C4K February

Comment for Kids is a project that we were assigned to do in our EDM310 class. It allows us to see how teachers use technology to teach and kids use it to learn. We comment on a different kid blog each week, which allows us the opportunity to go around the world to see what each kid is learning.

The first blog I commented on was a fourth grader named Haylee J. In her blog post, Haylee was teaching her viewers how to add fractions with unlike denominators. I was very impressed with Haylee's blog post because she inserted pictures of each step to take while solving the problem. To my knowledge, the pictures were the actual work that she did. She explain the steps perfectly. I told her that she did a very good job solving the problem and her directions were clear and easy to understand and I also told her to keep up the good work.

My second comment was on Jennifer's blog, she is in the six grade. Jennifer was explaining why she like using technology. Some of reasons were because of the amazing speed, social media, and the games that she could play. I replied, Technology is amazing. There are so many different ways that you can use technology. You are exactly right when you said” social media can allow you to collaborate with other people”. I also love games, but make sure you look for educational ones. Keep learning about technology and as Mrs. Bryson said, “keep rocking the technology.”

The third comment I left was on Jacquelynne's blog post. Jacqeulynne is in a band and she plays the piano. She was explaining how nervous she gets when it is time for her to preform. She said that she worked very hard on her piano piece. Her hard work payed off, because her teacher inform her that her band won the gold. I replied to her by saying,Jacquelynne, I can relate to how you get so nervous when you perform for an audience. I am sure you were very happy when your teacher told you that you won the gold. Remember, hard work pays off.You did a great job on your blog post. Keep blogging!!

The last blog post I commented on for February was on Free_bird's blog post. This blog post was explaining the importance of teamwork. The writer stated, "When you have teamwork, your strengths may help another teammate’s weakness"(free_bird). He/She also used one of Michael Jordan quotes about teamwork. The writer believes team work is not just about playing on a team, which he/she is right. From the blog I took that the writer knew that teamwork is apart of our everyday life. I replied to the writer by saying,Being able to work on a team is a very important skill to learn. Working on team allows you to help others and learn from others. I love that you used Michael Jordan in your discuss on teamwork. We all know that Michael Jordan was a great player, but he could not beat all the teams he played without his teammates. You did an awesome job on your blog post. Keep up the good work!

Blog Post #7

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." Randy Pausch  

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture : Achieving Your Childhood Dream

Randy Pausch is so inspirational and I learn so much about life and teaching from his video. I am really thankful and appreciative that I got the chance to watch this video. He inspired me to work hard to achieve all of my dreams.

In the video, the one thing that stuck out the most to me was when Randy was talking about brick walls. As educators, we are going to face hardship and problems, but we have to learn from them and keep enabling our students to achieve their dreams. You may be wondering how we enable our students to achieve their dreams. We do this by teaching them to the best of our abilities and never giving up on them. Just as teachers will run into “brick walls”, so will our students. Just as Randy said, we have to let them know that brick walls are there to separate the ones who want to achieve their dreams and the ones who really don’t want to achieve their dreams. When our students come across those brick walls, we have to be there to help them get through it.

I can assume that Randy is an advocator for project base learning. He explains how he had students do five projects over a semester. He also mentions that he switch their group every two weeks, which I think is awesome because he gives them the opportunity to develop different skills by working with different people. He also mentions that his students are having fun while learning something hard. As educators, I think that it is extremely important for us to create fun ways for our student to learn the “hard stuff”. If we can take the focus away from the material being hard and make it fun, students will be eager to learn. When can create projects for our students to complete, we might think our expectations are too high, but Randy suggested that we do not set a bar on our students. Let them show us what they are able to accomplish. Setting the bar on our students may limit them and do them more harm than good. They may even teach us something new and as educators we are lifelong learners. Randy talked a little about disappointment, and we know that our students sometimes will disappoint us. When student disappoint us by not doing their work or trying their best; don’t give up on them. Push them harder and let them know you care. Also as educators, we are going to get disappointed when a project or lesson do not work out, or when someone criticizes us. Take that experience and learn from your mistakes. As Randy stated, experience is what you get when you did not get what you wanted

What can we learn from Randy Pausch about learning?

We can learn from Randy that it is okay to take risk with learning. As an educator, let your students take risk with learning. Allow learning to be fun. Design a project for them and let them show you their abilities. Do not set a bar on learning. When something is hard, do not give up, just work harder. He also taught us to learn from others and take their feedback to help you improve. Remember, all feedback is not bad feedback. He also taught us to learn to work with others and learn from them and with them. In the video, Randy explains in every achievement or disappoint that he came across, he learn something. I think it is safe to say that one of the main points that Randy made is to be a lifelong learner.

Blog Post #6

A personal learning network is a group of people, places, or organizations that you can go to when you have questions, need clarification, need inspiration or ideas. Your personal learning network helps you along your educational or teaching journey. The awesome thing about having a personal learning network is that it is not limited to a certain country; you can go as global as you want. Also, a personal learning network lets you connect with people that have similar interest that you have, people that are in the same profession as you are, or who have had similar experience as you. Having a personal learning network can help you as a teacher in so many different ways. As teachers, we are going face problems that we are going to need opinions on, ideas, or solutions to and having a personal learning network gives us the opportunity to reach out and learn from others. Also, having a personal learning network can help you get creative with teaching. You can get ideas from the people, places, or organization in your personal learning network to come up with a great lesson or project. Having a personal learning network would be great for teaching project base learning. Personal learning networks are formed through twitter, blogging, facebook, delicious and many more websites. Through these websites you can follow conversation or subjects that interest you. You can watch who people are conversing with and you also can formulate questions, have people comment answers to the questions, and you can decided if the people that comment on your question is someone you would want in your personal learning network. I will also be using these websites to help create my personal learning network.

My Personal Learning Network

I am using the website Symbaloo to create my personal learning network. The first edition to my personal network is Top Master in Education website. I chose this website because I am majoring in elementary education and it includes the top twenty-five blogs from elementary teachers. The teachers discuss many ideas on how to make learning fun for elementary students. They also communicate lessons idea, classroom management ideas and other helpful tips. Also, I can use some of the teachers in my personal learning network.

A 7th Graders Personal Learning Environment
Building Your PLN - A Primer for Anyone
Developing A Personal Learning Network in EDM310
Personal Learning Networks

Project 8

Blog post #5

Project Based Learning Part 1: Experiences of a 3rd Grade Teacher
Project Based Learning Part 2: Experiences of a 3rd Grade Teacher

In the first two videos with Anthony Capp, I learned that project based learning allows students to create something while discovering knowledge. Teachers want to see that their students have achieved what they wanted them to achieve. Also, when a student is successful in a project based learning activity, he or she takes ownership and have a sense of pride. They are very proud of what they have achieved. For teachers, coming up with a project based learning activity is hard work and involves a lot of planning, but it is also a creative way to meet content standards in writing, social studies, reading, and many more subjects. When coming up with a project based activity, teachers should have an audience for the students, make it something that students are interested in, get the community involve, and make it content driven. These things will get the students excited about completing their activity and also inspire them to do their best. After the students have completed their activity, let them reflect on their work. Project based learning also teach students about collaboration skills. Collaborating with people is not always easy to do, but it is an important skill we must learn. Project based learning allows students to be creative with learning.

ICurio

I learned that ICurio is a tool that allows students to safely search websites that have been pulled and filter for educational purposes. It is not restricted to text, but has a variety of educational videos and pictures. Students and teachers can use ICurio. ICurio has features such as storages and timelines. Students can save information that they have searched into a folder or file and continue to search for more information. It makes researching information easy for students. Students are also learning virtual organization skills by using the storages that ICurio provides. It also has a read-out-loud feature that reads the text to the students. This would come in handy if a teacher has a student with special needs such as, if they are blind or having difficulty in reading the material. Anthony believes any grade can use ICurio as long as their teacher is comfortable with them using it. ICurio is a great resource to have for students to search the internet. It is safe and it protects students from inappropriate things on the web.

Discovery Education

I learned that Discovery Education is a great resource for teachers to use to put a visual with text. It allows students to learn from someone other than their teacher. It allows experts to come into the classroom through videos. In the video, Dr. Strange mention that students are learning more from being “listener-watchers”, which means students learn better from listening and watching things. This would be a great resource to use to help enforce what is being taught to someone who learns more form listening and watching or for someone who is a visual learner. Anthony mentions that this website also enriches students’ research experience. Discovery Education is a great resource for both students and teachers.

The Anthony-Strange List of Tips for Teachers Part 1 

Tips to help you become an effective teacher.

1. Be a constant learner. 
2. Teaching is hard work, be creative and make it fun.
3. Be flexible and expect the unexpected.
4. Always start with a good goal.
5. Engage a 100% of your students all the time and in every project.
6. Reflect and revise your work.

Don't Teach Tech-Use It

Additional Thoughts About Lessons

Technology should be used not taught. If teachers are just teaching technology and not letting their students use technology, they are getting no where. Technology comes natural to children and it is much easier for them to use. When letting kids use technology, you can start with something small and then build on as they continue to use it. Try doing the project yourself before you introduce it to your students so that you can be able to answer questions that might come up. If we introduce technology smartly to our students, it will become something that they absolutely love.

In the last video, Anthony talks about what an effective lesson plan consist of. He states that a lesson plan should have four layers: a yearly plan, a unit plan, a weekly plan, and a daily plan. The yearly plan should cover all the content you want to cover within that year. The unit plan should consist of ways to connect projects to what a student learn in that unit. A weekly plan should have work divided into days so that you can be sure that you can get all the work done. Lastly, a daily plan is how you deliver the content to your students and you should have something to measure what your students have learned.

My Sentences Videos

My Sentence is..

My Passion is...

Project #3 Presentation

Blog Post # 4

The Right Way to Ask Questions in the Classroom

Why do teachers ask questions? Teachers ask questions to see if their students understand the material being taught. Sometimes after material is taught, teachers will ask the students do they have any questions or do they understand. If no one has any questions, educators will move on to teach the next subject without realizing they may have a student that does not understand what was previously taught. What if a student is too shy to ask a question in front of the class in fear of being laughed at? What if the student does not realize that he or she is confused about the lesson? Well, what if the teacher ask a question and pick the student with his or her hand raised, she has the correct answer, but was everyone paying attention? Most likely, everyone was not paying attention. There are many different reasons why students do not ask questions. As educators it is important for us to ask questions in the right way. Ben Johnson’s blog post really put in perspective on how important it is to ask the right questions. What is one effective approach for asking a question? When teachers ask a question, they should pause only for about three seconds and then call a student’s name. By doing this, all the other students will be thinking of an answer to the question just in case they are chosen to answer the question next. Asking the right questions can get all students involve in the learning process.

Asking Questions to Improve Learning

Asking questions to improve learning gave different ways to ask questions. When planning questions to ask, we need to keep in mind what concept we want the students to learn. If we ask a yes or no questions, we need to follow up with and additional question. This allows the students to provide evidence or an example on why they answered the way they did. In class discussions, be sure not to ask more than one question at a time and always aim for direct, clear, and specific questions. Also, we need to ask different styles of questions such as: “closed’ questions, managerial questions, and “open” questions. Questions such as these test students’ comprehension of the information, their understanding of the assignment, and encourages active learning in the classroom. Along with asking questions, teachers should respond effectively. Teachers should not interrupt their students and they should show that they are interested in their response.

Three Ways to Ask Better Questions in the Classroom

1. Prepare questions.
2. Play with the question.
3. Preserve good questions

When a teacher prepare his or her questions in advance, it allows him or her to get organized and helps him or her to be sure that they are not leaving anything out. Playing with the questions encourages students to think and preserving good questions allow teachers to use it again in the future.

What do we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher? Effective teachers need to ask questions that test students’ comprehension of the information, their understanding of the assignment, and they need to ask questions that encourage active learning. Most importantly, when they ask questions they need to have strategies that will get the whole class involve, such as picking a random student to answer a question.

C4T #1

I was assign to comment on Dr. Wesley Fryer’s blog, Moving At The Speed Of Creativity. The first blog post I commented on was titled, You Must Watched This: We Need Educational Change But Not High Stakes Accountability, which was a video of a gentleman named Ethan who argued against Common Core. According to www.corestandards.org, Common Core Standards are state standards that provide a clear understanding of what students are expected to learn. Ethan argued that programs like Common Core will not work and that it shows a lack of trust in teachers. He felt that if educators continue to teach by standards like Common Core they will be leaving students with an empty skill set. Ethan also argued that an educational change is needed, but we should not use programs like Common Core. Dr. Wesley Fryer expressed that he agreed with Ethan.

In my comment I introduced myself and told him about our class EDM310. I also told him that I was pursuing a degree in elementary education. After researching Common Core, I express that I did not think that extreme testing was necessary. I also express that I do think programs like Common Core illustrated mistrust in teachers. I told him how I wanted my students to be creative with learning and I did not want programs to dictate how they learn.

The second blog post I commented on was titled American Revolution Videos From Schoolhouse Rock and Discovery United Streaming. In this post, Dr. Fryer expressed that he had a lot of teachers absent from his school and that they were shorthanded on substitute teachers. He had to become a fifth grade substitute during his planning period. Instead of following the lesson plan that was left for the substitute, he played short videos from Discovery United Streaming to get the students more engaged in the lesson and that they were able to discuss what they have learn in the short videos. He suggested that teachers should get their schools to subscribe to sites like Discovery United Streaming. He felt that this site is a great resource and it will help get students excited about learning.

In my comment, I told him that I understood that it can be hard for a substitute teacher to get the students engaged in the lesson and I thought it was a great idea that he used short videos to get the students engaged. I also told him that when I become a teacher I would like to use sites like Discovery United Streaming to get my students engaged in the lesson that I am teaching.

Blog Post #3

How Can You Provide Meaningful Feedback to Your Peers?

Peer editing is critiquing work of a peer to help improve his or her writing. What is a peer? A peer is someone your age. Many students (including me) are afraid to critique other students work, but we will be critiquing work all the time as future educators so we might as well get in the habit of it now. There are three important steps we must follow when we are critiquing work of others. We must compliment their work, make suggestions, and make corrections. Staying positive is very important when we critique someone else writing. Compliment the writer by telling him or her what you like or thought he or she did well. Make suggestions on how he or she can improve his or her writing. Ask him or her to use more vivid detail or suggest that they use better word choice. When making corrections, you need to look for things like grammar errors, punctuation errors, and spelling errors. Peer editing can be fun if we let the writer know that we are here to help him or her. Following those three steps can help you become a great editor, but always remember to stay positive. Not only will these steps help you now, but it will also help you when you become an educator.

Top Ten Peer Review Mistakes.

It is important to give a quality peer review and also to receive positive criticism positively. We must always stay on task, take our time, and don’t get defensive. I have committed many of those mistakes that were shown in the video, but now I know what not to do when I do a peer review. The process is very important and we must not be a Picky Patty, Defensive Dave, or any of the characters we saw in the video. We must take the positive criticism with the main goal in mind.

What is Peer Editing?
Peer Editing With Perfection Tutorial.
Writing Peer Review Top Ten Mistakes.