Project #11 Short Movie

Blog Post #8

This Is How We Dream

This video is created by Doctor Robert Miller. It shows video and pictures in the background with text in a movie format. This video described how writing has changed. It has went from paper/pencil and going to libraries to using your laptop for everything.  He says how he created some projects without ever stepping foot in a library. He describes how an article goes on in print but once online it lives on forever. Unlike in the library once you check it out to read there is still copies available for the next person to read.

Ideas are there and they do not belong to us individually. Ideas belong to us in a culture. As teachers our job is to share ideas freely with everyone. One thing we must do is provide this information in a captivitng way. A way that grabs our attention and we learn without realizing w
e are learning. He goes to say that. "restrictions are largely ones that we out on ourselves."  He tells us that in a print model something such as the ideas in this video would have taken years to reach as many people as this video did being uploaded to the Internet in just the months.

This video at first was hard to grasp what he was saying. I had to watch it two more times to fully grasp it. I believe that the end idea here is to provide information that we are teaching as interesting as possible. Its' idea is that everything is out there but it is up to us to make it interesting and able to grasp the minds of who we are teaching. I believe the way he presented his information is an amazing idea. To create videos that teach the lesson with fun pictures or videos and then adding text so you know the key points is a wonderful tool. The students can go back in this information time and time again. I believe in my classroom I will spend time to create these videos but upload them to a class website. I feel like I might use them from time to time in the classroom but overall I use these as a form of review. I am very strict on allowing my daughter to watch television. I have relaxed some but my main beliefs stay the same.  I feel like the best way to teach is hands on first and then do other forms. I feel like if I help them create something will teaching something it will stick more and they will not even realize they are learning something they will later be tested on.

Blog Post 12 Carly Pugh

This blog post is by a fellow student at South named Carly Pugh. In this blog she describes an assignment given to her by Dr. Strange. She is to creat a playlist of YouTube videos that lists all of these characteristics given to her by Dr. Strange. In this blog post are several videos that you must click on to understand what she is talking about. My favorite is the one about creativity. I feel as a teacher it is our job to nurture creativity and make it flourish in our students. I feel that the children that harvest this trait that still hold this true when they become adults go farther in life then those that did not. I think it is so beneficial and can help you in so many ways throughout life. She points out how important it is to get these kids to think. I think that most of these kids nowadays do not have to think. They are told what to write and what to do. When they are given something where they are free to create they are lost. I feel that she made many interesting points. She did upload one video directly so that you didn't have to click a link. It is six questions that shows what little I got from Dr. Miller. It shows a video that has pictures with a dialog. This is the only point that I got from "This Is How We Dream" videos is that things we need to say need to come in a brilliant way that gets the audience's attention and keeps it. I think this little video is fabulous and does exactly what Dr. Miller would want.  

I really liked her blog post. I feel like we agree on so many levels. I feel like it takes so much to captivite the minds of young ones. I want to allow the kids to do so much creatively. I want pictures to be drawn as well as words to be written. I want them to do projects mainly with paper and cardboard but I am opening up to the idea of doing things online. The only issue I still run across is how are these kids going to be able to do it? I did my field experience at Fonde Elementary and there was only four computers in the classroom. Also with low income families I am sure I am going to run across one or two students that will have no way to get to the Internet at all. I love the idea of allowing them to do some of these projects but expenses stand in our way.

The Chipper Series and EDM310 For Dummies

These are two videos created by students in EDM310. This is the class that I am currently in and the whole reason behind me doing a blog. The first video is about a girl named Chipper. She is on a quest basically to get by in life doing the bare minimum. It is about a girl that goes to her professor Dr. Strange and tells him in updates about what is going on in her life. She starts out by saying she got an email saying she hasn't done her work. She says that since in the future she sees her work done and since the future is the present then her work is done. Dr. Strange sticks by his thoughts that her work is not done. She leaves and comes back and says she going to redefine procrastination to "work can be turned in late". Dr. Strange does not agree with this but she leaves and comes back on a different day. She comes back and tells Dr. Strange that he is not doing his job. He is not "teaching" her. She says her parents spend thousands of dollars in tuition and he should do his job. She wants to be taught so she doesn't have to learn. She says if he doesn't change his ways she is going to drop out and she does. She then decides she is going to make her own pilot school where they can come to stimulation and class when ever they chose and for however long they chose. They then get their degree. Well the FAA shuts her down since they never set foot in an airplane. So she decided she going to go teach and Dr. Strange helps her get a job. Well she gets fired since she didn't step foot inside the classroom since she just had too much going on in life. She then decides to be a waitress, then a nanny, and a garbage collector. She gets fired from the first job, didn't get hired in the second job, and in the third she had a coming of heart. She decides to change her ways and go back to school. The second video is a short commercial demonstrating what you need to pass EDM310. It asks you questions like "Does EDM310 have you down? Are you going crazy?". It then offers the solution to your problems EDM310 for dummies.

I enjoyed seeing what other students have created in EDM310. I really don't have many creative ideas when it comes to technology. The only thing video wise that I see myself creating is video of me teaching or going over a lesson so that my students can have it when they are sick. I just do not know if once I am in the classroom I will be able to do all that I want in my spare time. I have a daughter who is 20 months old and she comes number one in my life. I do not want her to suffer just because I am spending so much of my free time doing extra activities for my classroom. She has a speech delay and there are certain things that we need to do with her all the time. It is already hard enough doing the things she needs with a full course load and all things I need to do at home. I am going to be stretched even more thin when I start teaching.

Learn To Change, Change To learn

This is a video about how education should change as the environment it is in has changed.  One point is that children are having a more stimulating environment at home rather then at school. Kids are communicating through social networking, SMS, email, and many other technological devices and all of these devices are are banned in schools. "Every turned off device is potentially a turned off child." School is not the only place where these children are learning. They are emerged in education at home, the library, museums, and online. Schools major function should now be for social networking, joint projects, and a guide for learning. Right now it is a solo experience where as this could be turned into a community. We need the best quality teachers regardless of where the student is. The student can collect data wandering around the city using his or her cell phone regardless of being in a classroom. It is about opening doors for these students. They can see what NASA is doing and experience what people are doing in the labs at MIT. It is connecting them to opportunities that will change their education experiences and shape them for college and life itself.  All of this needs to start with the teacher. They need a place to swap ideas and a place that allows them to grow. One person spoke about standardize testing. He says that it is foolish to do have this type of testing. These children are not going to have jobs in the future that needs a vending machine answer.  Another person says that when no child left behind fades away that creativity will take its' place. These students will have work that is artistic, created of teamwork, applications, and needs them to be multicultural and multilingual. They need to be able to know how to find information and prove that it is correct. They need to be able to problem solve. The last speaker gives the quote "Death of education, dawn of learning".

I feel like everything in this video is correct. Education as a whole needs an uplift. Everything that is in the classroom is either outdated or the wrong method. I strongly dislike standardize testing maybe because I am an awful test taker. I was in honors chemistry in high school. I knew all of the material. I stayed before and after school tutoring other students but every time I took a test I would fail it. When it comes to most testing there is only one way to do something. If you don't do it exactly right you fail. My teacher knew I knew the material and I passed the class with an A mainly because she gave me bonus points for tutoring. It was just the way the tests were written. I feel like there is so much more then that one way of testing. I don't see why a project can not be considered a test. It meets multiple objectives and they experience real life situations. Yet for some reason we still go back to multiple choice questions. Even jobs give you questionnaires to fill out. I highly doubt that if you were in a real situation you would chose only one of four choices. No you would not because there are hundreds of factors that go into one situation.  Education needs to get with the times and throw out standardize testing. There are hundreds of different way you can measure a schools progress. Why do we stick with something that not everyone can excel at. My daughter has a delay and it worries me nonstop about whether or not she is still going to have by the time she starts public school. The fact that (what I've heard from another mother with a student in MCPSS) kindergarteners have to take E.Q.T.s is absurd. I heard that for them they are oral. Which frightens me because Leyna has a speech delay but she is smart in everything else. I don't feel like this is fair but is something I will deal with when the time comes. To get to the point I don't feel as though standardize testing is good for our students. Just because a piece of paper tells you that 85% of the kids passed doesn't mean anything. They all could of been really lucky and guessed right. They could memorize the answer but not be able to apply it. I will get off my soapbox now and go on to the next part of my blog.

scavenger hunt 2.0 Using Web 20.12

1.) Find a video tool.
  
 I chose PhotoPreach.com. It is a place were you can create slide shows with polls or quizzes added in. You can share, create, and embed your slideshows. They have it available for anyone but they also have it special for educators. In the educators premium you have many things that make it worthwhile. It is all ad free. As an educator you can create and manage the students access. The students do not need an email to sign up. you. Can download unlimited shows in burn able DVDs and mpeg for showing online. You have adjustable controls for privacy and the site helps protect against the students seeing improper images. You can organize projects with tags. Can publish publicly. You can add your own MP3s to personalize your slide shows. You have unlimited space for albums and photos. You can customize transitions between slides. For this program its cost is for one educator and fifty students is nine dollars a month and for one educator and around one hundred and fifty students it is twenty-five dollars a month.

2.) Find a community tool 


edmodo.com

This is a social networking device similar to Facebook. I only gather some bits and pieces of information from it since I don't want to fully set it up until I have my own classroom. In it you can post to your feed similar to Facebook except you click how you want it to read. Your choices are: note, alert, poll, quiz, or assignment. I feel like I can use this in my classroom to submit assignments online as well as in class take home folders. With it being online as well students that have missed class have a chance to see what it going on and can catch up before they come back. It makes it easier to keep due dates all the same. It will help me with organization as well and proof of what I have assigned where as a folder then can lose it. They cannot lose the Internet. I can see me using the poll feature to ask questions to see if everyone is understanding a lesson or to see if we need to go back over things. You can also add to something called the library. It has a place for google docs, files, and links. This is a great tool to keep interesting websites together to where the students can always look back and find them. From what I can tell the students can write posts to you. I think this would be great in keeping in touch with students after they leave my class and if they ever need help in the future they have a way to ask.

3. Create a poll.

Create interactive meetings at Poll Everywhere

Project #10a PLN

My journey to Personal Learning Network.

So far on my journey I am still in limbo. I am still trying to figure out the correct path to chose. I have made one decision and that is to use Symbaloo. I love the colorful blocks and how everything is together. I am still exploring this option. I am still trying to figure out how everything falls into place. I am struggling to find tools and people to include into my PLN. I feel like so far at my time at South that there is not a lot of teachers that I can back to and ask for guidance. Most of the teachers I have encountered at South have not even really been helpful while you were in the class. I have only encountered one fellow student in my degree area that I feel like I can go to throughout the rest of my life and bounce off ideas and seek guidance. I still have a lot of growing to do and I feel like by the end of this semester I will find more ideas and more people I can turn to. I have a lot to accomplish and discover in a very short amount of time.

Blog Post #7

The Network Student By: Wendy Drexler

This is a short five minute video on networking. It tells of a student learning American Psychology (you can use this with any subject.) where he has a mixed class of personal meetings and online. The main topic of this video is building your network. In one way it is to build on your PLN (Personal Learning Network). This student uses Google Scholar. He posts URLs and searches for others that have done the same. He looks for blogs that others have written on the same subject. He then takes all of his information that he has gathered and in turn makes his own blog. This student also love his MP3 player. He doesn't just listen to music on it. He downloads podcasts and videos from itunesU. ItunesU has lectures from actual professors. His teacher is there to help him build his network and guide him when he gets stuck. All of this work creates what is known as his network.

In all honesty this video makes very little sense to me. I understand it as a whole but to help me with building my own PLN it gives me nothing. I really feel like this blog out of all of the ones we have done is a waste. The only thing I feel like I got from it was learning about the itunesU which seems like a really cool idea. It is definitely something I will look into and even tell my grandfather about. He is really big on taking online courses he wishes he was able to take. I was highly disappointed in this assignment.

The idea of networking is in itself a good idea but it does seem like extra work. I don't feel like it is easy to find other blogs for instance. It may just be because I am not a master at Google or in all honesty if it isn't on the first ten pages of Google I usually give up looking. It all seems like a good idea, being able to find all this information on a topic and then writing a blog about what all you found and then in turn having someone else find it all. It seems rather helpful. I just really need to see the end product and then figure out the steps to get there. Networking is rather tricky topic.

7th Grader's PLN

This video gave me a lot of ideas. I realize I really need to look more into what a PLN can look like. I was more envisioning a list and to see all these colorful little blocks it really inspired me. I think judging from the video that she used a site that helped her create a PLN. I really need to discover more about what I need to include into my PLN. It was helpful to see how she used her PLN. It appeared to me that she uses this site that she created as a starting point to when she goes online. It seems that she goes here every day and uses this to stem off what she is going to do the rest of the time she is online. It is all in one spot so she doesn't have to search or type in an URL. I really liked her format and how she uses it. It gave me a lot of ideas.

Blog Post #6

Randy Pausch: The Last Lecture

This is a lecture given by Randy Pausch. A very optimistic fun loving guy that was listed as terminally ill given the fact that he has 11 tumors in his liver. His talk is based on a good number of ideas but I am going to focus on the lessons learned. To give a little back ground he showed the audience a list of his childhood dreams something that should be important to everyone and with that list he completed everything on it. I am going to mention the certain things that have stuck with him his whole life. The first of many is that when someone stops riding you and giving you criticism then that means they have given up on you. This is something you never want. It is a good thing when your teacher or coach pushes you. It means they care. "experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted." Brick walls are not there to keep you out, they are there to show you how badly you want something. Brick walls will rule out the people that don't want to work hard enough to get what they want. It shows that they didn't really want it to begin with. Make sure you enable the childhood dreams of others. A good thing to tell someone is, "Guys that was good but you can do better.'  They used video game type things to show useful skills to New York Firefighters. The goal you should have is to get your students to become self reflective and to be able to take your critiques and listen to them. "People are perceiving you this way. It is going to limit what you accomplish.' Never lose the childhood wonder. Help others.

I learned so many valuable things while watching this lecture. I discovered even more values and skills that I need to encourage my students to have. I love the quote about guys you can do better. I think that is a good standard to set. When you give a student free reign on a project and they come at you with something that just blows you mind then I think it is important to push them to achieve something even greater. He gave a lot of good advice. Something I need to take to heart is the listening to feedback but I also find myself in a place where I receive no feedback and I am lost. I think it is so important to give feedback so people know where they stand and what they need to do to become great. I also really like how his mentor told him people are viewing you this way and it is going to limit you. So many people go on living their lives unaware of how people see them. They are then in turn limited and they never know it. This inspires me to be more forward with people and more honest. Honesty was a big thing with Randy Pausch. He strongly suggested about karma and how it is going to get you in the place you deserve. I strongly believe in this. I feel that everything you do happens for a reason. Everything you do is going to have a consequence whether it is good or bad and you really need to be on the look out for it. I learned so much from this video. I strongly recommend you watch it and see what you take from it.

C4K February

Week 1 Emma

The first blog I was assigned to was by a little girl named Emma. She wrote about her love for animals. How she feels as though she cannot live without them. She is incomplete without them in her life. She has two dogs named Tildy and Finn. She also has what appears to be two ponies named Maggie and Annie. She is strongly passionate about her love for animals. She feels as though they are just like humans with emotions and personalities just like we have. She feels like every person and animal loves someone or something for some reason. She goes to describe what makes each animal special and why she loves each one.

I feel so close to Emma as I read this. I feel the exact same way to my animals. I feel as though they are human with many emotions. I have a Pit Bull mix named Marty, a tortishell long haired cat named Ava, and a Betta fish named Kevin. These are my babies my first born children. I feel as though they are my world and I already know that they are my daughter's world as well.

Week 2 Melissa

This blog is from a girl named Melissa who wrote about her APGovernment class. It is her first integrated online class. She talks about how terrified she was about taking a completely online course. She says she had so many things to download onto her computer but in the end all the programs but one were not difficult. She enjoyed her online class. The main thing she liked is that she feels she received more communication with people  then in a regular classroom setting.

I can relate to Melissa. I am terrified of my EDM310 class. There is so much technology that I need to become comfortable with. I jumped right in with my technology course at South. She states how her online course has been a positive experience where mine has not been. Every online course I have taken at South has been tough to say the least. There is little communication and everything is memorization to pass a test. I am glad Melissa was able to communicate with people outside of her school. I feel like she learned a lot.

Week 3 Brooklyn 

This blog is from a girl in Canada. She recently skyped to some students in New Orleans, La about a historical tradition called Mardi Gras. She described some things she learned about the parades. I in turn told her how Mobile intruduced New Orleans to Mardi Gras and how Mobile had the very first parade. I told her about what we throw in our parades.

Project 8 Podcast