Rethinking Learning: The 21st Century Learner

This video shows how kids are learning in the 21st century. I believe that children should be exposed to the technological world, but as Kalie Salen says when referring to technology, "Bring it out when we need it and put it away when we don't need it." I believe that technology can be useful, but I do not think it is necessary in every lesson that needs to be taught. What are your thoughts?

 

 

Blog Post #7

From the video, Top 10 Reasons to Use Technology in Education: iPad, Tablet, Computer, Listening Centers, I have learned why it is essential to for me to use technology in the classroom.

1. Students love it
2. It engages the four key components of learning. (active engagement, participation in groups, frequent interaction and feedback, and connection to real world experts)
3. Professional development
4. Makes life easier for teachers
5. Improves test scores
6. Learn from the experts
7. Helps students with low attention spans
8. Encourages completion of homework
9. Saves money
10. Removes obstacles

Technology will only continue to evolve and some day I believe that it will be required in all classrooms. For most schools that teach through technology, they tend to use Macintosh (Mac)computers, iPads, etc. Mac technology has many more features for learning as well teaching tools for teachers than any other form of technology. For example, I have a Windows computer and my computer works well, but I have recently been looking for a video editor through my Windows 8 apps and it has been an impossible task. All of the apps freeze my computer and do not have enough tools for me to completely edit my video how I would like to. On Mac, IMovie is available on the computer for free and has all the necessary tools for editing videos. This is why most schools choose Mac! Mac computers are great teaching tools, and I believe that I will have to learn how to use Mac before I can become a teacher. I love technology, but since I do not own a Mac computer, learning how to use one is going to be a struggle. I will be working on saving up enough money to purchase a Mac just because I know I will need to learn it in order to be able to teach my students in the way I would like to. Maybe the school I teach at someday will require it too. I also love Smart Boards and I grew up using them in school. Smart Boards are a wonderful way to teach, especially for math teachers. Teaching math on a Smart Board is quick and easy! Using different colors, shapes, and patterns will engage students in the lessons and they will not get bored. Smart Boards are also great for the environment. No dry erase markers, chalk, white board cleaner, or paper towels are being used. Smart Boards are interactive and still allow students to come up to the board and work out the problems or circle the right answer. Technology is now and teachers need to use it! Maybe technology isn't best for all situations, but it is a great tool to engage students in a fun way of learning!

Comments4Kids Summary for Month of February

Angel D.

I had the pleasure of commenting on Angel D's blog from Mrs. Weil's Fourth Grade Froggies class blog. Angel had wrote about how it is hard for her to write on her blog, because she gets stuck with a lot of words. I left a comment saying how her imagination is the key to writing. I told Angel that she should think of a memory or a beautiful dream that she has had that makes her happy, and that she should write about one of those in her blog posts. I even told her my dream that I use whenever my mind is blank, and told her that she could use my dream to help her if she would like. Some children may not have the best of memories or the happiest of dreams due to many reasons. Some children may have a bad life at home or have some sort of medical issue that impairs them. Although I do not know anything about Angel other than she is in Mrs. Weil's class, if she does not have a good memory or a happy dream, then I am glad that I let her use mine.
Angel D's Blog

 

Tyler U.

I commented on Tyler U's blog from Boylen's 8th grade Language Arts Classes, and I would just like to say that Tyler is a great writer! Tyler's post talked about his winter break that his school had and how he was able to spend a lot of time with family and also see some family that he has never seen before. I told Tyler that having breaks from school was great, because it gives you a chance to relax and not have to worry about the more difficult things in life. But, that school was important and going back after break was great, because there is always time for learning!
Tyler U's Blog

Aiden

I loved the topic that Aiden blogged about on the Hartmen/Centeno Readers and Authors class blog. Aiden talked about the book Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. Although I had not read the book, I have seen the movie, and I was able to follow along exactly with what Aiden was saying. I thought it was great how Aiden did not spoil the ending of the book just in case someone was reading his blog that had not read the Harry Potter series before. In one part of Aiden's blog he began to talk about a port key. I thought it was wonderful how he defined what a port key was before he continued on with his story. I am sure defining that word really helped the readers of Aiden's blog understand more of the material. At the end of Aiden's blog post he asked a question: "If you could make a portkey on a object where would you want to send the person who touches it?" Aiden really seems to have a lot of interest in the book he was reading, and it is great that he wanted feedback from his readers!

Aiden's Blog

Torrance

I commented on Torrance's blog posted titled Tupac from Moments that Matter with Mrs. Maslowski blog. Torrance talked about how Tupac was a great rapper, but also that Tupac was multi-talented since he was a poet along with other things. Torrance also said that he admires Tupac's poems and song lyrics and that was because he grew up listening Tupac with his father. I told Torrance that I really liked the person he chose to blog about for Black History Month, but I thought that Torrance should have told more about what happened to Tupac. Giving the reader more information about Tupac could help them to better understand Torrance's blog post. Torrance did insert a picture in his blog post, and I think that is a great way to show his reader's what Tupac looked like!

Torrance's Blog



Blog Post #6

I watched seven videos where Anthony Capps, 3rd grade teacher at Gulf Shores Elementary School, talked about his teaching experiences and gave advice and information for future educators. Anthony taught me so many things about project based learning and learning in general that I think will help me with my class whenever I become a teacher. There were six steps to project based learning that Anthony Capps talked about in the video titled The Anthony-Strange Tips for Teachers Part 1.

1. Be a constant learner yourself
2. Teaching never ends. It is hard work. It is very rewarding.
3. Be flexible and creative. The unexpected will happen!
4. Start with a goal.
5. Engage 100% of your students 100% of the time with 100% of their projects.
6. Reflect, revise, share work with an audience.

These tips encouraged me to create my own list of things that I will hold myself responsible for in my classroom.

1. Have rewards for learning.
2. Always display students work and accomplishments.
3. Engage students with project based learning.
4. Be creative in everything I teach.
5. Learn about students lives and incorporate their interests into daily teaching goals.

My list is still growing and will continue to grow for many years to come. Anthony Capps inspired me to be a better teacher and to put thought and preparation into my daily lessons. I encourage everyone who reads this to create their own list of goals for their classroom. Anthony Capps was a student in EDM310 just like we are now and he is doing some incredible things. Just think, Anthony has come so far in such a short amount of time, and now that we have his knowledge just imagine how many great things we can accomplish as educators and learners! We are all destined to do wonderful things and in my opinion, teachers are the thriving source that will change the world.

Project #7 Part A

My Sentence Is...

 

My Passion Is...

 

Blog Post #5 First Post

Personal Learning Networks (PLN) are a set of people and tools that one can call upon for help, consultation, collaboration, education, or other assistance. A PLN is an ocean filled with knowledge. PLNs provide more opportunities for learning than ever before. As an educator I will have to be willing to try new things, and learn collectively. To establish a PLN you must formulate questions or identify a subject of interest. You must search out people, places, and organizations from which you will learn. My EDM 310 class gave us an assignment of creating a Twitter account. I believe that Twitter is a great way to create my own PLN. I have already followed some educators on Twitter and what I have seen has been amazing. If you would like to see some of the things I have, look at who I am following on my Twitter profile. One person in particular that I have followed is Michelle Rhee. Michelle Rhee is the founder of the organization called StudentsFirst and the former Washing D. C. Public Schools Chancellor. Last year I had to do a research paper for my EH 101 class on proper education in schools. I came upon Michelle Rhee while I was searching through books in the library. I was so intrigued by her ideas on education that I read her book in its entirety. Rhee's book is titled Radical: Fighting to Put Students First. Michelle Rhee is the first person that I added to my PLN and I encourage you to follow her on Twitter. PLNs are exciting and interesting tools for learning, and I am so glad that I have finally established my own PLN!

Michelle Rhee's Twitter

Emily's Twitter

 

Project #15

This project is all about search engines, and I will be giving personal reviews on each and how I think these search engines could be useful to you.

WolframAlpha

 

 

WolframAlpha is a search engine, but it is much more than what you expect! WolframAlpha does not just search by typing in a random word; it is also good for math problems, which I thought was really neat! I entered a simple problem into the search engine: 2+2 and hit the compute button, and I was given the answer to the problem. It gave me a numerical answer, a word answer, a number line answer, and also a picture answer using counting blocks. I was shocked by how many ways I was given the answer! Having so many examples is great for learning, but also great for people with different ways of learning. WolframAlpha also has an extended keyboard for extra use or for people with disabilities. What a great tool right? I think so too! This search engine also gives feedback on random data. I uploaded a picture and once it was done computing it gave me image characteristics, pixel value histograms, possible dominant colors, image keypoints, and image transformations. In my opinion, WolframAlpha is greater than your average search engine and can be extremely beneficial to everyone.

DuckDuckGo

 

 

I came upon this search engine called DuckDuckGo and it amazed me! This is a search engine dedicated to making answers easier to find and protecting people's personal information by not collecting or sharing anything about its users. DuckDuckGo also lets you refine your search by selecting a specific region and language. By searching a word, many options will appear on the screen. For example, I searched the word "talking". It gave me these five options: about, images, videos, meaning, and definition. This search engine is very useful for getting definitions of words. Instead of having to search "definition of talking" you can simply type in "talking" and choose the definition category. This tool is great for learning vocabulary!



Ask

 

 

Ask is all about questions. Ask a question and it will provide you with the website that has the best possible answer. This is the search engine where all the questions are answered! Ask also has a Q&A Community tab for people to create their own questions and have other people in the community answer them instead of relying solely on the search engine itself. This search engine has a tab called theKnow where fun facts can be found. It is a very interesting part that left me on Ask for a few hours looking at all the nifty stuff. Try it out!

Dogpile

 

What is super neat about Dogpile is that this search engine has a shopping tab and a white pages tab! The shopping tab is very handy for whenever you want to cut out all of the images and random information about what you typed in; you can simply shop. Also, the white pages is a great tool to have at your fingertips. Most people do not get phonebooks any longer, and if they do it does not have citizens phone numbers; it only has businesses and important emergency numbers. With that being said, if you need a phone number quick, Dogpile is the search engine of choice!

 

Zoo

 

 

Zoo is a neat search engine! The layout is really cool and colorful and the site has great organization. There is an added bonus: Zoo does not have advertisements (ads) anywhere on their site. Not having ads on this site makes searching easier and more convenient, because you will not accidentally click on some ad and it redirect you to another site. Zoo also has the weather posted directly on their home page. Instead of searching for the weather, it finds your location and sends the weather to you. Overall, this search engine is good for whenever you need to find something quickly!

 

Gigablast

 

 

I found a search engine called Gigablast and the tool that I thought was most useful was the advanced search. You can search exact words, exact phrases, multiple words, a certain language, a URL, and words can also be excluded from your search as well. This is a really great tool for cutting out unnecessary results. Gigablast also has a directory. These categories vary from arts, to games, to kids/teens, to science, to sports. If you choose the category kids/teens, some other categories will come up. I chose the preschool category and so many choices came up! Such as: ABC's and 123's, shapes and colors, crafts, and sea animals. These categories are extremely wonderful for parents at home who want to teach their children basic knowledge for their age. Gigablast is a great learning tool!

 

Lycos

 

 

The Lycos search engine has so much more than any other search engine! Lycos has weather, mail, news, entertainment, chat, TV, gamesville, a variety of languages to choose from, and a regular search bar. What I find most useful on this site is the TV category. This category shows short videos on news, entertainment, or really anything! Sometimes we get tired or reading articles over and over again to find out the information that we are searching for. So instead, take a break and watch a couple of informative videos on Lycos!
 

MagPortal

 

 

MagPortal is a search engine specifically for searching magazines. You can create an account on this website and save magazine articles that you have searched. This is a great tool if someone has a research paper to do and needs a lot of different sources. You can also search by category, publication, and date. MagPortal is a research guru!

Project #2

Rubric for Projects

Rubric for Individuals

Rubric for Blog Posts



Created By:

Emily Johnson

Tiffany Le

Candace King

Victoria Johnson

Blog Post #4

Asking Effective and Engaging Questions

 

 

According to  Maryellen Weimer, PhD, there are Three Ways to Ask Better Questions in the Classroom.

1. Prepare Questions- This will make sure that the questions flow throughout the lesson. A teacher should not have to think about what comes next in the lesson. There should be a steady flow, and this will happen if the lessons have been practiced. Be prepared for frequent changes in the lessons though.
2. Play With Questions- Change questions so that they will be make the students think and be engaged in the lesson. Provide questions in many different ways such as: by mouth, on paper, or leave a question on the board and ask the students to answer it at the end of class.
3. Preserve Good Questions- Revise the questions so they are open-ended instead of close-ended. Refocus the questions so that they will accomplish the goals of the lessons.

Also, in Asking Questions to Improve Learning, I read tips on how to respond effectively to questions that are being answered by students.

1. Wait for students to think and form questions.- Waiting 5-10 seconds will increase the number of students that volunteer to answer the questions.
2. DO NOT interrupt students' responses.- Although you are the teacher and essentially know a lot about the subject, let the student finish answering so that you can determine whether he or she is learning the material and effectively responding.
3. Show your interest in the students' response.- Gestures such as nodding your head and keeping eye contact will reassure the student that you are focused and interested in what they are saying. It will give the student more confidence.
4. Use follow up questions.- If a student responds incorrectly, tell he or she what was wrong, and then ask another question that will lead the students to the correct answer.

These tips are very useful when it comes to preparing questions for your students. Asking effective questions should be something that every teacher continues to improve on. We should always ask questions that have elaborate answers, lead to other questions, engage students in the lessons, and absolutely DO NOT confuse students.

 

Comments4Teachers Summary

Jennifer Ferguson

 

On Professor Ferguson's blog, she posted a video titled InfoWhelm and Information Fluency. Professor Ferguson says that she was "in awe at the increase (and continued exponential growth) of our digital output", and I agree with her completely. I believe that teachers must have information fluency and be well aware of all the unique ways to use technology. There has been a 10 percent increase in stored files within the past 6 years, and so this means that students will have to be more informed about how to search the internet for credible sources. And who will be there to teach the students? Teachers! Though, even with teachers, the future sure is going to be a struggle for us all.

 

Professor Ferguson absolutely inspired me with her blog post titled "Professor Ferguson: An Affectionate Moniker". Professor Ferguson talked about how she had such a strong relationship with her students, and also how she thought that her and her students were both learners. Professor Ferguson thinks that the students have taught her many exciting things and that they have inspired her as well. I love how Professor Ferguson is so honest with her students and how close she is to them. If Professor Ferguson was having a bad day and a student asked her to explain, then she would. Having an honest and close relationship with students is a great way to connect to them on a personal level.

 

Overall, both blog posts that I commented on were worth watching and reading. Although I have never met Professor Ferguson, I believe that she really understands her students, and she knows that her purpose in life is to be a great teacher! I hope that I am blessed in my career as she has been.

 

 

Professor Ferguson's Blog: My Journey as an Educator