Blog Post #14

For this blog I read Pseudoteaching: MIT Physics. The term pseudoteaching means teaching that looks good but doesn't really teach the students anything. Professor Lewin at MIT is a physics teacher. In the post was a video that showed a short clip of one lecture and he was very energetic and you could tell that he really loved what he was teaching. It was great to see so much excitement in the eyes of the professor because you know you are getting his best every time he is speaking. But just because he is a great lecturer doesn't mean that his students were learning anything. His class attendance and passing rate dropped as the class progressed through the semester. He learned that in order for his students to learn that they needed some interaction with the lesson he was trying to teach. After realizing this he broke his students up into small groups and let them talk and ask questions among themselves and things got better for them.

 I think that it doesn't have to be rocket science to get your students interactive in class. The one way that I believe that students can learn is by getting them involved in the classroom. If we just sit there and lecture our tails off and don't let the students respond or ask questions then how can we tell if they are getting it. One goal I have is to always make my students interact during class so I know they are understanding what is going on. I am glad that I was able to read this post because it shows that even MIT professors have trouble with their students learning.

Final PLN report

 For my last report on my Personal Learning Network, I love it!! I'm glad that we learned how to set one up in this class. I have things somewhat organized on my education sites such as Khan Academy and iTunesU. I also have a section for educational games and videos for my son. Also in my last section I have some sites that I use for entertainment purposes. All in all I really like using symbaloo and will spread the news of this technology to everyone that I know.

C4T #4

In my last Comments for Teachers I was assigned to the Learning is Messy bog by Brian Crosby. In my first post I commented on for Mr. Crosby it was about a science project that his fifth grade class participated in. They sent of a bag of cheetos and three balloons up with a high altitude balloon. Throughout the flight they had a camera mounted with the payload and it captured images from different altitudes. I commented on this post and said that this was an awesome experience for his class. Also that it would be a great project for any grade level to take part in. I thanked him for sharing these photos and the progress with us.
The second post I commented on was a quote that Mr. Crosby posted on his blog.
“What I wish people would realize is that “good” schools with high test scores don’t think of their instruction as some kind of reward for the test scores. They don’t focus on basic skills and then suddenly reach a point where they…develop deeper knowledge, enrich learning, engage students’ interests, etc. It’s not basics and then enrichment. The basics can be addressed more covertly, more authentically, and more effectively, when those skills are developed in a meaningful and motivational context. That type of environment shouldn’t be the exception, the unearned privilege of the children of privileged parents, and those lucky enough to attend schools that test well. That type of education is the birthright of every child.” - David B. Cohen
 What I got from this quote is that every child deserves the same education no matter where they live or what their parents income I commented on this post and told him that I loved this quote and will have it posted somewhere in my classroom one day after I graduated and had my own classroom. This quote does show what every teacher should strive for and that the perfect learning experience is when the students don't realize that they are learning and are having fun.

Final Project 16

Blog Post #13

Jose Picardo's Top Ten Tips for Using Technology in the Classroom was very interesting. A lot of his tips included the things that we are learning here in our EDM310 class. Using technology in the classroom is very beneficial to the students if it is used correctly. The world is always evolving into something bigger and better and so is the technology. If we do not continue to educate ourselves and our young ones on this technology then or society will meet its demise.

 A couple of Mr. Picardo's tips were pretty cool. The tip about using interactive exercises was pretty neat. In his video he had some kind of matching game on his website. Games like this could help students with their memory and visual recognition of images and help expand their vocabulary. Another tip I thought was really good was using music to our advantage. I haven't really thought much about music being used in the classroom as a tool to help with learning. I think that if we use music in the classroom it would help keep the student's attention and change up the pace a little bit and keep them entertained. One big factor that I think is extremely important is keeping the students entertained. This may sound bad but I believe that if our students are entertained and kept interested in the topics we are teaching then the information will stick with them better and they will actually learn it and not cram it.

Project #15

Blog Post 12

In our profession, as well as others, we will have days when we can't take it anymore. But to get through the day all we need is a good laugh to get us going back in the right direction. My assignment for you is to find a video that inspires you to keep your chin up and help you realize that things are not as bad as they seem. Also describe why this video helps make you smile or what message you gain from the video.



My inspirational video that helps get me through the day is about a puppy that was born into being a service dog for people with disabilities. As she grew older her natural instincts as a dog started kicking in and she became a hazard for the job they were training her for. Once they let her go she changed from a service dog to a SURFice dog. She started doing surfing shows as fundraisers for charitable events. The message I get from this video is this, no matter how bad things get or how difficult the task, we always have the ability to chose to make things better. We can either dwell on all the negatives or we can put all of our focus and energy into the positives in life to make a difference for others.

Progress Report on Final Project

I am in group with Emily Kinney and Kelsey Hayward. We haven't decided on a topic for our project yet but we are meeting in the morning to discuss it. From there we will meet as many times as needed to complete our project.

Project #14

Blog Post 11

Mrs. Cassidy's First Graders and Skype Interview with Mrs. Cassidy

Mrs. Cassidy has her first grade class using technology every day. This is amazing! These very young kids are using blogs, skype, and wikis. It is so impressive because there are a lot of older people in the world that have no clue on how to use them and quite a few that have ever heard of them. By using these sites it is helping the students learn to read and write and improve their grammatical skills. The most useful form of technology he students are using is probably the blogs. By using the blogs it allows their parents to see their work and give them praise. The praise they receive boosts their confidence and urges them to do more and keep advancing and improving their skills.
Another tool that is very cool is Skype. Skype lets you interact with other people that are as near as the next room or as far as across the world. I mean how many first grade students can say that they chatted with a person on the other side of the world through a video chat on the internet. I wish I could have had that opportunity as a child.
One of the biggest problems ,other than communication with the students, would have to be getting the parents to go along with teaching their young children how to use technology. The problem that I think that we would encounter is that a lot of parents are used to the old school way of teaching straight out of the text books and not the new school technology. This could be an easy fix if I could get the parents to help out with their child at home and then they could learn along with them. I think that once they saw how useful and how much it got every child involved they would be all for it. Just because it's new doesn't mean that it is bad because the world is ever evolving and we must kep up with the times or we will be left in the dust.

Special Assignment #2

PART A
Khan Academy

Khan Academy is a non-profit website that students can use as a great learning tool. This website has information in lectures and videos on many different subjects. Also to go along with the lectures and videos, they have problems that you can wok out and will give you step by step instructions if you need them. This website will keep track of your progress on any activities that you do and will let you know what you need to work on. To go along with the students, teachers can use this website as well. They can use the site to see what their students have been doing and see how they are faring on the assignments.

iTunesU

iTunesU is another website that teachers can use to post their lectures and assignments for their students. The students can view the assignments and lectures and download them to their home computer, iPod,iPad, or iPhone. The teachers can set these assignments and lectures to private for their class to see only or the can set the option to public so any and everybody can see if they want to look.

TED

TED was an annual Technology, Entertainment, and Design conference that was later developed into a website. The conferences are recorded and the videos of the speakers are posted on this site. The videos or subtitles in many different languages that way people from all over the world can view them and understand what is being said. This website was created to help individuals learn and change their lives and ideas.


PART B
Khan Academy
Khan Academy is a great learning tool for students and also a great tool for teachers. Their are tons of ways that students can learn using this website. There are lectures to watch and assignments that they can do to practice. This is a good tool for teachers because they can watch the progress of their students as the complete assignments. Also they can keep up with statistical scores of each student for each subject they work in.

iTunesU
iTunesU is also a fantastic tool for teachers. They can upload lectures to it and then can decide who can see them. They can limit them to their students only or for everyone to see. This can save teachers a lot of time and headache because they can post the lecture and then if the students have any questions about what was said they can just replay the video over and over as many times as they'd like. One advantage for students is that the videos can automatically download to their computer without them having to worry about it.

TED
TED could be useful depending on how the teacher decides to use it. They could send videos of other students that are not exactly to thrilled about school and could help their current students relate to issues they are having personally. One advantage to this process is that teachers can send each individual a different video that relates only to them. Also another advantage could be the fact that it would make talking to their students a little bit easier. If they find it difficult to speak to their student in person they could let the video do the talking for them.

PART C
 Khan Academy
I watched the Liar Truthteller Brainteaser  video from the Khan Academy website. In this video, we must chose the correct door to open to find all of our happiness. Choosing the incorrect door leads to agony and despair. But in order to choose the right door we must ask the doorkeeper one question and one question only. From this question we must decipher which doorkeeper is the liar and which is the truthteller. As I sat and thought about the question I was sure what to ask so I watched the rest of the video. The question that needed to be asked was "Which door would the other guy say to open?" Whatever the answer we were given it would always be incorrect so we should choose the opposite door. I thought this was a pretty cool video because it really made you think. Activities like these really help to get you thinking and help your logic.

iTunesU
My Class 2.0 by Marc Coleman is found in the K-12 section in iTunesU. During this video Marc discusses how to use the website Evernote. In this website you can create notes and then search for keywords in your notes to find your notes. This site also has another cool feature in that you can use pictures in your notes and they can key in on any words used in the picture for the keyword search. This would be extremely helpful in class because you can share these notes with whoever you need to and you can also sync these notes with your facebook or twitter accounts.

TED
  The hidden power of smiling by Ron Gutman was a great video. Growing up we always heard that smiling will make your happier and improve you life. Ron spoke in his video about how he did research on the power of smiling and how it improved our health and life. In his research he looked at old yearbook photos, baseball cards, and pictures of Hollywood actors. I thought this was awesome and we can use this in everyday life because I want to produce happy students and citizens. And if I can make my students happy and smile then it will make me smile and we can all live long happy lives.

PART D

Khan Academy
 I believe that this website can and will be extremely helpful to my future students. The use of the many lectures, activities, and videos will be a positive if used by my students. The activities can help students practice what we have been working on in class and I can keep track of how well they did and what they may need some help with. It can also help students that need an extra bit of guidance that I may not be able to give them at home. So they can just pull up the site and go to work.

iTunesU
 iTunesU can be very helpful also because almost everybody has an iPod or iPhone now a days. This will be helpful because I can post our class lectures and work on the website and they can access it from home. So whether the student is sick or just needs to refresh their memory of what we covered they can pull it up at home or on their mobile device. Another good thing about this that I can set it to private just so my students are the only ones that can access this material.

TED
 TED will probably be the least useful of the three. It has videos of speakers talking about many different topics. Some of these videos are pretty interesting but I'm not sure if I could incorporate it everyday like I could with Khan Academy and iTunesU.

PART E

 This assignment surprised the heck out of me. I had no idea about these sites and they were all pretty cool. Khan Academy was by far the best one we got to play with and check out. The amount of information and activities on this site is outstanding. It covers a broad array of topics and it has practice activities that students can work with. I actually showed my brother-in-law this website the other day to help him out with his high school algebra. Overall I was very impressed with all of the information.