C4T #3 post 1 and 2

Post #1

Steven Anderson is the name of my teacher for this weeks C4T. Mr. Anderson is the Director of Instructions Technology for the Winston/Salem Forsyth schools in Winston Salem NC. For this blog post, Mr. Anderson wrote about a recent conference that he attended in Los Angeles. For this conference, Mr Anderson talks about the method of delivery for the different sessions that he attended. He says that some of the sessions that they offered were still in lecture format while others were done in groups with hands-on activities. He goes on to make the comparison of these style of sessions with how some teach in the classroom by saying, "It’s no wonder we need a major redesign in the way we do school. Many educators are still comfortable with the idea they would rather be talked at than talked with. If they like the lecture style, surely kids do too." This is the same discussion that we have been having in our Edm310 class all semester. Making things more hands-on and interactive for the students. I commented that I agreed with his assessment about getting more interactive with the way we teach and that this was our goal as future educators, to change the way things are done by getting away from the lecture format and moving toward project based learning. Mr. Anderson seems very interesting and eager to use an effective teaching style even if it means doing things differently....sounds a little like our Edm310 instructor.

Post #2

The title of this weeks blog post from Steven Anderson is, "Things That Have Me Thinking". For this post, Steven list three different things that have him thinking and he goes on to explain what he thinks about each of them. The first thing that has him thinking is a book named "It's Complicated" by Danah Boyd. For this book, Boyd does some investigative research into teens social world online and to see "what really matters to them when it comes to living in this digital world" (Anderson). Anderson highly recommends this book to anyone who works with either teens or preteens. Next, Anderson addresses a conference called Edcamp USDOE which is an "independently organized day of professional development for teachers" (Anderson). Having been both a participant and a organizer of this event, Anderson really believes in what they are doing at Edcamp USDOE. At an upcoming Edcamp event, organizers will bring together teachers and policy makers to have "conversations about the direction we are going as a nation around education".

Finally, Anderson talks about "blogging as publishing". Anyone has the opportunity to publish their own personal "stories and ideas to the masses with a click of a publish button on our blogs." He states that "the power is not in the hands of the publishing house anymore", but is now in any persons hands that blogs.
I commented that I enjoyed reading his blog and that I particularly like reading about the book, "It's Complicated" by Boyd. I stated that in EDM310 we are learning about some of the tools that Boyd studies and our purpose is to use many of these tools in the classroom as learning tools, so being able to understand what really matters to our students in the digital world would help make our teaching and guidance using these tools very useful.