Final Reflection

Project#13

For project #15 and #16, I communicated with my team mates (Brelyn Searcy, Kathryn Reynolds, Heather Perrin,and Jessica La Force)The tool that we used to communicate through was Face time(Apple Products),in which I had to use my cousins Apple computer because my computer is out of date.Using Skype and face time, we discussed a lesson plan for our smartboard presentation. not only in person but also using Facebook, skyping with them while they were at home.On the more in detailed project (the final project)We mostly used Skype, Emails, and Drive. On skype we set up conference calls to communicate further details on what it is exactly that each of us will be doing. The project that I most enjoyed doing and even discussing was the final project. My group and I brainstormed and came up with some pretty good ideas. We made skits to add to the movie in between what it is would be talking about.We even went so far as to talk about adding the bloopers to the video. I really enjoyed working with my group members. We all worked well together, everyone did their share of work, and I really could not have asked for a better group than my group "STRANGER THAN FICTION".

Project #16 Final Project

Project#15 Smartboard

PLN Summary

I am using Symbaloo to create my personal learning network. I love the way it lets me create my own titles for search engines.I like how it allows me to have multiple tabs up at once,making it very easy to navigate my way through different topics.Using PLN is a great way for people who are lack origination skills. Using Symbaloo organizes things for you while at the same time making it more accessible.

Being able to quickly navigate my way to and from different tabs helps me to multi-task. For example; I am able to twitter while at the same time post blogs, I just simple click the Twitter webmix button and im on twitter, and from there I am able to follow teachers as well as fellow classmates.I don't know how I would have been able to stay organized and keep up with as many things as I have been if this Project Activity wasn't in the lesson plan for this class. PLN only goes to show what direction education is moving in, and I for one am glad to be apart of this class.

I know that I will use PLN not only in this class but in future courses that I may take, and even after graduating.The one thing I know I will continue to use the most freqeunt is everynote.Evernote is the best thing that I have found to help me stay organized, and to me organization is the key to staying up to date on everything.

I have learned a lot in this class but I think one of the most important things I have learned is where to find information that I really need. Yes the internet is good for researching facts and facebook and tweeting. But what I have learned in addition to networking, is how to find real teachers, how they are using technology in the classroom, and the things they are learning and sharing with their class. I am glad I have the opportunity to learn from other teachers mistakes and take advice from those who have been there. I get to see first hand what works and what doesn't.

I have enjoyed using twitter to get up-to-date news and information regarding what is going on with teachers and politics today. I will continue to use twitter to remain updated on the issues facing our educational system today. I also find reading other teachers blogs EXTREMELY beneficial. Keeping up with other teachers and my fellow classmates blogs I am able to see and think about doing things that I may have never considered or thought of on my own. I also think that symbaloo is a very useful tool in organizing all of these things to make for faster access. As always, the better you are at managing your time, the more you will be able to accomplish in life, your career,and in everything else you do.

Progress Report on Final Project

For my groups(Stranger Than Fiction)final project, we have been brain storming Ideas as far as what we are going to talk about in our movie and the order in which we are going to speak. We are meeting at our regular class time this week to do a practice run of what we each have come up with. But basically we are still in the beginning stages of the project, due to everyone's schedule. After the Holidays we will be more focused and up to date on what it is that we would like to do and can better organize all of our ideas to come up with the best movie ever. ITS COMING SOON!

Blog Assignment #13

A Vision of Students Today was both enlightening and educational. The statistics throughout the video were mind bottling yet true. The video starts with a quote from 1967, Marshall McLuhan, that says "Today's children are bewildered when he enters the 19th Century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scared but ordered and structured by fragmented,classified patterns subjects and schedules." This statement pretty much sums up how I to feel about schools. There has to be more than just schedules to go by and time frames to do it in. Learning is different for everyone. What works for one student may not work for another. This video touches on everything from how much money students spend on education, from what the schools say we need to buy in order to retain what is being taught to us, to the personal aspect of going to school. Something as simple as, Does my teacher know me by name can make even a small impact on a student. We as students spend so much money on books that we will hardly even use much less open in the class or when we get home.

Most of the information we receive in class is not even relevant to our everyday life, or even the career we choose to pursue. The way that technology is spreading and progressing students will read less paper back books and more books online, not to mention more facebook profile pages, and other weblinks. One fact that really stood out to me was that a single laptop costs more than what some people make in an entire year. That fact alone makes me look at how I spend money in a different way. I should be holding up a sign like the young woman in this video saying "I am one of the lucky ones". 2. Watch the movie A Vision of Students Today. Think about what you have heard and seen. Don't just look at the video as a student. Think about the message for teachers or University presidents. Write two or more paragraphs commenting on the messages of the video. Write two or more paragraphs following the requirements in Writing A Quality Blog Post. This video is a product of Kansas State University. You can find more about the work being done at KSU by visiting this website which will enlighten you about YouTube if you are interested. Send Michael Wesch (@mwesch ) a thank you Tweet. Include #edm310 in the Tweet so I will see it.

Blog Assignment 12

BLOG ASSIGNTMENT #12
Watch this video When I Become A Teacher and just listen to all the negatives that being a teacher brings to some people, and then write a paragraph or two on why you still want to become a teacher.Next watch this video Why Teaching Matters? and write a paragraph or more about what are your best teaching qualities.

In the video When I Become A Teacher, the participators in the video made teaching sound like the worst thing possible. Like they were just becoming teachers just to have a job, none of them seemed as if they actually enjoyed teaching. The key to being a good teacher, is to love what you are doing. Loving what you are passionate about will always make you good at whatever your job is, rather it be a school teacher, a doctor, or an auto-mechanic.

The reason that I would like to become a teacher is to make a difference in a young persons life. If I can teach students at an early age that learning is fun, then hopefully they will carry that thought with them throughout their life. Teaching is something that I am very passionate about. Everyday is an opportunity to learn something new. I want to be the kind of teacher that makes an A- feel like a slap in the face, because I know that they can do better and I want to make an C+ feel like a congressional medal of honor. I want my students to wonder and ask questions and even criticize what it is they are reading. I want to make them write "right" right. My students will show all of their work in math class, and hide all of their mistakes on their final drafts in English. I want to become a teacher so that I can make a difference.

Why Teaching Matters?A teacher is more than a person standing in front of the classroom. Teaching is more than a career. A recent study asked teachers to respond to the statement "I love to teach" and 98% of the teachers agreed with the statement. Teachers are usually very satisfied with their career choices. Careers in education account for 3 of the top 9 occupations where people are actually satisfied with their job. If you want a career in a rewarding profession that lasts a lifetime join other teachers at teachers2be.org. I plan to join this organization even before I become a teacher. Teaching matters because kids need someone to look up to. They need someone pushing them and telling them they can do it, because they may not be getting that encouragement at home. When I become a teacher I will be the driving force for my whole class to follow. Some of my best teaching qualities is that I am passionate, and patient. I think to be a good teacher you will need both qualities. The only thing that I believe will be difficult for me as a teacher is the time frame we are given to teach the students on a particular chapter. For example, if s few students are not grasping what I am teaching and they need more time to go over the subject matter. I will have to find some creative ways to incorporate review for some while at the same time keeping the students who do understand engaged in what it is that we are learning.

C4T #4

C4T#9
My teacher that I was assigned to for C4T this week name is Jeff Delp, and his blog is titled Molehills out of mountains. Mr.Delps is a Junior High Principal by day, sports enthusiast, technology fanatic and a jedi in his own mind, striving to be a difference maker. His latest post was titled Productivity Tools for Educators. Mr.Delps feels as though he is constantly finding himself struggling to manage his responsibilities as well as his time. On top of managing his time, he also has to manage paper work and constantly re-arranging his schedule and tasks to be able to fit everything he needs to have done into one day. Mr. Delps have found some very useful tools to help him manage and organize his daily tasks while at the same time cutting back on the amount of paper he use and also printings/copies he would have to make. Mr.Delps feels as though not only is the use of paper often and unnecessary waste of resources, it can be a substantial financial drain on the school budget. So any tool that would help keep the budget or even save money would be very beneficial to both the teachers and the school as a whole. Mr.Delps uses Google Docs, Evernote, Dropbox, Wunderlist, Posterous, and Twitter to help him organize and manage his time more effectively. Google Docs makes it easy for teachers to share and organize documents, spreadsheets and presentations, and is universally accessible via any computer or mobile device. Evernote is a virtual filling cabinet, and is great for tagging and taking notes. Dropbox allows you to access to store and open important documents from any computer or mobile device no matter where you are. Wunderlist is an easy to use, accessible from virtually anywhere application that allows you to manage a multitude of tasks in an "inbox" and then organize the items and share them with whomever. Posterous is just a simple blogging platform, that allows users to easily share ideas and participate in conversations to enhance professional development. Twitter provides access to other teachers/educators to engage in conversations and outstanding resources. It is also used to develop connections with colleagues in different schools from around the world.

Out of all the tools that Mr.Delps use I see that he and I have made use out of Google Docs, Drop box, Evernote and Twitter. Once I become a teacher I think that I am going to have to add Posterous to my list of Apps both on my phone and on my Personal computer. The Comment that I left on his page was read as follows: "Mr.Delps, After reading this wonderfully written post, I must say that we are very much alike as far as time management goes. Out of all the tools you use to help better assist you in your daily life, I also use google docs, evernote, dropbox, and twitter. The only other one that I am interested in researching more about is Posterous. Thank You so much for sharing your thoughts with the world."

C4T#4
This is my last week in following Mr.Jeff Delps Blog Page called Molehills out of Mountains. Due to my teacher not having a more recent blog than the one I posted on two weeks ago,I then had to move down one blog post to a post titled My New Year's Resolution: Fail Frequently . In this blog post Mr.Delps talks about the ending of one year and beginning of the next. He describes how refreshing it is to start a new year with new resolutions, and goals, and just how good it feels to have a sense of starting fresh. Mr.Delps stated that "The beauty of New Year’s resolutions is the opportunity to hit the reset button on unsuccessful endeavors…a chance to refocus". Rather we have small simple goals such as losing weight or bigger long term goals such as starting a new career, starting the new year with resolutions is challenging. Resolutions are a challenge according to Mr.Delps because of one word "Change". It is hard to break old habits, and change what just comes natural for you. So rather it is losing weight or changing careers rather it is a big change or a small change, it is ultimately up to you as the person to commit to that change, and that is the challenging part.

Mr.Delps stated that, with resolutions either you stuck to them or you didn't. "Whether it was altering exercise habits or changing classroom instructional methods, making changes requires us to face a significant fear – the potential for failure." I am on the same page as Mr.Delps, making changes are scary. Mostly because more often then not, the outcome can only go one of two ways, good or bad, right or wrong. So for me I know change is scary because you really do not know the end result, so most people get comfortable in routine and stick to doing what they know works. At the end of the day Change requires that we take chances. If we make the assumption that the changes we undertake are purposeful and necessary, it is imperative that we accept failure as a natural – even necessary – part of the change process.In conclusion I must say I agree with Mr.Delps when he says "Instead of approaching resolutions, with an “all or none” attitude, give yourself a break and allow opportunities to make mistakes and benefit from the learning process that ensues.Failure does not have to be fatal…in fact, it can be a sign of thinking anew." and the comment that I left on his blog post was "Mr.Delps this was an excellent and Inspiring blog. I agreed with your statement that read "Instead of approaching resolutions, with an “all or none” attitude, give yourself a break and allow opportunities to make mistakes and benefit from the learning process that ensues. Failure does not have to be fatal…in fact, it can be a sign of thinking anew." Because so often we beat ourselves up over failing something that we set out to do, but in all actuality we grow from our mistakes and learn from them to improve who we are today, to become better for tomorrow. So I would just like to take the time to say Thank You!"

C4K for the Month of November

C4K#7
For this weeks C4K I was assigned to Dr.V, and Dr. Santoli, blog post titled Attention Getters. This Blog post was about their journey to Ireland. They tasted different foods, drove down what felt to them to be the wrong side of the street, and also learned about their culture enhances in going green. The comment that I left for their blog post was : "Hello Dr.V, and Dr. Santoli, I think that it is great that you two got to travel to Ireland. I would love to go there just to experience the "weird" things that you have. Its funny how something so normal and routine to them are so foreign and strange to anyone not from Ireland.To answer your question, no I have not traveled internationally but Germany, Ireland, and Egypt are just some of the places I hope to travel to. Thank you so much for sharing this experience with us."

C4K#8
For this weeks C4K, I visited a young girls blog titled Emma's Extra-Excellent Blog!!!. Emma is a 5th grade student in the suburbs of Chicago, in Mr.Hagedorn Class. The latest post Emma made was called "Dancing with Kachina Dolls!" Emma said that the reason she was making this post was because she wanted to learn more about KaChina Dolls. While reading her post I too have learned something new. Kachina dolls are hand carved wooden dolls made by Hopi Indians.Each doll represents a spirit in their lives. Emma also included step by step instructions and also a list of the materials you would use on how to make an KaChina doll. From reading Emma's blog I too have learned something new. I had never even heard of a KaChina doll before reading her blog.I plan to make one of these KaChina dolls with my nieces as soon as I can find some free time and also use it in my classroom as an art and history project.

C4K #9
The student who I was assigned to name is Haley and she is a 5th grader in Mr.Billy's 5th grade class in Chicago. Mr.Billy's class blog is titled School of Rock. Haley's latest post was titled Kid Vote! Haley posted that she was going to vote for Mitt Romney because he was is awesome and because he is going to lower taxes. Haley is also voting for Mitt Romney because he believes that poor people should try to get a job and not be so lazy. She goes on to say that she thinks Obama is the worst President there is and that He stinks. Reading Haley's post made me stop and think "Is this how she feels or is this how her parents feel and she is just going along with what they are saying." The comment that I left on Haley's blog post was: "Hi Haley,My name is Ashley and I was just wanted to comment on your post and tell you how great of a job you did on writing this post. And Haley, the best thing about having an opinion is that you don't have to apologize for how you feel about something. I respect the fact that you Have decided to vote for Mitt Romney, just remember that everyone thinks differently on every subject. I hope that when you are old enough to vote that you will make the right choice on who you feel is better able to lead the country just as you have in voting your class."

C4K#10
For this weeks C4K Mrs. Martin's 10th Grade class has a Blog titled 10th Grade English Mrs. Martin is a 10th grade English teacher in Baldwin County, Alabama. The student that I was assigned to name is Austin Garner and he is in Mrs.Martin's 2nd Block English class. His latest post was made on Nov. 16th. In this post he talks about the story they read in class called "Speak". Austin said, that he liked the book because it shows how people express themselves. He also stated that "many people speak, but few are heard". Austin learned that people who do graffiti, sing, dance, or even write on walls are just trying to be heard. He learned that those acts are just some of the ways people try to get other to hear them, because those acts are hard to ignore. Austin also had an assignment to compare the poem "Caged Bird" to the story "Speak". In Austins's comparison he said that "In the poem "Caged Bird," the bird can relate to Melinda. In the poem, the bird was in a cage, he couldn't do much. In the same way, Melinda is trapped in shame. Because of this, she is scared to do many things." It seems to me that Austin, is a very bright student and is very articulate. The comment that I left on his blog was, "Hello Austin, Your blog post is very well written and organized, Great Job! And from the way that you described the book "Speak", I think I may have to read the book for myself. Thank You for sharing your blog with the rest of the world!"

Blog Post 11

First Graders in Mrs.Cassidy's Class
Mrs.Cassidy use of Technology in the classroom serves a purpose of having fun while at the same time educating the students and protecting her students blogs by using Class Blogmeister to see who's viewing her students blogs. Students in Mrs.Cassidy's class are able to work individually or in groups. Having technology in the classroom with students this young only goes to show you that you are never to young to start using new technologies nor to old. If a school age child can learn to use it, so could a senior citizen.

Mrs.Cassidy has her blog set up to where the students parents or guardians and or the public, are able to go and see what they have been posting and actually post their comment to their child's blog. Teaching children always write good things and to never use bad language or say mean things to anyone ever on the internet is something that I think all teachers should tell their students, and not just for writing blogs for an everyday rule. You will be amazed by simple little gestures or suggestions like this would cut down on bullying in schools. Mrs.Cassidy rule on never posting your last name is a great security measure for her students as to not fall victim to online predators(First names only). Using skype and wiki in the classroom is a great way to get questions answered from all sorts of people from around the world. The technique that I would most likely use would be the Skype. Skype would allow me to connect with my fellow educators and have them join my class with discussions on books that we may be reading or class projects that we may have.

Mrs.Cassidy 1st Grade Teacher
I was actually in Dr.Strange Class when he fist did this skype interview and it was the first time that I had even heard of skype, so I am really not surprised to see how much skype has really taken off since I first heard of it. Watching this video again for the second time only reassures me of the era of technology I am now living in. Sort of a "BEAM ME UP SCOTTY" moment for me. Seems so foreign to me still though. Mrs.Cassidy is not one of those teachers who was left behind when this new age technology started to become more pronounced in the schools. Instead she has grasped the bull by the horns and has learned to familiarize herself with such technologies as skype so that she can become the best teacher that she can be.

Special Blog Assignment

U.S. Today did an article in their paper on VP and Professor Sebastian Thurn titled A World Where Grades Will Be Left Behind. This article dealt with Mr.Thurns beliefs that "learning should be just as fun as playing video games." Thurn is a 45yr old Google Vice President and stanford research professor who is best known for his role in building Google's driverless car. Thurn has recently overseen and participated in a new education company he founded back in January called "Udacity". After teaching in this style for a year, Thurn felt like he could never go back to teaching in the traditional old boring style that he was so accustom too. Having a windowless classroom was the new way to teach. Thurn and his 20 something assistants designed and assembled courses for students that were both fun and educational.

Thanks to teachers like Thurn and his friend Sal Khan more and more teachers are starting to "flip" their classrooms. Charter schools in New York and Chicago have built an entire curriculum around game playing. In this article Thurn asks the question "What will education look like in 30 years". I like Thurn agree that technology is enabling educators to scale up education and make it more personal. The idea that education will respond to you is an mind blowing idea to me. I can imagine the impact that educational games will create on younger generations of students. Learning would be seen in a whole new light as something that is fun and at the same time benefiting of both parent and child. NO MORE ONE SIZE FITS ALL approach will be taken is also something I look forward to. Ending the article with hope and promise was an excellent move on the journalist part because this is such a touchy subject for those of who are still skeptic about the way education is moving along with its technological advances.
After reading this article I can honestly say that I agree with Mr.Thurn and the efforts he and his team are making to better education, by giving it a new direction where learning is fun. Its when you try to contain a child's learning into small windows "tracks" of learning that their education becomes limited. With the efforts of Mr.Thurn and his friends Education is truly unlimited and can be obtained by every child.

C4T post #3

This week my C4T was an assignment on Mr.Michael Vaughn on his blog titled World-Shaker. Mr.Vaughn is an distance learning teacher and he gives presentations on social media for students and educators. He loves talking about social media and how it affects our daily lives, our learning, and our future. Mr.Vaughn does his presentations by blending design, comedy, and mind blowing facts into his online sessions for students and colleagues. Mr.Vaughns latest post on his blog was on October the 26th and he asked the question "When was the last time you were more than fifty feet from your cell phone?" and my response was "This was a very good question, Sad to say the last time I was more than fifty feet from my cell phone, is when I lost it. ha! that is so sad. This question certainly makes one think about how attached we are to our electronic devices." It really does make you want to challenge yourself to distance yourself from your phone. I have realized just how much I feel connected to my phone. Rather it be I am checking the time, or Checking my facebook. I depend on my phone way too much.

Michael Vaughn's latest blog post on his blog titled World-Shaker Putting Dings In The Universe , was a post titled Sirri Knows Me. In this short post Mr.Vaughn asks a friend of his by the name "OhMuffin" to ask her phone, sirri (an app on his phone) what was the final score of the game. Sirri responds to the question it was asked with these exact words " The Cleveland Browns were beaten 25 to 15 by Baltimore." OhMuffin then responds back to sirri "How mad is my boyfriend right now?". Sirri responds again with the same response "The Cleveland Browns were beaten 25 to 15 by Baltimore." The comment that I left on his blog post was "Mr.Vaughn after reading this and from hearing what others say about sirri, I really have to get me a sirri phone."

Short Movie Project #

Blog Post #10

In Mr.John Spencer Blog Post titled Adventures in Pencil Integration, the black and white cartoon picture of the two different men with two different titles "Papermate" and "Ticonderoga" are basically talking about how they are different, but to me all that I got out of this photo was that ultimately they have the same capability. Yes one costs more than the other and one is more reliable then the other, but they both have faults and they both are just "tools". It's what you do with them that matters most. How well can they benefit the person who is using them is the question.
Why Were Your Kids Playing Games?
Which discussed a conversation he and his principal had about the style of his teaching habits. In the principals' eyes having fun in a classroom does not equal learning. Instead it is viewed as just another "thing" that parents will find some sort of way to have a problem with.One year a parent found it offensive when she learned her child had been playing "Hangman" at school and took the issue up with the principal. This was a rare thing and I don't believe all games should be banned from the classes, as the principal is suggesting it. I think that at the beginning of each school year, teachers should send a letter home describing the types of games that will go on in the classroom, and have that students parents sign the letter. That way if a parent has an issue with their child playing a particular game, special arrangements can be made for that particular student rather than to punish a whole class, whose parents may not feel the same. So to keep from having future problems, with future parents, over games that are quite educational, the principal decides to nip it in the bud sort of speak and just cut out games in the classroom period. The comment that I left for his blog post was as follows:Hello Mr.Spencer, I think it is great that you found a way to get your students to learn while at the same time having fun learning. Although it is unfortunate that not everyone thinks this way. Some people are more by the book kinds of people. I think that Principals take a step back sometimes and allow the teacher to be flexible in their teaching styles, and only step back in when their is something that needs to be addressed, when it is concerning the mental well being of a student. (as far as learning things that aren't appropriate or that could be racially bias etc.) I really did enjoy reading this post, while it did sadden me that the principal was discouraging something that is obviously good for the students.

Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please This blog says everything I want to say. We shouldn't give up or abandon old traditions just because something new comes along. Although I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is evil, because everything thing has positives and negatives. I think that with the right level of security both by the parent and the teacher, students will be able to reap the benefits of using the internet both in and out of the classroom.

In a decade or two I think parents then would be able to handle and cope more so with technology and how to go about protecting their kids because they will know what dangers are actually out there,because them themselves would've been somewhat tempted by some of the bad things that happens on the internet.

Scott McLeod is a leading academic expert on K-12 school technology. Dr. McLeod is an Associate Professor in the Educational Administration program at Iowa State University. Dr. McLeod blogs about technology leadership issues at Dangerously Irrelevant and occasionally at The Huffington Post. He is the creator of LeaderTalk, the nation’s first group blog written by school leaders for school leaders. Dr. McLeod also was a co-creator of the wildly popular video, Did You Know? (Shift Happens).

C4K Summary Post For the Month of October

C4K#3
Room 318's Blog Consists of three teachers, who teach 4th Grade at Union Pleasant Elementary School in Hamburg,NY. These three teachers combined there class to make one big Blog. The student that I was assigned to blogger name was bredei954. Bredei blog post titled "My Shoe: Bob"read as follows: "BOB is black and white like a zebra. He is short as a mouse, but strong as a rhino." The comment That I left for his blog said, "I like the name Bob for your shoe. Bob is a very popular name. In fact, I have a friend named Bob". I wish I could have written more, but didn't have to much to gather from such a short post such as his was. So hopefully for the next C4K, the student I will be assigned to will have something more for me to comment about.

C4K #4

Mr.Gwaltney Class Blog was titled The Age of Exploration Blog Mr.Gwaltney,teaches 10th grade Modern World History to students living in Oregon,Iowa,France, and Maryland. The blog I was assigned to was titled The Fight Against Procrastination. In this post Mr. Gwaltney talks about how much people procrastinate, and offers a few tips to help people procrastinate less. Such tips including making a plan,sticking to the plan, and allowing for pop ups that might slow down your plan or just interfere with your plan period. If you need a little motivation to help stick to what ever plans you do make, reward your self every time you accomplish something from your to do list. It sounds a little childish I know, but believe me it helps. The next tip Mr.Gwaltney suggest is to get rid of any distractions, such as closing out your facebook, turning off your tv, and even powering off your cell phone.You will be surprised how much faster you will get done, just by simply by getting rid of these distractions. The last step is to use electronic calendars to your advantage. This will help you remember due dates, and help you keep up with what is to come. After reading his post the comment I left him was, "Hello,My name is Ashley Franklin and I too, am a student at the Univ. of South Alabama. I was assigned your blog to follow for this week, and I must say I would read your blog even if it was not assigned to me. This post was very beneficial to me, because I am the worlds biggest procrastinator and I really must do better. I plan to do better by following your helpful tips. Thank you so much for sharing your tips."

C4K# 5

This week for my C4K, I visited 6th and 7th grader's blog from Surrey, British Columbia, and Canada. The students' blog that I was assigned to name was masterchief1257. His Blog titled My Hockey Game was about a game that he had on the 14th of October against a rival team. The team he played against were called the wolves. In the previous game, they played the wolves won. But that is not the case this time around. Mastercheif1257 team won 7-1. Masterchief1257 talked in detail about the game and gave a great play by plays of the game. Ultimately his team went home the victor and Masterchief1257 stated that this was the best game he played in thus far. The comment that I left him said, "Hello, My name is Ashley and I just had to stop and leave you a comment after reading this wonderful post. I do not know much about hockey, but after listening to the details of your game it sounds like I am missing out on a great sport. I am so glad you have the opportunity to play such a fun sport. Keep up the good work."

C4K#6

For this weeks C4K I was assigned to Mrs.Petersons' 7th grade English class to a student by the name of Parker. Parker Blog post was a summary on a novel titled "The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton. I have never read this novel before, so I love the fact that Parker took into consideration that some people who read his blog may have never read the novel either and discloses a spoiler alert to the reader. Parker summarazie's Ponyboys'(the main character)personality as a child who is always calm, cool, and collected, and could sometimes get angry. Ponyboy learns different things throughout the novel. Ponyboy use to get very angry really fast, but has learned how to calm himself down, and remain cool and mature about different situations. Parker stated that S.E. Hinton uses Ponyboy to make the novel more interesting. The comment that I left on this blog post was as follows:"Hey Parker, I think that you did a very good job in writing this blog post. And I loved the fact that you added the "Spoiler Alert" so that People would be warned about the details that followed if they had not yet read the novel. The only thing that I would suggest to you, would be to proof read your work before publishing it. This was a very good blog, thank you for sharing!"

Smartboard Individual Project

Book Trailer

Blog Assignment #9

At the end of Every year Mr.McClung writes a blog post about challenges and accomplishments he has faced while teaching. My blog assignment will cover his first year of teaching blog post and his most recent complete year of teaching blog post. In the school year 2009-2010, Mr.McClung shared his thoughts on what it was like his first year of teaching. Going into the year he did not quite know what to expect, so the best advice he could tell himself was to "stay positive". Mr. McClung feels that in that first year of teaching he has grown and matured both as a person and as a teacher. At The Teacher's Desk Is the first blog post that he made, in relation to his teaching experience. In this blog he shares some of his thoughts on how to become a more effective teacher. He talks about how to read the crowd (your students), how to be flexible, how to communicate, how to listen to your students, and how to be reasonable. All of which are areas in which many teachers differ.During his first year Mr.McClung realized that his way of thinking, needed much improvement. He use to feel like he worried so much about impressing his supervisor that he didn't do as good a job in teaching the lesson plans in ways that were most effective for his students. He has learned that you must be flexible because the lesson you plan is almost always different from the one you teach. He learned to stop always trying to control things. Mr.McClung advises teachers to communicate with each other and share what works for them and what does not work for them with other teachers, so that they are more productive in their own class.Realizing that not every student will meet the goals/standards that you set for them, does not make you nor them a failure. Our job as the teacher is to keep encouraging them to do better.

Mr.McClung's Blog on What I've Learned This Year was for the school year of 2011-2012(his 4th year of teaching). In this Blog Mr.McClung reflects on the previous three years blogs and has come to the conclusion that he did not learn as much as he thought he had this year. This fourth year he has come to care more about his reputation with his peers as oppose to previous years, where he cared what his students thought of him. It took Mr.McClung halfof the school year to stop worrying about what the other teachers thought of him, and instead he decided to stick to one rule and that rule was that the kids have fun, while at the same time learning.
Facing his third year teaching the same material Mr.McClung found himself becoming too routine and predictable and slowly started feeling his creativity diminishing. Lucky for Mr.McClung he had the opportunity to teach a new subject this up coming year. With this new subject well on its way, he has new found inspiration when creating the lesson plans for his new subject. The most valuable lesson he learned this school year was that, when you get to comfortable and too in the routine of things, that's when teachers become lazy and less creative.

What I took away from reading both of Mr.McClung's blogs is that teachers are what motivates the students, having fun lesson plans are a great way to engage students into learning while at the same time having fun, and also I learned that as a teacher routine equals lazy.I do not want to become a routine teacher.

PLN Progress Report

Dear Reader,

I am still brainstorming Ideas for my PLN Project. A few ideas has come to mind but while I am still in the weeding out phase of my project,I can guarantee that it will be a great project. I will come back and edit this post when I have narrowed my topics down to just two.

Blog Assignment #8

In watching Richard Millers' video This Is How We Dream Part 1 and 2 Mr. Miller talks about his beliefs, in how much technology has changed over the years. He talks about how he was able to do a whole research paper without having to step foot in a library. I agree with the fact that he believes that we are living in the greatest times of communication as we know it. We have crossed many stepping stones and have gone above and beyond what scholars could have imaged decades ago. Being able to communicate instantly and globally has taken communication to all sorts of unimaginable heights.
I,like Mr.Miller grew up in a house filled with books but unlike Mr. Miller I never really sought out a career dealing specifically with books. Mr. Miller spoke of two different changes in technology, which were incremental changes and fundamental changes. Incremental changes may include colaboration using technology from the web such as print documents, and or visual images on the web, which lives on through the web even after you take it out from your document, the document is now freely available to everyone who searches for it.
My response to watching these two videos is not only amazement, but also fear. It is amazing how much information you can share with people in different countries, with just the click of a mouse. What is fearful to me is that people would loose the enthusiasm to go out and find things on their own. People would become lazy and not ever try to find information for themselves but instead rely on the internet for answers.
The one thing that I know is that change is inevitable, so I would prefer to join this technological movement rather than to get left behind. I am very much interested in learning all that I can to improve education and teaching in the classroom.

In Carly Pughs' Blog post 12 Carly speaks of how she had gotten behind on some assignments and since she was seemingly bored decided to catch up on her work and even go above and beyond what was asked of her. Carly took it upon herself to think outside of the box and like Mr.Miller she decided to use Incremental changes in technology to create something fundamental. By making a playlist of teacher videos, Carly was able to put all the videos she needed together and create a great look into what kind of teacher she would hope to become, all without having to step foot outside of her house.

After watching the two assigned videos on EDM310 Is Different page, I found that the type of creativity that I would most enjoy doing or enjoy being a part of creating would be to do a video on time management and organization. I would maybe, be in an hoarding type of setting, which would display how unorganized and messy things can get, if we never learned to manage time or organizational skills. Learn to Change,Change to Learn was a very interesting video. It brought up a lot of facts that kids of this technological era are currently in and going through. With this new technology students will be able to learn more while at the same time enjoying the tools that are allowing them to do so. It is foolish to apply standardized testing to make things better, when in fact, society today does not live by this approach. There is no more sensibility in standardized testing. We should be moving away from standardized test which causes students to memorize facts that they will never use outside of the classroom. Instead we should be preparing students for what is beyond the classroom, teach them how to go out and find and use the information that find, in an everyday type of setting. This video was very well put together and I agreed with everyone in the video.

For our Scavenger Hunt, three of the five tools listed were: Community tools, Presentation tools, Mobile tools, related links and video tools. Under Community tools, I found Classroom 2.0 which is a network for teachers to share and collaborate.This sight is perfect for new teachers, and it serves as a support group as well as an informative website to gather useful tips for teaching. The tool that was most likely used for this project was the presentation tool(prezi). The pricing for teachers using Prezi, I think is unbelievable. Teachers are able to do so much, for so little. They have the option to be billed monthly on either package deal for just enjoyment purposes which is priced at $4.92 a month or $59.00 a month, or they could enjoy the Pro package that has wonderful features such as using your own logo, premium support and using prezi on your own desktop for either $13.25 a week or $159 a month. Either package you choose using prezi period, is a great way to add some creativity to your teaching skills in your classroom. My comic that I created looks like this:

The video tool that I would most likely use in the future would be ANIMOTO, because its features are more of my liking. I love making slideshows, and just grouping pictures together in a organizational format. Animoto also is able to include music in the slideshow, which is something I don't yet know how to do, but am willing to learn how to. I believe I would be able to use this tool in my classroom, in that I could have my students draw there own comic books, and make caption bubbles for their comics, and we could put them together using this slideshow, and do voice overs for the students visual story books that they have created.
Polleverywhere.com Is the tool that I used to create this poll which asks the question "Do you believe in love at first sight?"

C4T#2

Mrs.Millers' blog post titled The HSC Arrives, talks about how fast a students senior year moves for them, and raises the question how prepared are they to begin their college years? Mrs. Miller brings up the fact that 30% of freshmen college students will either drop out or change their college courses to another degree all together. Mrs.Miller knows that their are many factors that goes into deciding on whether to go to college or not, such as maybe their families aren't supportive, they may not have enough money to go to college, or they may have to work and go to school, and just choose work over school because they need the money now. And after reading her wonderful post, the comment I left was, "This post brought back so many memories from my senior year in high school. All of the note taking, and essays, and tests can get to be a bit overwhelming, and calling it a train ride, is the nice way of putting it.The questions you have raised are questions that I often find myself asking even now, and I am in my Junior year at the Univ. of South Ala. I think there should be a class that seniors take in high school, that will better prepare them for their college years. I know I wish I would have someone to tell me the things I had to figure out on my own. This was a very good read!"

Adobe Education Leaders Summit is the title of Mrs.Millers Blog Post. This post is a summary of Mrs.Millers thoughts on the Adobe Summit that she attended for the past three days. Mrs. Miller has gathered tons of new information, networked with new people, and also shared a bit of the information that she knows with fellow co-workers. At the Summit Mrs.Miller had the opportunity to see new software that has not yet been released, which gave her plenty of time to plan how she could use the software in her curriculum. While there Mrs. Miller had a chance to meet some very dedicated teachers who taught in remote rural schools to at risk students, which inspired her to keep doing what she is doing in her classroom because it does make a difference. Mrs. Miller believes that it doesn't matter what the tool is that you teach students with, but rather does the tool aid the learning. At the end of the summit Mrs. Miller stated that we need these four C's to have better schools which produce better students: 1)Creativity 2)Connections 3)Collaborate 4)Communication. With these four C's schools are destined for success. Mrs. Miller now feels as if she has the perfect tools to help her grow as a teacher, and to help her better teach her students.

Blog Post #7

The Networked Student
I think that network students need a teacher because who else would be better able to help guide the students through their learning process. Teachers will be able to help them learn the difference between useless un-information sentences, and information that is most important and relevant. Having a teacher there to answer questions and give resources to backup the information that she shares with them will also be beneficial to the students. Teacher are still needed because students will need help organizing materials into categories, and tracks as to not get behind on certain topics or skip other topics all together. This video gave interesting details as to what a network student is. There is only one negative that I see with this and that is, that If students post what they have learned like the guy in this video said he did. Then I am afraid that it will make some students lazy. I mean they might think well all I have to do is go and check out what someone else posted and copy and paste it as my own, and then that student would never have found out or researched on their own. Making new connections and contacts is a great way to get even more information then the information that you yourself find or even important information that you may have missed. Although I don't believe I am prepared to be a Network Student's teacher as of yet, I will however do all I can to become one.

7th Graders Personal Learning Environment(PLE)
The distinction, as I understand it, is that the PLN focuses on sources used to learn or look up information. PLE Is a self gratifying and helps me become more knowledgeable of the subject matters that I cover. I am much more happier that I am learning about subjects and topics the way that I want to, by using sources that I like and not Sources that I have been told I have to use. (blogs, wikis, webpages, forums, broadcasts etc…). My PLE focuses on the learning that I am doing over the length of my learning journey both in and out of school.

C4T Assignment

Henrietta Miller was the teacher that I was assigned to. In her post titled ACEC2010 to ACEC2012 (Australian Computers Education Conference) Mrs. Miller talks about how she heard of this conference via Twitter, and she then talked to her fellow co-workers and principal about raising money for her to go to the conference. While attending the conference Mrs. Miller had the opportunity to hear from great Australian educators such as Adrian Bruce and Steve Collis. What Mrs.Miller brought back with her from attending the conference was inspirational, Inspiration to be a better teacher then the year before. She wanted to continue growing as a teacher and finding new and improved ways of teaching. While at dinner one night with fellow educators and the conference, Mrs. Miller discussed using PLN and other technologies in her class to improve her students creativity in learning. Mrs.Miller was asked by one of the speakers at the conference to get up on stage and share the many things that she has learned with fellow educators and she accepted. Mrs. Miller was nervous at first and then realized that there were so many teachers new to such technologies just like her, and she thought if they could do it, so could she.

This week while returning to Mrs. Millers' blog "Classroom Chronicles" The latest post on her page was titled Reflections from ACEC2012.Mrs.Miller talks about the things that she will walk away from the conference. Mrs.Miller learned that the Alice Program was created with girls in mind. Alice purpose was to inspire girls to learn more about programming. According to Mrs.Miller the Alice program is challenging and well worth exploring, and I for one, plan to look more into the Alice program for myself. Students of today are learning in more efficient ways then those of earlier generations. Being able to communicate and share your ideas and stories with people from around the world is a very powerful tool in education. Global communication allows students to be more sociable without even leaving the classroom.

Project #8 Podcast

Project 9b Time Toast

Blog Assignment #6

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
When Randy spoke of "The Last Lecture", I was immediately drawn in to listen to more about this video. What really grasped my attention in the beginning of this video was when Randy said, "If you had one lecture to give,what would it be?".This mainly caught my ear because we as people think that we're going to live forever. I know that I rarely think about "the last" anything, other then the last piece of food,So to go in front of a crowd and tell a room full of strangers about his Illness was very brave of him.

Randy also said something that I live by which was,"We can not change the cards that we are dealt,just how we play the hand". This is so true, we do not have to accept things as they are because society or someone says it has to be a certain way. People have the power to do anything they desire to do, and the key to that power is knowledge.

Working with real people and in an actual environment is the best way to learn and see what works and what doesn't. Just because we do what is expected of us does not mean we have to stop there. We can set the bar higher and higher, reaching new goals and having new objective.If we go into things with one goal that is all we will accomplish. What Randy is simply saying is keep setting the bar higher and not to settle for good enough.
Randy's view on the subject of education is that it should be hands on. He liked using "EDUTAINMENT" (video technology)as he called it, to teach people new things. I believe also in Hands on learning, just as Randy does. Books can only teach you so much. It is much better to get some real life experiences rather than to read it in a book. Randy said, "The best gift an Educator can give is to get someone to be self-reflective". I 100% agree with him on this statement, because how else can one grow without learning from their past? Sometimes you have to look back to move forward.

"The best way to teach someone something, is to have them think they are learning something else." This quote is one that I will share with my fellow teachers, just as a means of motivating them to come up with creative ways of teaching a particular subject. Being able to have a scale that shows how much you've grown in a particular subject, over the course of a class, is a great way to motivate students to do better. Randy has taught and proven to the world that, It is possible to learn something hard, while at the same time having fun doing it. In short it takes dreaming to become successful.

Blog Assignment #5

The iSchool Initiative
Does technology belong in our classroom? Is a question that many people have trouble answering. This video talks about the benefits of having technology in the classroom and how it can help students process and retain information given to them, By using a tool called the ischool. The ischool will be built on Apples popular itouch platform. With this transformation schools will be able to have a paperless classroom. This is very good for the most part because we will be able to save a lot of trees, and at the same time save money from not having to buy new copying machined or replacing old ones. The ischool touch pads have apps on every subject, making it easy to use and clear to understand for students. Parents and students alike, will be able to email teachers for assignments and due dates.

Travis touched base on how the ischool could help schools today and then he talks about how it will transform education in the schools of tomorrow.For the most part, I can agree with Travis. According to Travis teachers from schools of tomorrow will be able to track assignments, tests, grades, attendance,lunch menus, and interactive school agendas, all by using apps from the iSchool touch pad. Teachers will have instant contact to their classroom, anytime and anywhere in the palm of their hand. Because of this technology student and teacher accountability will be possible for the first time in history. Parents will be able to monitor their child's progress from any phone or computer. To protect students privacy the iSchool will be lockable to the schools and personalized for students. Students will only be able to visit websites that have to do education, and how it relates to their homework. Having the iSchool in schools, will ultimately save money for every one, at least $600 a student. The price of iSchool for one student is about $150. You do the math. This is the link (ZeitgeistYoungMind's Entry ) to the video that Travis made to get more people into the idea of using technology in the classroom. In His first video Travis was only 17 years old, and now he is 21 years old and on the same mission to get schools to adopt his vision, to get people to thrive in this digital world that new students are being born into.

Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir ( Teaching in the 21st Century) Wow,is the only thing that I can say about this video. Just to be able to put something like this together on the internet with people you've never met before, is amazing.In this video clearly timing is everything. With the internet and technology,anything is possible to accomplish no matter how far away people are from one another. I'm curious to know how other people felt about this video.

In this youtube video Why I flipped My Classroom by Katie Gimbar, Katie talks about what caused her to flip her classroom. This is Katie's fifth year teaching Math, and she has become overwhelmed and frustrated at the reality that she could literally see which of her students were getting the information and which ones were not. Katie felt like she was only teaching to the group of students who could follow along as she went through the materials. While other students were either more advanced and were ready to move on to new information, or really didn't understand the information being given. This lead to 90% of class time being spent on delivery and review of content. Katie felt like she wasn't meeting all of her students needs because of her constant battle for more time to go over information in the classroom. In other words she couldn't reach the needs of all of her students within the class time allowed. So that meant that it was up to students to pick up on what they couldn't catch on to in school, at home.Katie felt like she had to make a drastic change in her teaching methods, which lead her to adopt the idea of flipping her classroom. Now students are able to pre-load classroom content before they get to class, and can now pause, rewind, and watch the videos as often as they'd like. If they have any questions about the materials they covered in class,students are able to post questions to their teacher, or fellow classmates via the internet.

Dr.Lodge McCammon's felt like it was too much lecture in the classroom, which is insufficient and not engaging and a one shot deal. Dr.Lodge took his findings and created an project called FIZZ. FIZZ trains teachers to flip the classroom. That way students can watch fizz video lecture series,created by their teachers outside of the classroom. It is a sufficient way of delivering information to the students, where they can view it as many times as they need, while at the same time creating more classroom time, which gives teachers more time to come up with differential ways of teaching. To be honest I loved both of these videos. They both touched on some good points such as learning habits, and what works and what doesn't work. I would love to learn more about FIZZ and apply it to my classroom, because not every child learns the same. What works for one child may not work for the other, and it is our job as teachers to find out what works best for each student. I truly believe in NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND. My major concern to all of this technology is what about the lower income families who may not abe able to afford the internet at home. Would their child still end up being left behind, due to their parents income level?

This Is My Sentence

C4K Summary post for September

Mrs.Corzet 4th Grade Class Students wrote various blogs about What they have learned in school that day. Students are told there is no right or wrong way to write what they have learned. The kids that I were assigned wrote about everything from Christmas gifts they made for their family,foods that their pets eat, and one student even posted Riddles.One of which even puzzled my mind. I am still waiting to hear back from my C4K kid about the answer to one riddle that he posted which was,There once was a man and he had 53 bicycles.He died. How did he die? I just can't figure it out the riddle.I've found that teachers Class blogs are for the parents as well as the students. For example if there are PTA meetings coming up, or school board meetings that the parent could attend they would be able to follow up on them. Parents are able to see and know what their child is learning in school without the hassel of driving up to the school. In short kids blogs are a great attribute to have in the classroom, it is both beneficial to the student and the parent.

Pt England School in Auckland, N.Z. Is the name of the school that I was assigned to for my C4K Post. My students name is Ata F. and she is in Mr.Marks Class 15, with students aging between 8 and 9 years old. Ata F, post read as follows: "Yea I said to myself we are going to be doing paralympics man I wander want it would feel like to become one of them so off we went to the count to try it out as we started we all went to go and grab a ribbon and put one hand in and the other hand out as we ran it felt strange because the ribbon was slowing us down."
The comment that I left Ata was,"I am happy to see that you have found something to be so excited about. I'm glad to know that you and your fellow classmates had the opportunity to see how it feels to be handicap. So I hope you've learned that being disabled can really slow a person down, but the key is to keep going and not to quit. I would however suggest that you proof read your sentences and take breaks in between sentences by putting periods at the ends of each one."

Blog Assignment #4

Out of the seven sources that were given, I found three sources that most interests me to blog about. The first source was Listening-Comprehension-Podcasting
On this web-page I found podcasting to be an especially great tool for teachers teaching Language Arts.Podcasting allows students to hear and see their own voices, which enables them to correct their pronunciation of a word(s).Using podcast in the classroom helps students learn new words and ultimately expand their vocabulary. Not only does the sound of a word account for a child understanding the word but also the words that come before and after the new "learned" word helps the students understand its meaning.I also learned that when learning a word, it helps if students attach a feeling to that word so that they can use that word in future sentences and clearly understand its meaning.One helpful way to help students with their vocabulary is to have them practice saying a word and also hearing their words. The Next source that caught my attention was the Podcasting with First Grade blog.
This source was mostly about encouraging teachers to use Podcasts with their younger elementary students.I loved the teachers Idea of Starting a Story Book reading and allowing her students to do an interview on the two main characters in the story using podcast. The students learned how to edit their voices if they recorded something they did not like, and also how to add sounds like onomatopoeia's to their story book. Because of podcasting students can now look at reading as something fun and enjoyable to do at school rather than something boring. The last source that I looked at was The Benefits of Podcasting In a Classroom. I like how people who were born after the 1980's are categorized as Millenials. These group of people have never experienced the world without technology. Some benefits that I found for using podcast in the classroom were that it allows differentiation in the classroom, recording lectures, and listen to them as a review, or make it more student centered by taking a project based learning approach(letting students write scripts and act out the parts. Podcasting in the classroom promotes creativity and innovation,and what is even better is that it allows parents to see and hear what their children are doing at school. As a future teacher I will for sure, use podcasting in my Language Arts area of learning to better enhance Blooms Taxonomy, and I will do this by assigning my students a book to read and having them do an interview on the main character(s).

C4T Summary Post #1

Greta Sandler (About A Teacher) was the name of the teacher and Blog that I was assigned to and her blog was titled Finding My Voice. In her blog she discussed her love for writing and poetry, and how she has gotten away from it, because every time she tries to write she would get writers block. It wasn't until a teacher and close friend of hers, came to her and asked her to write an Aha Moment blog on her blog site. So with no hesitation Mrs.Sandler agreed to do it. Never mind the fact that she gets writer's block, Mrs. Sandler still managed to write the blog and it was her best one yet. And in doing so she was able to find her way back to writing and even used it in her classrooms. Mrs. Sandler now says that her classroom extends beyound their four walls and now stretches out over the whole world. Thanks to her blogging she is able to share her classroom adventures with other teachers and get feedback as well. I left a comment on her Blog post saying that even After this class is over I intend to check her blogs on the regular not because it is required of me, but because I actually like reading her blogs.

Kids Motivating Other Kids Blog Is a great Blog that Mrs.Sandler has created so that her previous years students could come back and leave posts or comments for her new students to read that suggest helpful tips for writing. I love how she embeds links to previous blogs that she discuss, so that when someone new visits her blog,they can have a Root to what it is she is discussing. When she opened the doors for students to motivate other students, she was over joyed with their responses. Students blogged back and forth with each other sharing great ideas and stories to blog about.What really stood out to me was how excited and amazed the kids were to hear from other students in different countries. I can't wait for my future class to be able to experience the joys of blogging like Mrs.Sandler's class.

Project #5 Google Presentation

Blog Assignment #3

What is Peer Editing?
While watching this youtube video, the most valuable thing that stood out to me most was to Start the comment you leave on a blog, off with a compliment. To me that says a whole lot, Because not only are you acknowledging the fact that they did have some good points, but it lets the person know that you are not coming at them with a negative outlook, but rather a positive one. The next thing that really stood out to me was that you have to take into consideration how would you feel if you were the person being corrected and all you heard back from the reader was the negative comments? I am sure you would feel that your Blog was less then ok.

Peer Editing Tutorial
In this Tutorial on editing with perfection, I've learned that Editing is nothing more than making useful helpful suggestions to better improve ones work, and not at all meant to make the person feel any type of negativity about the work that they have produced. Using great word choices,giving good detailed descriptions of what you are talking about, and also keeping your blog post well organized are great suggestions for having a good blog.It not only makes it easy for the reader to comprehend, but it also makes the blog flow more consistently.

Technology In Special Education
After watching this video I feel like Technology has affected the way Special Education is taught in that,special needs students who could only read and follow a story was if a teacher was there to read the story out loud to them. Now days with the help of technology, students are able to follow along at their on pace on individual headsets that plays the stories for them. Technology has made it easier for students and teachers to communicate better with each other,whereas before teachers had a difficult time understanding their students and students expressing their thoughts to teachers.

With the help of technology Special needs students are able to do classroom assignments and keep up with the teachers instructions and also participate more actively. Students are now being able to build relationships and make connections that without the use of technology would have otherwise been very difficult to express. Students who had trouble reading book text before are not eager to use laptops because it magnifies the small print for them, making reading a breeze for them. Students who had trouble holding a pen or pencil before are now able to type what it is they are trying to relay to the teacher.

I can use technology in my future classroom by letting the students use e-readers to follow along with books that are in the curriculum. I could also use the smartboard to quiz students on topics from subjects we go over in class. Students would be able to come up to the smartboard and touch the correct response, and any student that can not physically come up to the board will use the clicker.


How the iPad Works with Academics for Autism
For my future special needs students I would use both applications for learning to read and also learning to write, since they both go hand in hand. I found a very useful App for writing called "Kids Writing Pad" It helps students with their motor skills while at the same time having fun doing so. Another app that I found to be very useful and fun for learning how to read is called "How Rocket Learned to Read". Using fun apps in the classroom is a great way to get and keep students attention, helping them to learn more and actually use what they are learning in everyday life. These apps would greatly improve a students will to learn and even perhaps make them want to come to school everyday, because they will begin to understand that learning is and can be very fun.

Vicki Davis: Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts
Right from the start of Mrs.Davis video, when she talks about her accomplishments you can just tell that she loves her job and is very passionate about it. Winning teacher Blog of the World is a very Big Title to hold, and I am quite sure that she spent a lot of time working on her blog. The statement that she made when she said that "children have trouble when you have only paper, only pencil, then only certain types of students are going to succeed." I can really agree with this statement because not every child learns the same way, so being able to produce different ways of learning and also making them more interesting would ultimately open doors that would have otherwise been left shut.

Creating ways for students to think on their own is a great way to help students become independent and self-reliant. A great example that Mrs.Davis uses is that she may use new terminology which enhances the students vocabulary and knowledge. Mrs. Davis motivates and encourages her students to be thinkers, and not to just sit around and wait for the answers to hit them, but to actually go out and find the answers for themselves. Being able to travel to another country through a Blog that Students and teachers administer together and outsource with peers from another country,is a great motivation for me to use Blogging in my future classroom.

Blog Assignment 2

Did You Know 3.0,
This was a great short informative video on many interesting facts. The numbers were higher then I thought they would be, as to how many and how much technology has effected day to day living as opposed to decades ago before such technology existed. The fact that stood out most to me was when the video said India had more honors kids,then America has kids.

Another interesting fact that really surprised me and also has crossed my mind a time or two, was when the video asked, "What did we use to find the answers to our questions B.G.?" (before google).I honestly don't remember using google when I was in school and that was less then six years ago. After watching this very informative video,I think it is only right that I share it with my fellow friends on Facebook and Twitter.

In this video Mr. Winkles Wakes I Could only imagine what was going on in Mr.Winkles head."How long have I been sleep?" would have been the first thing in my mind.How scared he must have been,living in a place you once called home, and is now like a foreign country to you. It's like a deaf person suddenly being able to hear. What is normal to all is strange only to you. What a scary thing it must have been.

Mr.Winkle must learn to adapt or get left behind. Technology is here to stay. We must adapt or suffer the consiquiences of not knowing how to use technology. It is forever changing and growing and improving. It is our job to educate ourselves. If we keep putting off learning more about technology, then one day we will wake up just like Mr.Winkle in a world we can't function in.


Sir Ken Robinson: The Importance of Creativity
Mr.Robinson has a way of catching his audience attention by giving funny examples and real life situations, you can tell he knows what he is talking about is real,something he's found out first hand and not read in a book. Mr.Robinson raised a good point on the unpredictability of what the world would be like 30 or 40 yrs from now.We are preparing kids for a future we aren't sure of. This point right here really raised my eyebrow.

"If you're not prepared to be wrong,you will never come up with anything original" this quote really stood out to me. I am an artist I love art,and I had an art teacher my freshmen year of college and he told me to "Let your mistakes work for you". So to hear Mr.Robinson say this really hit home for me,because I knew exactly what he meant. From my mistakes in my art I've created wonderful artwork. Education and creativity goes hand in hand.If you take the time to get to know your student you will be able to find out what path you need to take to stimulate the mind of that student.

A Day Made of Glass Was an excellent video on how fast technology is growing and how kids are able to keep up and also get involved in new technology. Teachers, Parents, doctors, as well as kids would be using technology in all types of different ways. Touch screen is becoming more and more used not only for cell phones and tablets, but also for televisions. The world of technology is for every changing and changing perhaps even faster then we can keep up. Having glass schools and hospitals and such could be a good or bad thing in the future. I am sure people would love to have a little privacy, I feel as though in the beginning everything would seem all great because it is different and unlike anything we have ever seen, But the draw back would be that people could loose their sense of security and privacy. I know I for sure would love to have concrete walls, and just be closed off from the world because sometimes I feel a little to "in touch" with the world and just want to disconnect from everything.

Summary Post C4T #1

Greta Sandler (About A Teacher) was the name of the teacher and Blog that I was assigned to and her blog was titled Finding My Voice. In her blog she discussed her love for writing and poetry, and how she has gotten away from it, because every time she tries to write she would get writers block. It wasn't until a teacher and close friend of hers, came to her and asked her to write an Aha Moment blog on her blog site. So with no hesitation Mrs.Sandler agreed to do it. Never mind the fact that she gets writer's block, Mrs. Sandler still managed to write the blog and it was her best one yet. And in doing so she was able to find her way back to writing and even used it in her classrooms. Mrs. Sandler now says that her classroom extends beyound their four walls and now stretches out over the whole world. Thanks to her blogging she is able to share her classroom adventures with other teachers and get feedback as well. I left a comment on her Blog post saying that even After this class is over I intend to check her blogs on the regular not because it is required of me, but because I actually like reading her blogs.

Kids Motivating Other Kids Blog Is a great Blog that Mrs.Sandler has created so that her previous years students could come back and leave posts or comments for her new students to read that suggest helpful tips for writing. I love how she embeds links to previous blogs that she discuss, so that when someone new visits her blog,they can have a Root to what it is she is discussing. When she opened the doors for students to motivate other students, she was over joyed with their responses. Students blogged back and forth with each other sharing great ideas and stories to blog about.What really stood out to me was how excited and amazed the kids were to hear from other students in different countries. I can't wait for my future class to be able to experience the joys of blogging like Mrs.Sandler's class.

Blog Assignment #2 wordle

Blog Assignment 1

Hi my name is Ashley Franklin and I am currently attending the Univ.of South Alabama,to continue with my K-6 Education degree with a minor in Graphic Design,when I finish I plan on coming back for a degree in Business.I plan to open a poetry/jazz cafe somewhere off of Dauphin St. within the next 5 to 6 years.I am 25 yrs old, single, and childless.I am an loving and caring person.The things I do for fun or in my spare time include painting and drawing and going to the purple cafe on Thursday nights to here local poets speak and I also love to play pool.I've sold four paintings on ebay last year and am currently working on more.I am a very down to earth person,I feel like if I have it to give then its yours and if I don't I typically would try to come up with it to get it to you,but if I cant then at least I tried to help you. Basically I am an open book if there is anything else that you would like to ask me feel free to contact me. THANK YOU!
Randy Pausch On Time Management
Randy believed that Americans did not manage their time well.Randy asked questions that makes the readers question and become more aware of their time management issues. He gave suggestions on how to better manage your time, while at the same time insisting that time is valuable and you can not get it back.There are no Short cuts to time management, you either manage your time or you don't. I loved Randy's to do list idea, and even though I didn't know much about him before this assignment, I plan to follow up and learn more about him.

OPTIONAL After visiting the additional website that gave tips on how to manage time,I took from it that I should make realistic goals, and also allow for things that may affect or hinder my goals. Another helpful tip was studying in short sessions, and planning for the unplanned. I plan to use this in day to day life and not only in the classroom.