Blog post #10

There are a few things that I think we can take away from Sir Ken Robinson in his presentation. While I was watching this video one thing that Sir Robinson said was to enjoy what you are doing. This I think is a great statement. He said he has seen so many people just getting by with what they are doing and waiting for the weekend. This is part of what we need to change; If we start doing the things that we love as a job then we won't work one day in our lives. I believe that I have found what I will be doing for the rest of my time and that is to teach anybody what I know and to learn on a daily basis.

The next thing that I think we can take away from Sir Robinson is that our education system does need a revolution not just a rehashing of the old way of doing things. The first steps have already been taken by teachers who embrace the PBL way of teaching. If there is a revolution we are the ones that are going to have to make it happen. I do think that our children and the students of today deserve more that what has been offered to us. A lot of schools today are only worried about funding and attendance policies so they can get that extra dollar for a student being there. This does not lead to children learning this leads to teachers and admin being mean to students about missing a day. I beleive Sir Robinson is right and we need to usher in an education revolution where we want students to learn and be happy while learning instead of worrying about faculty being upset that they didn't get that dollar for a student who happened to be sick one day.

The last thing that I think we can take away from Sir Robinson is what he said at the very end of his presentation. We need to be careful because our children lay out their dreams beneath our feet and if we are not careful we can stomp all over them. This brings to mind the story that he told of the fireman. I thought it very funny that there was an instructor that told him he was gonna be wasting his life if he followed that path only to end up saving the life of that instructor and his wife. We need to encourage our children and students to follow their dreams and reach for the stars, and if they fall down let them know that we will be there to help lift them back up to help them chase that dream.

Project #15

This Project #15 link will take you to the google site that I have set up for you to view my projects.

Smartboard Project #12

In this video I show that I can use the basics of the smartboard I hope you enjoy!

Sparta Group Project #9

In this thrilling discussion between myself, Mitchel, Jeffrey, and Greg we talk about Technology and partnering as well as it's impact on the classroom.

Blog Post #9 Mrs. Cassidy Interview and what I learned

This weeks blog post is about what I feel that we can learn from Mrs. Cassidy in her interview with Dr. Strange. The first part of this assignment had us looking at a video that Mrs. Cassisdy's 1st grade class made to show what they are doing in class. Little Kids...Big Potential is the video that they made. In this video the kids give a brief rundown of what they do with technology in the classroom. Their list of technology uses range from making a blog to using skype to talk to an expert. Watching videos like this gets me more and more excited to become a teacher and use today's and tomorrow's technology in my classroom to teach my students.

The first part of the interview is found here There are some very interesting things that Mrs. Cassidy brings to light in this part. In this part she talks about how she got involved in using technology the way she does for the students. The most valuable things that took away from this part of the video are how to try to keep your students protected while they are on the internet and that technology is here to stay and will only become a larger part of education as time goes by. In reference to keeping the students safe a good example is set by Mrs. Cassidy by not allowing the students to post pictures of themselves with their name. She also refrains from letting them post their last names. This I think is a great way to help keep the students protected.

The second part of the interview can be found here. In this part of the interview Mrs. Cassidy talks about how she got into twitter and how it helps her. The most that I took from this video is that twitter can be a very useful tool if used correctly. Mrs. Cassidy herself said "at first it doesn't seem like it will do anything for you." But she also said eventually as you follow people that are closely related to the topics that you are looking at then it becomes useful because they might post a link to something you never would have seen otherwise.

The last part of the interview can be found here. In this part of the interview she takes questions from students in EDM310. I found one of the answers to a question very helpful to any teacher not just a physical education teacher. The scenario is that something gets cancelled. It is far easier for the teacher to send out a text or post an announcement on something like a class webpage than to go down to the office and try to get everyone's attention via the intercom to get the message across. By sending the text or posting an announcement then the teacher is sure that everyone got the message. This three part interview was very interesting and I took a few things away from it that I will probably use. More than likely I will use some type of classblog to integrate technology into my classroom and I think I will be using twitter more and more to expand my PLN.

Blog Post #8 New Technology

New Technology is frightening to some of us but if we learn how to use it to our advantage then there will be no reason to be afraid of it. Since the beginning of EDM310 I have been trying to find out new ways that I can use technology when I become a teacher. My ambition is to teach History at the High School Level. I have kept this in mind when doing my research of ways to use technology to help me become a better instructor.

The Center for Teaching History with Technology is a great place for me to start. This website has a lot of things that will be useful to me and many other history teachers. The setup to use this site is very easy, once you get to the page via the link I have provided everything is at your fingertips. The left side of the page has tabs with topics on them. The one that I suggest people use is the getting started tab as this will introduce you to the site and give reasons on why to use technology in the classroom. There is one tab in particular that I think is very interesting on this site and that is the new resource of the week tab. This section of the website gives a teacher a new resource to look at and see if they can incorporate it into their classroom. This website has tabs for lessons and activities, where it gives suggested lesson plans for certain areas of history, civics, economics, and geography. Other interesting features include presentations and discussions for the students to take part in, as well as giving some rubrics and assessments for the teacher.

For integration into my classroom I believe I would use this technology to better learn how to create projects for my students. Using this website would help me become a better teacher as there is a plethora of information on this website that would help. Using this website would enable me to become a teacher that uses 21st century technology to it's utmost potential.

Project #14

To see project #14 take this link to the google site that I have made for these lesson plans.

C4T #2

For the second edition of Comments for Teachers I had the great pleasure to read The Middle School Matrix blog by Mr. Hadley Ferguson.

In the first post that I commented on entitled Just Laugh was a great blog to read. Mr. Ferguson's class had just gotten back from winter break and it was the last class of the day and he could tell that the kids were ready to get class over and just go home. Mr. Ferguson had to come up with something to catch their imagination and keep it. What did Mr. Ferguson do? He set the class up in groups of three and gave them an article on what they had been studying. This article had funny names to the children and giggling and happiness ensued. Mr. Ferguson at first wanted to shut this down but instead joined in. This may not sound like much but when the children in that class seen him having just as much fun as them they became more engaged in their work. The comment that I left basically told him how I enjoyed that he was able to sit back and laugh with the students. By having fun being a teacher and watching the students have fun I thought that he reached a wonderful place in teaching.

The second post that I commented on was also by Mr. Ferguson although I had to backtrack to a post before the winter break. In this post Mr. Ferguson's class was getting ready for winter break. He had his class for 90 minutes that day and needed a way to keep the students engaged. He came up with the plan of making the "best" map of Africa that they could make. He left the "best" part open to the students. What happened next was that the students broke up into groups and started making different maps of Africa. A couple of examples of these maps were population maps and rainfall maps. Those are just two of the maps the students came up with. He was quite pleased with the outcome of the project that he had them do. The comment I left told him how I think that he once again had come up with a great way to engage the students imaginations and that I think his incorporation of letting the students play some music lightly in the background helped to ease tension in the room.

Favorite Historical Person Project: Project #13

This project is for a History class of 7th Grade.

This is the link to the google site I have set up to view my project 13

Blog post #7

It seems to me that Dr. Pausch is a very inspirational person about life, teaching, and learning. Dr. Pausch, throughout his his lecture talks about the same things that Dr. Strange has been wanting us to use and learn in this EDM310 class. In this last lecture video Dr. Pausch talks about all the different ways that learning and teaching are acomplished. When Dr. Pausch was making the class that is explained in the video he talked frequently about Project Based Learning. Everything that students do in that class is based off of projects. There are no books for that class it is completely project based. He assigns projects to groups every two weeks and after those two weeks he assigns new groups and new projects. This is a great way to implement project based learning in my opinion. Dr. Pausch talked a great deal about the projects that his students had done and of how fond he was of the outcomes of the projects. He stuck with the mantra of leaving an open experience for the students; meaning that they had an open field with what the projects could be on.

I believe that Dr. Pausch's class is a wonderful example of how Project Based Learning can be done right. After watching his video I am amazed at how little this technique is used in teaching. Dr. Pausch also talked a little about learning. The best thing that I took away from him about learning is that our critics are the ones trying to help us be better and that listening to them and changing things can only help us to be better. If I was not convinced that Project Based Learning could work before watching this video I am now. If I can be anywhere close to the Instructor that Dr. Pausch was, then I will think that I may have done it right.

C4K Summary for February

For my first C4K I was assigned a wonderful student in Mrs. Reuters class named Aaron. In the first blog that I commented on he was doing a comparison of two comic making websites. The first one was named Toondoo and he listed the pros and cons of this website. The second comic maker is named Makebeliefscomix, where he also listed the pros and cons of this website. The end of his blog was about which one he would choose to use. In my comment I told him that I thought he done a wonderful job with his blog and that he had done a good job listing the pros and cons of each site.

For the second of my February C4K's I was assigned a student by the name of Benjamin. Benjamin wrote a poem that was in the form of a riddle.The comment that I left Benjamin was that it was a very good poem and that the answer was Santa.

The last C4K of February was once again Aaron from Mrs. Reuters class. Aaron continues a story from an earlier blog that he made about four kittens getting super powers. In this edition of the story you tells of how they saved Milwaukee. The comment that I left for Aaron this time was one of encouragement. I told him that his blog showed that he has a great imagination and that he put it to good use.