Blog Assignment #13

For this weeks blog assignment Dr. Strange asked us to go 24 hours without technology. This means everything that runs on batteries or electricity. I knew this would be a challenge for me because I use my cell phone, laptop, iPod Touch, and TV everyday. During this 24 hour period I couldn't go without texting. This isn't because of texting, it's because I am in a long distance relationship with my fiance, and I haven't gone 24 hours without talking to him before. I also live on campus so I don't have a land line I could call him from.

While I couldn't use technology, It was hard to not be bored. I went to the movies with my roommate to see The Lucky One. I also read a book, and worked on some homework. I didn't like not being able to listen to music. If I don't have the TV on I have music playing on either my iPod or my laptop. So it was a quiet 24 hours.

Final Report on PLN

I haven't updated my PLN with anything except my C4T links. I think these will help me in the future by giving me advice and ways to integrate certain topics in my classroom.I have been added on Google+ by one of the teachers from my C4K. I have added her to my PLN also because she seemed to be very excited about having students from around the world take notice of her students' blogs.

Project #15

Progress Report on Final Project

Our group has decided to make a video showing how the tools and concepts we have learned in EDM 310 can be used in the classroom. We will show this by role play as teachers and students. Each of us will use one concept and use it in our "classroom" and have our "students" demonstrate how our future students could use it and benefit from it.

C4K Summary for April

C4K #8

We are dong a world blog now in class for the C4K posts. This post is from the same kid as C4K #8. This week he has posted a picture of a sunset. That is why this post is named Sun Set. It's a very pretty picture.
My comment:
"Hello again! This picture of the sun setting is very beautiful! Did you find this picture on the internet or do you know who took it? I wonder where that picture was taken. It looks like a very nice place to visit. I rarely get to watch the sun set because I'm always doing something inside. Maybe this weekend I will take the time to slow down and enjoy watching the sun set somewhere peaceful. Thank you for posting this picture and inspiring me to slow down and enjoy life! Keep up the great blogging!"

C4K #9

This week my kid posted a picture of a land fill. This student knows what a landfill could do to the earth. They state that the problem with them is that they just get bigger and bigger, and that it's not good for the environment. They think using cloth bags instead of plastic bags at the grocery store will help eliminate some of the waste in landfills. "One person can start and just tell another and it will just get bigger and bigger until every one uses cloth bags." This is a very big statement from a young student. Maybe they will be able to help the earth in a major way when they grow up.
My comment:
"This post is very inspiring to help save the earth. Hopefully no one wants to hurt our planet, but not many people think about the fact that plastic bags don't decompose. This is a big factor in why the landfills get bigger and bigger. The things we pile up on top of each other don't go away. I like that you are wanting to help save the earth. Maybe one day you will be able to do something big for our planet that will bring us one step closer to making everything good for the environment. Keep up the good work! You are a great blogger!"

C4K #10

This week I have been assigned to the blog Little Voices, Little Scholars. This blog is by Mrs. Jenny She. She is a second grade teacher at Pt. England School in Auckland, New Zealand. This blog is made for her class of mostly age 6 students. The blog post I have commented on is Charles Wrote a Story about his Easter Egg. This post shows a picture of the Easter egg Charles drew using the Kid Pix program. He recorded his story using video format. His story is that he has many Easter eggs. They are beautiful to look at and yummy to eat.

My comment:
"Hello Charles! My name is Carly Willoughby, and I am a student at the University of South Alabama. I will be publishing a summary of your post on my blog today. Please feel free to visit and comment! Your Easter egg looks really cool. It's very colorful, and blue is one of my favorite colors. Your story is very well written. Did you see and eat a lot of beautiful eggs on Easter? I did. It's one of my favorite holidays! Thank you for sharing your story with me, and keep up the great work!"

Blog Assignment #11

For this assignment Dr. Strange had us watch the videos Little Kids...Bit Potential and Skype Interview with Ms. Cassidy. The first video was put together by Ms. Cassidy using her first grade students and what they have learned in her class. This class seems very similar to what we are doing in EDM 310. She is teaching her students how to blog and use the internet for sources for the classroom. The students in the video tell how blogging has taught them to be more careful with their writing skills. They like blogging more than writing in notebooks because people from all over the world can see them and comment on them. One of the students said that you never ever say mean stuff in comments because you might hurt someones feelings. Always say nice things. They know how to get to games where they learn about subjects or the alphabet. They can even access their blogs at home. They also learned how to make videos about learning and Skype to talk to other classes and teachers. They also use Nintendo DS to play games for learning.
The second video is a Skype interview with Ms. Cassidy by Dr. Strange. She started using technology in her classroom 10 years ago because she was given 5 computers in her classroom. She learned how to make webpages and blogs to help the students study on the computers. She's had a classroom blog for 5 years. She said the parents like to be able to see their child's work easily. She uses the blogs as an online portfolio for the students that is easier to see than having to set up an appointment with the teacher. The parents can just go online whenever they have an opportunity to see their child's progress. Ms. Cassidy says the world would go on without blogging, but the one thing the students get when blogging that they don't get with a pencil and paper is an audience. The students get writing, video, and media training all in one in her class. They are learning to communicate with students around the world rather than just the students they see in the classroom. Ms. Cassidy's answer to "do you think every teacher needs to be technology literate?" she said absolutely! She said just knowing word processors isn't technology literate. That's not enough to know for teaching students how to use technology in the classroom. I like how she said that getting information off other people's blogs isn't cheating, it's collaborating.

I would use the blogging in my classroom as a substitute for writing papers. That would give the students some time using technology, but not so much that technology is taking over the classroom. I still think they need to have some work sheets because writing by hand is really important too. I think the only downfall to students using the internet at school is trying to get them focused on what they are supposed to be working on. I know when I took computer classes I would pull up games and play them while the teacher wasn't looking instead of doing my work. I have a feeling students now know how to use a computer for games before they even get into a classroom.

Blog Assignment #10

1. The video Do You Teach or Do You Educate? does a good job of explaining the difference between a teacher and an educator. According to this video, a teacher just shows or explains how to do something, gives information or instructs, and causes someone to learn or understand something. An educator is someone who gives intellectual, moral, and spiritual instruction. They are a mentor and a guide. I found this quote in the video very inspiring: "Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave." from Peter Brougham.
I intend to educate rather than teach by being everything a student needs. I will guide them to a place they feel comfortable in the world. I will be a mentor to them by giving them advice on how to be themselves and to do the right thing in any situation. This quote by Martin Luther King is true in every way: "Intelligence plus character ... that is the goal of true education."

2. In the blog post Don't Let Them Take Pencils Home, Mr. Spencer tells his dialog between him and the "School Curriculum Instructional Interventionist Academic Specialist" about why students shouldn't take pencils home. Her reasoning is that it results in lower test scores. Mr. Spencer retaliates this statement by saying that the results were yielded from only bubble –in multiple choice tests. This doesn’t really measure authentic learning. They argue back and forth about who is right, and in the end Mr. Spencer comes on top by saying he has talked to the students and their parents about using effective studying strategies at home with paper and pencil. These strategies are made fun or interesting for the students so they will want to do them.
I really like the message of this blog post. It shows that some teachers care about the students actually learning and not just about the test scores. Of course if students truly learn, their test scores should reflect that level of academic achievement. Mr. Spencer took what he knew about his students and their parents and made something useful for them to make studying more enjoyable and easier to do. Just because students know how to use pencils for fun and games doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t have fun and learn at the same time. I really enjoyed this post. I learning a lifelong message from it: don’t underestimate the power of an overlooked item.

Blog Assignment #9

On Joe McClung's blog post What I've learned This Year (2008-2009) he writes about his experiences in his classroom his first year of being a teacher. One of the things he learned his first year is to be more student centered. He learned that being a teacher wasn't about him, it was about how the students came out of his class. Did they come out learning all they could from Mr McClung? This is a question I need to keep in mind when I become a teacher. I need not worry about me and how will I be at the end of the school year, but rather what will my students have learned from me throughout the year.

He also told about how he learned to be flexible. He started teaching by trying to stay exactly to his lesson plan. He says, "NO LESSON IS EVER PERFECT. THE LESSON YOU TEACH AND THE ONE YOU PLAN ARE ALWAYS DIFFERENT". I'm assuming these are all capitalized because he found out that it's really important to know. I will make sure I keep this in mind too. I'm a perfectionist. I get very irritated when things don't go as planned. Of course having a fiance who likes to be spontaneous, (a planners worst nightmare!) I have learned flexibility. But I thought having my own classroom would give me the structure I wanted ... I guess I thought wrong! My composition teacher my first year of college told me that when he first started teaching that he had a plan for the class that he wanted to stick to, but now he knows that the best way for students to learn is to let them take the discussion in the classroom where they needed. That's how they learned the most.

He tells us that he learned about communication. That it is the best way to resolve any issue in the work place. It is also the way to build relationships with co-workers and students. I find this fact very obvious, but none-the-less I am great at communicating and will keep this in mind too for my future.

Being reasonable is his next thing he talks about. Don't set the students up for failure by having unreasonable expectations for them, and don't scold them if they don't reach the expectations. He says, "Our job as teachers is to simply pick them up after they fail, dust them off, and encourage them to try again." This is something I won't have to work hard for. I like to think I am very good at encouraging people to do their best and helping them back up if they fail.

This is one point I believe Dr. Strange is very pleased about hearing: don't be afraid of technology. I hope to use many of the technology skills learned in EDM 310 in my future classroom. I like technology, and I'm not afraid to use it!

His last two points on this post are listen to your students and never stop learning. I'm putting these two together because, to me, they are the most obvious, but I do appreciate him listing them because they may not be obvious to everyone.

---

In Mr. McClung's blog post What I Learned This Year (2010-2011) he states that this was his first year of being head coach, coaching cross country, and being a computer applications teacher. So it's his third year of being a teacher, but it still holds a lot of "firsts". Hmmm ... this sounds like a hint of some sort that not all teachers do the same thing in the same place year after year.

His first thing he learned is know who your boss is. He says teachers need to focus on the students and not trying to please co-workers. The students are the main priority and they need all of their teachers attention. He says that teachers should never let the emotions of personal or professional life affect how they interact with their students. This shouldn't be a struggle for me because being in a classroom makes me happy. I love being able to help students and that will distract me (until the last bell of the day rings) from anything happening outside of the classroom. I can't say that I will always keep my emotions in check. Everyone makes mistakes. I just hope I can try my hardest to.

His next tip is don't expect other to be as excited about change as you are. He says that he found out during this school year that his optimism came to be a fault of his. He says he really enjoys the professional development sessions because he looks forward to see what new stuff are being presented. He catches sight of the pessimists who sit in the corner and don't really care about what's being presented and don't really think it'll change anything. He said they once might have been just like him, all excited, and somewhere down the road they lost the fire that drove them to be excited. But he didn't let them get him down. I will probably start off all excited about new things, and then lose my fire too. I'm not one for change. I like routines, but if I have to change what I like to become a teacher, then so be it!

Don't be afraid to be an outsider. First off I have to say that I've been an outsider most of my life. I don't fit in with any one crowd, so I hang out with several different ones. I spend most of my time alone, but that doesn't bother me. I would like to be like Mr. McClung and focus more time on my students than trying to make friends with adults.

His next tip is to never touch the keyboard. His "classroom mom" told him she worked at an airline, and one of the things they made sure they didn't do when training someone was touch the keyboard. If the person training typed something in, that's something the trainee missed out on learning. This is something I learned working in a fast food restaurant. The very first day of my senior year in high school I started my second job at a local fast food restaurant. The person who was training me was someone I had known for years. Instead of telling me what to push and letting me learn where things were on the touch screen, she got annoyed at how long it took me to find buttons and she started pushing them for me. So when I had to train my replacement before I left, I knew how to train her. Let her do the pushing. If she didn't know where something was, I'd look at where she was at and tell her what to push until she got to the screen she needed. I will definitely be able to do the same in my classroom.

His last tip on this post is don't get comfortable. "While routines are good in the sense they allow me to be more effective, they can also be bad because they can foster apathy." I love that he said this because I need to hear it. I love having a routine, but I don't want it to become my teaching career for me. I will do like he did and volunteer for different activities and attend professional development sessions.

C4T #3

Comment 1

My teacher for this post is Tom Schimmer. He is from Penticton, British Columbia (Canada). After spending several years as a teacher, he then became an administrator. He has also been a vice-principal and a district principal. All of this combined, he has spent 20 years in the education system. He is the author of Ten Things that Matter from Assessment to Grading. He is now an independent education consultant.
Mr. Schimmer has been posting several blog posts on the idea of "implementation plans and why some are successful and why some are not". This week I have commented on the post Implement THAT! (Part 6) – The Acceptance of a New Idea. This is his first audio podcast.
This podcast is about leadership for the acceptance of a new idea. He uses something from the book Virus of the Mind by Richard Brodie to help us visualize how ideas spread. They spread like viruses by penetrating a weak spot, duplicating itself, and spreading. This sounds like something not good, but it is used in positive ways also. There are four stages to accepting a new idea: marginalization (people don't really pay attention), ridicule, criticism, and acceptance. But the idea isn't the one doing the moving, it's the people moving in relation to the idea. He gives guidelines for leaders for each of these stages. At marginalization the leader needs to keep the new idea up front and center. At ridicule the leader needs to respond with respect. At criticism the leader doesn't need to match the level of intensity as the people. This will only cite confrontation. At acceptance the leader needs to support, support, support.
My comment:
"Mr. Schimmer, My name is Carly Willoughby, and I'm a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I will be posting a summary of your podcast on my blog. This is the first blog post I have been to that is an audio podcast. It is more personal this way because I can listen to you, but I have ADD and wish I had something to read along with it. It's like when I'm in church; if I don't have something to look at and read along with the pastor, I get side tracked by what's in front of me and end up not paying any attention to what's being said. On the topic of your podcast, I really liked what you had to say. Most people don't know how to accept a new idea. They decide to respond in ridicule, making fun of it and the people who came up with it. This is the stage I see the most for new ideas. I like how you said that an idea doesn't move in stages, but rather the people move in relation to the idea. This caught my attention because I usually think that it's the idea that moves into different categories (new, gaining interest, popular, etc.), but it's really the people who are in different categories. I also love that you gave guidelines for the leaders for each stage. I really enjoyed this podcast! Thank you for allowing me the pleasure of listening to it! Sincerely, Carly Willoughby"

Comment 2

In Mr. Schimmer's most recent post Implement THAT! (Part 7) – Take YOU off the table, he talks about challenges for new ideas. The biggest challenge is the way they are being brought forward. The problem wasn't the idea, it was the messenger. This is where "take YOU off the table" comes from. There are two ways to make issues with a new idea: discredit someones experience and put people on the defensive. When a leader hears someone else give their experience, they need to just realize they are sharing a new idea with them. Don't tell them they are wrong. Find common ground and discuss how they are different. New ideas already put older ideas on the defensive, but getting personal doesn't open people's minds. One thing Mr. Schimmer said was, "telling people they are wrong doesn't make you right." I love this quote because my fiance and I always argue over who is right. I will argue with him until he proves me wrong or vice versa. Sometimes we come to find out we are both wrong, and that makes us feel like jerks. We thought we were right because we thought the other was wrong. These ideas can kill great ideas. He said these ideas reminds him of a quote, "if you have to be an ass to get things done, then you're not a leader, you're just an ass."
My comment:
"Hello Mr. Schimmer! I will be publishing my post about your blogs on my blog as soon as I publish this comment if you would like to take a look at it. I listened to this podcast twice so I could really pay attention to what you were saying, and I have to agree that sometimes I don't like a new idea because of the way they are being brought forward. I don't like pushy people, so if someone tries to push me to look at their new stuff, I tend to not care about it. I have to say my favorite part of your podcast was when you said, "telling people they are wrong doesn't make you right." I love this quote because my fiance and I always argue over who is right. I will argue with him until he proves me wrong or vice versa. Sometimes we come to find out we are both wrong, and that makes us feel like jerks. We thought we were right because we thought the other was wrong. I will most likely think about this quote the next time we start arguing over something. Thank you again for your wonderful podcast! Your blog is being added to my PLN (personal learning network) so I can follow your posts and find new things to think about in the future. Carly Willoughby"

C4K Summary for March

C4K #5

On the blog Miriam Lord 100 Word Challenge, the students have to write a story using only 100 words, plus the extra words the teacher requires them to place in their story. This weeks words were, "the weather changed for the worst". Zara wrote about a girl named Amnesia who lives in Hawaii where there was a very active volcano. She was planning her birthday party and had invited all of her friends. One day when she came home, her mom told her that her that her party had to be cancelled because the weather had changed for the worst ... the volcano was about to blow!

My Comment:
"My name is Carly Willoughby, and I am a student at the University of South Alabama. I will be posting a summary of this post on my blog. This is a very interesting story. It also sounds scary! I've never been near a volcano, so I can only imagine what it would be like to live near one that was about to erupt. The end of the story makes me want more. What happened to the girl and her family? Did they get away from the volcano before it erupted? How were they able to celebrate her birthday instead of the party? This was a great story to illustrate the subject of "the weather has changed for the worst". Thank you for allowing me to read such a great story written in 100 words. I enjoyed it! I always love a good suspenseful story."

C4K #6

This week I commented on the same blog Miriam Lord 100 Word Challenge, but this time the words were white, spiders, carefully, pushed, and fifty. Zahra wrote about a girl named Amy who went camping with her parents. Her dad had to go to work so she and her mom were left sleeping in the tent. When Amy woke up, she saw she was surrounded by "fifty little spiders which looked like white cotton buds". She carefully woke up her mom, and they called her dad to come get them.
My comment:
"Hi Zahra! My name is Carly Willoughby, and I'm a student at the University of South Alabama. I love how you tell the story from Amy's point-of-view. It feels a little more personal. I love to go camping, but I hate bugs! Especially spiders. If I find one in my house, I have to get someone else to kill it for me because I'm too freaked out to go near it! This is a really good story and most people could say they feel the same way about spiders. Thank you for allowing me to read your great story! Continue doing great work in school!"

C4K #7

My C4K this week has posted a list of things about him. He likes to play Call of Duty on the Wii. He lives in Vermont. He likes RC trucks and buggies.

My comment:
"Hello! My name is Carly Willoughby, and I am a student at the University of South Alabama. I will be commenting on your blog for the next 3 weeks for my EDM 310 class and making a summary of your post on my blog. My little brother plays Call of Duty on his xBox. My boyfriend doesn't have the game, but he loves to play it when he visits his friends' houses. I've played it a couple of times, but I don't like the blood and killing. That's not my kind of game. I like racing games. I haven't been to Vermont. The farthest North I have been is Washington D.C. Have you ever been to New York City? That's somewhere I really want to visit, but it's too far away from Alabama. I don't have the money to take that trip right now. I look forward to commenting on your blog! Keep up the blogging!"

Project #14

Blog Assignment #8

1. In the video This Is How We Dream, Part 1, Mr. Miller explains how he has seen incremental changes in how we view documents and find information. We can simply pull up Google and type what we want information on, and it appears within seconds. He explained that he was asked to write an article on the one-year anniversary of the killings at Virginia Tech, and he was able to do so without taking one step into a library. He was able to find all the information he needed on that day on the internet. He also described how we can go online and follow presidential elections, news broadcasts, and other live media forms on the internet.
In the video This Is How We Dream, Part 2, Mr. Miller says that he foresees that students will no longer compose just Word documents, but will also compose with digital processors. They will get in the multimedia part of composing and add to the vastly growing knowledge on the internet. This is part of the fundamental changes on how we find information.

2. In Carly Pugh's Blog Post #12, she created this assignment to create a playlist on YouTube that has videos describing what kind of teacher we would like to be, giving tips for managing the classroom, describing what a good teacher and a bad teacher does, shows tutorials on programs we would like to use in the classroom, and many other useful videos for our teaching career.
Here is my playlist. It includes the video Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things which shows how people who have changed our world weren't always the smartest in their class, so to speak. They weren't handed fame or fortune, they had to work hard and earn it. This is a message I will be teaching my students every day in my classroom. I want them to work hard and reach their full potential.
Another few videos in my playlist are Smart Board - Elementary Education, Whole Group Kindergarten Reading Lesson Smartboard, and Top 10 Reasons to Use Technology in Education. These videos use technology in the classroom and show how they can be useful. The smartboard is something I hope to have in my classroom. I will make great use out of it.
One of my favorite videos in this playlist is How To Maintain Classroom Discipline - Good And Bad Methods Training Educational Video. This video was made in 1947, yet everything they say still holds in the classroom today. Although there are more problems teachers have to deal with now, these behavior problems are something every teacher everywhere has to know how to handle. If I teach the older elementary grades, I might show this video in class and have the class reflect on it. I would ask them to tell me what they thought about how the teacher handled the disciplinary problems in the first half of the video, then the same about the second half. This might give me some insight on how the students feel they should be treated.
This was a fun activity. It got me thinking more about what I want for my future classroom and what kind of teacher I would like to be.

3. The primary message in The Chipper Series is to be on time with your assignments. I’ve had to deal with this struggle personally. My name is Carly, and I AM A PROCRASTINATOR! This video tells how procrastinating won’t get you a good grade in this class. Chipper is a student who constantly puts off doing her work. She even says that she can see the future, and she has already done her work. Therefore, the future is the present, so the work is already done, which really makes no sense at all. If I were to participate in a video, I could easily be in this video. Like I said, I am a procrastinator.
In the video EDM 310 for Dummies, two students get so frustrated because they don’t understand how to use some of the medias in the class. I haven’t had to deal with this because Dr. Strange’s instructions have been very clear to me. However, I have a friend in the class who doesn’t understand them as easily as I do. She will ask me to explain it to her, and if she still doesn’t understand, she will go to the lab and ask the lab assistants for help.

Project #11

C4T #2

Comment 1

This week I have been assigned to Henrietta Miller's blog Classroom Chronicles. Mrs. Miller is a 5th grade teacher at a private girls school in Sydney, Australia. I commented on her blog Comunicating from Camp. In this blog she tells about her recent camping trip with her school's 5th and 6th grade students. They take this trip to Galston Gorge every year. She says, "It is an opportunity for students to leave home comforts behind and try new things. To get out of their comfort zone and make new friends. To learn to work together as a team, to trust each other when trying new activities and to have fun testing themselves physically within a safe environment." They kept contact with the parents through technology by Tweeting and sending pictures when they had the opportunity.
My comment:
"Hello Mrs. Miller. I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I will be summarizing your post on my blog. I have been camping quite a few times in my life. Once a year from 7th grade to 12th grade with my church youth group, and several times with my family. My step-dad grew up camping, so naturally he took us. About 4 years ago my parents and I went to Tennessee and I was only allowed to use my phone to say good morning and goodnight to my boyfriend. I was so mad at them for not letting me use it on this trip, but I understand now why they did it. I am constantly on my phone, and they didn't want me to miss out on visiting places. I looked at the pictures on the class blog, and this looked like a very fun trip! I know not many girls like to go outdoors and camp, but it gives them a different scenery and atmosphere. Keeping the parents updated via pictures was a great way to have them involved in the trip and technologically. Thank you for sharing this experience with me! I enjoyed reading about it and seeing the pictures."

Comment 2

Henrietta Miller's latest blog post Questions? is about ... you guessed it, questions! Specifically when teachers ask questions in the classroom. She tells that she read an article last year about a teacher who used a pack of cards with the student's names on them to call out who will answer a question. She admits she has used this and many other forms of randomly choosing students. What this activity does however, is put students in the spotlight and might embarrass them if they don't know how to answer the question or how to put their thoughts into words. She found a new questioning strategy. This strategy involves asking the question, counting to 10, then having the students turn to a partner and have them discuss their answers to each other. The teacher then calls on a student to give their partner's answer.
My Comment:
"I never thought about the fact that students stop thinking about the answer once other students raise their hands first to answer. I suppose this makes them feel defeated, like they don't have a chance to answer because they couldn't think of the answer as fast as the other students. This isn't a good feeling for students to have. I think that the wait time questioning strategy would help eliminate this problem with the students. I will definitely keep this in mind when I get my own classroom. Maybe you could make a weekly question and have the students write down their answer and put them in a bowl or box, and each day you choose a few, read them, and have the students discuss how they agree or disagree with those answers. Then there would be no chance of the student being embarrassed because no one knows who wrote the answers."

Project #12

Project #10

I have started my PLN by using Symbaloo.com and putting my social networks and other personal websites on the top row. I put the class blog, gmail, and my blog on the row beneath the Google search box. I also added my C4T blogs and some of my classmate's blogs.
I believe this site could really help my stay organized and have all of the helpful websites be at my finger tips. I hope to fill up every square with something helpful very soon.

Blog Assignment #7

1. The video Networked Studnet reminds me a lot of what I've done in almost all of my classes. We have to use the internet to research topics and get information. Whether it's to write a paper, make a report, make a project, or just to study, these sources on the internet help us to learn more about our topic. In the video, his topic was American Psychology. He was able to find resources of information and people to interview.
The question was asked, "why does the networked student even need a teacher?" Well this is because the teacher "teaches him to build his network and take advantage of learning opportunities. She offers guidance when he gets stuck, shows him how to communicate properly, and asks respectfully for help from experts. She shows him how to differentiate between good information and propaganda, how to vet a recourse, how to turn a web search into a scavenger hunt, and get excited when he finds that pearl of content. She helps him organize those mountains of information." She is a TEACHER, so she teaches the networked student how to be an independent learner.

2. The 7th grader's video Welcome to my PLE! is showing us her personal learning environment. This is a page where she keeps all the links she can use to help her in her science class. She has her class blog, informational websites, and social networks on there. It is very similar to our PLN (personal learning network). The only difference is that hers is used for class assignments, and ours is used to help aid us in our teaching career.

Blog Assignment #6

I thought this was a great picture to use for this blog because in his lecture he said he is a "tigger". He always has fun, and this is how I will think of him. He made a lot of jokes and has a great outlook on life.

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture was very inspiring and taught a lot of good life lessons. He talked about his childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others, and how to achieve your childhood dreams. A lot of the things he talked about had some good teaching techniques.
The first teaching technique I got out of this lecture was, "brick walls are there to let us prove how badly we want things." He mentioned this line several times trough-out this lecture. I have never thought about this before, but now that I have, I think it is so true! He goes on to say that brick walls are there to stop the "other" people. It only allows the ones who are willing to take the time and effort to climb over it to achieve that goal.
Another teaching technique I learned in this lecture is to have fun! As a student, I know how important it is to have fun while learning. Let's face it, if we don't have fun or at least enjoy what we are learning, do we really learn it? Now as a teacher, I will have to figure out how to make my classroom have fun. Whether it's incorporating a game in history, or a craft in math. I need to get some creative ideas so I become a teacher like him and teach students that learning can be fun.
An underlined technique I caught was that failure is okay. No one likes to fail, but it will happen at some point in time to everyone. So embrace it and move on, or try harder and get more experience. Mr. Pausch didn't get into the college he applied to for a graduate program, but he didn't give up. He got a mentor of his to talk to the admissions and got a second chance.
He had a technique called "head fake" where he made the students think they were learning one thing, but in fact were learning something different. This is a technique I will possibly use in my classroom.
I really liked this lecture. It wasn't boring, and it was very easy to watch. He had interesting things to talk about that didn't stray from the topics he had outlined. This man really knew how to give a lecture. He also knew how to incorporate hands on learning for students. His building virtual worlds assignment was astonishing. I could never in a million years imagine being able to come up with some of the things his students did. He must have been a great teacher. I hope one day I will be as great as he was.

C4K Summary for February

C4K #1

Sosaia is a fifth grade student at Point England School in New Zealand. His most recent blog was posted on February 7th. It was about his trip to Tonga. I looked on Google Maps to see where Tonga was, and as you can see in my picture, it's a very tiny island just north of New Zealand. I gathered in his post that he went to see family because when him and his family landed, he saw is auntie and uncle. He said at the beginning of his post that he was cold on the way to the airport, but in Tonga he got in the ocean. He did say it was a "bit cold" when he went swimming, but it sounds like it was a nice vacation.
My comment:
"Hi Sosaia! I am a student at the University of South Alabama in the United States. I am doing a blog post on comments for kids around the world. I was lucky enough to be assigned to your blog this week! Your trip to Tonga sounds like it was fun. I have never been on an airplane before. Was it scary? I looked up Tonga on a map to find out where it was because I have never heard of it. Traveling to see family is always a fun thing to do. Did you go on this trip for Christmas? It was nice visiting your blog. You are doing a better job at blogging than I am! You can view my summary of this on my blog at http://willoughbycarlyedm310.blogspot.com/ It will be posted by March 4th. Enjoy blogging and good luck in school!!"

C4K #2

Hannah is a fourth grade student at Leopold Primary in Victoria, Australia. I commented on her blog 2011 Edublog Awards. She gave a link to the Edublog Awards website, and it "is a community based incentive started in 2004 in response to community concerns relating to how schools, districts and educational institutions were blocking access of learner and teacher blog sites for educational purposes. The purpose of the Edublog awards is promote and demonstrate the educational values of these social media." This was quoted from Edublog's Website. Hannah's post is her nominations for the Edublog Awards.
My comment:
"Hello Hannah! I am a student at the University of South Alabama in the United States. I have been assigned to comment on your blog for this week. I will be publishing a summary of your post on my blog in the first week of March. My blog is Carly Willoughby's EDM310 Blog. I have never heard of the Edublog Awards before, so I used your link to visit their website. It sounds like a very good way to inspire students to do a good job on their blogs. Does it motivate you to make a good blog so you will be nominated? I might have my future students use this website to nominate their fellow classmates. Your blog is very organized and all of your links look really good. You use color and size to show your headings. Keep up the good blogging and good luck in school!!"

C4K #3

This week I commented on Royce's blog Amazing Things You Find in Nature. This blog was very well written. There were tons of pictures with illustrations. He had taken pictures of quail and deer in his back yard! I couldn't imagine seeing either of those animals near my dorm room or my house back home. He also posted pictures of a "math leaf". This was interesting because I have never seen that before either. It was a leaf with different colors as it's "numerator and denominator". This blog was very interesting to read and I enjoyed commenting on it.
My comment:
"Hello Royce! I am a student at the University of South Alabama. I will be summarizing your post on my EDM 310 class blog. I enjoyed seeing pictures of animals other than cats and dogs I have as pets. I am from the city so I never see animals. I will occasionally see a ground squirrel when I go visit my grandparents' house. I bet you enjoy being able to learn about those different creatures as they appear in your back yard. That leaf is pretty cool. I've never heard of a fraction leaf before so you have taught me something new! I hope I will be able to use things like that in my future classroom to get my students excited about learning in an outside environment. Check out My Blog and comment anytime! Keep working hard and enjoy school! Sincerely, Carly Willoughby"

C4K #4

"Cookie" is a fifth grade student in Iowa, and their blog post Why kids should get cell phones is exactly what it says it is about. They bring up some excellent points. They did their research and said, "According to www.missingindiakids.com, 2,185 kids get lost a day." This is a substantial amount, and they said if kids who got lost have a cell phone, they could call for help. They also say that a child could call 911 if they see an accident or a robbery and could save lives. This is a very valid point. Their final point was that it could be used to keep in contact with friends, family, and emergency services.
My comment:
"Hello! I am Carly Willoughby, and I'm a student at the University of South Alabama. I will be summarizing this blog post on my blog tonight. You did a great job giving points for why you think kids should have cell phones. They would be able to call 911, get help if they get lost, or connect with friends. These are great points! I personally don't think kids should have a cell phone unless they have to go somewhere by themselves. However, if kids do get cell phones, I believe there should be some limits. Like it should cut off at a certain time at night so the kid doesn't get woken up by it and not get sleep. If it has internet access there should be a parental guide so they could not access something he/she doesn't need to be looking at. I think the parents/guardians should closely monitor the cell phone to make sure the kid isn't doing anything they shouldn't be or talking to people they don't know. All of these things could lead to dangerous results. I believe that is why many kids do not have cell phones. Your post has got me thinking more about allowing my future children to have a limited cell phone in case of emergencies. Thank you for bringing up these good points. Keep up the good work on your blog, and good luck in school!"

Project #8