Blog Assignment #2

Pissarro:

Mr. Dancealot Video

The teaching strategies in the comical youtube video, “Professor Dancealot,” communicates what NOT to do for our future students. In the opening, Professor Dancealot introduces himself and the purpose of the class from a power point. Power points are an extremely useful method for teaching, but the Professor in the video actually reads what is on the power point. A teacher should be so informed of the subject he/she is teaching so that they are able to put in their own words what they’re trying to convey to their students and give concrete examples in the lecture. The purpose of a power point should be a visual of information for students to summarize in their own words in order to use that information and apply it to actual reality. The fact that he’s supposedly been teaching this class for 12 years and can’t remember the objectives of the class is quite humorous. While he’s going through the power point he does demonstrate the dance moves presented on the slides, but there is a large podium and desk right in front of him preventing the class from being able to see what he’s acting out. One student actually attempts to stand, watch the professor’s feet, and carry out the presented dance move, but the professor commands him back to his seat. He assumes every student understands what to do, so he proceeds to the next lesson without further explanation leaving the class to fend for themselves. His students were falling asleep, talking to their neighbors, and completely uninterested in what he was trying to teach during class time.

By the time this class reached the final exam, which was not paper/question based, but performing the actual dances they had studied about, they had done no dancing throughout the course and were completely clueless when he told them to begin. As a teacher, you have to teach in ways you think your students can best learn. Obviously, teaching dance moves from a power point but never actually allowing your students to practice them is not the ideal class. This concept can be used in an elementary classroom. Fire drills are a great example. If you just gave elementary students notes on what to do when there is a fire, it would be chaos. That is why schools have fire drills so the students can have practice and know what to expect. Another example would be something as obvious as teaching math. If you, as a teacher, stand up at the board and work out problems all day but never give the students the chance to work them out on their own and ask questions when they struggle, they are never going to learn the correct way of doing the math problem. You have to give the student the chance to practice on their own and figure out their own way of learning and working through concepts and problems.

When students are complaining about material more than actually learning and completing assignments, this should communicate to the teacher that something needs to be done differently for positive results to occur. There is always a way to get students “hands on,” involved, and up and moving in the classroom, especially in a dance class. Teachers must be willing to discover different learning styles and carry them out. Learning in different ways ultimately aids in students being engaged in what they’re doing and helps them to actually learn and remember the material for future use.

Jordan Neely:
"Harness your Students' Digital Smarts" Video
and "Edutopia" Website

In a small school in rural South Georgia, Vikki Davis uses technology to connect her students to the world. She blogs on the “Cool Cat Teacher” blog and it has over 6,000 readers. It recently won a reward for being one of the best teacher blogs. Vikki teaches full time. She believes every student can learn but she says certain students can’t learn to their best ability when all they have is paper and a pencil. She accomplishes the curricular but does it by seeing how her individual students best learn. She is comfortable with about every form of technology and is teaching her students to feel the same. If she gives them an unknown term, she expects them to look it up on google and do the research for themselves. She is teaching her students to be “thinkers”. Vikki uses a program in her classroom called “Open Sim”. This program lets students host a virtual world. The students taught themselves and each other how to work this program better. There is also a project called “Digi Teen”. This allows students to post about different topics for other teachers and students to look at it blog about it. There is also the “Flat Classroom Project” this lets students interact with other students all over the world. In January 2009, Vikki and some of her students traveled to the Middle East to attend the “Flat Classroom Project” conference. She believes the idea of empowering students to share with one another can create a better classroom.

The Edutopia website has a vision of new world learning. This website allows you to browse by grade, view blogs, and watch videos. It also has a section labeled “Classroom Guides”. This tab has all sorts of downloads with guidelines on different topics for teachers and parents. When clicking on the blog tab, it gives you different categories of blogs to explore. One of the blogs is titled “New-Teacher Support”. These blogs give advice about the first day of school, time management in the classroom, and resources to look at. This website has information for new teachers to use that can be helpful when starting a new school year. Edutopoia is really about project-based learning and helping to encourage teachers to use different teaching strategies in the classroom.

I loved the video and the website. Vikki Davis’s way of doing her classroom and using technology is great. The way she shows her students how to interact with students all over the world is so exciting. This way students can learn about new trends, new cultures, and new technology in general. Vikki seems very passionate about teaching and investing her time into her students by the way she took a group to the Middle East. She proves that she wants to best for her students and to help them view the world in different ways. This form of teaching and technology helps her to be able to do that. When Vikki stated that every student can learn but some can not learn with just a pencil and paper, that comment made me think. Teachers always talk about how every student learns differently. For some, technology may be the best way for them to learn certain concepts. Vikki Davis is very serious about helping her students learn in whatever way possible and she also seems to be a firm believer in that technology is changing classrooms for the good.

Kaley McDonald:
Teaching in the 21st Century

What does it mean to teach in the 21st century? Kevin Roberts is the Chief Executive Officer Worldwide for an advertising agency known as “Saatchi & Saatchi.” His Prezi presentation on Teaching in the 21st Century is very clear that the future of education is changing dramatically. Pencil and paper are now considered “old school,” while laptops and iPads in every classroom is becoming the norm. The world is constantly changing around us and with it, education. Students are no longer satisfied, if they even ever were, sitting still and quiet at their desks while completing in-class work sheets that relate to the topic of the day. Engaging students in current technology and information by teaching them how to use it properly and effectively has incredible results. Teaching them how to, in Roberts’ words, “remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create.” If teachers are not open to endless possibilities that technology can administer, such as a ginormous variety of information through blog posts, twitter and facebook discussions, which betters student’s communication skills, Google searches, you tube videos, skyping with other students around the world to learn different cultures and ethnicities, constant current events at their fingertips, and so much more, their students are going to miss out on numerous opportunities to learn skills that are essential in applying to real life situations. Learning is not memorizing facts in a textbook to be able to record those temporary memorizations onto a written test. Learning is seeking and gaining useful knowledge and remembering said knowledge in order to, dare I say it, USE it. This relates to one of our EDM 310 mottos, which expresses, “No more burp-back education!” Roberts emphasizes that “Teachers are no longer the main source of knowledge, we are the filter.” Students have the means to search for anything they desire and at the press of a button it is instantaneously in front of them. Metaphorically speaking, the teacher’s job is to filter or reduce their search results from 144,000 to 12. Showing them the skills they need to communicate information, problem solving, collaborating with others, making sure the information found is valid, and so forth.

Curriculum should be centered on skills rather than facts and content. Teaching them also, the dangers of plagiarism, pirating, copyrights, and what to do when certain problems arise. Technology haters often bring up the fact and question of how to control misbehaving students who bring laptops, iPads, and cell phones to school. Roberts says, “The tools provide temptation, but they are not the source of negative behavior.” Students only lack creativity when you rob it from them. They should be challenged to get up out of their seats and learn in new ways using new tools, while the teacher monitors whether it is relevant, challenging, and engaging.

Another argument is that students should not need to be entertained constantly. Entertainment indeed should not be the goal, but rather, engagement should be the focus. Students get enough meaningless entertainment throughout their lifetime without us adding to the madness. Engaging students is the key to long-term skills that stick. It is the way in which we will provide students the opportunity and skill to learn and think for themselves. Just as another one of our EDM 310 mottos states, “never tell, always ask.” Meaning, never give a student the complete answer to a question. Instead, always answer with more questions in order to get their brain gears going without the teacher manually turning the crank. Being told information isn’t nearly as effective as searching and discovering it for yourself. Usually, the more difficult it is to achieve a goal, the more rewarding that goal will be. All of this begins and continues with the educators. Change is, say it with me, “GOOD.” Never stop learning in order to never stop teaching. The world and its information doesn’t stop, people do. Keep running the race and never give up!

Brooklyn Rowland:
The Networked Student by Wendy Drexler

What is a networked student? According to the YouTube video "The Networked Student" by Wendy Drexler, a networked student is one who utilizes the Internet to learn about a particular topic. This type of student doesn't just use the typical search engine though, this student has subscribed to blogs, uses google scholar and is in contact with other students and professionals that blog, write, lecture or work in the particular subject of interest. Being networked helps students to learn on their own. Subscribing to blogs and other websites and using an RSS feed and a PLN, a personal learning network, to stay organized, helps the student to stay up to date with any new information on any topic!

In this video, the question "Why does a networked student need a teacher?" is asked. Simply put, the teacher is the student’s guide. While there are no textbooks and lectures in a classroom based on networked learning, the teacher is still a necessary tool. A networked teacher guides the students through the creating of their PLN. The teacher also gets the students started in their networking by linking them with people he or she may already know. While the teacher doesn't actually teach the students about the topics of interest, she does teach them how to find that information!

I love the idea of being a networked teacher some day. I wish I could have been taught to be a networked student earlier in my schooling. I think it is very beneficial to the students. It promotes lifelong learning! And I believe wholeheartedly that we should all be lifelong learners!

Blog Assignment #1

Krissy Venosdale's idea of the perfect school sounds so exciting. Kids are excited and eager to learn! Krissy is very passionate about creating a school with an environment that feels welcoming to students. She is also passionate about making every moment with her students count. In Krissy's dream school, children are craving learning because of the environment they are placed in and the enthusiasm of  the teachers. I loved when she stated "Digging deep, not covering curriculum, would be the requirement". It wouldn't matter what specifics were being studied as long as the students were showing interest and understanding what was being taught. Students would be able to expand their knowledge by traveling on field trips and experiencing hands on activities in real labs and also be a part of service work. What better way is there to learn? She also mentioned no state tests. Students would just be taught for the sake of learning topics that interest them. Krissy Venosdale couldn't have done a better job describing the perfect dream school.

Sugata Mitra is very interested in technology. He did several projects called "Hole in the Wall", where he placed computers in different areas, like in Southern India, and observed how children responded to them over a period of time. One he set up and came back 8 hours later and the children were already browsing the computer. He then moved it to a different village and came back in a few months and the children were playing games and asking for faster processors and a new mouse! The children were given no instruction on how to work the machines. After observing the students, he saw that not only were they figuring out how to work the machines, they were able to teach other children how to work them. These children were learning and having fun while also learning to work the computer and play the games. Sugata believes we need to design a future for learning by supporting children all over the world to work together. He will call it "A School in the Cloud", students will be given big questions and then study and learn from technology.

I want my classroom to be a fun learning environment. For example, in a 1st grade classroom teaching reading, there are so many different projects, field trips, and resources to dig into. When you add technology to the picture the variety of activities increases so much more. Adding field trips, as Krissy Venosdale mentioned, could include road trips different local libraries instead of just the school library. Attending live plays that have been read in class is a great way for children to get a visual and better understanding of popular stories. Having computers and iPads with headphones that could read out loud to the students would be great. They can follow along and hear the words spoken out loud at their own pace. Reading is going to be a very important aspect to my classroom. Technology, field trips, and activities are going to play major roles in the learning process.


What I want my students to know:

Most importantly, I want my students to know that learning is fun! I want to be able to create a comfortable environment in my classroom so that my students feel welcomed and are excited to learn when starting my class. My students will know I care about their education and want the best for them. Any student that walks through my door will set goals for the year and I will make sure they know that I am there to help them every step of the way. I will introduce all the different resources we have that can help them learn in their own way.

What I want my students to be able to do:

I want my students to be able to try their hardest. I won't expect them to do things if I don't believe they are capable of doing the certain tasks. I want them to help their classmates if they notice each other struggling and learn how to work together. Reading out loud in groups and helping each other pronounce words is great practice. Learning the meanings to words is also very important. I want my students to be passionate about reading and expanding their vocabulary.

My primary way of teaching my students what I want them to know and do:

My primary way of teaching my students will be by creative activities. I think hands-on learning is one of the best ways to help students remember certain points. Visual learning is also a good approach. Posters in the classroom, pictures to refer to, and videos to show concepts explained differently. In my observation hours I have seen the smartboards help students in several ways. The games that smartboards offer and the different vocal programs they have allow students to interact and learn in a fun way.

Tools I will use in my classroom:

By the time I have my own classroom, my students will probably have access to iPads or computers. The list of activities that you can do on such devices is never ending. I also hope to have a classroom blog as one of my tools. This way if I can get the parents permission, I could post pictures of the students working and playing throughout the day. Keeping the parents updated on what is going on in class and posting newsletters on the blog will also be of good use. This would be beneficial to the parents, as well as to the children because it will mean a lot to them to see their work posted on the web. Another tool I will use often is the smartboard if it is available. There are so many games that can help the students learn in creative ways. It is very interactive and helps to keep the students attention while learning to read.

What role will students play in my classroom:

When it comes to participating in the learning process, my students will play a major role. Students will get to read out loud with the help of me and their classmates. I want my students to be vocal about their learning because, every student learns in a different way. If a students speaks out about their favorite way to practice reading, this could help encourage other students to try new methods.

Dr. Pausch and Joe Landsberger's Time Management Strategies 

I personally do not have too much trouble with time management, but there is always room for improvement. I am very organized when it comes to meeting deadlines. I like to know when things are due weeks ahead of time. I live my life by my planner to a certain extent and sometimes this can be a bad thing. By doing this though, it helps me to stay organized, meet deadlines, and know what's coming up ahead. 

Dr. Pausch in his video discusses how time is very important in everyday life. When dealing with goals, priorities, and planning you should always ask 1. Why am I doing this? 2. Why will I succeed? 3. What happens if I choose not to do it? He states it is dangerous to just do things right, it is more important to do the right things correctly. If things aren't going well, you learn from those mistakes and do better next time. Planning is important and has to be done at different levels. Meaning, to plan out what needs to be done today, this week, and this semester. You can't change your plan if you never create one. It is okay to change plans! Create a to-do list and create small steps to check off. Dr. Pausch had very good insight on tips to time management in this video. 

In Joe Landsberger's study guide on time management he helps you to think about how you use your time each day. He continues on to gives you strategies on how to manage your time better. One suggestion he made was to come up with a designated study space. This way you are free from distraction and can focus on the task you are trying to complete. He also talks about how you need to use your time wisely. If you are standing in line somewhere, get out your flashcards. If you are walking to class, listen to a recorded lecture. My favorite strategy that he listed was to review your lecture notes before and after class. This way you are refreshing your memory before learning new material. Reviewing new lecture notes after class is important because he states that the first 24 hours are when you will forget the most if you don't refresh. At the end of his strategy list, he suggests that you make to-do lists and/or get a planner. I love the idea of both! I always have my planner with dues date wrote down and also a weekly to-do list. Joe Landsberger's study guide pointed out some great strategies on time management. 

Test post 2

Test post 2!

Blog Post 1

This is my test blog!