Final Report PLN

This is a screenshot of my PLN. I do not use it as much as I thought I would. I do love the fact that it simplifies everything into one screen, however. These are the websites that I use the most. I have my bank, my credit card company, my Facebook, my Skype, the school Ii work for, and the University of South Alabama.

Summary Post c4t #4

My teacher was Jerrid W. Kruse. I learned a lot from reading his blog. He is avid about technology, however he does see the implications it could cause. In a study they found that kids were more interested in sharing responsibilities than learning new things. This could be great fro teaching teamwork and responsibility and even social skills however, this is not great for the lesson plan. I think by using the computers consistently for a while would cause the new to wear off and more work would get done!

Summary c4k

I have had the opportunity to read some pretty amazing blogs by some pretty amazing kids! My first blog I was assigned was Grace on the Go! She was in Ms. Yolli's class and she earned her own blog. She was selected by her outstanding work. She was very excited and honored to have her own blog. My favorite part about her blog was her Voki. It was a little dog that followed my mouse around the screen with his eyes! It was very neat!

My next C4K was Jess. He was from Adalaide and got to go to New Zealand. I was very jealous seeing as how I have never left the states. Come to think of it, I have not been past Mississippi to the west. The furthermost I have been North is to New York, but other than that I have been confined to this great state of Alabama.

My next kid was pretty amazing at describing what he saw outside! He used great adjectives to describe what he saw when he went outside. It was great writing for a child his age! He made me feel as if i was there and could see what he had seen. I loved reading his blog post!

My next post was Colin. He is in Mrs.Haugen's class. He is new to blogging, and he loves it. He works with a team and must comment on his team members blog each week. I told him how I just began blogging and how I love to work with my team members. I believe that it is such a great learning opportunity when you have to work with other people!

FINAL PROJECT #16

Blog Post #13

ALEX

ALEX stands for Alabama Learning Exchange. I have never heard of this term before, however it is an interesting website for teachers and aspiring teachers to be able to use. The best part of it for teachers is that it has lesson plans on there already. The plans meet state standards, so it is simple to get a quality lesson plan off of their website. Another great quality of this website is that you can post your lesson plans on there, as well. This way other teachers can review your work and give feedback. This creates a great way for teachers to communicate and share ideas.


This was a great assignment because many people do not know the opportunities and sources that educators have!!

Additional Assignment #5

Tom Johnson's Adventures In Pencil Integration:

Just teach them to solve for x was an amazing post. This was the one I commented on. I love the sarcasm in this post. The entire post was about him using metaphors to teach and someone having a problem with this. As they were making their argument they downed his methods. However, while making her argument she uses metaphors herself. I just loved it!

Next was Sketch Portraits: Eighth Grade Identity and Pencils. This was a great metaphorical post! He describes the pencil as a variety of different things. Middle school students are going through a tough phase in their lives. One day they will love you ad one day they will hate you. They may have a multitude of personalities in a given week! You must be able to cope with it and help them along.

In the next one:  He Just Likes The Class For The Pencils, Mr.Spencer explains how you must have a relationship with your students. This is such an important concept that many teachers forget! You must give respect to someone if you expect respect to be given to you.

The  Medium Shapes The Learning explains to us that we must keep the child engaged! Please, everyone remember this. Keep your students interested in what you are doing in the classroom! Do not be a hard nosed teacher who demands nothing but burp back knowledge. Please, engage your students!

Project 15

WHO WILL YOU CHOOSE TO BE

My Sentence!

Summary Response To Survey

Here is the link to my Summary! My Summary!!!


My survey was about mental and physical wellness. I am very concerned about the vast epidemic that is growing in our country. Obesity is becoming more and more common. College is really a turning point for many people. This is where they pick up many bad habits. They are no longer at home with well cooked meals. Most students are on their own! It is simple to stop by a fast food restaurant. Also, often times they simply do not have time to excercise. This leads to weight gain.

What I found was that many people do not get the recommended daily excercise. You should try to make time to excercise at least three times a week for thirty minutes a day in order to maintain your weight. I also was shocked that not as many people as eat fast food as often as I thought they would. One thing that is concerning though is the amount of stress that students are under. Many people said that they work and go to school. This is very stressful. You must take time to treat yourself to something you enjoy and use good stress management techniques. Stress can wear on your body as much as an unhealthy lifestyle.

Blog Assignment #12

Watch these movies: Discovery Student Movies: Technology In The Classroom and Pay Attention

Write about how these make you feel as a future teacher.

Discovery Student Movies:Technology In the Classroom

This is such a creative video by these students. Technology is in our future whether you like it or not. We might as well embrace it. Let's make our students more technologically advanced citizens. Lets allow them to enjoy going to school. I want to know who made up the rule that school must be hard and boring?! It doesn't have to be! I want my students to be engaged in what I am teaching. I want them to be interested enough to apply it to their lives!! I Do NOT believe in "burp back" education.

Pay Attention

This is an amazing video! Like I said in the paragraph above, we must engage our students!!!!!!! They must be motivated to learn. We live in a time of technology! Our students must be able to analyze and apply the problems they come across. What good have you done if you expect your student to memorize your material the night before the test in order to get a passing grade?! You have not done any good for them in the long run!! They may get a good grade on that test, but what happens when they get to college?! How will their grades look then? You must put the student first! I believe in order to do that you must be a technologically literate teacher, and you must make your students technologically literate!

Progress Report On Final Project

We have met with our group members (Hailey Rascoe, Christie Odom, Leigh Setser, and Leslie Ketchum). We have discussed ideas on our final project, and are ready to go! Well, not really, but we have some great ideas!!! We are going to meet again next week and knock this one out!

Summary Post c4k October Style

So, I am very disappointed that I did not keep up with my students that I have been talking to this month! They have been amazing, however. I love talking to these students! I know they love knowing that people are interested in what they are doing. It inspires them to want to continue learning! it gives them such a wonderful, but different, perspective of learning. They are no longer just sitting in a classroom listening to a teacher ramble on. They are using the information they learn about to teach others! They discuss assignments with other classmates, and the world!

Teach Someone Video!

How To Make A Facebook Account!

Blog Post #11

Little Kids....Big Potential
This is just an amazing video! It is so weird knowing that these kids are using things more proficiently than I am, and that I am just now learning about each of these technologies! Ms.Cassidy has done a wonderful job with her students. They are very educated in more than just "school". It is so inspiring. Many people would be against this, but it is so good to know that she has been through it and it works so well.
Discussion with Ms. Cassidy
Ms. Cassidy has been using technology for about ten years. She started when she got 5 new computers in her classroom. They wouldn't let her download any programs on them, however. This is when she decided to let them have blogs in order to further their learning! She starts teaching them about the computers at the beginning of the year.
Her students must h ave a permission slip signed in order to have their picture taken and put onto the blog. She does not correlate the children's names with their pictures. She, also, only uses their first names. This makes the children's parents feel better about this learning experience. The parents are very supportive of their child's learning. They can check on their child's progress right from home.
The children love this way of learning! They are very excited to get on their computer everyday! They love that people can look at their blogs and leave them comments!
Ms. Cassidy thinks that every teacher should be technologically literate! I agree with her! it will make your student's learning experience so much more entertaining. They will enjoy coming to school and learning if you have the most modern way of teaching!

C4T Summary Teacher #3

I had some trouble, initially, leaving my teacher a comment. However, I did eventually get it! My teacher has such an adorable class!! I left my comments about their Halloween costumes. They were absolutely adorable! My first comment was about them making their pumpkins! It looked messy!! I think I would have loved to be in that Mrs. Cassidy's class as a child!

Addtional Assignment #3

Sir Ken Robinson: Changing Educational Paradigms

This is video was very well put together. By this, I mean that the video covered his issues with education on a level that everyone can understand. It was simple but it had very key point to his idea of changing the educational paradigm. His main point that I believe he is trying to make here is that education cannot go on the way it has been. It has to be diverse because not all kids are facing the same economic and cultural values on the same level. I do agree with this idea of changing education because it is not a one size fits all subject. I would like to think that all children have an equal opportunity to an education but they do not. As far as the video goes in general, I liked it because like I said before, it was put together in a way that everyone could understand it. We were asked what part of the film would we be in if it was ours and I have decided that I would not be in it at all. I do not like putting together videos so this doesn’t pertain to me.

Blog Post #10

An Open Letter To Educators


This is a great post! She hits the nail right on the head with everything she says! We are, indeed, using the same teaching methods that were used when school first began. Times have changed. Why haven't we? I have heard for years that we use "burp back" methods, yet nothing has been done about it. When will people stop talking and actually do it?! I think that this class does a great job at helping us to become more independent learners. 

I feel like I can relate with everything she says. When you sit in a class and just expect to be able to repeat everything the teacher says is so boring and terrible! I hope that one day this trend will be broken!

Don't Let Them Take The Pencils Home

This was to tell us not to dwell on problems! Sometimes teachers focus so much on the negative side of things. I know that I had a teacher once and all she talked about were the bad grades in the class. There could have been 20 A's and 2 F's and her entire class period was focused on those two people who didn't do so well, while the rest of us were just sitting there listening to these poor kids being stricken in front of the class. I think the message is to remember the good that happens as well as the bad.

Two Questions That Can Change Your Life 

The first question was 'What is my sentence?'. I think this means if people had to summarize you in one sentence what would it be? I think mine would be 'She is a great teacher that enjoyed what she did everyday of her life.' Well, I would hope that's how people would remember me by. I know that I will enjoy my job. I love working with any kids in any school type environment. 

The other question was 'Was I better today than i was yesterday?'. This is a question that I have been taught to ask myself since I was a young child. This is instilled in my brain. This is a self evaluation. Everyone can improve everyday. No one is perfect. I think that everyone needs to remember that. Especially teachers. Every once in a while we get satisfied. My favorite thing to say is 'Never be Satisfied'. You always demand more of yourself. If you demand more of yourself, your students will do the same.

Smartboard Project

Hailey Rascoe, Leigh Setser, and Leslie Ketchum

My Skype Video

Free online screencasting tool

Blog Post #9

What I've Learned This Year
Mr. McClung gives some great advice in this post. In summary he says don't try to be perfect and always keep your students number one! This sounds so simple, but many teachers lose sight of this. They are so concerned trying to make the perfect lesson that they forget to make sure that their class is comprehending the material being taught. He also says that you can never stop learning and to not be afraid of technology. We have learned so much about this in our EDM class already this year. It is a very important subject, and I think that is why it keeps being brought up. Many teachers get satisfied with where they are at in their teaching methods. In my opinion, and important thing to remember is one teaching method may not work for every class or every student. You must remain flexible and willing to learn more.