Blog Post #15

1. The thoughts of my classroom at the beginning of the year aren't too different from what they are now. There are some changes, but for the most part, my classroom will still be basically the same format. I want my classroom to be teacher-centered, but collaboration as well. The difference in my classroom now and what it was at the beginning of the semester, is that my classroom will be about half lecture, half interactive work among the students. This class has taught me that in order to reach your full potential, you must learn on your own. You can only reach certain levels of thought process if you're spoon fed every little bit of information. Learning isn't just taking in information and regurgitating it to make an "A" on a test. It's taking initiative to go find information that will help you not only become more intelligent, but to broaden your horizons of what you'll learn. Doing things for yourself will also help keep an open mind. That's one of the big things that this class has taught me. 2.

Project 16

PLN report

Using all of these resources in this class have really helped me learn for myself. Instead of having someone in front of the class lecturing about something, I have to take the initiative to learn on my own instead of barely paying attention to a teacher talking for an hour. Using Twitter to see how other people are using networks to their advantage has helped me a lot in seeing other people's point of view, so I don't feel so strange.

Blog Post #14

CourseSmart has come up with a digital textbook. This allows teachers to track what a student has read and the main concepts the teacher has covered. One problem that they have faced is that the students would make decent grades, but then the teacher would look at the textbook tracking and the student will have only opened the book once. One other issue is that the software wouldn't work some of the time. The teacher realized that the students would still make decent grades without opening the book very much. She was extremely confused by how that worked.

I would wonder how some students would do well on my tests without opening the book very much. I would have some questions if the student was regularly reading, but not doing well on the tests. It would make me think they were just opening the book and not actively reading it.

I would not like this if this were a part of my schooling. Were college students. We don't need someone hovering over us to make sure were doing our readings. That's the whole point of college, is to learn how to do your work on your own and not to have someone holding your hand throughout the whole process.

I would ask the teacher if the grades improved significantly throughout this process.

I would ask the students if they had any freedom in this class.

I would agree with a few of the comments left on there. I don't agree with this type of classroom.

project #15 smartboard 2

Blog Post #13

1. Mr. Crosby shows in this video that learning can be fun and easy. By using a lot of hands on activities, he showed the students that learning doesn't have to be boring. The hot air balloon activity is a good example of a hands on activity that will entertain and teach the students at the same time. I like how he uses blogs as an interactive way for students to discuss what they learned in class. I hope I'm able to use blogs in my classroom so my students will have a different way to discuss topics that doesn't take up unnecessary class time.

2. The Blended Learning Cycle is online, classroom, and mobile learning all blended together. The cycle it all goes through is engaging, exploring, expanding, explaining and evaluating. Paul Anderson uses this a lot in his classrooms. He asks the students a question and they answer it through the means that he tells them. After that, they look at a video. The video is a great reference for the students to look back on. He then assigns a reading about the topic. Next is review. Review gives him an idea on where the students stand when it comes to subject matter. Mr. Anderson likes to run his classroom like I like coach. I call it "perfection before progression." This means the students can't move on until they understand what they're doing completely in that subject. The final step is a summary test that test them on everything they have learned. I like the way this classroom is set up. One of the main things I like is that the students don't move on to the next subject until they understand the topic they're on.

Blog post #12

1. Watch "Teaching History using Virtual Classrooms in Buckinghamshire."



How would you use Virtual Classroom in your own classroom? In what ways are your ways similar to those of Sarah Gould?

I would use Virtual Classroom to share certain documents in history with my students. Virtual Classroom is a good way for the students to be interactive and chat amongst one another that's not unorganized group work. It's also a good way to save paper. When I was in high school my history teachers would want us to look at certain documents or a few pages out of a book, so they would go to the copy machine and print off over 100 copies to give to us. I would look at it maybe one time and throw it away, or put it in my folder with all the other papers I looked at once. Virtual classroom eliminates a lot of those problems. You don't have to go through the trouble of making copies of all these documents, and it prevents clutter. Another great thing about it is that any student can go online whenever they want and look at it.

I like how Sarah Gould uses Virtual Classroom to share certain documents to her classroom. I would probably split them into groups of two like she did so they are not only learning history, they're learning social skills as well.

C4K summary

Nate F

Nate F posted a blog about his dog and how much she loved her dog. I commented and said that I would love to see pictures of his dog.

Maggie

She posted a blog on cyber bullying and how it was completely wrong.

Alex M He posted a blog about himself to blog to Russian students. I commented and agreed with him that it would be interesting to live in Russia because it is probably a completely different world compared to the United States.

Blog post #11

The first video we watched was about how first graders utilize and learn from technology. They're learning more and more on how to use the internet and how to blog effectively. They, like the students in EDM 310 also use smartboards as an effective tool for learning. They use wikipedia as a source for information regularly. Skype is something they use that is very interactive among them and their peers. I like the use of technology in the classroom, however, I wouldn't want it to replace the teacher. Technology is growing faster than we can keep up, but there still needs to be a teacher in the classroom while the students are learning. I believe in the use of technology in the classroom as a tool to help the kids learn, but the students need a teacher to teach and guide them through everything. After all, teachers aren't only teaching material, they're teaching life lessons and how to apply them to every day life.

SMART board project

Green screen project #11

Blog Post #9

Do you, no one else.

The main thing i got from Mr. McClungs posts is that you can't be too worried about what other people think of you. If you are a teacher at a school, there is obviously a reason that they hired you, so be confident in your skills and knowledge. Being accepted by your peers in the workplace isn't exactly at the top of my priority list. Always remember that your peers aren't the reason you got the job, and your peers aren't the reason you keep your job. After all, the success of your kids is what teaching is all about, right? Having friends in the workplace is completely normal, but when you put your teaching methods on the line because of something one of your co-workers said, that's when you need to re-evaluate things. He is saying that you have to stick to your guns when youre teaching. People will always criticize the way you do things, not only in the workplace. Your peers will criticize you the rest of your life, and you have to let it roll off your shoulder. Peer pressure is still exists when you grow up. How will it affect you?

Don't get comfortable

Another thing I got from Mr. McClung's posts is that you can't get too comfortable with the way you teach. You should always be searching for ways to make your lessons more interesting. If you lose the interest of the students, you're wasting their time. He talks about how he hated going to school as a kid and that he didn't want that for his students. I want my students to enjoy coming to my class and learning. School is widely accepted as a chore. What if we could change that? What if the next generation of teachers could change how the world views school? We could change this outlook of school as being boring and tedious into fun, but still productive.

Blog Post #8

This is how we dream

In the presentation "This is how we dream," Dr. Miller talks about classes using media and technology to express something instead of words on a word processor. He thinks writing needs to be more interactive and creative. I totally agree with what he's saying. Technology is moving so fast that teachers are starting to utilize the technology to put it in their lessons and assignment. I plan on teaching high school History, so this will be extremely helpful in making things more creative in my classroom. Now, with this kind of technology, students won't have to get up in front of a class and do pointless power point presentations that noone pays attention to. This way the students can be more interactive with the technology.



Creativity

Carly is similar to Dr. Miller with her project. She is using multimedia and technology to do her project instead of writing pages and pages on a word document. Using technology and media arts can help students better understand the subject manner, since they are growing up in a society that is so built around nature, that it would be almost inefficient to keep things the same as they have been for the last 50 years.

Push Through

The Chipper series is about a girl who has Dr. Strange for EDM310 and doesn't like learning on her own and that he should teach her since she is paying tuition to go to that school. Chipper eventually decided to drop out of school and make her own school. When that didn't work out she got a few jobs teaching, but none of them seemed to turn out the way she wanted it to. She eventually would go back to school and get her Masters. EDM 310 for dummies is a project that a few students got together and did together. They were extremely frustrated with the class until they got their copy of EDM 310 for dummies. When they got that, they did a lot better because it has more in depth instructions on the different things we use in the class. I think the overall message is to keep pushing through, even if you hate it. I'll be honest, i really dislike this class, but i know I can't give up because I know that at least some of this will come in handy one day.

It's time for change

In this video "Learn to Change, Change to Learn," they talk about how educators need to realize that technology isn't a choice in these kids' lives anymore; it is a part of them. So why not utilize that? Why not use our teaching methods to fit with what our students now-a-days are used to, instead of taking their technology away. One of the educators in this video said "if you turn a child's phone off, you essentially turn the child off." I don't think that could be anymore true. It's sad that our society has become that dependent on technology, but its' reality.

BSJK Group Podcast

Blog Post #5

Mrs. Venosdale is a passionate teacher who thought of what the school of her dreams might be like. If I had a chance to build my own school, it would be a place of open minded learning. We would still have structure and order, but the learning would be a little different than the traditional style of learning. There would be a set of classes that every student would need to take, but they would have more variety to choose from when it comes to electives. It would still be broken up into elementary, middle, and high school, but it would range from k-3, 4-8, then 9-12. Each set of grades would have their own building, with their own themes.

Things like virtual choir is the future of technology. It is truly amazing how people that have never met can make music when they don't even have to be in the same country. I have a feeling that more music will be made and produced like this.

One day, teachers will only be supervisors of learning. Classrooms of the future will be based on technology and teachers won't be phased out, but they won't be used as much. With the way technology is growing, teachers won't be needed as much as they have been in history.

I would definitely invest time in flipping my classroom. It's a more efficient way of teaching and learning because there is more time spent on learning than there is on delivery of the material. I plan on teaching my class this way. This way my students will learn the material in a more efficient way without slipping through the cracks. This is a very effective way to set up your classroom.

Blog Post #4

Podcasts are a very good way to help teach children a different way of learning. It has a more hands-on, creative outlook on learning instead of the same old lecture style learning. I like the way she took each student, one-on-one, and recorded them reading. It helps students step out of their comfort zones and be interactive with their classmates. I also like how Ms. Tolisano made booklets so the first-graders could follow along while listening. Then after listening, the students write down what they thought about the experience, which provides feedback to the teacher. Podcasts are a very useful tool in the classroom. I will be sure to use podcasts in the classroom because there are a lot of scholars that make podcasts that will be useful in my high school history classrooms. I can have them listen to it and write an essay on what they thought about the topic.

Blog Post #3

When i watched the videos about peer editing, I didn't know there was such an efficient way to edit people's work. I learned that there are three steps you follow to efficiently edit someones work: compliments,suggestions, and corrections. I always thought that it was just marking punctuation errors with red ink. These videos and slideshows helped me realize that peer editing is so much more than that. By following these three simple steps, you can peer edit someones work without dealing with things like bias and favoritism. That can play a big part in what you say while peer editing if you don't follow these steps.

The video "Writing Peer Review Top 10 mistakes" showed me that you have to be as neutral as possible while you're editing someone else's work. It showed me that you cant be too critical, but you can't be too relaxed either. You have to have a happy medium while you're peer editing. Another thing that this video showed me is that you have to actually care about peer editing if you want to do it right. You have to actually read what you're looking at, or else you won't be able to give suggestions.

I decided to comment on my person's blog out in the open, on the blog. It lets everyone know what's been pointed out and that if I missed something, they can point it out. It helps keep peer editing more efficient, so the person who wrote the blog doesn't hear the same thing over and over.

The Mountbatten is an incredible machine. It is really awesome how far technology has come to where people that are hearing impaired and visually impaired can learn right along with the other students. If I ever had the chance I would learn how to use one of these machines because I'm sure that in my career I will run across hearing or visually impaired kids. So it would be a very useful resource in teaching those kids.

The spectrum of education that deals with hearing and visually impaired people fascinates me. It's amazing how far we've come technologically so that we can help these kids learn with equal opportunities. Those kids deserve as many opportunities as the kids without impairments. There are many flaws in the education system, but the fact we have technologies that can help these kids learn, says a lot about how we are with special education.

I think that Ms. Davis and Dr. Strange are very similar in the way they teach. They both make their students learn on their own, rather than stand in the front of the class and lecture. The way these classrooms are run really builds a lot of character and teaches us to take initiative and that learning on our own is important because that's how reality works. These kind of classrooms are the future of education. It's inevitable. Were advancing too fast in technology to keep the education system the same way it's been the past century.

Blog Post #2

The author of the Youtube series "Did You Know?," is trying to get people to realize that The United States is no longer the only world power; that countries like China and India are catching up and even exceeding the U.S. in many things. Another idea that the author points out is how far we've come in the world of technology in the past 30 years.

It is fact that we have come further technologically in the past 30 years than we have since the beginning of time. However, there are implications of tension between these countries solely because of the advancement of technology in this video. I agree that there is some tension, but the video is a little over dramatic about the situation. Throughout time there has been a different world power in every age. It might be time for the U.S. to pass the torch. I'm not saying completely give up their position among the elite, but maybe it is time for someone else to be the dominant world power.

The author in the video, "Mr. Winkle Wakes" has many implications that almost bash the modern education system. "Mr. Winkle" goes everywhere to see that so much has changed in so many ways, except schools. He walked around and saw that all the schools are the same as they were 100 years before. I totally agree with the implication of this video. Education hasn't changed very much over the past century, but within the past 10 years I think it has changed substantially. Education needs to change, because the world is advancing and evolving faster than our education system.

Wordle project 2

Blog post #1

About me

My Name is Kevin Jared Hanson. I was born in Florence, AL but have spent most of my life in Huntsville, AL. My mother and I moved to Huntsville in the summer of 2000(I was 8 years old). I've played every sport throughout my whole life, but the one sport that has defined who i am is cheer leading. I have spent the past 9 years of my life doing high School, all star, and college cheer leading. Cheer leading is one of the main reasons i can even go to college, because the scholarship i get from it helps pay for my school tremendously. I used to go to a small school in Georgia called Shorter University. I went to Shorter on cheer scholarship, and now I go to South on cheer scholarship. I decided to transfer to South Alabama in the fall of 2012. Cheer leading is the most challenging sport I have ever participated in. Since I have been cheering for so long, I have acquired many skills in these past 9 years. Cheer leading is the sport I have gotten very good at. I am in a family of teachers. My mother, 2 of my cousins, and my aunt have all been teachers. I have always wanted to go into the field of Education. I have been thinking about having my own classroom for a long time.

My Classroom

My Classroom will be very relaxed and laid back, but productive at the same time. It will emphasize Direct instruction with a mix of Collaborating. In other words, my class will be lecture-centered with some group work every once in a while.

I will be a teacher that lectures and asks questions to my class so they will understand the material. I am very outgoing as a person, so I will be outgoing as a teacher. Getting animated while you're lecturing and keeping them interested in what you're saying is the best and most efficient way to teach. Other type of instruction is good every once in a while, but a classroom needs to be lecture centered if you want to cover the curriculum the most efficiently.

My students will probably be a very diverse group of kids, so the lecture will be broad enough for my students to understand. They will learn at a steady and efficient pace.

The tools that will be used in my classroom will be enough to efficiently

Test Post #1

Test Post #1