C4K Summary for February

My student that I commented on is Kyra from Mrs. Ripp's class in Verona, Wisconsin. The assignment was to choose one place in the world that they would want to travel to. Kyra chose Ireland because she is a Irish dancer and her grandfather is Irish. She also really wants to see the castles and the beaches. I loved Kyra's description of the beaches. She had me wanting to see them too!

The second student I commented on was also a fifth grader from Sioux Rapids, Iowa. The class just received a set of Macbooks and were all super excited. I posted on Madison's blog from the class. She talked about a math website that the class can get on to help with math. Through the website, the class can compete with each other. After the competition round is over, the student with the highest points wins a prize from their teacher. The website is called Sumdog and it is a great website to get the students excited about math! I hope to keep this website in mind if I have fifth grade math one day.

The next class blog I viewed was from New Zealand.The class blog was called Pipo Ako which means the Young Learners. The blog was an animation group portrait of the students in the class. It is a really neat picture that allowed the children to be creative. Neat idea for younger students. The last class I got to read about for February was on all girls online class from Oregon. Their class blog posted about diversity. This is a great subject for students to be taught about. I also think that students should be given a chance to make up their own definition of what diversity means to them. It's much more than just people from different ethnic backgrounds. The best thing from their post that I would like to share is that they post says that there isn't even two people that are alike. Everyone is different and everyone is diverse.

C4T #2

The blog that I viewed this week is full of information that goes right along with all of the things we have been learning in EDM310. The posts were made by Richard Byrne who is a high school Civics and US History teacher. The purpose of his site is to share free resources for teachers around the world. The first blog post I commented on was about enchaining a history lesson about Eli Whitney's cotton gin. He mentions how it is important to enhance learning with visuals and provided an animation of how the cotton gin works. I watched the animation and it even taught me something that I did not know. The animation engaged the students to understand how the cotton gin actually worked. This blog also provides links for lesson plan ideas with history.
The second post I commented on was about virtual volcanoes. Mr. Byrne provides a list of resources when teaching about volcanoes. The new addition to the list is from the Discovery Channel. It is a virtual interaction that shows you where the volcanoes are located in the world. There is an animation of what a volcano looks like inside. The neatest part about this website is the part that they students can build their own volcano and watch it erupt. The students can play around with different levels of viscosity and gas to see what kind of eruption they will get.

Blog Assignment 5

Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please?
This post made me really think about what kind of teacher I want to be. The post presents problems associated with students using the computer for learning tools. The post brought up the dangers of the internet. But at the same time, the post also mentions that using a computer makes our students think, share, learn, and be creative. Isn't this exactly what we want our students to do? I want my students to learn the material in a way that will be most memorable. I do not think that pencil and paper is the way to approach learning anymore. Our world will always have technology so it is time that we prepare our children how to adapt to the real world. These points on how to teach our students were brought up by Dr. Scott McLeod. He is an associate professor at the University of Kentucky. He is the founding director of CASTLE, the only center dedicated to the technology needs of school administrators. CASTLE stands for Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education.

The iSchool Initiative
This video is from a high school student from Georgia. Travis does a great job at showing how effective teaching can be without having loads of books, papers, pencils, and funds. The apps that are available on such devices such as the iPod touch are great resources for students with little to no cost! A lot of the apps are also interactive which can help increase the students motivation to learn the material. In his second video, he talks about the revolution he started with the iSchool Initiative. I think it is great to see what can come from a high school student with an opinion. Travis is setting an example on how we should approach our classrooms and our teaching. Out with old and on with the new. The new being technology. Join his revolution and let's change how our student's are being taught!

Virtual Choir
This video is awesome. It is 185 different people singing virtually with other people they never have encountered before. It must have taken a great deal of time to produce something like this but it just goes to show how many options are out there when it comes to tackling something like this on the internet. The internet has so many uses. This video makes me think about having students in the classroom interact with people from across the world. No matter where the 185 different people were from, they all came together to make something that sounded absolutely beautiful.

Teaching in the 21st Century
 If you are reading this blog and have never watched this video about teaching in the 21st century, you must stop and watch now. All I can say is wow! This video is perfect for anybody who is against technology in the classroom. What I found to be the best part of this video is that part about teaching should be relevant, engaging and challenging. I hope to always remember these three words. I think that all lessons should be planned with these words in mind. It makes perfect sense to have the material relevant. It would not make any sense to teach students about things that they can not relate to in the real world. I also got a lot from the difference between entertaining and engaging. I have used the word entertaining several times before but I will never again use it when talking about learning material. When the work is challenging it makes our students think and apply what they have learned. I fully believe that if the knowledge isn't used then it is forgotten. I think that Kevin Roberts sees teaching as more of guiding them in the right direction. Teaching sounds more like you give the students all of the information and they are suppose to retain it. But with guiding them, or filtering as the video says, the students are learning the material and we are showing them what to do with it. Teachers will always be needed even though there is tons of information available on the internet. Our ways of teaching will just change with the times.

Reading Rockets
I absolutely love reading and I think this is my new favorite website. When I first pulled the Reading Rockets website up, I was overwhelmed. There are tons of links and information all over the place. But when I started clicking into things, the organization makes a little more sense. I first went to the teachers tab. The classroom strategies link is a great place to start when it comes to teaching your students reading. Topics are broken down to give you when you should teach them and how you could approach teaching the topic. There is even great resources available for when you have students who are struggling with reading. Take some time and click on Top 10 Things You Should Know About Reading. Great topics that every teacher should know. My most favorite thing about this website is the recommended book sections. You can look up books according to what subject you need the book for. Coolest thing ever! Makes me want to start collecting more books for my own library. I am so glad I got to see this website. I will surely pass this on again and again.

Project 9a

Project #6

Blog Assignment #4

The Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom The benefits of a podcast in a classroom is a new idea to me. I really was not sure what the purpose was, until I watched this video. This video shows that a podcast can be used in the classroom in two different ways. One way is the teacher records the podcast and makes it available to the students for review. I think this is great if a student were to miss class due to illness, then they would be able to listen to the podcast and not be too far behind in their studies. Another way the podcast can be used is student learning approach. This is where the students were able to get hands on and wrote their own scripts for the podcast. I think what I'll take from this video, for my own podcast, is knowing the capabilities of making my podcast creative and entertaining. No one would want to listen to a monotone podcast. It needs to be interesting!

Podcast Selection If you are new to the idea of podcast, like I was, this is a perfect place to start. Judy Scharf does a tremendous job on explaining what a podcast is, as well as giving examples on how to do it and how to assign a podcast to your students. There is a link to a video on TeacherTube that is a great podcast about podcasts! The best thing that I got from this video is that when you are recording your podcast, remember that you are not just recording a lecture, make it interesting and make the listener want to finish the entire podcast.

 1st Graders Create Their Own Read Along Audio Book The detailed explanation of the experiment is great. A classroom of first graders were divided up to create a script for a chapter book that they were reading. The best part of this podcast, that the students made, was how excited the students were to do this. I've never really thought about how they would enjoy it until now. The post explained how excited the students got and how creative they got when it came to how their voices sounded and how they wanted to edit their scripts on the SmartBoard. I am a huge fan of hands on activities, so this sits well with me! Anytime a child is excited about learning is something that should be repeated. It looks like podcasts are the way to go. When doing my own podcast, I want to play around with some of the same effects that these students got to do. I want to get familiar with Garangeband. Now I am looking forward to do my own podcasts!

C4T #1

The blog page I was assigned to is called Pondering Paige. Paige Vitulli is an assistant professor in the College of Education at the University of South Alabama. The blog post I am going to summarize is "EDU 301 Birds inspired by John James Audubun." After a field trip to the Mobile Musuem of Art, a group of education majors were assigned an art project. The field trip was to view displays of Audubun's artwork of birds. The students were each assigned a bird picture to replicate using only materials that will be realistically available to students in the classroom. There are very specific directions to the drawing that can be located on the Pondering Paige website.
In response to this post, I thanked Paige for including the directions to the assignment because it is an assignment that can easily be done with a science lesson or can easily be tweaked for a different subject. The most valuable thing that I received from this post was that the important thing about this assignment was that the materials used were "materials all elementary teachers could realistically possess, even under budget cuts and lack of support for the arts." - Paige Vitulli
Back in September 2011, Ms. Vitulli posted a video titled Pay For Grades: Does Cash for Students Work? The video stated that select students in grades 4-6 would give be given up to $100 in the summer if they passed certain tests. In return to the incentive, the school's test scores had drastic improvements. When the money incentive was taken away, the student's were less driven to succeed in the class and their grades dropped.
I commented on the post about my opinion of paying students for their grades. If I was a student, I would love getting paid for good grades. However, if you look at the bigger picture, it is not a great idea. The students are no longer learning to further their education. They are learning so they can get some money during the summer. I do not think incentives in general are a bad idea. Cash is just not the answer to getting our students to want to learn.

Blog Assignment 3

Technology in Special Education This video was eye opening to the importance of technology in classrooms. A classroom without technology looks like a room without life. The room was full of students without a compatible way to communicate with the teacher as well as fellow classmates. Without technology, the students are likely to become further behind on their assignments. Also, their learning capabilities are being stifled because of the time it takes for communication between the teacher and the student to take place. The special education classroom with technology looked like a room of totally different students. They appeared to be much more happy about learning and about being at school. They were able to communicate more effectively and faster than what they could do without technology. The computers able them to write and read better than they could with paper and pencils. I think it is important for people to see this video of students having computers and other technology in the classroom. I also am becoming more fond of the classroom blog. I am seeing more and more of teachers creating one and it being beneficial to the classroom. I am still curious to see what all is put on the blog. Who knows, maybe I'll even create one when I have my own classroom!
How the iPad works with Academics

I have seen first hand how an iPad can be used for a great learning tool. My daughter has been using my iPad since she was about two years old. From this she has learned all sorts of educational things. It really is an amazing thing to witness. The majority of the apps are games but yet they are learning tools at the same time. I think the apps make learning much more enjoyable! The app that I like that I would find suitable for a special needs child in the classroom is called Little Lilly's Touch Book. This app was made with special needs children in mind. Little Lilly is a girl with sensory issues. Lilly does not like the way anything feels on her feet. To a student with sensory issues, this app should help them relate to the situation and help them feel okay about being different. The app could be used during reading time as well. The story is read out loud while the words are highlighted. Each page also has special interacting games that can be played. I downloaded the app and played around with it. It really is great. Check out the other games also made by Extra Special Kids!
Gary Hayes Social Media Outlet I was amazed at high how the numbers are in regards to things done on the internet at any given second. These numbers show how much of the world is technologically advanced. More and more people these days have access to computers. They not only have access to computers, they know how to maneuver around the internet. Another thing that is changing in this day and age is the ages of the people using computers. My daughter, who is four, knows how to work the computer and does well finding her way around websites. This is a significant difference from when I was in school. Computers were not all that common. They definitely were not accessible to everyone like they are today. What these numbers mean for a professional career in education, is that technology needs to be worked into our curriculum. Not only should our students learn how to use the computer, they should be able to know about the internet. They can learn an endless amount of information from the internet. I think there are programs available on the computer and the internet that can teach certain things that are not available without technology. I also think that students will learn some things more effectively by doing some research for themselves. Some of the websites shown on the media outlet are things that are not available anywhere else. Take YouTube for example, it has a huge selection of videos that can show the class how something is done and allows for the class to post a video of their own. I am glad this information is available. It is nice to see some different websites that I should become more aware of since they are so popular with the rest of the world. Sites such as LinkedIn and Skype.
A Visions of Students Today This video goes along with the previous videos of this blog post. Technology is very important in the classroom. This cannot be stressed enough. As a student, I can agree with almost everything that the students in the video were saying. I spend more money on books that were never used than I can remember! I also spend too much time on Facebook and on other websites. Soon, I will be on the other side of the situation and I can start to see different points of view. I think as teachers, we need to figure out a way to interact better ways of giving information to our students so that certain resources are not wasted. We are past the days when a teacher just stands in the front of the room and lecture. We are also past the days of writing on a chalk board. Like the video said, the chalk board does not allow for videos or pictures. Videos and pictures are great visuals that are needed in a classroom. I do much better learning by seeing things and I'm sure I am not alone on this. I think it's time to stress online textbooks because they are cheaper and are more beneficial. We need to make a point to only stress things that will benefit our students outside of class. If we can make learning fun, students will be more willing to participate and learn. I think technology can make this possible!

Project 5