Blog Post #10

"What Can We Learn About Teaching and Learning From Randy Pausch?" -Dr. Strange

As I was preparing myself and getting comfy on my sofa to watch an hour long video titled, Randy Pausch's Last Lecture, Dr. Strange's question repeated over and over in my head. I thought I would be watching a lecture of teaching styles, probably technology in the classroom, or even a lecture of student/teacher interaction. I was wrong! Randy Pausch was such a powerful motivational speaker who inspired people to follow their heart and chase their childhood dreams. I was the child who would set my stuffed animals up in rows and "teach" to them in my bedroom. My dream has always been to be an educator and to help children. When I opened the link to start the video, Randy Pausch immediately begins with jokes and a slideshow of his fight with cancer. Not only does he speak to people about thier faith in their dreams, he is a living testament of what he is speaking! This was an amazing video!

Okay, I am getting off track from the assignment. "Brick walls are there for a reason, let us prove how badly we want things." -Randy Pausch. How true is this, though? In the classroom brick walls are everywhere. We are going to have those darling little ones who just don't get the lesson or just won't focus. As the teacher do we just give up on those students? Stop teaching them? No!! We work with them and give them the attention and resources they need to succeed. We hit that brick wall to see how badly we want to help them. I WILL be the teacher who pushes my students to chase their dreams so fast and never give up!

"You can not change the cards you were dealt, you can only change the way you play your hand" -Randy Pausch. I can't expect the perfect classroom, school, and 100% of my students eager to learn and baby Einsteins. I need to be the teacher that makes the most of every situation for my students. Only 3 iPads in the classroom? Do collaborative lessons! Make the classroom fun!! Even though Randy Pausch refers to this as being a motto to live your everyday life, it will be a motto for my classroom as well. What I am taking from Randy Pausch's Last Lecture is to never give up on my students, enable their dreams and make learning enjoyable.

Project #12 Part A: SMARTBoard Tools

Project #9- Podcast

Blog Post #9

icurio!

Project #10- Green Screen Movie

Green screen production by Caitlin Lankford, Lauren Macon, and myself! It was so neat to work with a green screen and see how it works!!

Blog Post #8

What can we learn about teaching and learning from these teachers? -Dr. Strange

Making Thinking Visible: Melissa Canterbury
In the video Making Thinking Visible, Mark Church, a sixth grade teacher at International School Amsterdam, asks his students to talk among their small groups about a video they watched in class the day before. He gives them time to discuss within their groups and asks them to come up with a headline to capture what the video was all about and what exactly did what they watch mean. Church gave his students a strip of paper to write their headline on after they decided on something as a group. I liked that he put the students into groups and asked them to work together to come up with a headline. By doing that, he is engaging the students and allowing them to learn from other students in their group. We can learn from Mark Church his way of engaging the students in the thinking process. Church gave the students an opportunity to share their own opinions and then showing them how to work in groups to come up with a final decision for the headline. I really like the idea of students working in small groups and I think that keeps them engaged in the lesson. From personal experience, I love working in groups and hearing what my classmates say because sometimes I can’t explain what I am thinking or put it in the right words and my group members help me get it out. I love learning from other educators and think it is only beneficial to us especially as young teachers with little or no experience in the classroom.

Back to the Future: Caitlin Lankford
In the video Back to the Future Brian Crosby, a fourth, fifth, and sixth grade science and technology teacher, was describing how he “runs” things in his classroom. Crosby talked about how all of his students have a computer, access to a web camera, and their own blog. Basically what Crosby was focusing on in his presentation, was that he does a learning activity with his students, and then to assess them, he makes the students write about it in their blog! How neat? Crosby’s class is very focused on technology activities, yet very hands-on. For instance, Crosby and his class, made a hot air balloon go into high altitudes of the sky and attached a camera to the balloon so that they may be able to receive information from where the balloon is. The children discussed the learned information on their blog and wrote a book about their findings. The children received numerous amounts of positive comments on their research and findings! I love what Crosby did with his class; he made learning fun! I hope that one day, I will have the means to do something special with my class just as Crosby did with his.

Blended Learning Cycle: Lauren Macon
In the video, Blended Learning Cycle Mr. Paul Anderson, a high school AP Biology teacher in Bozeman, Montana explains how he is using the blending learning cycle in his classroom. Blending Learning is taking the parts of online, mobile, and classroom learning and blending them together in a classroom. The Learning Cycle is composed of engaging questions, exploring experiments, explaining the phenomenon, expanding on it, and then evaluating. This is what inspired the Blended Learning Cycle. Mr. Anderson begins his class with a good question about a phenomenon. I think this is a great way to start your class off! It gets the students attention and gets their interest. Asking questions is something I will use in my future classroom. After the question, he explains we should be prepared for investigation/inquiry, video, elaboration, review, and a summary quiz. He uses different types of technology during this process. I also explored his blog, Bozemanscience. His blog has hundreds of science videos that he created. He is always learning new things and sharing them. I learned that you should let your students be in control of their learning, questions are important, and that you can learn with your students too. Watching Mr. Anderson’s video was very beneficial. I will use these skills in my future classroom!

Blog Post #7

For this week’s blog post assignment our group wanted to find assistive apps for iPads. Since iPads are becoming more common in the classroom, we decided this would be the most beneficial to us. Specialized apps for special needs children allow the students to still be connected with the other students using the iPads, however they have their personalized programs that help expand their own learning experience.

iWriteWords: Melissa Canterbury
iWriteWords is an app for the iPad that teaches students fine motor skills, handwriting and literacy through entertaining games. It is a perfect app for individual seat work for the special needs children who struggles with the traditional worksheet. After looking around on Pinterest and special education boards, iWriteWords caught my attention. The students help Mr. Crab collect numbers in sequence by dragging with their fingers and drawing the letter at the same time. After the student traces each letter, the program says the letter aloud and then says the word that the letters make. This app is designed for younger elementary students as they learn their sight words and handwriting. iWriteWords can be purchased in the app store on iTunes for only $2.99, which I think is great! The cheaper the better, although it isn’t the price I prefer, which is FREE, it is still very affordable.

Dragon Dictation: Caitlin Lankford
Dragon Dictation is an iPad app not only designed for children, but is for adults too. This app is similar to Siri on the iPhone, and just like Siri, Dragon Dictation records what you say and not only gives you the option of sending your words through text messaging, but also via email, Twitter, and/or Facebook. Therefore, when used in the classroom, the teacher can email, or text the child’s progress to himself, the parent, speech pathologist, and/or principal. Also, when used in the classroom, struggling speakers can record what they say, hear it read back to them, and see their words on the screen. For those who have a difficult time speaking certain letters in words, such as saying “w” instead of “l,” this app is an easy and effective way of correcting the speech. To make this app even better, it is FREE!!

ArtikPix: Lauren Macon
ArtikPix is a FREE iPad app designed for children to receive speech practice and self-monitor their productions during flashcard and matching activities. More decks are available for purchase individually or in groups. When using this in the classroom, the teacher can create their own flashcards using illustrations or photos and share them. This is a great and fun way for students to practice his/her sounds in spelling words or individualized sentences. Then, share them with other ArtikPix users via an email attachment. This allows the teacher to customize the student learning experience when used in the flashcard and matching activities. If you have the full version of ArtikPIx, you can combine decks and configure sound groups. It also collects scores, which is great for the teacher to monitor the progress of the student. To facilitate speech practice, there are audio and visual options. There are also options to enable varying levels of students.

C4T #2

I was SO excited when I saw I was assigned Dr. Will Deyamport's blog, Peoplegogy for my second C4T! Even though we had no video, I really enjoyed the Hangout session we had with him and was looking forward to learning more about what he had to offer. After introducing myself to him through my first comment, I left a link to my page on Blogger and asked him to visit and feel free to leave feedback. I was surprised he actually did! I've heard before that educators will probably not comment back to us, however not only did Dr. Deyamport comment back to me, he left comments on my own blog posts, followed me on Twitter, and also added me to Google+. He is now a part of my personal learning network that I am building.

The first post I viewed on Dr. Deyamport's blog was titled Youtube Training Video. It was a tutorial video showing all the ways to explore Youtube. He really emphasized the way educators can use Youtube in the classroom and not just how we can keep up with all the Justin Beiber music video. Dr. Deyamport introduced me to a couple of resources that would be helpful to me, the one that really caught my attention was TED-Ed. TED-Ed is the educational channel of TED Talks. I have never heard of TED Talks before but what I was really interested in as an educator, was the TED-Ed. It provides educators with lessons through Youtube videos. I am still exploring the website more and what all it offers.

In my comment to Dr. Deyamport's Youtube video, I introduced myself and told him how excited I was to learn more about the face behind the Hangout session we had in class. I was honest with Dr. Deyamport about my first thought when I saw the title "Youtube Training Video". I was totally closed minded and thought to myself, what more could I possible learn from Youtube when I watch reruns of "Keeping Up With The Kardashians" all the time? Well I was wrong and learned a lesson to keep an open mind because everyone knows education never stops!! I also told Dr. Deyamport about how he taught me about the different channels. I knew before the video that people had profiles once they became active on Youtube, however I never really thought to visit them. Dr. Deyamport showed me different profiles I can use as an educator. Lastly, I thanked Dr. Deyamport for his video and asked him to visit my page and to feel free to leave feedback.....and he did! :)

The next post I viewed on Dr. Will Deyamport's blog was even more interesting to me! This post was titled, Edmodo Training Video. Like the first post I viewed, it was a tutorial on Edmodo. The reason I was so interested in this post was because not too long ago, Dr. Strange assigned us a blog post to find technological tools for our classrooms. I chose Edmodo! I was excited to see an educators point of view on the website. Dr. Deyamport walks his viewers through Edmodo and shows everything an educator would need to know from posting an assignment to creating communities.

In my comment to Dr. Deyamport, I told him about the assignment Dr. Strange gave us and how I chose Edmodo. I explained how I'm active on social media sites and how I really like the idea of having that connection with my students and their parents. I pointed out that one of my favorite parts of this website is that not only can I have teachers I work with in my online community, but also teachers all over the district. I love seeing educators' different points of views and especially right now being so young in the field, I love learning from all the different educators! I did set up an account on Edmodo, however since I don't have the educators, students, etc. to make my communities, I can't really see all the benefits and how to use it fully. I thanked Dr. Deyamport for this helpful video and explained I would be summarizing what I've learned and my comments on a blog post.

I think Dr. Deyamport will visit again and leave his feedback. I am looking forward to learning more from him and about technology in the classroom throughout my journey to becoming an educator!

Project #9 -PLN

I chose Symbaloo to begin my personal learning network. So far it consists of tools I use daily such as Pinterest and my Gmail. I added education sites such as TeacherTube and PBSTeachers to my PLN. My webmix is organized by color tiles in categories such as education resources and social websites I use everyday. I am looking forward to adding on to my PLN throughout the semester!

Project #8 Book Trailer

This is my book trailer on one of my all time favorite children's book, Where The Wild Things Are. I LOVED making this book trailer! It was so much fun to create!

Blog Post #6

"What do we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher?" -Dr. Strange

We all know by now that in order for project based learning to be successful, the students in your classroom must be involved and engaged in the learning process. Asking students' questions is the best way to increase student interaction.

To answer Dr. Strange's question, What do we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher, I needed to do a little research on questions in the classroom and what types of questions are out there. There are two types of questions: open-ended questions and closed-ended questions. An open-ended question encourages participation and provides more information, whereas a closed-ended question can be answered with a simple yes or no response. Joanne Chesley makes a valid point to think about in her YouTube video, Asking Better Questions in the Classroom Pt. 1. Chesley points out that we are getting exactly what we ask for when questioning in the classroom. The educator needs to put thought into the types of questions before they teach a lesson. If we ask our students closed-ended questions, we are not encouraging them to open their minds and engage in the learning process, therefore we get a closed-ended response.

Now that I know what kind of questions there are and what kinds I will be using in my classroom, I need to know how to ask these questions effectively. Maryellen Weimer recommends three actions to preform that have the potential to improve our questioning in her blog post, Three Ways to Ask Better Questions in the Classroom. First she recommends preparing the questions. Instead of spending so much time focusing on the content and just asking a question when it comes to you, Weimer suggests writing out the questions ahead of time and thinking about appropriate times to ask them and it is really irrelevant to the learning process. Will this question make the child to think or will it give me a closed-ended response? Next Weimer suggests playing with the questions. Often students will stop thinking about a question once the teacher announces that it has been answered correctly. Instead, she tells us to give the students time to put thought into the question. Whether it be to talk among their peers collaboratively or for them to brainstorm for five minutes on a piece of paper. The educator can also ask the question and give the students overnight to think about an answer. Playing with the questions keeps the questioning process engaging and allows the student to be more involved in the learning process. If educators only announce the correct answer immediately after the question, students are not using their thought process to really think about the question in depth. Weimer also recommends preserving good questions. Questions can be kept she says. If a student in a previous class asks a great question, share it with your other classes. Revising our own questions with questions the students are asking can help teach the content better.

There are different types of questions we need to know about and how to use them correctly in order to be an effective teacher. We also need to know how to improve our questions in order to be effective. Educators do not know everything. Even if our little six and seven year old students think their "Superhuman Teachers" know everything in the world, we don't. We as educators need to teach students the importance of questions and how they make us think. As Maryellen Weimer says, there are going to be students who ask us questions that we are not able to answer. When that day comes for me as an educator I will be excited to find out the answer with my students, and show them more personally the importance of questions.

"We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers." -Friedrich Nietzsche Students will only "hear" or engage in the questions educators ask them if they are "in a postition" or required to find the answers themselves. We need to be able to provide them with the types of questions that require them to think and explore their minds more.

Project #7- My Passion

Project #7- My Sentence

You will have to excuse me being a hot mess, today has been chaotic!!

Project #3 -Presentation

This Google presentation was created collaboratively by Lauren Macon, Caitlin Lankford and myself.

Blog Post #5

What is a Podcast? from Judy Scharf's Podcast Collection is really helpful for someone who has little knowledge of what a podcast is. According to Scharf, a podcast is a "radio- style" talk show that is a cross between a broadcast and iPod. Podcasts convey information about any subject and can be listened to on the computer or an mp3 player. Scharf also explains that podcasting shares information to millions of people via internet, is extremely easy to do and costs very little. All you need is a microphone, a computer and software that can be downloaded for FREE! Scharf provides links to YouTube on How to Create a Podcast. She gives us some benefits on podcasts in the classroom and tips on how to succeed such as, giving students a choice of topics and to include a list of criteria for the students. Students will be proud of their work so allow administrators and other teachers to view the podcasts. Judy Scharf's Podcast Collection is really helpful when thinking about my own podcast my EDM 310 group will be creating. This was a great resource to resort back to when considering podcasts in my future classroom. I think this is a great tool for students to work together and they can teach each other how to use the technology needed to create one.

Langwitches- Flat Stanley Podcast was really interesting to me because I could hear the excitement in the students voices in their podcast. After reading "Flat Stanley" by Jim Brown, a first grade class created their own podcast based on the book. As a class they brainstormed with their teacher and made a plan so every student would have a chance to speak on their podcast. Each student was able to pick a location of their choice. The students spent time researching their locations and with the help from their parents, wrote a short script following the guidelines from their teacher. In the podcast, each student had a chance to describe their location. They were reminded that the audience would only hear their voice so they needed to think about the sound effects to help portray the mood. One girl chose Alabama and described visiting Tuscaloosa and the football stadium. She also told us she learned to say "Roll Tide", smart girl! Hearing the excitement and eagerness in the student's voices when it was their turn to speak, shows how much fun they had with it while learning a new tool.

The Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom by Joe Dale is a video on his blog highlighting the benefits of podcasting in a classroom. One of the benefits that I find most effective, is that students and parents can access the podcast and stay up to date with what is going on in the classroom. If a student has an illness or needs to be absent from class for a long period of time, podcasting is an easy and effective way to stay caught up. By having the students create podcasts, it is allowing them to use their creativity and improve their communication skills. Another benefit of podcasts is how easy to use they are. I can obviously see fourth and fifth graders using them, but I would love to have my first and second graders using them also.

C4T #1

For my first C4T this semester, I visited Hadley Ferguson at her blog Middle School Matrix. Hadley's blog was really interesting to me. She is a middle school History and English teacher at an all girls school in Philidelphia. Before she started teaching there, she home-schooled her 4 children. Hadley is in the process of learning about technology in her classroom and project based learning. What really grabbed my attention about her blog was her recent posts I commented on about Project Based Learning. It was so interesting to me that I could relate to her since that's how we are learning in EDM 310.

In Hadley's first post, she described a project her students had been working on in class. Her students were split into groups and were working on making a "Museum Shop" where they would make items for an exhibit on historic people they were assigned to research. Hadley discusses how she created roles and tasks for each group member so the work was equally distributed. With roles such as store manager, architect, area managers and store maintenance, Hadley was able to identify who was responsible for each part of the work. She describes each role in detail and what was expected of her students. Hadley then describes a conversation her students had in class about their plans for the exhibit and each group was able to share their ideas and discuss among each other the concerns they had or things they needed to change about their exhibit. The students played their roles given, while Hadley listened and let the students lead the the conversation.

In my comment to Hadley's post, I introduced myself as a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I told her my thoughts about giving the students roles in the project and how I liked that she was holding each individual student responsible for a part of the work. In group work, teachers often grade the whole group the same and overlook the fact that one or two students might have carried the whole work load. I then thanked Hadley for her post and told her I was looking forward to checking back on how everything turned out.

Hadley's second post I read titled, "And It Comes Together! #PBL", she writes about how her student's commitment and hard work showed in their exhibits. She begins the post by telling us that she has always done majority of the work for a lesson and how the past couple of weeks have been project based learning in her classroom. The "Museum Shop" project was student driven and an adventure for Hadley. Although a few of her students got overwhelmed and let the degree of independence lead to distractions, her students worked well together and she was amazed at how committed an determined they were on this project. In this post, Hadley posted pictures of highlights from her students work. The final step of this project was the Grand Opening. Teachers, administrators, and students were invited to "shop" in the students store that they created. The buyers were handing stickers that they would put on items they wanted to buy. The group or store with the most stickers on their items will be declared the winner.

In my comment to Hadley's post, I thanked her for sharing the pictures and her final thoughts on the student's projects. I then explained to her how Dr. Strange's EDM 310 class was project based learning and how it is different from any other course I have taken. I explained to Hadley how I will be writing a summary on her blog posts and the comments I left for her. Giving her a link to my blog, I told her I would love for her to visit my blog and leave feedback.

Blog Post #4 Collaborative

Edmodo- Melissa Canterbury
Edmodois a social media tool similar to Facebook and Twitter for educators, students and parents to communicate with each other. After creating an account and exploring the website more, I quickly became really interested in it. At first when creating your profile, it prompts you to select "communities" or categories you are interested in. For example, Mathematics, Computer Technology, Creative Arts, Science, Social Studies, etc. Other teachers who have selected these categories as their "communities" can then post lessons or resources for other teachers to access. Edmodo is also very organized. There is a library tab where the teacher can add links and files so that students or parents can locate them anywhere. When posting, the teacher has the object to title the post, whether it be "assignment", "poll", "quiz", or an "alert".
I know from using Facebook and Twitter myself that the amount of users on those two social media is rapidly increasing. After researching on WolframAplpha the "daily visitors of Twitter and Facebook", WolframAlpha reported:
Daily visitors on Facebook.com: 640 million visit/day
Daily visitors on Twitter.com: 84 million visit/day.
These numbers show just how many people use social media today. I can only predict those numbers increasing in the next couple of years. In my classroom I wish to be as connected as my students and parents as possible. With Edmodo, it allows me to be connected with my students and parents through a social media, which they are used to using in their personal lives. However, Edmodo lets me keep the personal lives separate since it is strictly for educators and their students and parents. When using this tool in my elementary classroom, I can use Edmodo to keep in touch with my students as a whole when they are outside of my classroom. I will make sure to teach the importance of social media safety. This page will also allow students to communicate with each other. The teacher can also put her friends into groups, so with parents, I will put them in their own group. This way teachers can communicate with each other about what is going on in the classroom and keep it separate from the students. Edmodo was a very interesting site and I already have teachers sharing links and lessons with me. I am looking forward to exploring this site more throughout the semester and sharing with EDM how it works and how effective I think it will be in the classroom.

Prezi-Caitlin Lankford
Prezi is an online whiteboard that converts presentations from lectures into conversations: allowing people to see, distinguish, and remember thoughts. Randy Howder, the design strategist for Prezi said on the website that, “Prezi allows us to communicate design ideas with our clients in a highly engaging and dynamic way, liberating interesting conversations from the boredom of one-way presentations.” Prezi is designed to improve organization skills and make learning more engaging! This network system, is also available for easy access to share occurring and abundant ideas! Prezi is not just used for educators, but also used by businesses, conferences, and non-profit organizations. Prices for Prezi are also a steal! For public use, Prezi is free. However, if one would like to upgrade Prezi to the “Enjoy,” the price rises to $4.92 monthly, adding up to be $59.00 annually. There is one more upgrade, called “Pro” pricing at $13.25 a month, and $159.00 annually! Although, teachers and students do receive a discount with “Enjoy” being free and “Pro” pricing at $4.92 monthly and annually, $59.00. For a comparisons found on WolframAlpha about presentation website idea prices, SlideShare starts out free, then proceeds to Silver ($19.00 a month), Gold ($49.00 a month), and Platinum (call for details). Unfortunately, Picsviewr did not have a specific amount for using the presentation tool. Prezi is such an interesting tool for not only teachers, but for anyone who is required to deliver a presentation. This tool is quite easy to use and extremely beneficial! I am excited to become familiar with Prezi and use it in EDM310, and as well as in my future classroom!

PhotoPeach- Lauren Macon
PhotoPeach is a video tool where you can create a slideshow in three easy steps. It is used in hundreds of schools worldwide, but you do not have to be an educator to use it. Your slideshow can be shared on websites and via email. PhotoPeach is free, but you can upgrade to become a premium user for only three dollars a month, which allows you to download unlimited shows in burnable CD format, upload your own music, create unlimited photo albums, and customize the transition effects. The website states that “the combination of images, music, and text helps students learn about presentation, expression, writing, communication skills, art appreciation, and media literacy.” There are three advantages for PhotoPeach for educators. One, it is easy to create and can be easily started and stopped within class time. Second, teachers can control and manage student privacy. The slideshows can be kept private or can be shared with the parents and others in the community.Third, it is a great tool for collaborative group work. The students can answer quizzes and polls that the teacher created or the students can create their own. This is an easy tool for teachers and students to give a presentation to the class. PhotoPeach can also be used in the library, technology class, as an assessment tool, as a slideshow, international exchange between schools and much more. You can also follow other people’s accounts or view different slideshows in various categories. According to WolframAplpha, Animoto, another video tool, receives 1.2 million daily views, whereas PhotoPeach receives only 92,000. PhotoPeach is a great tool to use in the classroom, or for anyone creating a slideshow. After creating my own account to experience PhotoPeach, I am looking forward to using this tool more and using it in my future classroom.

Blog Post #3

Peer Editing
"Peer Editing is working with someone your own age- usually someone in your class- to help improve, revise, and edit his or her writing."
After reading Paige Ellis' Blog Assignment #12, I was a little discouraged to write this post without putting a lot of thought into it. Peer editing has always been a weakness of mine because I concentrate too much on the writer's feelings rather than helping them, especially if I have to see them everyday in class. However after watching the video's suggested by Paige, I now know more on how to effectively critique my peer's writings. The first rule of effective peer editing is to always STAY POSITVE! You can get your point across without being negative and in way that is not overly protecting their feelings. You should always start your editing out with a compliment. Tell the writer you like their main idea, you liked the way they said this..., you enjoyed reading because..., anything that states what the writer did well. Next offer suggestions as to how they improve their writing. For example, the writer's word choice or their organization of the paper. But remember to make specific suggestions and to stay positive about it; its a suggestion not a demand. The last step in effective peer editing is to make corrections on the writer's punctuation, grammar, spelling, sentence structure, etc. Paige Ellis's blog helped to learn that in order to really master this quality, I must stay positive and complete all three steps.

How does all of this come into play with my teaching career? Well since I am going to be critique students for a living, I need to realize that practice makes perfect. I can not honestly answer if I will critique my fellow EDMer's publicly or privately until I have come across a situation that I am forced to make that decision. For example, I can see myself offering compliments and suggestions in a comment, but maybe leaving them and email if they have obvious and numerous grammar and organization errors. I think peer editing is much harder for me than critique a child because I am the type that worries about what other opinions of me and with child I know I have a way of talking to them and getting through in an appropriate way. The main thing I am taking from this assignment is to practice every peer editing assignment following the three rules. As with everything, practice makes perfect.

Blog Post #2 Revised

Teaching in the 21st Century: Melissa Canterbury
What Kevin Roberts is asking in his video, Teaching in the 21st Century is what is the role of the educator? As educators are we here to simply give students information? No, they clearly have search engines like Google and Bing for that. We as educators are here to provide resources and the tools needed for students to succeed. Technology is taking control of classrooms whether teachers are ready for it or not.
Educators need to be able to teach students how to use iPads and computers, and not only tell them Google can answer their questions; but teach them how to interpret the information they find on search engines such as Google. Teaching in the 21st century means teaching in classrooms where textbooks don't exist anymore. (Try telling that to teachers 20 years ago.)It means saving those trees and typing on laptops instead. The fast paced, technological world that we live in is taking over our classrooms and educators will need to be prepared.

The Networked Student: Caitlin Lankford
The Networked Student by Wendy Drexler made me realize many things. As said before, in the technology world we are living in, things are changing drastically. We always rely on our technology devices to get us out of situations or take us away from being bored. Being a teacher of a networked student would have many pros and cons. For a pro example, classrooms would Go Green. Assessments would be online, as well as assignments. There is such a thing as too much technology, though. Some students learn in different ways. For me, I am a hands on kind of learner. If studies go strictly to technology, things will get difficult for some students.
Students will always need teachers. Teachers will never go away, because who is going to teach the students how to do something online or on the computer. For instance, Baldwin County High School was the first school to give all of the students a computer. Beforehand, the passing rate was extremely low. Now, two years later, more and more students are graduating because there is a different way of learning. Technology can tend to be a good resource, whether the teacher will be strictly in front of you, or by a communicating software (i.e. Skype).

Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts: Lauren Macon
In the video, Harness Your Students’ Digital Smarts Vicki Davis teaches in a classroom full of technology. She not only teaches, but her students teach too. She states that an educator does not need to know everything about a subject to teach it. They are learning together as a team and the students are teaching as well. Davis’ students collaboratively write and create videos with other students. The students are becoming more comfortable with technology, as well as becoming connected with students all over the world.

Blog Post #2 Collaborative

Professor Dancealot
Professor Dancealot "teaches" dance in a not so effective way. His studio is a lecture hall with a large screen in the front of the class. On the first day he displays the "you will be able to" goal for the class. However, throughout the semester he does not allow his students to get up and participate in learning the dance moves or asking questions about steps. When it comes time for finals the students were instructed to preform the dance steps and they will be notified of their grade at the end of the week. Everything about this teaching style is wrong. Not only can you not teach dance by simply telling your students the dance steps and expecting them to know it, this type of teaching is what Dr. Strange calls "Burp-Back Learning". This video was cute and entertaining but it's sad to say that a lot of teachers teach this way. Maybe not to this extreme, but it still exists. I believe in many ways of teaching. However, the students need to be involved and there needs to be interaction between the student and teacher in order to have a successful classroom.

Teaching in the 21st Century
What Kevin Roberts is asking in Teaching in the 21st Century is what is the role of the educator? As educators are we here to simply give students information? No, they clearly have search engines like Google and Bing for that. We as educators are here to provide resources and the tools needed for students to succeed. Technology is taking control of classrooms whether teachers are ready for it or not. We need to be able to teach our students how to use iPads and computers, and not only tell them Google can answer your questions but teach them how to interpret the information they find on Google. Teaching in the 21st century means teaching in classrooms where textbooks don't exist anymore. (Try telling that to teachers 20 years ago.)It means saving those trees and typing on laptops instead. The fast pace, technological world that we live in is taking over our classrooms and educators should be prepared.