C4K 2

This week I got to read about a student from New Zealand. Room 11 of the PT England Scribes was learning about how to write book reports. This report was about mice. They talked about how mice were animals, lived in warm places, humans did not like mice, and that mice have four legs and a tail. They ended the report with that people do not like mice and that we use mouse traps to catch them to get rid of them. I thought the report was good and included facts and opinions. You can visit their blog at this site, http://pesscribes.blogspot.com/2010/06/mice.html.

Comment 4 Teachers 4, 5, and 6

Comments 4 Teacher Assignment 4

For the next couple of weeks I get to follow Steve Anderson's blog. In his June 27 2010 post he is talking about social medias and relationships. He attended a conference where he had not met most of the people face to face. He had built a relationship with them through his social medias and his personal learning network. His wife was a bit hesitant about attending th conference with him because she thought it would awkward because her husband had never met these people face to face. He explained to her that it would not be uncomfortable these people were like old friends. So when they attended the conference it was just like he said, being with a group of old friends.

Comments 4 Teacher Assignment 5

In Steve Anderson's July 3rd post he talks about his final thoughts from the conference he attended in Denver, iste 2010. He talked about many aspects of the conference that he enjoyed. The places at the conference he mentioned that appealed the most to me was Bloggers Cafe, and the Social Butterfly Lounge. At the Bloggers Lounge he said no much blogging happened, but connections were made between technologically savvy people around the world. He also said the Cafe was very centrally located so you could not help but stop by the Bloggers Cafe. The Social Butterfly Lounge was new to the conference this year. This lounge was used to give mini sessions on social networks, like twitter, Facebook, and ipod apps. I feel like these mini sessions would interest me because I like to use these social networks, but I probably use them in the most basic way. I would like to learn more.

Comments 4 Teachers Assignment 6

In Steve Anderson' s July 5th post he talks about again things he learned at iste 2010. The title of the post is, What makes a personal learning network valuable to you? He says that he gets this question all the time. The thing about PLNs, is that they are personal, Anderson states. I agree with this statement. What makes my PLN so great is that it is catered to me and no one else. I decide what I see and do not see. He interviewed several people at the conference about PLNs and social networking. They were all for it. One of people mentioned that having a PLN and twitter account accessible to you is like having the smart kid in class always sitting next to you. I believe that to be completely correct. I am still learning about my PLN and twitter, but I will continue learning about them after this class to help with my future at a teacher.

Blog Post 7

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

I immediately wanted to tear up when he introduced himself and what he was going to be speaking about at Carnegie Mellon. Randy Pausch is dying of cancer. He let the audience know that he was not going to talk about cancer, he was not gong to talk about his family, he was not going to talk about religion and what he was going to talk about was his childhood dreams. I was immediately taken in by his introduction and his outlook on his situation. He did not want to be pitied, he wanted to be heard.

My favorite childhood dream he talked about was wanting to play in the NFL. Pausch did not get to actually play in the NFL, but he shared an inspirational story about his coach. Pausch said he was probably one of the smallest people on his team. Him and his team came to their first practice and their coach did not have any footballs. A teammate asked his coach where the footballs were? He simply asked them a couple of questions in response; How many players on the field at once? 22. How many people touch the ball at once? 1. So the coach told his team they were doing to learn what the other 21 players were doing without the football on the field. I think this "strategy" would be helpful in the classroom. Teachers do not need to cater to 1 or 2 students, teachers need to cater to all the students in the classroom. Teachers need to know how each student learns and then teach them.

The second part of the story was that his coach rode him hard during practices. Then the assistant coach took Pausch aside and said that it was good that the coach rode him during practice because that means his coach had not given up on him yet. Randy's coach thought he was better than what he was giving, so he pushed him to do better. Teachers often give up on some of the students in their classroom. Teachers will lower their standards of their students and then the students will start to notice that they are useless in the classroom, because their teachers think they are useless. Teachers need patience in their classroom, so they do not give up on their students.

All through the video Pausch talks about a theory the "head fake". The head fake is when you learn something that you did not think you were going to learn. When he talked about his Virtual Reality course he taught at Carnegie Mellon he again talked about the head fake. He wanted his students to come up with a virtual reality world. The students were not only learning how to use the computer program but also, how to work with a team of students, how to write computer software, and how to have fun.

He closed his video with how we need to have fun with everything we do. He said to never "lose your childhood wonder". When we are children everything is possible. I believe we should keep our child like mindset in teaching, so we as educators can make teaching fun.

Smartboard Project

TimeToast Instructional Timeline

Blog Post 6

This Is How We Dream Parts 1 and 2:
Richard Miller makes great points within his two videos. When I think of learning and finding research I instantly think of a library. When I was in high school four years ago and we had to do research papers we always had to have some ungodly amount of sources both from the internet and books, but mostly books. Teachers need to get with the program that anything we can find in the library can now be found on the internet as well. In fact you can find more resources online and not just written information. Richard Miller also stated that the type of creation and way of presenting information has not been invented yet , but someone needs to invent it. Teachers need to let the books go and get online. Get rid of the paper and get on word processors.

The Networked Student by Wendy Drexler
Is this the future of teachers? I believe it is. We as teachers need to more guide our students through learning rather than hand feed them the information then wait for them to regurgitate the information back to us. That method of teaching does not help anyone. Connectivism is the future. PLNs are the future. I am still trying to figure out how my PLN will work and benefit me. But this class will be my GUIDE and help me establish a PLN that will help me for years to come.

Micheal Wesch Video
This was not my favorite video to watch because I found it rather boring actually. What he highlighted in the video that I found to be remotely interesting was his take on social networking. We put things on the internet that we would probably would not talk about with our actual friends. Yet we post it on the internet for the whole world to see. Dr. Strange said in class that once we put it on the internet it is their forever. When I think of this I think of the website post secret. People post their deepest darkest secrets online. They are looking for responses or maybe even help. Internet and social networking is a way for people to connect in ways that you could sometimes not connect with people face to face.

C4K 1

The blog I was assigned was a girl named Bree who lives in New Zealand. The post I commented was about how she competed in a competition called Mastermind. The competition consists of having to read 15 books and reread them. After rereading these books you have to be able to respond to questions about the books setting, author and illustrations, characters, and ISPBN (International Standard Public Book Number).I asked her how time consuming it was to read and reread all 15 books. I also encouraged her to read just for fun as well.