on her and she feels that that is wrong. In my comment I told her that it was so great to hear that she is holding her head up high and realizing that nodoby deserves to be treated like that. I also told her thank you for sharing her story and blogging!

The second week in September I had a boy who wrote about how he used Skype for the first time and how much he really enjoyed it. He also talked about how much fun he had making his dot and that that was his favorite thing. I wrote in my comment that I was from the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. I also told him that I use Skype multiple times a week and I really enjoy it! I also told him that I was not sure what making a dot was, but I was definitely looking into it after he had so much fun making one!

The third student I had wrote about how he enjoyed playing lacrosse and that it was his favorite sport. He also wrote about how much he enjoyed watching football also. I told him that I love watching football on Saturdays and I did not know much about lacrosse but from what I heard and saw it looked like such a fun sport to play!

My fourth week of commenting of kids blogs was a student from Wisconsin names Isabel. She wrote in her blog how her class is reading a book and the main character from the book was blind and deaf. Her teacher gave them a brain twister where they could not talk and they had to figure out what the other was saying. She said she did not realize it would be that hard and she could't imagine what the main character had to go through and everyone else who has disabilities like that. I wrote in my comment that that was great her teacher had them do that assignment to really understand how people struggle everyday and that it makes you thankful for everything you have. I also told her thank you for blogging and that I really enjoyed reading this blog.