C4T #3

Bill Genereux's blog TechIntersect

I was assigned to Bill Genereux's blog and read one of his post titled "Taking Risk While Teaching." He starts off with examples of myths about how to achieve success in the classroom. They are basically about how teachers need to instill fear into students in order to be able to command a classroom. He then goes on to tell about his experience of how he has taught two different classes in which he did not have all the answers. One of those classes is a video game programing class in which he challenges the students and himself by having them do things that they don't have the answers to. They must do research and find the answers and they also are all working together to create a video game project. When a teacher takes risks with learning in the classroom, it makes the experience fun and memorable as apposed to having the teacher just spit out knowledge and have the students soak it up like sponges to then spit back out again. Something Dr. Strange calls "burp back education." My comment on Mr. Genereux's post answered some of his question at the end of his post. He wanted to know if anyone else took risk when teaching and if they always have everything polished. I can somewhat relate because I teach horseback riding lesson and there are so many things that I learn from my students. There are also things we find the answer to together which creates a great learning opportunity.

The blog post I read this week was posted on October 9th. His most recent post was just a house keeping post about pumpkins carved by his kids but he did use the computer to make the cutouts for them to carve from. The post I read is titled "Information Workers In Industrial Environments." In this post he started off talking about one of his students who is a single mother, works and is going to school to get a better education. He finds it amazing that she can balance her time like that. He then goes on to talk about how he is working on sunday morning without even realizing it and begins to talk about how it is okay to do work at home but not to do any personal work at work.Genereux states, "Organizations don’t reflect the reality that is the blending of work and play, home and career in our digital world. We still often have assigned break times. We expect that only work-related things will be done on work machines, and save the home-related things for home." In my comment I expressed how I also thought that some personal matters could be attended to at work as long as work matters were still being properly taken care of. I compared it to having computers in the classroom. How do we know that students are not playing games instead of doing their assignments? It's the final product that counts because their work will reflect how hard they worked.

Blog Post Assignment # 10

Do You Teach or Do You Educate?
This video gives the definition of both what it means to teach and what it means to educate. To teach is to just relay information, so called "burp back education" where as educating is much more. Educating is enlightening,adventurous and has no end. I will be an educator and not a teacher in my classroom because I will empower my students with the ability to explore all different avenues if learning. There a are several different ways I can do this and a lot of them I have learned in this class.
One way I can be an educator is by showing by students how to find information and resources on the interned and how to use them properly. I can show them how to create a PLN that can help them expand upon their learning and understanding of subject matter. I can have them peer review one another to learn from others mistakes as well as how to properly correct work if its wrong. Students can become educated by creating blogs and videos on different subject matter being studied. They will have to learn to work cooperatively in groups and overcome different obstacles like ones that occur in real life. Through educating students in this way that will be better prepared for the real world.

Tom Johnson's Adventures in Pencil Integration.
When I read this post "Don't Let Them Take The Pencils Home", I had to read it twice to fully understand the post. Johnson presented his argument in a somewhat satirical way. Through reading the comments left by others and viewing some of his other post I found his argument to be about technology and computers in the classroom. He is making the argument in this specific post about why students should be allowed to take pencils home and how it cannot adversely affect test scores. He is making his argument towards Gertrude, the School Curriculum Instructional Interventionist Academic Specialist, who says to Tom that students who take home pencils will have lower standardized test scores. Tom presents her with how he is on his way to having a solution for the problem. He has "met with the parents and the students and explained ways that pencils could be used for learning." This way parents can be more informed about how their children can use pencils for productive work. He also is confronted about students using pencils for fun at home such as playing hang man and not staying on task. Johnson replies by saying,
"if they choose to play Hang Man or go on the pen pal networks, I'm okay with it. There's probably some learning that's taking place that we don't realize." I like the approach he has taken by showing how ridiculous some people are about technology and computers in the classroom by using pencils in his writing, which have been a means of learning for centuries.

SMART Board Project #13

Blog Post Assignment 9

What I've Learned this year 2008-20009
What I've Learned This Year 2009-2010

I read Mr. McClung's post about his first year and third year of teaching. he made some very interesting points and gave some insight about what he learned throughout the year as he taught. one of his first points was to make lessons students centered. Mr. McClung says, "Let your audience drive your instruction." I think this is a great point because we can get caught up in trying to meet certain criteria and forget about focusing on the students. He also says to be flexible when making and teaching lessons plans. I believe that we need to be able to adapt and change as we are teaching. He also learned that we must be reasonable.He says we should not set goals that our students cannot meet and we de not need to get upset when they do not meet goals we hoped they would. "Our job as teachers is to simply pick them up after they fail, dust them off, and encourage then to try again." McClung says to not be afraid to use technology and I fell that through taking this course I will not be afraid to implement it into my classroom. The last thing he states is to never stop learning. I think it is important to be a life long learner because you can never know it all. These are things that he learned in his first year of teaching in Noel, Missouri.
In his third year of teaching in Arkansas he was a head coach for the first time and he also was a computer applications teacher for the first time. He says, "Know who your Boss is." Don't get all caught up in trying to please others that you forget about your mission and main focus. I think it is easy for us to get caught up in trying to please others because we seek the approval of others. McClung says to remember that students are always the focus. Another point he makes is that we should remain and optimist but "don't expect others to be excited about change as you are." When he goes to Professional Development sessions he gets excited about the new ideas but when he looks around the room he sees people who are completely disinterested in the ideas. He says, " You have to embody the aspects of teaching that you enjoy and not allow others to influence or steer you away from that." He also has learned that it's ok to be an outsider. We should not worry about trying to fit in with the other teachers. Do what you like, it ok to eat lunch with your students and not in the teachers lounge. He has leaned some words of wisdoms from a fellow teacher he talks to on a daily basis, "Don't Touch the Keyboard." let students do for themselves, if they are struggling do not jump in and complete the work for them, they will never learn it for themselves if you do. McClung says that although they may suffer then, they will be better off in the long run. The last lesson he has lerned is to not get comfortable with his teaching. He says that things get easier but be careful not to fall into a routine because that when things can get boring for students. we need to challenge ourselves and as he said earlier, never stop learning.
I added Mr. McClungs blog,At the Teacher's Desk to my PLN. I thought he has some interesting ideas and I would love to read his post about what he learned at the end of this school year.

Project # 11 Short Movie

Project # 12 Book Trailer

Blog Assignment 8

This is How we Dream Parts 1 and 2 by Richard Miller

This video was really hard for me to wrap my mind around because of the vast network of technology we have available to us. I had to watch the videos twice to really grasp all the information they contained. There is so much technology and resources available that are changing daily and it seems so hard to keep up. I think that it is great topic of moving from the classroom that reads and writes to a more interactive classroom that uses multimedia to write with. Things like video, pictures and articles are all incorporated into creating writing with multimedia. Miller says that documents online are now made freely available and are infinitely sharable. He also states that." An incremental change now is that we now work on lap tops where we have access to the internet with endless resources."
In today's world we are not limited by paper. There are so many ways to present a topic that is being researched. Richard Miller composed a paper about the killing at Virginia Tech without even setting foot in a library. He used resources he found online to compile his information. He also talks about collaborating and using different resources such as video and pictures to "write" with. Making documents more visual and captivating can help to engage the reader and further their understanding of a subject. Miller states, " we can collect together threads of experience and weave them together into a coherent document." Through the use of technology we can make our work available to be view by anyone, anywhere and at any time.
I do not feel that I am fully prepared to write with multimedia although I think I am on the right path to become more comfortable with it. We are learning how to by inserting different things like videos and pictures into our blogs to help enhance them. I also know that this is something that can be put into practice into the classroom and that given the right instruction students will be able to write with multimedia in no time at all.

Carly Pugh's Blog Post #12

I think that Carly's idea is amazing! To create a playlist of all your favorite videos, blogs, articles and all different things is a great way to put all your thoughts in one place. It reminds me of a PLN but it is more about her philosophies and views on things. I think that having a philosophy is important because it gives us motivation to keep going and reminds us what we are working towards. I followed her links and watches some of her playlist and I also liked a lot of the videos she had put up there. I had never seem any of them and I am glad I got to because they really make you think about what your views are and what philosophy you hold. I also see how it comes close the what Dr. Miller talks about with writing through using multimedia because if she were to write a paper about her philosophy and views on teaching it would end up saying pretty much exactly what the videos gave us. This visual writing probably captivated us a lot better than an entire 4 page paper would have. I think that this is a great idea and it really makes me think about my views and philosophy.

EDM 310 for Dummies and The Chipper Series

The primary message of these two videos is to teach about how import it is to stay organized and "on-top-of things" in EDM 310. They both are funny and entertaining to get their point across and in "The Chipper Series" I even detected some sarcasm. I remember watching these videos before the first day of class and they gave me a preview of what to expect and kind of ease any worries about the course. I think it would be fun to create a movie about PLN's and the importance of starting one early. I think that it would be beneficial to let other students know how much more they can benefit from their PLN if they begin early. Honestly when I saw that we needed to start on our PLN project I was like what is that and never looked at it again until a week before we had to make our first progress report post. I think making a video showing the benefits of a PLN and just exactly what it is would be a great way to help out new students in the class.

Learn to Change, Change to Learn
I think that the arguments in the video are very valid ones. I was shocked that coal miners were ranked higher that education in IT development. Education needs to change because it is the foundation for everything. Some of the people in the video said that students now are using social networking, emails, text messaging and other forms of technology that are banned from the classroom because we are afraid to explore these "dangerous" avenues of learning. Some of the others in the video were talking about how we are not adequetly preparing students for jobs they will encounter out in the real world. One of the men said that standardized testing is not teaching students anything because jobs do not need people to only know the right answer. Students have to be able to find information, know how to use that information, validate that info, and solve problems. Students cannot just memorize things and expect to get by in the job world of today. I think this is a neat video with some great arguments for making education more technology literate.

PLN Progress Report

I had never heard of a PLN until I entered this class. I think that are a great way to keep information and resources you find on the internet organized and easy to access. I wanted to develop my PLN around implementing creativity in the classroom. I chose Symbaloo to organize my PLN and have also put some links in Delicious. I have added Sir Ken Robinson's website to my PLN and I have also started following him on twitter. I have added some different articles to my Delicious account that I think contain valuable information. I have also linked my PLN to my blog, twitter account, email and facebook. I will continue to expand upon my PLN in hopes of finding more resources through twitter and other sites. I know that I still have a lot of work to do on my PLN but I look forward to exploring different resources that will help my PLN grow.

Project 9b- Timetoast Timeline: The Special Olympics

Blog Assignment 7

Randy Pausch Last Lecture:Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

I read Randy Pausch's book "The Last Lecture" a few years ago and loved it. I had not watched his actual lecture until now. I think he is an amazing person who despite what he was facing made the best of his circumstances. This lecture opens up with some information about Dr. Pausch as he presents the "elephant in the room". The "elephant" is the fact that he is terminally ill and has been given the diagnosis of 3-6 months of good health left. He then goes on to talk about his childhood dreams and how he went about achieving them. He wanted to enable the childhood dreams of others and through this he expresses some of his teaching strategies. Dr. Pausch began a course that he felt would help him to help others in achieving their childhood dreams. The course was titled Building Virtual Worlds and it was compiled of 50 students from all departments within the university. During the course students were randomly put into groups in which they would complete a project in two weeks and there where 5 projects throughout the entire semester. This strategy had the students working with new people every two weeks which would teach them how to work with others.
After the students turned in their first project he was astounded with how will they did so he called his mentor Andy van Dam and asked him what to do. His mentor told him to go into class and tell the students that what they did was good but they he know they could do better, and that is exactly what he did. Dr. Pausch said that not setting the bar was the best thing he could have done for the students because they just kept doing better and producing projects that were "out of this world". I think that through not setting the bar he allowed students to use their imaginations and be creative. They were only limited by their imaginations and not by someone who told them what they had to do. Dr. Pausch taught like this because he wanted to enable the dreams of others and that cannot be done if you set a limit on students imaginations.
Another one of the strategies that I notices was how he had the students peer review one another on how they were to work with. He would take that information and put it into a bar graph that he would give to the students showing how was thought easiest to work with and who was hardest. I think this is a fantastic way to give a "wake-up call" to those who didn't work well with others. Hopefully it would make them take a step back and reevaluate how they worked and why they were deemed difficult to work with.

This course developed into a 2 year program called the Entertainment Technology Center which once completed students would have a masters of Entertainment Technology. He took one course and made it into a program with the help of many others that would allow students a chance to achieve their dreams. Through this lecture Dr. Pausch exemplified humility, not giving up,having enthusiasm for what you do, and gratitude.One of my favorite things he said was "Brick walls are there for a reason:they let us prove how badly we want things" he also said, "they were to keep those out who didn't want it as badly." Another thing he says that I really like was, "When you do the right thing. good stuff has a way of happening." In the end of the lecture he says some important points and one of them was to have a feed back loop such as a mentor or the bar graph peer review sheet he used. I was lucky to know someone who had the same kind of energy and drive as Dr. Pausch even though she was face with dismal circumstances. She helped me to see my dreams and she put me on the path to achieving them. I feel that it is important to surround yourself with those who believe in you. When you do, just like Dr. Pausch's first "head fake" you can lead your life the right way and be on the path to achieving your dreams.

Blog Assignment #6

The Networked Student

When I watched this video it really made me realize how technology is still somewhat foreign to me. There are so many tools out there in the world of technology that help us to learn. In this video it talked about a particular students PLN and how he had one topic that he researched and found all different types of on. This video also helped me to further understand exactly what a PLN is and how to go about creating one. The student found a lot of information about his topic that eventually leads him to create a blog with his informed opinions on the subject matter. He also notes that it is important to interact with people and comment on things that you research.
I do not feel like I am completely prepared to be a teacher of a networked student because I am still learning about how to become networked myself. I feel like the journey through this class is slowly preparing me. I am much more technology literate now that I was when I began this class.
The question posed in this video is "why does the networked student even need a teacher?" The teacher helps the student to become networked by teaching them about PLNs and how to create one. The teacher also helps students to distinguish between good and bad sources of information, and insures that they know how to take advantage of different kinds of learning opportunities. The teacher is the guide to help students learn and the teacher should continue to learn along with the students. I took a look at Ms. Drexler's blog and read her post about implementing her networked student model into a middle school science classroom, I think that is a great idea and I hope I am prepared enough one day to help my students to become networked!

A 7th Graders Personal Learning Environment
I think this student did a wonderful job creating her PLE for her science class. I think it is awesome how she can navigate though the internet and record all the resources she finds in one location. Her PLE is similar to mine because we both have a topic that we are researching and wanting to learn more about. They are also similar because we both have social networking sites connected to our PLN. Our PLNs are different because mine is centered around creativity in the classroom and hers is about science. Watching this video has inspired me to spend more time everyday working on developing my PLN.