Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Blog Assignment #8

the learning train




Dr. Richard Miller
Dr. Richard E. Miller discusses how writing in our culture is undergoing the greatest change in it's history in the video This Is How We Dream - Part 1.  His presentation begins by sharing the importance of books in his childhood and how he always dreamed of working in an environment filled with books.  He was able to accomplish his dream by publishing two books of his own; As if Learning Mattered:  Reforming Higher Education and Writing at the End of the World.  

The idea presented in the video is that the way of teaching has forever changed.  The use of the computer and world wide web gives us the capability to communicate instantly with others across the world.  Though I am only 28 years old, I have seen the way in which we write go from an actually physically manipulating a pencil to now, using word processing software on a computer.  In a few short years, the technology that we use to write has changed drastically.  So what does this mean for my own children?  Will they ever have to write a paper by using pen and paper?  The answer is, probably not.  My oldest child is in first grade.  His classroom has 2 desktop computer and four iPads.  I think that's pretty incredible.  There is even one student who does every bit of his work on the iPad.  He has problems manipulating an actual pencil, so his writing is done by using his fingertip on the iPad.  

I love the use of technology in the classroom and find myself to be a big advocate of it, however; I do believe that basic skills such as reading an actual book and writing with pen and paper are vital skills that need to be taught in elementary levels of education.  I believe that these skills set the foundation for all other educational skills that our children will acquire over time.  Technology is now becoming part of the foundation for our students.  It is our responsibility as educators to help guide our students by using multimedia tools so that they can achieve their academic goals and be prepared for the "real world".

Carly Pugh - Blog Post #12
Carly Pugh, a fellow student at the University of South Alabama, published a wonderful post on her take on an EDM310 assignment.  Carly created a playlist of YouTube videos that basically define her teaching philiosophy.  Her idea is a way to show her beliefs as a teacher and what she expects from her students.

When you compare Carly's post to Dr. Miller's post they have similarities as well as differences.  I think that Carly's approach to teaching combines technology projects such as blogging, podcast, and audio books along with written essays and reports.  Dr. Miller's video to me, is geared toward doing everything on a computer.  I think that my own teaching philosophy is more similar to Carly's.  I am an avid fan of technology, however, I think that by utilizing a combination of traditional teaching techniques with the new modern way of teaching, we will produce a stronger learner.  The expectations that are placed upon students of today are more challenging than in the past.  Carly clearly defines how she will "run" her classroom.  I believe she will be an excellent teacher.

The Chipper Series & EDM Is Different
The Chipper Series really had me laughing.  Chipper is a student who thinks she can "one-up" the system and breeze through life without really giving any effort and still succeed.  She is just looking for the easy way out. She does not believe in deadlines, thinks that she can work when she wants and attempts to just breeze through a series of life events.  Now, we all know that doing that will not get you far at all.  Life is not just served on a gold platter.  To be successful at any career takes time, effort and plenty of hard-work.  Chipper finally comes to the realization that she was going about a career the wrong way.  She finally sees that their is a method to the madness of EDM 310.

No, this class is not a piece of cake.  It is completely different than most other classes that we have taken over our education careers, but look at what all we can do now.  For me anyway, I can start a blog from scratch, make podcasts, tweet, use Google Docs, and several other new programs.  EDM is different, but I am so glad that it is.  Thinking differently makes you stand out and helps us to create new ideas.  Every piece of technology we have is because someone chose to think differently.

I have watched every video assigned to us (to the best of my knowledge), and I believe that the previous students have done a fantastic job of creating How-To videos for myself and my fellow classmates.  The videos created have been instrumental to my success in EDM 310.  Though I do not have an idea for a video right now, I do hope to create one in the near future.  One thing that I have done, that I am proud of is my Prezi presentation that I did for my podcast.  One of the requirements for our podcast for Project #8 was that it had to be created in iMovie.  I had a bit of a challenge, but with guidance from Stephen, I was able to record the audio of my Prezi by using ScreenFlow on the Mac.  From that point I was able to import the file into iMovie and then I was able to attach it to the rest of our podcast clips.  Here is the final product of my Prezi.

photo of the earth with people holding hands around it


Learn to Change, Change to Learn
The time for change is now in our educational system in the United States.  The video Learn to Change, Change to Learn is comprised of a variety of people who are knowledgeable of education of today.  The thing that caught my attention right off the bat in this video was a statistic given by the U.S. Department of Commerce.  They ranked 55 industry sectors by their level of IT intensiveness.  Education was ranked number 55, the lowest below coal mining.  That says it all right there people.  It's time for our education system to step up to the plate and get on-board with the new way of "learning"!

Every afternoon, I pick my son up from school.  The first thing I ask him was if he had a good day.  Typically, he says, "Yes ma'am.  I got a G".  The second thing I ask is, "what did you do today?"  Almost always, I get the same answer in some sort of mumble...."I don't know".   I know that he does not do the same thing every single day, and we are blessed with a wonderful teacher; however, I want my child to get in the car and be excited to tell me something exciting that he learned at school.  This is every mother's dream to listen to their child tell a new and exciting thing that they learned.  We have had those moments, but I am eager for more.  I believe that there is so much more that we can do for our children to get them excited about learning.

I am on the edge of my seat, waiting for the day when I can walk into a classroom that's mine with a class full of elementary students.  I want to be the teacher of that student who cannot wait to get into their parents car to tell them all of the exciting things that we did in school that day.  Not just once every now and then, but every day.  Everyday is an opportunity to learn.  I would like to close by quoting Ken Kay, President of Partnership of 21st Century Skills, e-Luminate Group who said, "it's the dawn of learning, that makes me very happy".

Scavenger Hunt 2.0
So I absolutely LOVE this assignment!  Thank you Justin Cometti for suggesting this as an assignment.  After viewing the video on Justin's blog and then venturing over to Discovery Education's Web 20.11 site, the sun-light become a little brighter for me.  I am one of those people who gets very excited when I discover new tools that can help me be a "better" me.  Better me equals better teacher equals better students.

Here is my list:
1.  The social networking site that I found that holds a platform for teachers is SMART Board Revolution.  I happily joined this site because I know that it will be beneficial for me not only as a teacher, but as a student at South Alabama.  Within this site there are forums, blogs, videos, document sharing files, chat rooms, groups and other helpful tips and links for educators to communicate and collaborate with one another.  By creating these online communities we can assist one another and improve on so many areas of teaching in the classroom.

2.  The presentation site that created the Teaching in the 21st Century video, I believe to be Prezi.  I have used this website several times already for this class and I will continue to utilize this site in the future.  What I love about Prezi is that it gives you the opportunity to create a unique and memorable presentation.  Its not just slide, slide, slide.  It creates movement, which engages the mind to pay better attention to the material.  I believe that mixing up presentation sites will help keep our students on their toes.

3.  I decided to create a poll by using Poll Everywhere.  Check out my poll and tell me what you think.




Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Blog Assignment #7

networking students chart




Wendy Drexler - The Networked Student
The majority of my education I sat in a desk with my book, my paper and my pen and listened to lectures given my teachers and professors.  I cannot even begin to tell you how many times I found myself daydreaming or doodling in my notebook.  Even though I was an A/B student, I was bored.  Then, one day in high school I decided to take a class called TV Production.  This class was so interactive and gave us "the students" opportunities to be creative, use technology and put our skills to the test.  I will never forget how excited I was to go to that class.  Almost everyday I use skills that I acquired in TV Production.  That was over 13 years ago.  

Now, technology in the classroom is becoming more prevalent.  I love that.  I think technology is a way for teachers and students to work together and helps keep the classroom an exciting place to be to grow and learn together.  By using a PLN, students can interact with other students from all over the world who are interested in researching and learning about a specific topic.  They can share this information easily by using webmixes, wiki's, blogs and other sites.  In Wendy Drexler's video The Networked Student, you can see how networking is a great way for students to learn.  

I love the idea of a student actually reaching out to a professor or scientist in a particular field of study to learn and hear their expert opinions.  This learning approach has to be a bigger part of teaching in the 21st Century.  I want my students to know how to be proficient, effective and responsible learners.  It is my job as their teacher to guide them and be there for support as it is needed.  With technology the possibilites are endless.

school is fun image


A 7th Graders Personal Learning Environment (or PLN)
A 7th Grade student discusses how she uses her PLN, Personal Learning Environment, in this video.  Her PLN is created by using Symbaloo, which is the same site that I used for my own PLN.  In the video she gives a small tour of her PLN and how she has everything organized.  Her PLN is color coded, just  like mine is.  I actually got some ideas for mine by seeing how she organized her own.  For instance, I have all of my education tiles set up on the top left corner of my PLN.  Hers are all along the bottom row.  This makes it easy to find information, so that work and assignments can quickly and easily be completed.  I believe that a PLN is continuously growing and changing with you, just as life changes.  As stated in my PLN Progress Report, I think that setting up a PLN for my son would be very helpful for  him on his own personal computer.  I could have education tiles set up for him and games that I have approved for him to play on another.  This will help open his eyes to a different approach with learning.  With kids, especially the younger grades, you have to teach by using methods that are fun and easy for them to remember information.  Even if the information is hard, by using a fun approach they will be able to learn it.  It's all about the method.  Furthermore, a PLN is one tool that can be beneficial and assist students to take that step to becoming a responsible learner with technology.




Project #9b - Prezi





Monday, March 5, 2012

C4T #2 - Summary

Jeff Delp is a K-12 Administrator, a self-proclaimed sports fanatic, and technology junkie.  His blog Molehills out of Mountains is full of insightful tips and lessons.  The title of the blog says so much to me.  There have been times in my life when I see a "mountain", an obstacle, and feel intimidated.  It is so easy for one to turn around an accept defeat, but that shouldn't happen.  No one should ever claim defeat if they never even try.  Turn those mountains into molehills and accomplish your goals and dreams.

Comment #1
In his blog post Productivity Tools for Educators, Mr. Delp provides a list of apps that he finds useful in his day-to-day life being a School Administrator.  These tools help him manage his time for effectively and also help him to be more efficient with his work.  The list of tools include the following:  Google Docs, Evernote, Dropbox, Wunderlist, Posterous, and Twitter.  His last sentence, he says, "Whether using one of these applications, or anything else, the key is to find tools that work for you and share your experiences with others".

I commented on how much I rely on my iPhone to keep me organized.  Without my phone I would not have a clue as to what is going on with my busy schedule.  I not only have my school schedule and deadlines to keep up with, but my photography business schedule, as well as, my oldest son's schedule.  To be only 7 years old, he sure has a busy week between practices and church events.  After reading his post I downloaded Wunderlist.  I have only added a few tasks to the app, but I believe that once I start adding more stuff I will be able to utilize it more.  

Comment #2
The second post that I commented on is titled, "My New Year's Resolution:  Fail Frequently".  It describs Delp's view on starting a new year.  It happens every year at 12:00 am on January 1st.  We all get a "fresh" start in our lives and have are ready to make changes.  In order to change, you must take a chance.  Sometimes with change, comes failure.  Failure is just a part of the the changing process.  It makes us look at our actions and see where we need to make adjustments, so that we may succeed.  

photo that says failure is a part of life, if you don't fail, you don't learn, if you don't learn you'll never change


This year, I decided to make a few changes in my life.  I decided to be a healthier person in general.  This includes losing weight, becoming more organized and getting back in school.  My mind was made up that I was going to accomplish every one of these goals, and I have.  Since December, I have lost 30 pounds, cleaned out closets and other cluttered spaces, and right now I am working on my blog for school.  Ah -- it feels so great to feel like I am accomplishing something.  However, I will say that there have been moments where I have wanted to stop, but it just takes me looking at my children to see that I am not only doing these things for me, but for them.  As Albert Einstein says, "The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking.  I cannot be changed without changing our thinking." 


Sunday, March 4, 2012

Project #10 - My PLN

FIRST PROGRESS REPORT
I created my PLN by using Symbaloo.  A PLN reminds me of  Pinterest, which is a tile on my webmix,  for the world wide web.  I am totally obsessed with "pinning" and easily found myself diving into creating tiles for my Personal Learning Network.  It was easy for me to fill in the blanks for my home webmix, but I obviously have much more to learn with this site.  
my PLN


My PLN will be extremely helpful for me in my everyday life.  What I love about it is the organization of the tiles.  Everything that I use daily is all easy for me to see and navigate to all on one homepage.  I have the top left corner dedicated to educational tiles that I frequently use.  The right top corner is dedicated to social networking sites that I use, while the left mid-section is my business sites.  I would also like to create a PLN for my son on his computer.  I think that it will helpful for him to have a PLN with websites that he frequently uses.