Final Project

Final Reflection

Blog post 5 PART 2

Summary of your PLN:

For my Personal Learning Network, like many others, I created a Symbaloo to organize them all into one place. I included things that have to do with me and my personal interests as well as educational sites for the Educator side of me. I included my twitter page, my facebook page, my blog post link, educational sites, the link to the school district I plan to teach at, and my summer workplace where I'm employed during the summer's between attending school in Mobile. Personal Learning Networks are awesome and resourceful. Whether my educator friends need links to places or friends of my other interest need links, they can all be found in one place.

C4K

My C4K for april was Jacob W. from Ms. Lombard's 7th grade English class in Oklahoma. His blog was titled Baseball. He wrote about baseball and about hitting a "dinger" which means a home run. He said that he loves baseball. He said that it is his passion and that he has been playing since he was 6. It was a rather short post as you can see here: Jacob W.'s Blog. A couple other South Alabama EDM10 have posted on this one as well. I have enjoyed commenting on student's blogs. It's a great way to see how kids from elementary ages all the way up to high school ages are using technology in the their classrooms all over the United States. As I was going through school, we did not do anything like this. I had one computer class in high school and it was honestly a waste of time. It was an introduction to Microsoft programs which I was already "literate" in. I've enjoyed commenting on kids' blogs and seeing how teachers are utilizing the knew age of computer communication in their classrooms.

Blog Post 13

Previously on a blog post, it was mentioned to use Symbaloo as a way to keep our PLN's organized. It was not required to look into it, but I did. I didn't do anything with it but I thought it was a cool idea. For my blog post this week, I'm "assigning" myself to make a Symbaloo page and challenging myself to set it as my homepage for a week. I think this would be a cool assignment because it challenges students to try something new. These would be my instructions:

Watch the video Using Symbaloo (a bookmarking service) in Education by Ms. Computer Teacher. After watching the video, create your own Symbaloo page using at least 10 links to websites you use daily and/or websites that you might need to use occasionally. This can include social media pages, news websites, email providers etc..

After making your Symbaloo, watch the video below pertaining to the type of computer you're using. When completed, post the screenshot of your Symbaloo page to your blog. Challenge yourself to set your Symbaloo as your computer's homepage for a week.

MAC USERS: How To Take a Screenshot on a Mac
PC USERS: How To Take a Screenshot on a PC

C4T #3 Summary

The teacher that I was assigned to was Jennifer Brokofsky. The first blog was titled "Responding to Common Questions Faced as a Math Coordinator". One question she was asked was if teachers should teach students automatic math skills first or number sense. She said, “We should focus on them both at the same time. Strong Number Sense supports reasoning and reasoning leads to mastery. Without Number Sense we run the risk of having students memorize sequences of numbers that have no real meaning to them.” I told her I agreed with this. Students can memorize anything, but sometimes they don't have a clue what the memorized information means in real terms. The second one was titled "Cooking With Your Kids... the Perfect Time to #TalkMath". She was just basically talking about turning daily cooking into math lessons with your kids. You can have all sorts of different lessons like fractions and addition and things like that. 

Blog Post 11

In the video, Back to the Future, Brian Crosby discusses how he uses technology in his 4th, 5th, and 6th grade classrooms. Every student has access to a laptop and they write blogs frequently. He also talks about a project he did with his students with a balloon. On the balloon, the hooked up audio, video, and a tracking device so they could track it wherever it went for a while. There was something he said that really stuck with me. Crosby said, "If you don't have imagination or creativity,  where do you build passion from?" This is so true. If children are going through the same motions day by day, how will they come across something new that they might be passionate about?

In the video, Blended Learning Cycle, Paul Anderson discusses the blended learning cycle and what exactly it is. He says it is a combination of online, mobile, and classroom experiences. Anderson says he learning cycle consists go the 5 E's: engage, explore, expand, explain, and evaluate. He also uses the acronym "QUVIERS" which stands for: Question, Investigate/Inquire, Video, Elaboration, Review, Summary Quiz. Anderson does a great job making sure his students really grasp the subject before he tests them on the subject at hand.

In this video, Making Things Visible, he focuses on tracking how students think. This makes me think of the word "metacognition" that we just learned in one of my other classes. It refers to the students ability to explain how and what they're thinking. Making Things Visible focuses more on tracking the progress of their thinking. This is a great way to get students thinking and opinionated.

In the video, Super Digital Citizen, teaching students internet safety is stressed. Personally, I know a lot of people who have been affected by malicious people on the internet. Whether it be money fraud or people saying they they're someone who they are not, there are bad people on the internet. In this video, the students create a superhero and talk about internet safety. This is a great way to get the students informed about such a serious topic in a fun way. It is important to make sure the students in your classroom have good digital citizenship. Most of the population who are active on the internet today weren't taught anything about it in school because it wasn't around. We must intervene with these students now to make a better future for everyone around us.

Project Based Learning discusses a school in Canada in which three classrooms decide to combine for a day. The classes were History, English, and Computer Processing. This was done to see if they could implement Project Based Learning. Doing this, they could create one project that meets the standards for all three subjects. Combining all these allows for ample time and study to be done on just a single project instead of three separate ones for three separate subjects. I think this is great and should be considered by schools everywhere. You could lighten the load on students while also giving them the quality education they need.

In the video, Roosevelt Elementary's PBL Program, project based learning at this school is discussed. They gather opinions from both parents and teachers on the subject. They say things like it is very hands on and engaging for the students. It also provides self motivation. Parents said they liked how early the students were getting practice as far as public speaking goes. I know for me, my first public speaking class wasn't until college and it was nerve-wracking. We need to build up their confidence with speaking in front of people at a very young age.