Blog Post #11

What can we learn about teaching and learning from these teachers?

After watching Back to the Future I was shocked to see how many 4th graders did not know simple questions such as their home phone number; the country, city, and state they lived in; and other questions like this. This is something that needs to be worked on with teachers and parents at lower grades. I did like how Ted let his class do hands on activities to help them learn instead of just lecturing. He also has a class blog where all of his students write about everything they learned. I think this is a good idea to see what information the students retained after learning about that particular curriculum.

After watching Blended Learning Cycle I learned about the blended learning cycle and what it is. This is when the 5 E's which are engage, explore, experiment, explain, and evaluate are combined with the ways of learning which are online, mobile, and classroom. It is so important to get the kids hooked on something and then let them go through the process of trying to figure it out. It is also cool to see what all they come up with.

I could not find the video of Making Thinking Visible but after reading some of it I thought it was interesting to think about how we as people come up with the answers that we do. Some people get things so easily while others have to think long and hard to get the same answer or maybe even a different one. Everyone's brain is different and we as teachers need to remember that when teaching and listening to others.

After watching Sam Pane 4th Grade I thought this would be a great activity to do at the beginning of the year with your class if it was a grade level high enough to know what was going on. This teaches students how to be a good digital citizen. One of the kid's did a digital comic saying her digital super hero stopped gossip online and another student's would stop you from putting personal info in to win something. After all the students were done they would walk around and look at the other students work. This is also good because you never know what some students will learn that they didn't know before.

After watching Project Based Learning I thought it was interesting that they combined History, English, and Information Processing into one long class but the same amount of credit hours if they were all separate. I have never really thought about doing something like this because starting in intermediate and middle school you start switching teachers for certain subjects. I feel like making one long class like they did you can accomplish more because you have more time then you would if you had to split your time into three different classes. It will be interesting to see in the future if this develops more.

After watching Roosevelt Elementary's PBL Program I learned that PBL is a great way for kids to think for themselves. It lets us know as teacher that the students really understand what we are learning about. PBL also helps students with public speaking which is a big fear in many people as they grow up. It also helps kids understand what adults go through everyday. I feel learning this way will help students more in the future then the way I was taught.

Project #12 Part A

C4K for October

My first student I had was Andy who is in the 2nd grade. His blog post was called Here comes the sun-ish and it was a painting of a banana. The banana was negative space though and he painted the background orange and red which are colors of the sun. I thought this painting was very unique and creative.

My second student I had was Kadyn who is in the 7th grade. His post is called Myself and he tells about his hobbies and interests, From him I learn that in the summer he likes to ride his scooter, in the winter he likes to snowboard, his favorite color is purple, and he doesn't really like school but if he had to choose his favorite subject it would have to be math. I thought these were all interesting things and some things we had in common were we like to snowboard, the color purple, and we both like math.

My third student I had was Phoenix who is in the first grade. Her post is called School and she says that she likes school. I think that it is good that someone as young as her likes school and that she has started to blog. I asked her why she likes school so maybe be the next time she gets on her blog she will respond.

My fourth student I had was Sulieit who is in the fifth grade. Her post is called Going to the Museum and it is about her and her class going to the museum. At the museum they learn about maori food, the haka, and they got to experience the volcano room. The volcano room started shaking and all the kids started screaming. It seemed like a very fun field trip.  

Blog Post #10

What can we learn from Mrs. Cassidy?

After watching First Grader's in Mrs. Cassidy's Class, Interview with Kathy Cassidy Part 1, Interview with Kathy Cassidy Part 2, and Interview with Kathy Cassidy Part 3 it was cool to see Mrs. Cassidy's take on technology in the classroom. She started using technology in her classroom ten years ago when she got five computers in her classroom. She has started using web pages and class blogs in her classroom in the last five years. She protects her students by only putting his or her first name on each of his or her blogs and if she puts a picture up she does not put a name with the picture. Some good things about using a classroom blog is parents can go look at their child's work when they have time, and students learn that they need to be careful with what they write and say. Technology is not going away so teachers have to learn to evolve and teach with their new sources.

Mrs. Cassidy approaches using technology in the classroom by making her class blog, use the internet, and skype. Mrs. Cassidy tries to make her class blog at least once a week. A lot of the time it may only be a sentence but they are only in the first grade. Blogging helps kids with reading, writing, and being punctual. Students can use the internet by clicking on pictures to take them places so they can learn. Students can also play games on the internet to help them with their site words or letters of the alphabet. Mrs. Cassidy uses skype in her classroom to be able to skype with people to learn things. It is kind of like having a guest speaker without them having to be in the classroom. My favorite of her approaches was how she uses skype. I have never thought of skype being an easy way to have a guest speaker that can't make it to your actually classroom. I think this will allow more opportunity for kids to learn more from people around the world. I know with using something like skype you could run into some malfunction with internet connection but if that were to happen then I would just improvise with what the guest speaker was going to say or I would maybe try to do it the next day instead. I think there are many benefits to Mrs. Cassidy's approaches but the main ones I like is that blogs help the students read, write, and interact better.

Blog Post #9

What can teachers and students teach us about project based learning?

From reading Seven Essentials for Project Based Learning  I learned that as teachers we need to remember that the world is always evolving and we should not teach how we were taught. There are seven essential elements of meaningful projects. The first is A Need To Know. This tells you that you should have some sort of entry event such as a video, a discussion, a guest speaker, a field trip...instead of a packet of papers. The second is A Driving Question. This helps the students get a clear concept of the project and gives them a challenge. The third is Student Voice and Choice. This tells us how we should let students do projects in a way that interests them. The fourth is 21st Century Skills. This tells how we should have projects that build students skills such as collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and the use of technology. The fifth is Inquiry and Innovation. This tells us how when students answer one question this gets their brains working to come up with more and more questions. The sixth is Feedback and Revision. This helps students show that their work has meaning. The seventh is A Publicly Presented Product. When a student knows they are doing a project for more then their teacher and classmates they will usually do better quality work. As a result of all the seven essentials we are doing project based learning.

After watching Project Based Learning For Teachers I learned that project based learning is all about students teaching themselves what they need to know. Teachers are more of a guide to make sure that all the right materials are provided to the students for them to be able to do this. I think this will work good as long as what the students are learning about is something that interests him or her. If it doesn't then it may be a little harder to get them interested in the project based learning.

Before reading Project Based Learning in PE I never really thought about PE being a subject you could do project based learning in. I always thought PE more of learning different types of activities by doing them and testing over what you have learned. After reading this article though I thought it was a great idea for a high school PE class to come up with a physical fitness program for middle students. This project is under the Alabama state standard for physical education. From doing a project like this I think kids would get a better understanding of what kind of physical activity a person needs.

After watching What Motivates Students?  I learned that students can be motivated in many different ways. If you were to find a way that gets all your students extra motivated then more work will be accomplished. A few examples of things that motivate students from the video were students like to hear they have done a good job, they want to do well in life, good grades means they don't get grounded, fake money gets given out for good behavior and they can use that at their classroom store, and some students get candy for good behavior. An example I seen when I was in a school was if homework from the night before was not done then students can not take their Mac home that day.

After watching and reading about Two Students Solve the Problem of Watery Ketchup By Designing A New Cap  this made me realize how fun a project  like this can be for students because that is something they wanted to do. Sure you could shake a ketchup bottle and get the same solution as a new cap but that was not good enough for the students. So they brain stormed and came up with a new cap that looks like a mushroom. How it works is when the bottle is upside down the water gets trapped below the mushroom allowing the tomato paste to come through the lid. I was very impressed with what the students did to come up with this.

Implications and Teaching Opportunities for Camera Use in Teaching and Learning

A study done by Zogby Analytics.

Part A

From the data we were given you can see that smart phones are growing at a rapid pace and before long almost everyone will have one. From the high percentage we were given of people who said that their smart phone never leaves their side we can see how addicting smart phones have become. I can say for myself that I have my phone on me the majority of the time. My smart phone is my watch, my alarm clock, my agenda, my social network, my camera, and has an answer to any question I have. So I can see why so many people always keep it on them. 

With all the technology a smart phone provides I don't see why teachers, schools, and students don't use them for educational purposes. This is not something that can happen over night but I do believe it can be started in schools. I don't think that educational learning should be 100% done with smart devices because there are a few draw backs. For example, if you have your whole lesson plan on a smart device where you have to use the internet and say the internet is down that day then your whole lesson plan is useless that day. I do think using smart devices for projects and doing research is a great way to get students engaged though. 

Part B

Here are some ideas for lessons if all students were to have a smartphone or tablet with a camera:

• For any project that includes pictures students have to make the presentation on their tablet and present it to the class.
• For Reading students have to record themselves then go back and listen to themselves to see if they made any mistakes like in this video
• They can use keynote to make something similar to a powerpoint
• They can use the camera to load pictures to their class blog 
• Students could use their tablet to take pictures of things they don't know and then be able to bring it back to class and research what it is

Project #9

We had topic #5 on Mark Prensky's book Teaching Natives: Partnering for Real Learning

Google Slides

Blog Post #8

What can we learn about teaching and learning from Randy Pausch?

Wow! Where do I even begin? This video Randy Pausch's Last Lecture was so inspirational. There is so much to learn from this that I believe anyone can take something away from this video. In this video Randy talks about his dreams, how to help other people enable their dreams, and lessons learned.

Randy's six dreams were being in zero gravity, playing in the NFL, authoring an article in the World Book Encyclopedia, being Captain Kirk, winning stuffed animals, and being a Disney Imagineer. Something he discussed about before going into detail about each one of his dreams is you may not get to do exactly what you want but you may could do some form or fashion of it. His dream was not to become an astronaut but to just experience the zero gravity. He did this by riding in something NASA has called the "vomit comet". It wasn't as easy as he thought and he ran into some complications, but if you have something you can bring to the table you have a better chance of finding a way to accomplish your dreams. His next dream was to play in the NFL which he did not come close to but he was able to play football in school. Here he learned that it is all about the fundamentals. I thought a good key point he brought up was if you are screwing up and no one says anything is when they have given up on you. Through all his other dreams some good key points he made was that you hit brick walls to prove how badly you want something and wait long enough and someone will surprise you,

For enabling childhood dreams you always need to push kids. An example he shared was when he gave his college students a project and they blew his mind away. He did not know what he was suppose to say to them but ended up telling them "that was good but I know you can do better". As a result the kids did even better on their next project.

We can learn lessons from are parents, a mentor, and even students. Remember to never lose the child-like wonder, to always help others, loyalty is a two way strip, and never give up. From just remembering these few things it can help you out in your life journey and even help accomplish some of your dreams. If you need help from people along the way some good things to remember are always tell the truth, be earnest, apologize when you screw up, and focus on others not yourself.

What I have shared with you is just minimal stuff from what Randy shares with you. So if you get a moment go and watch the video. It may just help you out and give the guidance you were looking for. Not only was this video inspirational but it was also very heartfelt.

C4T #2 Summary

The blog I was assigned is called The Power of Educational Technology by Liz B Davis. She is Director of Curriculum at Keys School.

The first post I commented on is called Using Design Thinking to Reimagine Back To School Night. In this post she tells us about what she is going to do with the parents when they come to back to school night. It consists on five parts and basically the parents get broken up into groups interview each other, share their ideas, and come up with ways of what their partner needs. I think this will be a fun activity to do with parents and keep them engaged with back to school night. it is also a good way to get the parents thoughts about school and what should be going on.

The second post I commented on is called My Google Teacher Academy 2014 Application. In this post Mrs. Davis had to make a one minute video that answered the question "How do you innovate in the classroom or educational community to generate positive change?". She made her video into a rap about innovation and positive change. It was very cute and upbeat. She mentioned that you have to take risks, step out of your comfort zone, use chromebook and google apps for education, and design thinking projects. I liked her video a lot and could tell that she was a fun educational teacher just by watching this one video.

Project #13

Lesson Plan Project

Project #7 Part B

Teacher Movie for Parents

Teacher Movie for Students 

Blog Post #7

I think all schools in time will go to technology based learning. Our world is continually evolving and we all have to evolve with it. I think technology is a good source to learn things because it can give you almost information you need at your fingertips as well as making it fun. I think there are many website sources out there that I don't know about that will be good to use in the classroom. As my strengths I would say I am pretty good at figuring things out so if I came across a new site or app and needed to know how it works I could figure it out. As a weakness I think there is a lot out there I don't know about. For example, that recording and QR website are both really good sites that I have never heard about and I will definitely use those when I am a teacher. I think to get ready I will just need to pay attention and take inn all the different methods of project based learning teachers do and find the ones I will want to do one day.

From watching How to make an audio QR code I learned a great way to record yourself and how to turn it into a QR code. As a teacher you can use this to record yourself reading a store or even giving directions that way students can listen to over and over again if they want.

From watching iPad in the Reading Center I learned that using ipads to record yourself while you are reading is a great way to go back and check yourself to see if you have made any mistakes. I also think this will encourage students to read  because it will be fun to use the ipad.

From watching Poplet as a Center I learned that this is a great app to use to let students let you know about a book he or she read. You can take pictures of the book and add text to each picture you take until you have enough to make a little slide show.

From watching Alabama Virtual Library as a Kidergarten Center I learned that this is a great source for students to figure out what a word means and even examples of this word. This is very educational for kids to learn on their own.

From watching How to use a and build a Board in Discovery Education  I learned that this is a great source for kids to use for showing you what they know about a certain thing. Each board has a title, a picture, and facts about what the student knows. In DE kids can even record themselves and at it to their board.

From watching Using imovie and the Alabama Virtual Library in Kindergarten I learned that even children as young as kindergarten can use technology to teach you what they know. To me this gets kids so involved because they love using technology.

From watching We All Become Learners I learned that everyone is a learner when it comes to technology. Students teach teachers and teachers teach students. I think a great project for students would make a lesson teaching something. This lets students get involved and you never know what else someone may learn.