BLOG POST 9

What I've Learned This Year

This is a wonderful post by Mr. McClung. If you haven't read it already I suggest you do. In this post Mr. McClung gives a self-reflection of his first year of teaching and also shares tips that he has learned.
One of his points is "How to read the crowd." As a teacher we can get so caught up in making sure that we cover every little thing that we are supposed to that we forget who the lesson is actually for, the students. We should recognize them as our audience and make sure they are following the lesson. Another point that goes along with this is "be flexible". Lessons are not always going to go the way you plan, be willing to veer off course and don't beat yourself up if a lesson doesn't work out.
Another point he mentions is to communicate. I think this is so important for a teacher to take hold of. We should learn how to communicate with our students, coworkers, and students' parents. It should be a top priority to have an open line of communication in all of these areas. It takes a lot of effort on the teacher's part, but I think it is so worth it.
He brings out an excellent sentence about using technology. He says not to give up before you start. I know that technology can be very intimidating, especially when you, as a teacher, has never been encouraged or had the benefit of having a class like EDM 310, but technology can be your friend!
His last point I think is important for all of us to grasp, "It's never too late to change." I know that once you started on a certain path or begun teaching a certain way it can seem impossible to change that. But if you realize there's something better out there you should change it. As humans we should all be continuous learners, constantly changing and constantly trying to better ourselves.

Comments for Kids Summary Post 2

C4K #4

For my C4K #4 I was assigned to Osana, a year 6 student at Pt England School in Auckland, NZ. On Osana's blog she learned how to post pictures to her blog. She has also learned how to take a link for Google's search engine and make it into a button on her blog post. On one of her posts she mentions a goal for next year is to be a very good girl! Osana, that's a goal for all of us!

C4K #5

My assigned student for this week had not posted any posts for 2011 so I chose another student Eleva. Eleva is a year 6 student at Pt England School in Auckland, NZ. Eleva is a beautiful little girl who looks as sweet as a button. I honestly don't know how any of her teachers could ever get on to her! She mentions in one of her posts that playing with her friends helps her to learn more about math and reading. Kudos to the teacher on that one! That is the way it should be; coming up with fun and creative ways to teach our students!



C4K #6

My assigned classroom for this week was from the Melville Intermediate School in New Zealand. I was assigned to Room 8 which is taught by Mr. Webb. The students in this class range from 12 to 13 years-old. The video I watched was made by a group of students who take part in a digital photography elective every Thursday afternoon. The challenge was to take pictures that relate to four different topics. The video was great. It's good to see that the students in Room 8 not only know how to use a digital camera, but also can import the images, edit, and turn them into a video.

Smartboard Presentation Project 13

For my group's Smartboard presentation we did a lesson for grade levels 1-2. The topic for our lesson was counting money. We explained what each coin was and the amount of money they represent. We had interactive examples on counting coins. After the lesson we sent out a Google form for the observing group to complete. You can find the results of that form here.
We got four responses to our form and I was a little surprised by the results. My group thought that a lesson aimed at first and second graders would be a breeze for college students, but there were some wrong answers. Do I think that the use of debit cards is to blame? Absolutely not, I think that some of the questions might have been worded a little strangely. Another reason I think all of the questions were not answered correctly was that some of the question required two answers. I think some of the people may have rushed through the form without really reading the questions.

Blog Post 8

Richard Miller: This Is How We Dream



In this video Richard Miller from Rutgers University talks about using "writing with multimedia" in today's classroom. While I wouldn't dare call myself an expert at writing with multimedia; I am willing to learn and I believe I am learning.
Mr. Miller talks about how in today's society we don't even have to go to a library to write articles, virtually everything we need is at our fingertips. "Writing with multimedia" is using multimedia, such as: videos, pictures, links, etc., in writing. Students in this generation are such visual learners and as teachers we need to learn how to adapt to that. As Dr. Strange said this video shows "what can be done to change from a reading/writing culture to a listening/watching culture".
He states that courses in this type of writing do not yet exist they have to be invented. He realizes the challenges of this type of writing, but believes they can be overcome. He admits that it is not about the technology. I am looking forward to learning more about "writing with multimedia", I think it could be a very valuable asset in our classrooms.

EDM310 is Different

The Chipper Series

In this series "Chipper" is not exactly the model student, but unfortunately she represents a large population of students in American Universities. I have to admit that I have even been responsible for "Chipper moments". Chipper has a lot of misconstrued ideas about education. She believes that procrastination is turning in assignments late, she thinks that she should be taught so she doesn't have to learn, and she believes everything should be handed to her. Because Chipper's teacher did not believe these things and instead drives his students to be independent learners Chipper eventually drops out of school. This happens everyday in U.S. universities. When students are presents with classes where they are forced to learn new things and become independent learners they fled the classroom and blame the teacher. In one of the clips Chipper goes into her boss' office and her boss asks her why she hasn't shown up for class. Her excuses sound a lot like many of the excuses college students use. We have to realize that when we graduate and get a job in a school simply not showing up and giving lame excuses is not going to work. Eventually, after going thourgh several jobs, Chipper has a change of heart and returns to school. This video is a testament of doing things right the first time around. Not everyone gets the chance to go to college. We should take advantage of the opportunity we've been given.

EDM for Dummies

This video showed how frustrating EDM can be for students who know nothing about technology, but refuse to use the help available to make their EDM experience better. With the lab, various tutorials, and the class blog a student has all the help they need to really become technology-literate teacher.

I really enjoyed watching these student-made videos for EDM. Kudos to all who were involved in making the videos. You did a great job! If I were to make a video for EDM I might make one on a student who believes they are technology literate, but is then blown away by what EDM has exposed them to. This is based on my own personal experience. I considered myself to be very proficient in using technology, but their is so much I didn't know. With the help of EDM I have been exposed to Blogging, Tweeting, PLN, and so much more. I still don't know everything, but I am looking forward to learning.

Learn to Change, Change to Learn

The US Department of Commerce ranked 55 industries on level of IT intensiveness. Education was ranked number fifty-five. One woman in the video points out that students receive a more stimulating environment outside of the classroom. This technology that has taught them so much is not even allowed in the classroom. Our schools have really become more like prisons, in my opinion, places where discipline is more important than really learning. Changing education starts with us as future teachers, we will be the ones that are able to change the way students are learning. We have been given the opportunity to engage our students and remodel the classroom. Sure we are going to face, as Randy Pausch called it, brickwalls, but for the sake of our students and our countries future we have to try.



The Secret Powers of Time by Philip Zambardo

In this video Zambardo brings up a lot of good points. He talks about how at the beginning of life we are present hedonists. That is, we live for pleasure and want to avoid pain. The purpose of school is to take children and make them more future oriented or get them to think about goals and consequences. In the US a child drops out of school every nine seconds. This is worse for minorities and males. Zambardo points out that by the age of 21 a boy has spent 10,000 hours playing video games. This alters their brains and the way they think. What are the consequences of this? Well, this means that in a lecture and whiteboard classroom boys will be bored and this type of teaching is passive; they don't control it. If we don't begin to change the way our system of education works we ARE going to lose our students and the US will continue to drop among the ranks. We have to create an educational experience that allows our students to create their education. Where they can have a part in it.

The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us

In this video Dan Pink shares a startling statistic that counters the familiar saying "higher pay = better performance". The study found that this works for purely mechanical skills, but when the task called for rudimentary cognitive skills it did not work. In fact, the higher the reward the worse people did. When people don't have to worry about money there are three factors that affect performance: autonomy, mastery, and making a contribution.

We can relate these factors to teaching our students. Giving our students autonomy, the desire to be self-directed, is essential in schools if we want schools to be an engaging place. That is, if we want our schools to be more than a place of compliance. Mastery is the desire to be great at stuff. If we present learning that cam be fun and allow them to be creative, then they'll want to work harder at it. Making a contribution deals with purpose. When students see education as irrelevant or without a purpose they are going to turn off and shut down. I'll close with a quote from the video, "If we start treating people like people and not assuming that they're simply horses...if we get past this ideology...that make us better off...and our world a little bit better."

Blog Post 7

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture



This video shows a lecture given by Randy Pausch; this lecture would be his last at the university. Pausch was a professor of computer science and human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given "3 to six months of good health". He gave this lecture on September 18, 2007 and died from the cancer on July 25, 2008.
Pausch begins by talking about his childhood dreams. They were various off the wall things, like most of our childhood dreams are, like: being Captian Kirk, playing in the NFL, becoming a Disney Imagineer, and being in zero gravity. With exception of becoming a NFL player (he did play in high school) and changing "being Captain Kirk" to "meeting Captain Kirk" , he fulfilled them all. One thing he constantly talks about throughout the lecture are brickwalls. He says that whenever you're on your way to achieving a dream you're going to hit brickwalls, but you have to keep pressing. Brickwalls show our dedication.
He talks about one student in particular who he helped achieve a childhood dream. The student wanted to work on Star War films and he was able to see that dream fulfilled. He wanted to be able to do that on a larger scale so he created a class on virtual worlds. Whenever he would address his students about projects he would tell them, "That was pretty good, but I know you can do better." That drove the students and a campus-wide phenomenon was created. But that was just one course, so he decided to take it to a bigger scale and co-created the Entertainment Technology Center. This was a master level program where students completed two years of project-based courses. There were no books! Pausch stated that they had spent enough time with book work. He was big on working in groups and teaching students to be self reflective.
He gives great advice on learning from bosses, learning from students, having fun, helping others, and how to get people to help you. He encourages you to get a feedback loop, someone who will tell you your faults and listen to them,show gratitude when it should be given, work harder, and find the good in everyone. At the end he says that this talk was not about achieving your childhood dreams, but leading your life. This was an amazing man who left an amazing legacy. We should follow his advice.

Summary Post C4T#2

Grading Parents

My teacher for this past few weeks has been Caren Carrillo. This post was particularly interesting. Apparently Florida state Rep. Kelli Stargel has introduced a bill in which teachers would grade their students' parents on levels ranging from unsatisfactory to satisfactory. You can read the article here. The parents would be graded in three categories:
1. A child should be at school on time, prepared to learn after a good night's sleep, and have eaten a meal.

2. A child should have the homework done and prepared for examinations.

3. There should be regular communication between the parent and teacher.

She agrees that parents should be held responsible for their children getting to school on time, at least until they can drive. That one is easy enough to agree with. For the next part, Caren agrees that breakfast is extremely important, but how in the world would you know for sure if a child ate breakfast? Do we put video cameras in the homes? Some kids chose not to eat breakfast and then some have candy for breakfast. The next part was a good night's sleep. Caren feels this part to be completely absurd. I mean any parent knows that you can try and promote good sleeping, but sometimes it just doesn't happen. The next part was that children should have homework done. She states that homework should be done, but teachers have to make it clear enough for parents to understand. We have to realize that education is constantly changing and parents learned things differently than their children are. The last point was regular communication. Caren wonders if their would be a quota for how many times a parent must talk to a teacher. I personally think that communication is just as much the teacher's responsibility as it is the parent's.
The next part of her article is about the implications of this grading policy:
1. Hurts Families of Lower Socioeconomic Status
2. Gives Advantages to Families of Higher SES
3. Divides Teachers and Parents Instead of Fostering Teamwork
4. School Attendance is Mandatory, Caring is Not
5. "Should" and "Must" are Two Very Different Things

On these points I couldn't agree more. In our education system we already have huge gaps in racial, socioeconomic, and cutural areas. This parent grading policy would only serve to widen those gaps.





A Teacher's Frightening Power

In the opening paragraph of her blog Caren states that she believes that teachers are responsible for how students feel about school. She tells about an experience she has in one of her graduate level courses. She explains herself to be a critical thinker who questions everything put in front of her. Apparently the teacher wasn't too found of her thinking. She tells that her professor often sarcastically tries to humiliate her in front of the class for being a divergent thinker. She feels defeated by this and considers shutting down and giving up in the class.
Then a light bulb goes off, has she ever made one of her students feel this way? If Caren being a motivated graduate level student can be made to feel so defeated, how much more can a teacher make a grade school student feel?
I really enjoyed reading Caren's post. It really did show the enormous power a teacher can have in a student's life. You've all heard the saying that with power comes enormous responsibility, and that is certainly true for teachers. We have to be extremely careful with the power we've been given. We must motivate and encourage independent thinking in our classroom and be careful to never ridicule a student. Caren closes with, "I need to approach my classroom in a way that makes students feel validated as long as they're thinking. I'm sure it's a difficult thing to accomplish, but it's now a top priority." Caren, it will definitely be a top priority of mine as well.
Caren goes on to

Progress Report on PLN

Beginning my PLN felt, honestly, overwelming at first. I wasn't quite sure how to go about it. I read Dr. Strange's document on creating a PLN and all the links on it, but was still a little unsure. So when in doubt, dive in! I began on Symbaloo, creating a page especially for my education. I added a few neat gadgets like WebMath and a graphing tile. Then I decided to jump into twitter and I began following some of the people Dr. Strange suggested. I am a secondary education/math major, so I really wanted to find some people who taught math. I typed math teacher in the search bar on twitter and began following some of the people who's twitter profiles matched what I was looking for. While reading the timeline on one teachers profile I found an article titled "Top Four Passionate Math Teacher Blogs". I read the article and added the blogs to my Symbaloo page. These teachers were exactly what I was looking for and their blogs are dedicated to teaching math in a creative and pratical way. One of the blogs, Sweeney Math, shared a lesson plan using the popular game "Angry Birds" to create quadratic models.

I still have a lot of work in developing my PLN, but am excited about the wonderful resources I have already found! Major goal for this next week: Start Contributing!