Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Blog Post # 10

Do you Teach or Do you Educate, was an eye opener video for teachers. It gives a reality check on who are the real "teachers" by explain what to teach and what to educate means. The video gave several descriptions on the definition to teach which are:" show or explain how to do something; give information about or instruction in; cause someone to learn or understand something; induce by example or punishment to do or not to do something." Then the video went on to say or are you an educator? An educator or to educate is to enlighten or empower. "One who gives intellectual moral and social instructions; mentor, experience, trusted, advisor, and guides a person and shows them the way."
As I become a teacher I would much rather educate my student than to teach. I feel that if we educate the students they will have the knowledge and the skills to do anything they set their minds to.
The quote in the video that really sticks out is by Peter Brougham, and he said "Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave." To me this means that with education anything is possible. You can't stop anybody from accomplishing their dreams and that is what "impossible to enslave" means to me. When you give a person education that is like giving someone freedom, and I really believe that.

pencils
The article Don't Let Them Take Pencils Home was a very good article by Tom Johnson. I feel that giving the student's the option to learn is good by allowing them to take pencil's home. It is sad to see the quote "It's not that, either. I have a journal article about how students who use pencils at home have lower standardized test scores. So, for the love of test-taking, we need to stop our students from taking home pencils." Most teachers only teach so far by only teaching the material that is required and that's it.
Yet "we" the student's miss all the important information in between and are left out on whats needed to know for the real world. It was good to see that a solution was made on how the pencils could help educate the students better. The author even wanted to work out a parent pencil program, so the parents could also educator their children while they were at home. I believe that if the parents got more involved in their child's education, then the child would succeed farther beyond the child who had no support. I am not saying this is going to be true for all the students, but theoretically it would work that way.

C4T #3 Summary

My teacher this week is Mr. John Mikulsi. He has a degree in secondary education for English and a master's degree. Mr. Mikulsi had to do a project for his EDU599 class. It was very interesting to watch because it was not a normal portfolio, he added his own style that made it stand out to me. The title of his video is called "My Split Personality" and indeed he achieved the name.

source:blogger



Making Connection with Blogger
Mr. Mikulski post was very enlightening on what exactly a Blogger can do. He said " Blogging is all about making connections, finding (and sharing) resources, and developing collegiality that extends far beyond the physical boundaries of geographical locations. Also Mr. Mikulski noticed that "blog subscriptions through Feedburner have risen nearly 30 percent since the beginning of September. I feel that, that is a wonderful thing especially if the majority of the 30 percent are educators. At the end of the post Mr. Mikulski posted a video created by Tim Holt. Tim Holt is the Director of Educational Technology.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Blog Post #9

man writing you can learn!

What I've Learned This Year (2008-09)

After reading What I've Learned This Year by Mr. McClung, I realized that some good teachers still do exist. Mr. McClung is very inspirational in the teaching world to me, he shows leadership and other good morals. He made an important decision by staying positive for the year 2008-2009. While reading the post made by Mr. McClung, he highlighted seven main points in his blog. The first main point is How to Read the Crowd. Mr. McClung states that "I felt so worried about how I was being assessed by my superiors, that I lost touch with my audience when I delivered a lesson." What I got out of what he said was instead of worrying about what other people think, focus more on the students and their education. The most important aspect of teaching for Mr. McClung is checking for student comprehension. The second topic is Be Flexible because "No lesson is ever perfect. The lesson you teach and the one you plan are always different." When teaching a lesson that does not go how you planned, don't make a big deal out of it. It is the concept of learning something new. I feel that nothing happens perfectly anyways.
The third main topic is Communication. Mr. McClung said that communication is the best medicine. To me communication is the ultimate way get something across, weather it is from the internet document to an advertising commercial. Communication is the key to success. Mr. McClung "definition" to communication is the pathway to build that much desired rapport with fellow teachers. The fourth main point is Be Reasonable. Don't hold high standards for a student if it is not reasonable to pass. "Often we build our expectations to high for students and become upset when they do not meet the expectation." And I feel that he is right. I had a math teacher that though we should already know everything and not make any mistakes, well that is already setting me up for failure because I am not perfect. I could not possibly already know everything.
The fifth point is Don't be Afraid of Technology. Mr. McClung is right, technology should be our friend since the world we live in revolves around technology. Education can really be at a higher level with the right technology in play. Mr. McClung view on technology is that "technology is our friend and is essential to living in our microwave society of today." And I feel that he is right. The sixth main point is Listen to Your Students. I think that it is good to listen to your students because it makes the student feel comfortable in your prescience, I know I would. One student in Mr. McClung's class said that "I know my teacher cares about me as a person when he listens to what I say." That is so true, teachers should take more interest in a students life since how they are the ones teaching us. The last main point is Never Stop Learning. It is never too late to learn. We do work in an learning environment and I feel that it is a good thing to learn something new every day.

What I Learned This Year (2010-11)

This article is about what Mr. McClung learned in his third year of teaching. Mr. McClung has learned many new things is his years of teaching and it is good that he is taking his own advice on learning new things. The first think Mr. McClung talks about is Know Who Your Boss Is.
Mr. McClung said "If you are not careful you can become completely consume with trying to please many individuals, that sometimes your own students get left out of the picture". It is important to know that students come first because that is what education is all about, and how it is catered to the students. Also it is bad to let outside factors affect the students performance in the classroom. The second topic was Don't be Afraid to be an Outsider. In other words, don't be afraid to be yourself. I feel that it is good to bring your personality to the classroom because that show individuality, and individuality is what a teacher should want for a student.
Next is Don't touch the keyboard. Mr. Mclung said "this means that our students will struggle a little bit in the front end but it will help them excel in the end game." I would not want a teacher who did it all for me. I want a teacher like Dr. Strange who gives us a task and we figure a way to achieve it instead of babying us. Dr. Strange knows that we all have to grow up and figure things out, so I feel that he is preparing us for success. The last topic is Don't Get Comfortable. Mr. McClung feels that the biggest fear for a teacher is becoming comfortable. He said, "while routine are good in the sense they allow me to be more effective, they can also be bad because they can foster apathy." I feel that if you do the same thing over and over the exact same way, there is no room for growth and change. Change is good when it is for the better.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Blog Post #8

source:skype

While watching the video Richard Miller: This is How We Dream Part 1, I found it interesting to see how the world has changed with the use of technology. The writing in academy and culture has changed. Mr. Miller said that this is the greatest change in communication in human history" and he was right. New ways to communicate is one of the greatest change. You can skype, facebook, twitter, email, and so much more. Also the way to communicate is unlimited it is instantly global in the matter of seconds. One can also talk to some one in China and have business meetings with people from India without leaving their homes.
Also Mr. Miller talks about an incremental change where we can work at home from a computer. He also states how everything far as written documents are starting to disappear and how now in this day an age everything is appearing online through the form of web documents. This is the form of sharing knowledge infinitly. We collaborate know by networking and creating technology to compose the web base documents with images and films.
While watching the video Richard Miller: This is How We Dream Part 2, I learned that where we work is the distal environment. Material will change in front of our eyes instantly. Know a day we can compose and find anything on line from whale hunts to academic lectures. Mr Miller said that "Ideas don't belong to use individually, they belong to us as a culture", and I feel that he is right. Students know a days will compose not with word processor but with digital composing materials.
I like what Mr. Miller said about how educators must be in the business of sharing ideas freely, and he is right. There will be a point that teachers will have to come to the point where they can learn new ideas and teach with the use of technology. Not how they did it twenty years ago with paper and a pencil. We have to attempt to make sense of the world we live in, and make things better in the education aspects.

Carly's blog post was amazing, she came really close to what Mr. Miller was saying in This is How We Dream Part 1 and 2. I like how she included videos to demonstrate what she was saying. And the fact that she took the blog assignment to a whole new level. I like the video disability means possibility because it give a whole new meaning of having a disability. The guy in the video is just another person and we as people should STOP looking at other people as "if" they are different. Also it is good to have inclusion in the classroom, it make it easier to children to see that they can become anything they put their mind too. Carly was being very creative in her post and I think that it is good because it give an opportunity to show who she is. Not many teachers allow there students to be an individual so thank you Dr. Strange.

source:procrastination title=

The video Chipper is a amazing video to watch. In the beginning Chipper thinks that she can tell the future by telling Dr. Strange that the future is the present and the present is the future. She says that even though she did not do her work now she can see that she did her work in the future by saying it was already done. Then Chipper come back to Dr. Strange and says that she will turn it in LATER. This is a form of procrastination. Also Chipper feels that Dr. Strange should teach instead of her teaching herself. I feel that it is good for us to learn individuality as well as dependently. Then Chipper tells Dr. Strange that she is going to drop out of school. She creates a school called Timeline Pilot school. One person named Amelia graduates but she is not allowed to fly and actual plan. The FAA shuts down Chipper's school, so know she wants to become a teacher. Dr. Strange refers her to Ms. Wright's. Ms. Wright is a Principal at the elementary school. Ms. Wright gives Chipper a job but four days later Chipper gets fired from never coming to work. Know Chipper becomes a waitress, and gets fired from that job. She becomes a nanny and never get hired, then she becomes a garbage collector and has a change of heart. Chipper decides to go back to school and not procrastinate anymore. Dr. Strange is very happy at Chipper's decision. I think if Chipper just watched the Video EDM310 for dummies, she would have never went through so many steps.

Learn to Change, Change to Learn
Learn to Change, Change to Learn was a great video, because it demonstrated the change society needs to have on education. Education was ranked 55 out of 55. It was below coal mining. To me this shows that many higher people don't take education seriously. Technology is not a choice it has created a new world. A world were more technology is put to use in the classrooms. Where a student can use the internet freely or use other technology to learn new things at school. Yet schools restrict the use of communication and technology in the classrooms. Cellphones and other devices are restricted. Technology will also provide the best quality in classrooms, it is a great way to learn. Also one of the guys in the video states that classes today are big on standardize test and other big test, but in the real world jobs don't require that. Jobs are more of an artistic ability and understanding new idea, not memorizing problems.

Think About This! Will we be ready?

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Project #9b

For project 9b I have created a wiki. My Wiki

MMH
While creating my wiki wasn't easy I plan to build it up the best way possible. The purpose of a wiki is to organize information and data. Also it is a way to communicate to different people while planning something, or what ever it might be. Also wikis can be very informative.

Blog #7

Randy Pausch family photo

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dream's

Randy Pausch was a wonderful Professor at Carnegie Mellon. He inspired so many as he gave "The Last Lecture" at Carnegie Mellon annual school lecture. He first began telling the audience how he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was given three to six months to live. He didn't want the audience to feel sorry for him or to pity him because he had something more important to do, which we find out at the end of the video was for his children. The topic for the lecture was Achieving Your Childhood Dreams under three sub-topics which are;"My childhood dreams, Enabling the dreams of others, and lesson learned how you can achieve your dream or enable the dreams of others.
Randy Pausch was a happy little boy who always smiled. His first childhood dream on his list was to being at zero gravity. He was able to achieve this goal by having something to bring to the table. He was faced with a brick wall but overcame the obstacles by having determination. His second dream on the list was to play for the NFL. Although he did not accomplish this dream he got more stuff valuable then playing for the NFL. "Experiences is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted" He learned the power of enthusiasm and fundamentals. He also achieved another childhood dream by writing an article that was put in the encyclopedia. Randy wanted to be like Caption, but instead of being like him he actually got to meet him. Randy said "It's cool to meet your boyhood idols, it's even cooler to see him come to you." Randy won many stuffed animals throughout his time. The last childhood dream on the list was to become an imagineer. He was able to help create a virtual attraction ride named Aladdin for Walt Disney World. Through out this process he realized that brick walls are there for a reason. Randy learned several things from Jon Snoody, who later inspired him for other reasons.
The next main point in the video was helping others enable their childhood dream. Randy was able to help others because he used his profession as a professor to help. The first person Randy helped was a guy named Tommy in 1993. Tommy wanted to help write the next Star Wars movies and believe it or not he ended up accomplishing his dream with the help of Randy. Randy wanted to help more than just one person at a time so he created a course at Carnegie Mellon called building virtual worlds. The class was made up of 50 students and each project lasted for two weeks. The class was a big success. But this wasn't good enough for Randy he wanted something bigger, so he created this program called Alice, which is a novel way to teach computer programming. Where kids make video's and games; the "head fake" is that they are learning to program. Alice is a very successful program. There are over one million downloads, eight textbooks, and 10% of the U.S. colleges are using it right now. So millions of kids are having fun while learning something hard.
The last point made in the video lessons learned. What lets you get to achieve your dreams? The role of parents, mentors, and students are very important in lessons learned. Andy Von Dam is the person who influenced Randy to get his PH.D and become a professor. Loyalty is a two-way street because believing in someone is the most powerful thing that can really make a difference in someones life. Also never give up on any dreams or goals. Randy mentions how to get people to help. First you can't get there alone, tell the truth, be earnest, apologize when you screw up, and focus on other people rather than on yourself. He also said that "Brick walls let us show our dedication, they separate those who don't really want to accomplish their childhood dreams." To get where you are going its good to not complain, instead work harder, find the best in everybody, know matter how you have to wait for them to show it. The important thing to remember about this lecture is how you lead your life.
In conclusion, Randy Pausch was a very successful man and had many people behind him to support anything he did. The important thing to remember is to never give up. Have faith in yourself and always believe. Randy Pausch has really inspired me in many different ways. He will always be remembered.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Project #10

My PLN

My Personal Learning Network is a mixture of all of my school work and personal fun. I have inquired everything needed for my EDM310 class such as; blogger, twitter, EDM310 Blog, and many more. Also my Personal Learning Network is in a working progress. Each icon represents something I needed to help me with my everyday needs. As my networking grows so will my PLN.

Friday, October 7, 2011

C4T #2

While reading Watching the Red Flag by Mr. Bernia, realized it is very important for teachers to be in contact with their students and actually be concerned with their attendance records. Some students decide to drop out if school at an early age because they have no motivation or anyone telling them to go to school. Both the teacher and students should have equal responsibility within one another to stay on track if any class periods were missed. Mr. Bernia mentioned how it is important to motivate students to attend class. He also said how one of the students that dropped out of school dropped out because the teachers did not care if he even came to class. Alle he wanted was a hi or nice to see you today. The pricipal at Mr. Bernia's school organized a meeting for all the students who had attendence problems the following year. I felt that, that was a good idea because it showes how the pricipal and the teachers are interested in the students life.

While reading Setting the Tone , I was really inspired at Mr. Bernia had to say. It is also nice to see how the principal actually cares about the students instead of just doing his job and nothing more. Mr. Bernia starts his day by reading a poem by Dr. Ginott. He also likes to work with the faculty and staff at the school to make sure everything is going good. The one thing that inspired me is how Mr. Bernia takes an interest in the students and how he really cares about them. In the comment I left him on his site, I told him how nice that was and how I wished I had teachers like that. I had a teacher once that was not very nice and that they didn't care if I understood the material or not. That to me can be very frustrating and hard. Also it was good to know that Mr. Bernia wants to create an environment where the staff can be creative. He feels that it shouldn't just be the way he wants it to be, he takes an interest in what everyone wants as well.

high five

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Blog Post #6

a man standing while looking at technology

The Network Student
The Network Student by: Wendy Drexler is a video about a boy who does his work by using the internet. He learns through varies websites, podcast, skype, wiki's, and several other things. The author mentioned, since the boy learns from all of these different sites, what was the point of having a teacher? The point of having a teacher is for guidance and help. Without the teacher the boy wouldn't have known about the sites he visits.
This video reminds me of the class I am in know EDM310. Dr. Strange is there to guide me to the right path. He gives us varies sites to look at and to read about. I learned about podcats, twitter, and smart boards. Also the lab assistance are there to help as well. For example, if I need help uploading a picture the right way to my blog, they are there to walk me through the process. Just like the teacher was there for the boy when he needed help learning about the different sites and technology needed for the class.

personal learning environment




A 7th Graders Personal Learning Environment (PLE)
The 7th grade girl in the video learns and practices the personal learning environment in her 7th grade science class. She finds information from the internet and puts it on her PLE. The first row in her PLE is all the interesting things she has found, and the last row contains all of her school materials. Her PLE is a reflection on what she did in class and any other thing she has learned. The 7th grade girl like her science class because it gives her the freedom to learn the way she wants. She can find the information how every she wants to and when she wants to. This also teaches her responsibility. Also her science class deals with no paper and no books, they learn everything from the computer.
I think that this is a really cool and creative idea. It is interesting and gives the idea of being in control. Also the students would want to learn more and do more things.

C4K Summary

Cadan

Cadan is a 8 year old boy who loves his family. He has a dog that likes to be played with, and Cadan also likes to give the dog a walk. Also Cadan likes to jump on his trampoline and do flips. Cadan's school won in a championship game. He was so proud of the team because he thought that they would not win all of the games. He found out of the winning by one of his teacher, and when he heard that the team won everything, he said that they won because they played as a team. I told Cadan that I was very proud of him and to keep up the good work.


a picture that says good job



Daniel

Daniel created an avatar that resembled what he liked. Daniel gave his avatar a sword because he likes the Romans and he is interested in mythology. His avatar had on red shoes. I told Daniel that red was my favorite color. Also he learned about a site where he can use this calculator for math. It will help him with his multiplication, addition, and subtraction. I told Daniel how proud I was of him and to keep up the good work.