This is my final reflection for EDM310. In this video, I share some of the things I learned, liked, desliked, wish I would have learned more about, and some of the things I will take with me in my future classroom. It's been a long ride, and I am FINALLY FINISHED! Hope you Enjoy! :)
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Final Report on PLN
Wow! I can not believe how many things I have added to my PLN since the last post. Before this class, I was just a google kinda girl. If it had to be looked up, I googled it. That was my #1 website. Now, with the help of my PLN, I not only have Google, but have things such as USA Online, the EDM310 Class Blog and blog of teachers that I have discovered through the C4T assignments. I have found many blogs through EDM, but have found some through Twitte, which I also never used until this class. I also have links for facebook, all 3 of my emails, and twitter. I had to include some crafting blogs because that is always a passion for me. I have a few online shopping sites because retail therapy is the best therapy. I have also included a YouTube link because I often find myself searching for a video of some sort, for learning purposes and entertainment, who doesn't love YouTube? What I like most about my PLN is how Symbaloo allows me to organize everything by color code and choose a really cute background. I am all about the *Girly* look. I have never hears of a Personal Learning Network before this class but definitely feel like this is something that I will continue to use.
Porject # 16 FINAL PROJECT
Hey guys! This is my groups final project. It has been fun this semester in EDM310. Good Luck to everyone as they follow their Educational Journey!
Group Members:
Abby Jordan
Kevin White
Alicia Robertson
Group Members:
Abby Jordan
Kevin White
Alicia Robertson
Monday, April 25, 2011
Special Metaphor Assignment Blog Post #14
For our last blog post, Dr. Strange decided to have us do a special assignment dealing with metaphors. Apparently, alot of our class did not realize Tom Johnsons Don't Let Them Take the Pencils Home was in fact a metaphor. Since so many classmates, including myslef, did not catch on, Dr. Strange wanted us to go back and look at this article again and answer a few questions.
Here are the questionsalong with my answers....
1. Why did you miss the metaphor in Tom Johnson's post, or, if you "hit the nail on the head", why do you think you understood the metaphor and why do you think that others in the class missed the metaphor?
Well, for me, I just think I took the post to literally. I thought he really was talking about pencils. I am not one to catch on to things like 'metaphors' that easily. Now that I have went back and reread this replacing pencils with computers, it makes perfect sense!
2. What metaphors have you encountered since I asked you to create a log of them?
My list is so long now that I have actually had to think about and record them.
~all that glitters is not gold
~the apple does not fall far from the tree
~back to the bump and grind
~to touch base
~the better half
~as big as a house
~at the crack of dawn
~toot my own horn
~get my foot in the door
~the golden child
~hit the jackpot
~make a mountain out of a molehill
~nip it in the bud
These are just to name a few that I caught. I never realized how often I use or hear metaphors in every day language!
3. What other things can we do as educators to help our students to understand and to use metaphors?
Point out metaphors as you read to your children. With practice, they will begin to identify them. Encourage your children to use metaphors as they write. Point out the ones they use naturally and call them metaphors by name.
4. Why do we use metaphors?
I think people use metaphors first off out of pure habit. It is what we are used to rather we know it or not. Metaphors "dress up" our sentences and give a whole new spin to our thoughts. Good metaphors also expand our ways of thinking about things, and in so doing suggest new ideas.
Here are the questionsalong with my answers....
1. Why did you miss the metaphor in Tom Johnson's post, or, if you "hit the nail on the head", why do you think you understood the metaphor and why do you think that others in the class missed the metaphor?
Well, for me, I just think I took the post to literally. I thought he really was talking about pencils. I am not one to catch on to things like 'metaphors' that easily. Now that I have went back and reread this replacing pencils with computers, it makes perfect sense!
2. What metaphors have you encountered since I asked you to create a log of them?
My list is so long now that I have actually had to think about and record them.
~all that glitters is not gold
~the apple does not fall far from the tree
~back to the bump and grind
~to touch base
~the better half
~as big as a house
~at the crack of dawn
~toot my own horn
~get my foot in the door
~the golden child
~hit the jackpot
~make a mountain out of a molehill
~nip it in the bud
These are just to name a few that I caught. I never realized how often I use or hear metaphors in every day language!
3. What other things can we do as educators to help our students to understand and to use metaphors?
Point out metaphors as you read to your children. With practice, they will begin to identify them. Encourage your children to use metaphors as they write. Point out the ones they use naturally and call them metaphors by name.
4. Why do we use metaphors?
I think people use metaphors first off out of pure habit. It is what we are used to rather we know it or not. Metaphors "dress up" our sentences and give a whole new spin to our thoughts. Good metaphors also expand our ways of thinking about things, and in so doing suggest new ideas.
Comments for Teachers # 4
This time around I have been assigned to a teacher named Mathew Needleman and his class blog Creating Lifelong Learners. Mathew Needleman is a teacher of grades K-5, literacy coach, Apple Distinguished Educator, and author of this blog. He is the founder of nearly twenty popular educational destinations on the internet, has been integrating digital film making in the elementary classroom for over a decade, and currently producing mobile applications for improving literacy. He holds a masters degree in Educational Leadership and Policy and a California Administrative Credential. Through this blog, He hopes to offer practical tips for elementary teachers on teaching traditional and new media literacies, valuing students and their cultures, appealing to different learning modalities, and integrating technology in the curriculum with an emphasis on video production.
The first post I looked at dealt with an article he had found where schools, such as one in Auburn, Maine, are giving Ipads to all kindergarteners. He basically just talked about his feeling on this and wanted to know how everyone else felt about it?
I think it is GREAT that a school system has enough money to be able to buy this awesome device for so many students. However, kindergarteners....really? I simply think that if a school is going to spend that much money they might as well get the most bang for their bucks! I think the this device would be better used in the hands of a moderately older child. I think this would give younger children something to look forward to when going in that grade level. Growing up in the era of green chalkboards, I feel it is somewhat a privilege that children so young are being able to use all the different tools of technology.
The second post of Mathew's that I commented on he was giving advice to surviving standardized tests. Apparently, his school will begin testing next week. His advice was short, sweet, and to the point.
1. Don’t work too fast and furious.
2. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.
3. Don’t get punk’d.
It was great that he included #3. I remember taking these test when I was younger and thinking why in the world would these people want to trick me this way. HaHa! It is important to just slow down and read those questions carefully.
It has been great getting to check out different teacher's blogs this semester. I like that it gave us ideas and examples of different teaching formats as well as different ways in which teachers can use blogging to enhance their classroom experience. :)
The first post I looked at dealt with an article he had found where schools, such as one in Auburn, Maine, are giving Ipads to all kindergarteners. He basically just talked about his feeling on this and wanted to know how everyone else felt about it?
I think it is GREAT that a school system has enough money to be able to buy this awesome device for so many students. However, kindergarteners....really? I simply think that if a school is going to spend that much money they might as well get the most bang for their bucks! I think the this device would be better used in the hands of a moderately older child. I think this would give younger children something to look forward to when going in that grade level. Growing up in the era of green chalkboards, I feel it is somewhat a privilege that children so young are being able to use all the different tools of technology.
The second post of Mathew's that I commented on he was giving advice to surviving standardized tests. Apparently, his school will begin testing next week. His advice was short, sweet, and to the point.
1. Don’t work too fast and furious.
2. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.
3. Don’t get punk’d.
It was great that he included #3. I remember taking these test when I was younger and thinking why in the world would these people want to trick me this way. HaHa! It is important to just slow down and read those questions carefully.
It has been great getting to check out different teacher's blogs this semester. I like that it gave us ideas and examples of different teaching formats as well as different ways in which teachers can use blogging to enhance their classroom experience. :)
Sunday, April 24, 2011
C4K # 7,8,9,& 10
Comments for Kids # 7
Our assignment this week was a little different. Instead of commenting on a child's blog, we were assigned to comment on a particular post on Mr.McClungs blog. I was assigned to Lessons Learned Lesson 3-Saturday School. It was a very short post that talked about how because of the amount of snow days the children had, they would be attending class on Saturday to help cut out the amount of days added on at the end of the school year. I think this was a great idea! I would much rather suffer it out on a Saturday because when it's time for summer, I am ready to soak up the sun as much as possible! I liked Mr.McClungs attitude...he told the kids to "live it up because you only go to school on Saturday once a year." My take on that is he was telling the kids to suck it up and get over it, there's no use in whining because noone will be listening! I love this guy!
Comments for Kids # 8
For this weeks post, I was assgined to comment on a student named Jassy. She was a year 6/7 student attending International Baccalaureate School in Adelaide Hills, South Australia. SHe was new to the whole blogging thing but had grasped it pretty well from what I seen. Her latest blog was about the Japan Tsunami and her feelings about it. She had created three very well written poems to express her feelings and posted them on her blog. This is my favorite of all three....
J Japan
A A Nation in mourning
P People missing some even killed
A All over the news
N Nuclear plant explosion
E Earthquake then tsunami
S Struggling to keep going
E Extreme damage
T Terrible tsunami that created
S such devastation
U Unbelievable destruction
N Nothing left but the rubble
A A time of sadness
M Many sad, hurt and homeless
I Impossible to imagine
She is very talented when it comes to poetry. I hope she continues to express her feelings about different things through poetry because I feel that is self therapeutic.
Comments for Kids # 9
Once again Dr. Strange has up doing something a little different for this weeks comment for kids assignment. Instead of commenting on a specific childs blog, he had us take a look at Mrs. Yollis' Classroom Blog. Mrs. Yollis is really an inspiration to all future and current teachers. She has managed to integrate technology in such a positive way inside her classroom. These 3rd graders are doing the same thing that many of us college students are just learning. My favorite thing about Mrs. Yollis' blog in how she incoorporates family and friends with her students. I love that she has a "Family Blogging Month" in order to incourage more participation from the students family. How exciting it must be to be able to see a comment from a grandparent out of town.
There are way to many GREAT things to mention when talking about Mrs. Yollis blog but I feel obligated to publicly Thank her for having an HTML post. I have referred to her blog numerous times this semster for html help and that has truely been a BIG life-saver.
All in all, I think that Mrs. Yollis blog is a great way to show us, future teachers, that we must keep up and know how to properly use technology in order to maintain the same level as our students.
Comments for Kids # 10
For my last comments for kids assignment this semester I had the joy of commenting for Hannah, a third grader in Mrs. Yollis' class in California. On her most recent post, she told all about the celebration of Seezdah-Bedar. This is a holiday celebrated by Iranians. Seezdah-Bedar is celebrated on the thirteenth day after Norouz, the Persian New Year. On this day families leave their houses and head for parks, gardens, or country sides and enjoy their day together with a picnic. By having a joyous and laughter filled day outdoors, Iranians believe that they can keep bad luck away! From the pictures Hannah posted, it looked like a fun, but crowded day at the park. Her blog is really GREAT because her post are so good. Mrs. Yollis has done a fine job in teaching her students what blogging is all about. I sure hope Hannah continues to teach as well as express her thoughts through the use of her blog.
I plan to keep up the Commenting for Kids when I have my own classroom one day. I think it would be great for my students to see and compare their blogs to others of their age. I also feel blogging can be used as a GREAT learning tool because I have witnessed and learned from elementary students all around the world this semester......
Our assignment this week was a little different. Instead of commenting on a child's blog, we were assigned to comment on a particular post on Mr.McClungs blog. I was assigned to Lessons Learned Lesson 3-Saturday School. It was a very short post that talked about how because of the amount of snow days the children had, they would be attending class on Saturday to help cut out the amount of days added on at the end of the school year. I think this was a great idea! I would much rather suffer it out on a Saturday because when it's time for summer, I am ready to soak up the sun as much as possible! I liked Mr.McClungs attitude...he told the kids to "live it up because you only go to school on Saturday once a year." My take on that is he was telling the kids to suck it up and get over it, there's no use in whining because noone will be listening! I love this guy!
Comments for Kids # 8
For this weeks post, I was assgined to comment on a student named Jassy. She was a year 6/7 student attending International Baccalaureate School in Adelaide Hills, South Australia. SHe was new to the whole blogging thing but had grasped it pretty well from what I seen. Her latest blog was about the Japan Tsunami and her feelings about it. She had created three very well written poems to express her feelings and posted them on her blog. This is my favorite of all three....
J Japan
A A Nation in mourning
P People missing some even killed
A All over the news
N Nuclear plant explosion
E Earthquake then tsunami
S Struggling to keep going
E Extreme damage
T Terrible tsunami that created
S such devastation
U Unbelievable destruction
N Nothing left but the rubble
A A time of sadness
M Many sad, hurt and homeless
I Impossible to imagine
She is very talented when it comes to poetry. I hope she continues to express her feelings about different things through poetry because I feel that is self therapeutic.
Comments for Kids # 9
Once again Dr. Strange has up doing something a little different for this weeks comment for kids assignment. Instead of commenting on a specific childs blog, he had us take a look at Mrs. Yollis' Classroom Blog. Mrs. Yollis is really an inspiration to all future and current teachers. She has managed to integrate technology in such a positive way inside her classroom. These 3rd graders are doing the same thing that many of us college students are just learning. My favorite thing about Mrs. Yollis' blog in how she incoorporates family and friends with her students. I love that she has a "Family Blogging Month" in order to incourage more participation from the students family. How exciting it must be to be able to see a comment from a grandparent out of town.
There are way to many GREAT things to mention when talking about Mrs. Yollis blog but I feel obligated to publicly Thank her for having an HTML post. I have referred to her blog numerous times this semster for html help and that has truely been a BIG life-saver.
All in all, I think that Mrs. Yollis blog is a great way to show us, future teachers, that we must keep up and know how to properly use technology in order to maintain the same level as our students.
Comments for Kids # 10
For my last comments for kids assignment this semester I had the joy of commenting for Hannah, a third grader in Mrs. Yollis' class in California. On her most recent post, she told all about the celebration of Seezdah-Bedar. This is a holiday celebrated by Iranians. Seezdah-Bedar is celebrated on the thirteenth day after Norouz, the Persian New Year. On this day families leave their houses and head for parks, gardens, or country sides and enjoy their day together with a picnic. By having a joyous and laughter filled day outdoors, Iranians believe that they can keep bad luck away! From the pictures Hannah posted, it looked like a fun, but crowded day at the park. Her blog is really GREAT because her post are so good. Mrs. Yollis has done a fine job in teaching her students what blogging is all about. I sure hope Hannah continues to teach as well as express her thoughts through the use of her blog.
I plan to keep up the Commenting for Kids when I have my own classroom one day. I think it would be great for my students to see and compare their blogs to others of their age. I also feel blogging can be used as a GREAT learning tool because I have witnessed and learned from elementary students all around the world this semester......
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Blog Post # 13
Hey guys! For this weeks blog post, we were assigned to the Alex website. This stands for Alabama Learning Exchange.
There slogan is "Quality for Every Facet of Learning". Their goal is for Alabama's students to reap the benefits of Alabama educators sharing their wealth of expertise and knowledge with colleagues. I had never heard of this before now and am really thankful that Dr. Strange had this on our agenda. This website is a GREAT teaching tool that I am sure I will use one day in my future classroom.
Alex strives to provide only the best resources to meet the unique needs of teachers, administrators, parents, and students. Alabama Learning Exchange is a communal database of lesson plans created and posted by teachers. The database is searchable by traditional subject areas as well as 21st century areas that include technology education, and information literacy. You can search these areas to fit the needs of any grade levels. Most of the lesson plans, weblinks, and interactive activities are already connected to the Alabama Courses of Study.
This website is many things all rolled into one. Here, you can locate the Alabama Courses of Study for every grade and subject and find lesson plans and web links that relate to them. They also offer you a search tab just in case you can not find something you are looking for. They have a tab called the Gallery360. This is more or less your technology tab. Here you can see some of the top downloads as well as directions for podcasting, and featured content. ALEX is also linked with Thinkfinity. By going here, you can check out what happened today in history, different discussions, educational news, and blogs by various people. Last but not least, they have included something called ALEXville. How cute is this? This allows you to visit different areas to communicate with your colleagues, keep up with the latest ALEX news,and follow various ALEX Professional Learning Communities.
Overall, I can't see how anyone would not find ALEX a useful tool in their career. It's good to know that the state if Alabama has created something like this as a helpful guidance for their teachers.
We were also instructed to check out ACCESS, or Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators, & Students Statewide. After reviewing this website, I feel like it is basically a course that is very similar to what we are doing in EDM310. It provides distant learning to high school students. Most all subjects are offered through rigorous Web-based and Interactive Videoconferencing (IVC) courses taught by Alabama certified and highly qualified teachers.
Where was this at when I was in high school? This is an AWESOME way to prepare high school students with what an online college course will be like for them.
There slogan is "Quality for Every Facet of Learning". Their goal is for Alabama's students to reap the benefits of Alabama educators sharing their wealth of expertise and knowledge with colleagues. I had never heard of this before now and am really thankful that Dr. Strange had this on our agenda. This website is a GREAT teaching tool that I am sure I will use one day in my future classroom.
Alex strives to provide only the best resources to meet the unique needs of teachers, administrators, parents, and students. Alabama Learning Exchange is a communal database of lesson plans created and posted by teachers. The database is searchable by traditional subject areas as well as 21st century areas that include technology education, and information literacy. You can search these areas to fit the needs of any grade levels. Most of the lesson plans, weblinks, and interactive activities are already connected to the Alabama Courses of Study.
This website is many things all rolled into one. Here, you can locate the Alabama Courses of Study for every grade and subject and find lesson plans and web links that relate to them. They also offer you a search tab just in case you can not find something you are looking for. They have a tab called the Gallery360. This is more or less your technology tab. Here you can see some of the top downloads as well as directions for podcasting, and featured content. ALEX is also linked with Thinkfinity. By going here, you can check out what happened today in history, different discussions, educational news, and blogs by various people. Last but not least, they have included something called ALEXville. How cute is this? This allows you to visit different areas to communicate with your colleagues, keep up with the latest ALEX news,and follow various ALEX Professional Learning Communities.
Overall, I can't see how anyone would not find ALEX a useful tool in their career. It's good to know that the state if Alabama has created something like this as a helpful guidance for their teachers.
We were also instructed to check out ACCESS, or Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators, & Students Statewide. After reviewing this website, I feel like it is basically a course that is very similar to what we are doing in EDM310. It provides distant learning to high school students. Most all subjects are offered through rigorous Web-based and Interactive Videoconferencing (IVC) courses taught by Alabama certified and highly qualified teachers.
Where was this at when I was in high school? This is an AWESOME way to prepare high school students with what an online college course will be like for them.
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