Project 14 Smart Board Tutorial

Blog Post 9

AT THE TEACHERS DESK

Joe McClung's Reflections on School Year 2008-2009
I paid a visit to Joe McClung's blog post from May 27, 2009.  At the time, he was an elementary school teacher at a school in Noel, Missouri.  He had just come to the end of his first school year as a certified teacher.  He used this blog as a platform for reflection on his first year as a teacher.  He listed and elaborated on 7 lessons he had learned from his experience.

How to Read the Crowd 

Be Flexible

Communicate
Be Reasonable
Don't be Afraid of Technology
Listen to Your Students
Lastly....Never Stop Learning


In my first year as a para-educator, I had to learn all these things the hard way just like Joe did. I found out that sometimes I could tell what kind of day it was going to be after seeing the faces of my students in the morning. I found that I had much better days when I stayed positive. I was scared to death of technology before I took this course, so I did not advocate for its implementation into our lessons. However, the teacher I worked with did a marvelous job of using the technology she had available with the students. Students are avid body language readers, and if you do not listen to them, they will know. I'm working hard on his never stop learning advise right now. I think all first year teachers would agree with Joe on the factuality of the lessons he learned, and that all aspiring teachers should read this post.

Joe McClung's Reflections on School Year 2009-2010

I also took a look at his reflection blog post from after his very next school year.  He seemed a lot more mature in his writing as well as his thoughts.  He had quite a few changes in his life and career since his last post.  He moved his life from Missouri to Arkansas, and he moved from teaching 6th grade to teaching 8th grade.  In my opinion, Joe made some serious changes to his life, which explains his mature demeanor in his post.  

Joe formatted this post in a similar fashion to the previous.  However the lessons he learned in his sophomore year of teaching had changed somewhat.  This time he had 8 lessons that he derived from a year he regarded as unpleasant to say the least.  His lessons are:

Adapt

The Path Least Traveled
Find Your School Mom
Check Your Ego at The Door
Don't Be a Control Freak
Scope and Sequence

Don't Lose Sight of What's Important

It's What Your Learn After You Know It All That Matters

I think it's funny how Joe's first and second year reflect my own.  Although I wasn't a real teacher, I felt and received all the same lessons as Joe did.  In particular, his lesson of adaptation hit me the hardest.  I feel like possessing the ability to adapt is paramount in the classroom.  All to often, the school will have some event or gathering, not to mention students being absent.  Adaptation is a must when trying to juggle the many aspects of teaching.  

In conclusion, I feel I must be a little blunt.  Teaching young people is a huge undertaking.  Each year that passes by is different.  The overall demeanor and culture of each different generation is unique.  Children today are not the same as they were only 10 years ago.  It will be up to us as teachers of the reformation to be adaptable as the years go by.  The positive is that we will have access to all the latest trends and cultural changes at our fingertips.  The internet makes it possible for people like Joe to write their experiences, and for people like me to learn from those experiences.  I will take Joe's lessons with me when I begin my career.

C4K Summary for March

Class 12's Blog

This week I left a comment on a post from Brandon in Class 12's Blog of Hotspur Primary School in the U.K.  Their teacher, Mr. McLoughlin, utilizes his class blog as a means of communicating his student's work to audiences all over the world.  Brandon is one of his students.  Brandon wrote a very short story about a slug named Bob and his struggles with being bullied at school.  Unfortunately, I suspect Brandon may have been writing about some of his own experiences at school.

In my comment, I tried to indirectly give Brandon a few uplifting statements regarding Bob.  I told Brandon that Bob should feel good that his family loves him, and Bob should be happy with himself as is.  Brandon mentioned that Bob's teacher did not do anything about the bullying, because he was always drinking something called 5 star coffee.  I asked Brandon what 5 star coffee was, as I had never heard of it before.

C4T # 3

The Ukulele Project

I left a comment on Dean Shareski's blog Ideas and Thoughts; Learning Stuff Since 1964.  In his post The Ukulele Project, he shows a video he created for a class in a very isolated school in Canada.  He created the video by asking his personal learning network to contribute video lessons about how to play the ukulele.  His PLN responded by sending in all sorts of different video lessons from cultures all around the world.  Dean talks about how important the internet is relative to our future classrooms.  He says, "Learning is conversation."  He believes our future teachers will become more "Network Administrator" than teacher, as we use the term today.

In my comment, I told him how much I enjoyed his post, and that I had learned something new from it as well.  I learned that the term "Network Administrator" may be a title future teachers may come to adhere to. He made one comment I understood, but I was interested to know exactly what he meant by it.  His comment was, "School and learning must be different."  I asked him what he meant by this, and I hope to hear back from him soon.  I would suggest anyone interested in seeing what the internet and a PLN can bring into a classroom, go to Dean's blog site.

Discovery Education

"Beyond The Textbook"

In Dean Shareski's blog "Beyond the Textbook" he provides feedback from a recent event in which 18 educators from across North America were invited to collaborate with his employer, Discovery Education, about digital textbooks.  They spent an evening and a day exploring the future of education and the role of textbooks in the classroom.  He says that they began with a couple of questions to include: What should a digital textbook look like and what is out there that you've seen that is worth talking about?  He said that Discovery was looking for some outside feedback and insight so that they might better understand the implications of such a product.  There was a consensus view on the idea that learning should be social and that teachers and students should be able to connect in order to share ideas and opinions better that ever before.  However, he also said that opinions did differ when it came to the point of how to implement the different ideas presented.  He said there were some questions regarding the ethics of merging big corporation products and public schools.  Overall, I found this post to be even better than his last, and I have added this site to my PLN.

In my comment, I told him how excited I was to hear that people are actually talking about making the text book a thing of the past.  In his post he said, "Comfort zones are the biggest impediment to education reform."  I told him that this is what worries me.  I asked him if he thought "old school" teachers who might be reaching a midway point in their careers would be willing to sacrifice their comfortable teaching methods and adapt to the new learning environment.  I said that I felt good about what our University and EDM 310 is doing in terms of professional development for teachers of the future.  I also took some time to visit the blogs of his peers, and I found a mass amount of good information, as well complementary details about their Discovery event.  I would suggest that any aspiring teacher visit this blog as well as the other blogs linked to this post.  This was a great addition to my PLN. 

Blog Post 8

This Is How We Dream

For this weeks blog post, I watched Dr. Richard E. Miller's video This Is How We Dream.  In 2008, Dr. Miller was working in the English department at Rutgers University.  In his video, he demonstrated multimedia possibilities while he spoke on the future of the sciences and humanities.  He talked about how writing had been a solitary engagement in the past.  Solitary writing had resulted in books.  If you wanted to check out a book, you had to go to the library.  Even then, that book may have already been checked out.  He said that most people today use some sort of word processor for their writing purposes.  Instead of having to go to the local library, we can access many different libraries and find any book we can think of on the internet.  Internet books will last forever and will always be accessible.  With this unlimited information, we now have the sources and access all the time.  Next comes the new platform in which we gather, process, and present the information as teachers and writers.

In the past, we had only been using print and maybe a few pictures within the confines of a book or chalk board as the information platform.  We have the ability now to use print, video, pictures, and sound in virtual environments as platforms for teaching and learning.  Dr. Miller says that "we now work in the digital environment."  Teachers should at least begin using these multimedia tools in their classrooms.  Instant news and up to date information is available when using these tools, but this does scare a lot of people to death in terms of what their child may see.  Some parents and teachers are eager to filter any information that may be just to real for teens to see.  Those parents and teachers may have a very legitimate argument within the confines of the current school buildings and systems we have today.  Anytime something new is introduced into society, there are critics and skeptics.  I think we should be critical and skeptical in all things, but we shouldn't use criticism and skepticism as an excuse to hold ourselves back from moving forward into the future.    

Dr. Miller says that we need schools and systems to be redesigned in order to facilitate this new platform of multimedia information.  This new learning environment should be full of inspiring spaces for teachers and students.  They should be distracting in a way that will allow for creativity.  On the video, Dr. Miller presents a design for a new building at Rutgers in which the sciences and the humanities can come together and create with new and mutual ideas.  He says that for years the humanities had no real visual representation, and now it is trying to make its ideas more visual with the internet.  With multimedia this is very possible indeed.  I am an aspiring history teacher.  When I created my book trailer for project 12, I walked away feeling very confident in the fact that I will be able to incorporate multimedia into my classroom.  Given the proper tools, I will have my students using multimedia as well.  The sense of accomplishment alone makes it all well worth the extra effort.

Carly's Playlist
I thought Carly's idea for a playlist of videos on You Tube was great.  I did not even know you could create a playlist like that on You Tube.  Every classroom I have ever been in seemed to house a vast collection of videos and movies.  You Tube makes it possible to share these videos as well as make them available for home viewing.  Class time is not always the best time for viewing videos.  I will definitely be incorporating an educational playlist into my PLN in the future.

Carly's idea that every teacher needs their own philosophy is very important.  A personal teaching philosophy should reflect the reasons for which you wanted to become a teacher in the first place.  I wanted to become a teacher, because I felt there was a better way.  Now that I have found that way, I will be incorporating it into my teaching philosophy.

The Chipper Series and EDM 310 For Dummies
These two videos discuss the frustration that can come with taking EDM 310.  I have discovered that procrastination in this course is impossible if you want to complete all the assignments on time.  At the beginning of this course the frustration came with having to orient myself in an environment that can be intimidating.  Most of the time I invested in assignments involved learning how to use the tool needed to complete the task.  Now I find that I get frustrated over the lack of time to really get involved in an assignment to see how far I can go.  I would like to create more videos, but videos take a lot of time for me, as I am anal about the final product.  If I had time to just sit and create videos right now, I would try and incorporate them into some sort of study effort for another course I am taking.

"THE DEATH OF EDUCATION, BUT THE DAWN OF LEARNING"

Learn to Change, Change to Learn ranks in my top 3 videos of inspiration in this course.  I felt like it was good enough to rate being inserted into my blog.  Videos like this inspire me to want to continue learning to be a better student in order to become a teacher who can take a leadership role in creating the classroom of tomorrow.  Some of the statistics in this video were shocking.  I am on board with everything this video is about, and I think this is a model for teaching future teachers.  Thanks Dr. Strange. 

Scavenger Hunt 2.0

The first place I visited on my scavenger hunt was Edmodo.  This website is an interactive virtual platform for teachers to use with their students for various things.  Teachers can keep schedules and share them with their students.  They can post assignments and keep track of grades.  Students can create posts.  Parents can stay involved in their child's learning process.  This website or one like it will be utilized in my classroom.


Next, I went to Make Beliefs Comics and created my own comic strip.  Anytime a teacher can integrate something different that has a small amount of entertainment value added is a good thing in my opinion.  A comic could be perfect for that.

       

Project 12 Book Trailer

Blog Post 7

The Networked Student

This week Dr. Strange had us watch a video entitled The Networked Student by Wendy and Alex Drexler. The video tells a story about a student who is taking a class that is different than any other he had ever taken. There is no textbook. There are very few lectures. The teacher is a student of "connectivism." The video says that "connectivism" is "a theory that presumes that learning occurs as a part of a social network of many diverse connections and ties." It talked about how the student starts this new experience by collecting the necessary virtual tools to make connections a primary aspect of his learning environment. Once his Personal Learning Network has grown enough to start blossoming, blogging becomes the order of the day. Commenting and posting on blogs is absolutely necessary in a class designed around connective learning.

The video then asks the viewer a question.  If students will be teaching themselves using the vast resources of the world wide web, why do we need teachers? It explains that teachers will show students how to build their networks and take advantage of all the learning opportunities the web can offer. They will offer guidance when a student gets stuck, and teach students about etiquette and ethics in terms of web usage.  They will teach kids to turn their research into an exciting adventure and how to differentiate between good information and propaganda or unscholarly resources.  Finally, they will help students organize the mass amounts of information they find into a piece of work they can be proud of and excited about.  

Many "old school" contemporary teachers worry that this new kind of classroom will require an entirely new kind of teacher, and that the new kind of teacher will lack in factual scholarly knowledge.  I agree that the new classroom will require a new kind of teacher, but I would be inclined to say that the teacher of tomorrow may be more endowed with this kind of knowledge, especially in terms of elaboration and cross topics.  Personally, I love the model of the classroom provided in the video about The Networked Student. In my experience as the student in that model, learning is unavoidable if you follow directions and work hard.    

My Personal Learning Network

I did not even know what a PLN was until week 7.  Our class checklist told us to get started on our Personal Learning Network during week 2 of this course.  I made this wonderful discovery in week 7.  Consequently, I may be a bit behind the curve.  However, I have signed up for Symbaloo, and I have begun adding many websites including the great learning tools and blogs from this course.  I decided on Symbaloo, because in my opinion it was the most user friendly.  I feel like I am at an extreme advantage to some students in this course, because I have my own computer.  This will allow me to use Safari and other apps as a part of my PLN as well.

When I started using Twitter back in January, I knew it had some sort of important use other than just a place for people to write useless information.  After doing some assignments for this week, I figured out what it was.  Twitter is invaluable in terms of creating a PLN, because it makes it so easy to find and save people needed for your PLN.  Those people, in turn, can help you find the latest and greatest tools available on the internet.  Twitter has now become a great search engine for my PLN.

In the upcoming weeks, my goal is to continue to grow my PLN.  I want to backtrack a bit and add links that I found earlier in this course.  I want to use Twitter to find people beneficial to me and what I look for in my continued learning experience.  I want to expand the world I live in to include as many sources as I can in an attempt to answer any question that may arise in my classroom.  

C4T # 2

At The Teachers Desk

This week I commented on William Chamberlain's Reflections on EdCampStL 2012.  Mr. Chamberlain drove 5 1/2 hours to get to an EdCamp in St. Louis.   He says that EdCamps are about creating long-lasting relationships that allow you to learn over a long period of time through those relationships.   He relishes in the fact that he can meet people face-to-face that he had previously met online.   Overall, Mr. Chamberlain's experience  at the EdCamp in St. Louis was mediocre at best.

In my comment, I spoke about my concerns with the effects of new communications technology on young people in terms of face-to-face communication.  I said that body language plays a huge role in how we communicate.  Really great orators don't seem to be very common today.  Finally, I asked Mr. Chamberlain if he thought advances in communication technologies would have an adverse effect on young people being able to communicate effectively?   Overall, I really enjoyed this post.  I had a chance to explore some of the links and found some really interesting things relative to camps and conferences for teachers.  The best part about the EdCamp experience, is the face to face communication and hands on interaction by teachers from all over.

I went back to William Chamberlain's blog again this week.  Unfortunately, he did not have any more recent posts than the one I commented on two weeks ago.  However, in the post previous to his latest, William asks a good question.  How About Unconferences for students?  I discovered that unconferences were participant driven meetings, which tried to avoid various aspects of conventional conferences.  Teachers use them as a kind of platform for idea exchange.  There were quite a number of comments and conversation within the blog about ideas as a result of William asking these questions about his primary question.  

1. Could the students sign up ahead of time so that they could be scheduled and have opportunities to practice their presentations? If so, would that go against the spirit of the unconference? 
2. Would this be a student led only conference or would adults be allowed to present as well? If so, they could fill gaps in the presentation and perhaps have to wait to sign up the night/day of the conference thereby keeping some of the spirit of the unconference.
3. It seems like it would be easy to plan. I would need to get access to the school and advertise. Am I missing something significant?

Many of the suggestions in the comments included students giving presentations on what they were learning.  I asked William if he thought it could be more important for students to give presentations on how they were learning instead of what they were learning.  I explained to him that I had taken some courses in college for which I had no answer.  As a student, I would be more interested in hearing how other students manage courses that they just don't understand.

Podcast Project 8

Special Note: One of our team members was sick the day of production, so we got an extension on the due date from Dr. Strange.