C4K 2 post 1 and 2

Mata

C4K Post #1

This is Mata and I commented on her video blog this week. Mata is a little girl in Mrs. She's class in the first grade and she says in her video that she loves to swim. I commented to her that I am a student like her and that my little girl loves to swim also. Mrs. She has a cute class and is doing some creative things with technology in her room. I loved it! You can visit it their class blog too, just click the link below...
Little Voices, Little Scholars

Lani

C4K Post #2

For this week's C4K, I visited Lani's blog. Lani lives in NZ and for her post she created a pirate map. Her assignment was focused on directions such as North, South, East and West. I thought this was a very creative and fun way for children to learn how to give and follow directions. Lani is in the fifth grade and says that she loves to play at the beach. I commented to Lani that my little girl loves to play at the beach just like she does. I also commented that I loved her pirate map and that it looked like a fun project to make. I was once again impressed with the creativity of the teacher, Mrs. Lavakula making learning fun for the students! If you would like to visit their class blog you can click the link listed below. 
Mrs. Lavakula's class blog
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Project #15 Project Based Learning Plan #3

Project #15 -- How Do Our Ears Hear?

Blog Post #10 Sir Ken Robinson

In Ken Robinson's "Bring On The Learning Revolution" , Robinson challenges how we think about our education system. He states that he is not talking about an education reform, but an education revolution; for our way of educating to be completely transformed into something entirely different. Robinson also says that our education system is no longer meeting the needs of the people in our modern world. “Many of our ideas have been formed not to meet the ideas of this century but to meet the ideas of the previous century…” (Robinson). When I consider my own personal experience with the education system, I am able to see it much the same way as Robinson. We line our students up in rows and give each child the same generic mass produced assignments. Throughout our semester in EDM310, we have been challenged over and over again to reassess how we see the classroom as well as our role as future educators. We are encouraged to move away from the cookie cutter mentality, and begin to really get to know each child, know their passions, know their challenges and begin to teach to them as individuals. Doing this has a lot to do with what Robinson says is getting away from an industrialized education and, instead, like an agriculturalist, “create the right conditions under which a person can flourish.” Robinson also says that, “human communities depend upon a diversity of talent, not a singular conception of ability.” Recreating the way a classroom functions into an environment that encourages individual and creative thinking, creates an environment in which students' talents are nourished, not suffocated.

We do indeed have what Robinson  calls a “crisis of human resources” and this lecture is definitely a call to all educators and anyone interested in the future of our students, to reevaluate what we do, why we do it that way and whether or not it is truly an effective system. Also, it is time to begin the process of change. This is not an easy, nor is it a quick fix. Any revolution takes time, direction, passion, and people willing to do what it takes to make the change happen. The change has begun. It is a slow movement but, it is moving!

Project #12 A

Blog Post #9: What Can I Learn From Mrs. Cassidy?

Mrs. Cassidy is very determined when it comes to using technology in the classroom. The reason I choose to use the word “determined” is because she has not done it without meeting challenges along the way. In order for Mrs. Cassidy to be able to incorporate the use of technology at the level and frequency that she does, (which is very frequently), she has been willing to take the time to do the research and also she has the creativity that it takes to overcome the many challenges on the technical side of things. When her technical journey began, Mrs. Cassidy tells about how they received five computers in their classroom that only had the ability to access the web. Using this as the only tool, she wanted to come up with ways to incorporate using these computers in her class as educational tools. She states that “five of anything in a first grade classroom is considered a center.” So with this in mind, Cassidy got to work doing the research and exploring ways to use these computers that would get her students excited about learning while also teaching them how to navigate the web. This is so much more than learning about technology and how to use it, it is about redefining how we teach and how students learn in the classroom. Some of the ways that her class is using these tech. tools is through skyping, blogging, wiki and at times the students bring their DS to school and play learning games on them.  Through skyping the class has been able to bring in various visitors that they otherwise would not have had access to and through blogging the students are able to write about what they have learned from their visitor as well as any of the other various things that they are learning in class. Mrs. Cassidy also uses the blog as an online portfolio that parents are able to access at their convenience to see firsthand what their children are learning. Blogging has also been a learning tool that helps improve the writing skills of the students, “My writing gets better every time I blog,” states one student.  Mrs. Cassidy states more than once that technology is not going away so we need to learn to use it for our advantage as well as teach the students to learn to use it and learn from it.

There are a few ideas that I feel that I could take and use from  the interview with Mrs. Cassidy but the one in particular that I was most excited about was a simple one. When one of Dr. Strange’s students ask how Mrs. Cassidy keeps the children in safe areas on the web, Mrs. Cassidy states that she uses her class web page as a hub for the students to use when accessing the web pages they will be using for their assignments. I love that idea. What a simple yet effective way to help the children navigate the areas they need to go that will be safe zones! There really is much to be learned about technology in the classroom from these interviews with Dr. John Strange and Mrs. Cassidy. I have made them available using the links below so that you too can access and watch them!

Interview with Mrs. Cassidy part 1
Interview with Mrs. Cassidy part 2
Interview with Mrs. Cassidy part 3

"To Be A Bee" Project #14 Project Based Learning Plan #2

Click this link to access Project #14 Lesson #2

Blog Post #8

Find some 21st Century Learning and Communicating Tools? Tell us about them. Tell us where we can find them. Give a thorough review of at least one of them.

Blogger is the first online tool that comes to my mind when I think of 21st century learning tools. Blogging is something that was completely new to me before I entered edm310 this semester. Since then, I have learned that blogging is about sharing thoughts, research, ideas, links to various webpages, and just about anything else that is on your mind. I have also learned that blogging is a useful tool for educators to use in their PLN's. Diigo, which is a site for social bookmarking; Twitter, a social networking tool but for educators it is also a way to create and be in contact with PLN's; Glogster which I have learned is basically a digital poster board. Glogster is a way to store and display different information about various topics that may be of interest to either the teacher or the students, (you can get up to 100 free student accounts). This is a great learning tool that involves projects on various subjects. The students can create a Glogster poster and display the information they learn about the subject on the digital poster board. The teacher has access to each students Glogster account and is given notifications as to when a student updates their student board. This is a great way for students to give presentations on a wide range of subjects that easy, interesting and exciting for the students. Great tool to incorporate into a project learning plan.

Padlet, which is a way to create a virtual wall to post notes to. The idea is for students or teachers to be able to share thoughts or ideas or whatever with others in their group or school. Skype, which is a video conferencing site. Khan Academy is a global site for tutoring available to anyone anywhere. It covers subjects ranging from biology and chemistry to math and humanities. Khan is a fabulous resource for both educators and students alike.

Icurio is a safe search engine that enables students to do research for class projects in a safe environment that is rich in information. This is a site that also provides information and tools for teachers and is a great resources for the classroom.
As you can see, (and as I have learned), there is a long list of 21st century learning and communicating tools and I have not even covered them all here. These tools are designed to make our lives easier and to make us more efficient at what we do.
The information about most of these tools was provided by: Tools for the 21st Century Teacher by: Michael Zimmer

Project #9 Las Vegas Video Commentary

Blog Post #7

Randy Pausch

What can we learn about teaching and learning?
This is the driving question of our career as future educators. In Randy Pausch's last lecture, he gives some answers to that very question. Randy begins by talking about achieving your dreams. Randy says that "when your screw up and no one is saying anything to you anymore, that means they gave up on you." He says to let others critique you because this only makes you better. It is your critics that help propel you to reach your highest potential. It is in the project failures that we gain our experiences. This isn't the time to quit but to use the failure to help you reach your overall goal. "Brick walls are there to show how badly we want something, they only stop people who don’t want it badly."
Throughout Randy's lecture, he is very animated, he relates real life stories along with props and visual aids and it is a collection of all of these tools that make Randy's lecture come alive and create a power to connect to the audience. It is important as teachers that we engage the students and give them ways to connect with the lesson. It has to be more than words on a page and Randy masters that.

Randy goes on to tell about when he was a student at Carnegie Mellon and states that their instructors “gave them the reigns” and there were “no deans to report to", they had "license to break the mold, project-based curriculum, intense fun student experience, field trips” They called it “edutainment” because it was as much entertainment as it was education.They did things differently! (This is project based learning.)
Through many of his experiences, lessons were learned about how to achieve his dreams. Randy says that important people who helped him achieve his dreams were his parents, his teachers, mentors, friends and colleagues. We also have people in our life that will help us achieve our dreams and we in turn should help others achieve theirs.
Randy also adds that we can learn from our students and that it is important that we take our life experiences plus lessons taught in school and use the examples from the important people in our lives to create learning experiences. We are students of our environment as well as in the classroom. Learning is a life long experience,not something that ends once we get a degree. Randy's final lecture is rich with good advice taught by someone that has learned as much from failure as from success!
So, what can we learn about teaching and learning? First,both teaching and learning are cyclical, and perpetual. Second, learning is not only about the student learning from the teacher but the teacher learns from the students as well. Third, take time to listen and learn from the important people in your life and in turn help others, Fourth, always be a student of your environment (life is full of many lessons)and finally, be thankful and show gratitude.

C4K 1

C4K #1
The student's blog that I left a comment for was Adam from Ms. Toal's class. Adam wrote about a skype that his class did with "Sharky Gilligan" and all of the new information that they learned about sharks. He told about the large number of sharks that are killed every year for reasons that are pointless. He also learned that sharks do not really like the taste of humans but love seals.
I commented to Adam that I had a nine year old boy that would love to learn all of those interesting things about sharks, (and skyping too). Adam did a great job with his blog and it was a fun read!



C4K #2

For this weeks post I comment on Micah's blog. Micah is in Mrs. Caddy's Class. Micah blogged about three reasons that he likes technology. He mainly likes to play games on them, which would be a pretty typical reason for a boy in the sixth grade.
I told Micah that I like technology but for different reasons and I also shared with him that I am just now learning how to blog. Micah's blog post was very short and to the point but really cute!




C4K #3

This week I read and commented on Dillon's blog. Dillon is in Mrs. Reuter's class and he wrote about love. For his blog he included his own definition of what love was along with the Bible's 1 Corinthians 13 verse about what love is. His post was both thoughtful and thorough and I enjoyed reading it. For my response I commented that I had a nephew named Dillon and that my nephew was a U.S. marine. I also commented that I liked his blog about love and that the bible was the perfect reference on that subject!



C4K #4

For this C4K blog I commented on a 16 year old girls blog. I did not see her name posted anywhere but it looks like a fairly new blog so I am assuming that she is still in the learning process. Her post was entitled "Just believe". She writes about how she is learning to believe in herself and she says that she believes that if you believe in yourself you can go far in life. She also talks about how she is learning who her true friends are and that it is her true friends that have helped her make it this far in life. She also said that parts of her life have been tough but she knows that God will never give us more than we can handle.
I commented that I have just started learning to blog so she is already ahead of me! I also agreed with her that God will never give us more than we can handle and that I have seen that to be true throughout my own life.

Project 13 Part 1

The Eye of the Storm