C4K Summary 1,2, and 3

Mrs. Lurgin is an elementary school teacher in Saskatchewan, Canada. She also coaches volleyball. The blog post I commented on was about a ski trip that the class went on to Asessippi Ski Area & Resort, which, by the way looked like a fun place to get to go to for the weekend.

In week two I commented on a student in Mr. St. Peirre's 5th grade class in the Comsewogue school district in New York state. Sidney posted about a trip he made to Florida. I imagine he enjoyed the weather there as opposed to all the snow they have been getting in New York.

In week three I posted on a student on a student's post in Mrs. Squires Point England school's grade 5 class in Auckland, New Zealand. Jonita seemed like a great kid. She was interested in sports. She liked basball which is my personal favorite sport. She also said she liked Netball. Before reading her blog I had never even heard of the sport. It seemed very interesting. It is like basketball, but without a backboard, you can't dribble, and there are seven players on the court as opposed to five in basketball. I am very glad to have the oppurtunity to learn about new cultures. I can't wait to keep learning new things from these children across the world.

Project 9b TimeToast Timeline: Instructional

Blog Assignment 6

Mrs. Drexler's video Network Student is very interesting. My first thought about it was," This is exactly what Dr. Strange is doing with our class." I wonder if this video is what gave Dr. Strange the idea for how EDM310 is set up? We are now learning how to teach ourselves and not be just taught. I love this. I like finding out things on my own and not just taking other individuals word on how things work or have been done. Things are more interesting to me if I am able to find them on my own. It makes me feel as though I become smarter everyday. I know it is a cliche thing to say, but I want to be a person who learns something new everyday, and with this class I ca honestly say I do.

I also noticed that the video alludes to using Delicious quite a lot. I am still having trouble figuring out how it exactly works. All I can figure out about it is how to bookmark my own stuff on there. Could someone please help me figure out how to find other relevant material on there?

As far as the question, " Why does a networked student even need a teacher?" is concerned, we have to be able to teach students how to do these things, and give them a place to start. We need to be able to teach our students how to find out which information is relevant, and how to find it. We have to teach them which people to listen to. We all know that information is powerful, but bad information can lead to terrible things. If students aren't taught the correct way to sift through the things they find, they may come to false conclusions and skewed views of reality.

I do think that this way of teaching and learning is the future, but I am still a little worried as to how well this type of education will be taken in the public school system. Our students still have to pass these standardized test that the government mandates. Our jobs are on the line if our students don't pass these tests. I, so far, have not seen how we will be able to use this method of teaching to get all of the information to the students. I enjoy learning in this fashion but sometimes I think it would take to much time to use it in a classroom.



I was really impressed by the young lady's PLE in the Welcome to My PLE video. This was one of the video I wached when we began building our PLN's and have been trying ever since I started it to mirror what she has done. I haven't really gotten mine to work as well as it seems she has, but I am trying. I have found several great things to keep organized and help me understand some of the stuff I am learning in my other courses. I am planning on using this new found knowledge of PLN's to help with a paper I have to write in my British Literature class. It also turned me on to Evernote. Evernote is what I use to take notes in all of my classes. I am able to find notes easily and study by using the application on my smart phone when I dont have time to take out a notebook or computer.

"Why Smartboards are a Dumb Initiative" is a blog post that states the problems of spending money on interactive whiteboards. The points it makes are that smartboards are just a more espensive way for teachers to do exactly what they did before they had one, and that they are a way for administrators to show what technology they are spending money on instead of taking a risk and spending money on changing the way students learn or teachers teach.

I found a Survey from a Minnesota school system that kind of puts a hole in the argument above. It shows that 90% of teachers from that district with Smartboards say they agree or strongly agree that a Smartboard makes them a more effective teacher. It also says that 90% of those teachers say that their students find the use of Smartboards more engaging than traditional methods. To me that would make them worth the money spent. If teachers find themselves more effective and their students more engaged isn't that the goal of this educational movement.

In the post Why I Hate Interactive Whiteboards Mr. Ferriter makes the argument that interactive whiteboards perpetuate the same style of teaching we are trying to get away from. He basically says that they are a more technologicl version of standing in front of the class and presenting notes. I see where he is coming from, but I don't think he tried very hard to find out a better way to use it. In a post I found, Make the Most of Your Interactive Whiteboard, the idea of recording the lecture and screen for children that miss class is proposed. Isn't that part of what we want to do? We want to be able to teach our students outside the classroom, and that seems to me to be easier that setting up a camera and recording what's going on. It also talks of "borrowing" other teachers lessons for help with your own lesson plans. The use of interactive whiteboards seems like a great way to collaborate with other teachers.

Project 9a TimeToast Timeline: My Family

Blog Assignment 5

I listened to the podcast "Roamin' with the Ancient Romans" on the Eagles' Nest Radio & Class Blog. This particular group did a podcast about ancient Rome. They explained Roman architecture, the gladiator battles of the Coliseum, and the history of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra the 7th. They emphasized points that seemed to interest them personally. They were very enthusiastic about what they learned. The podcast was arranged in the format of a radio news broadcast.

What struck me the most about this production was the amount of things these children learned about Rome. I have always been interested in History, and didn't know that Cleopatra was the 7th, nor did I know that she was actually Roman. This would be a great project for my future students. I feel that they may be more interested in producing something like a podcast as opposed to writing a paper.

There were two things that struck me while watching the video on the blog post The Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom. First was the use of podcasts as a way for students who have to miss school because of an illness to stay caught up on the lectures of the day. Since the start of this class I have been interested in using this method as well as others in my future classroom. It will also be a great way for students to review for tests, because all of the lectures will be available to them while at home.

Second was the use as a project based learning tool. As I said in the second paragraph of this post, this will be more fun for students to do then writing a paper. I also like that the parents of students will be able to see or hear what their children have learned or are learning just by going to the class website and clicking a link to a lecture or project.

I suggest everybody explore The Education Podcast Network. There are podcasts on this site for pretty much every subject we teach. Of course because I wish to be a history teacher I explored the Social Studies material. There were all kinds of different productions on historic events and figures. For example there was a link for podcasts pretaining to the American Revolution, the medieval period, and many more.

My idea for using these stems from something I learned while playing baseball. As a kid my dad would tell me something to do on the field, and I would not think it would work because in my mind he didn't know everything. I feel sometime students will have that feeling with the teachers they see everyday. It may hit home for them more if you let them listen to someone else tell them what you want them to hear.

This is My Sentence

Blog Assignment 4

Scott McLeod is an associate professor at Iowa State University in the Educational Administration program. He is also the director of CASTLE, which is the nation’s only academic center dedicated to the technology needs of school administrators. His blog post Don't teach your kids this stuff. Please? makes a great point in a really creative way. Personally, I love sarcasm. Yes, the internet and a lot of the things that come with it can be negative. However, we should not keep kids away from it just for that. There are so many things that come with it that can help them. No matter what people try to do computers and technology will be her to stay. Many of my fellow students have alluded to the idea of just using internet safety technology to keep children safe. All of that is well and good, but, as Mr. McLeod said in his comment on the EDM 310 class blog, most parents don't have the knowledge to implement those technologies. I don't have the answer to that problem, so I pose the question to everyone," How do we teach the parents to keep there children safe on the internet?"

The iSchool initiative is a great idea. The first thing that struck me about this video is that it was produced by a 17 year old high school student. He is very bright and has come up with an idea I'm quite sure would have never crossed my mind at his age. I like how he has done the research on the applications that are available today. I will probably take some time to go through my phones applications to see what may be of use to me.

I am impressed with what he has come up with, but I am not sure it is a completely possible idea. Public schools have enough trouble trying to get families to buy the supplies necessary much less a device like the iSchool. Most of the items listed in the "Ways it May Save Money" slide can be provided to the students from lower income families by the school for little or no cost to the parent. The idea that a school can just get rid of paper and copiers is, in my opinion, Utopian. When I become a teacher I would love to go completely green, but I won't because, as I've learned in my previous jobs, it is always best to have hard copies of something when a problem arises.

The Lost Generation video is amazing. The writer of that speech is an absolute genius. By being able to see the words written out in the order first written, I felt sorry for the narrators view of how their life will play out. When read back in the reverse order, It describes how I like to look at the years ahead of me. I refuse to let others tell me how my life will play out, and hope to be a part of a generation that helps change how we live on this planet. All I can say is, AMAZING!

Again I am amazed by this class! The performance of 'Lux Aurumque' is awesome. Imagine if these people took what Mr. McLeod seriously when he said don't collaborate. We would not have been able to witness that masterpiece of music and technology combined. This just shows what we as humans can now create because of our ability to work with one another without borders.

Teaching In the 21st Century poses a lot of great questions. The one that stuck out to me was the question of how do we control our students with all of these new toys. The answer they gave was simple, but profound. We control them the same way we would with a pen and paper. I wrote in our last blog post assignment that I think we should use the students cell phones as a teaching tool and I got the same reaction from the person that commented on that post that my wife gave me. They both said that students will use them to do other things instead of their school work. My argument is that they're gonna do that any way no matter if we use the phones for classroom purposes or not. If we can find a way to engage the students they may quit texting long enough to learn something.

Teaching in the 21st century means not just teaching facts. It is teaching children how to find out those facts you were going to teach them on their own. All of the information is out there for them, we just have to give them the tools to find the right information from reliable sources.

Blog Assignment 3

Wow! A Vision of Students Today was quite a enlightening video. First of all, I completely feel like my days need to be 26 1/2 hours long. I have went to college immediately following high school and tried to work 40 plus hours a week, go to school, and still have a good time outside of school. It didn't work. I went back and tried to work 60 hours a week and go to school. Again, it didn't work. Now, I've come back and I only work 26 hours a week and it works much better, but I'm still always tired and some days I just can't do any school work, because I just need a break.

I feel lucky that here at the University of South Alabama we don't have such large classrooms. I feel like most, if not all, professors know my name, but thats not because its easy. I make sure I speak up in class and make myself known. In one of my classes this semester all my professor does is write on the blackboard and describe poems. I wish everyday he would use something more modern to help me understand what he is explaining.

I enjoyed reading Mrs. Hines' post It's Not about the Technology. She hit the nail on the head with this. It doesn't matter what technology is at our disposal, if we don't know how to use it in an effective way, it is useless. Teachers need to take the time to learn new and effective ways to implement new devices into the classroom.

I have the benefit of living with a person who teaches everyday in this area. My wife tells me that there are 150 plus teachers at her school and most of them teach the same way they have been teaching for decades. They don't seem to want to evolve with the times. Kids are now allowed to bring their cellphones to school. In my opinion if they are going to use them anyway during the day teachers should learn ways to incorporate them in to the learning experience. Kids may even pay more attention if given the opportunity to use such things in the class.

"If a teacher today is not technologically literate - and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more - it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write." Mr. Fisch made this comment in is post Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher. I think it is a little harsh, but harsh doesn't make it untrue. When I was looking for another job several years ago, I remember reading every want add saying you have to be able to do some form of technological program to even be considered. In todays world potential employers need employees that can interact in a more global society that takes tech knowledge.

Why should teachers be held to a different standard? I know I always go back to things my wife sees in her everyday experiences, but I think they are terribly relevant. She doesn't just go to work everyday and try the same old thing. Too many teachers however, do. We as the future educators of the world need to help our students get these jobs. Think about how hard it is for all of us in EDM310 to learn this new stuff. Imagine how hard it is going to be for our students in 5, 10, or 20 years. We owe it to them to prepare them as best we can for the future.

All I can say about theSocial Media Count is, WOW! As a future teacher we have to be able to teach our kids these things. The first thing I noticed is how fast money is made through these mediums. Our students need to be able to tap into these resources.

Summary Post C4T#1

I was assigned to comment on Mrs. Ann Carnevale's Blog Bit's and Bytes.

In her post titled Exciting News and New Resources from January 5th, 2011 she told of a collaborative writing project called Write On. It involves fifteen classes of third, fourth, and fifth grade children from all around the United States. They are three groups of five classes, and are working together through a wiki to write and illustrate a story for a total of three stories. Mrs. Carnevale says," The purpose of this project is to expand writing skills while utilizing 21st century learning tools for communication and collaboration."

The creative efforts of these children is great! I suggest you take some time and click on the Write On link above and read the stories the kids have come up with. They are quite entertaining. Personally I will keep going back to read them until they are finished just to see what they come up with. They make me wish I was in third grade again.

Mrs. Carnevale also gave a link to a K-12 Section for Podcasts on iTunes. The only downfall of this site is there is no real organization, but if you take time to look you will definitely find something that will interest you.

When I looked around I found several links to podcasts directed towards high school history students. Just the few I listened to made me want to provide these for my students. I may even browse this site looking for information for myself while taking my college history courses.

The last part of this post she spoke of CarrotSticks, which is an online multiplayer math website. Students are able to play on their own, or with friends, in up to 25 levels of games. Teachers are able to set up and account for their classroom, and are given a link to share with their students.

It was a fun looking game. I would have loved it as a child. As competitive as I was, and am, I would have played it all the time. I asked Mrs. Carnevale if she knew of any sites similar to this, but tailored towards high school aged students, because my wife is a high school math teacher and she would like to have her kids try something like CarrotSticks.

In the second post I commented on, How Did You Do That?, she gives some keyboard shortcuts for a Mac, which will make navigating your computer easier. There is also a tutorial for the track pad on new Mac laptops.

Just watching the video made me want a new Mac. Maybe one day I can get one.

Since I don't have a Mac yet, I thought it would be a good idea to give everyone out there with a PC a few keyboard shortcuts to help them out.

CTRL+C: COPY
CTRL+X: CUT
CTRL+V: PASTE
CTRL+Z: UNDO
CTRL+B: BOLD
CTRL+U: UNDERLINE
CTRL+I: ITALIC
ALT+TAB: SWITCH TO ANOTHER RUNNING PROGRAM(HOLD DOWN THE ALT KEY AND THEN PRESS THE TAB KEY TO VIEW THE TASK-SWITCHING MENU)

Microsoft Support has many other useful shortcuts. I hope these help.

Presentation Project 5