Final Reflection Post

Summary of C4K #8-#11 and Yasmine's Blog

Over the past few weeks I have been following several student's blogs and here is what they were writing about.

C4K #8

In this C4K I was looking at Alba's Blog and she had a picture she had taken of the USS Alabama and wanted us to look at it from an artistic viewpoint and come up with a name for the picture. I did what she asked and came up with "Guiding gate of the Sea" and although it maybe different it is original.

C4K #9

In this C4K I was following Chris' Blog and came across his description of his Choir's trip to New Zealand. He told of the fun things they were seeing and experiencing. He even posted a list of the songs they were going to be performing such as: "Get the Party Started" by Pink and "Feeling Groovy" by Simon and Garfunkel. He was very excited and I told him to keep up the great singing and to give another update when he returned.

C4K #10

For this C4K I was following Danielle and she was writing about how excited she was that her friend Haylee was coming over to spend the night and that they were going to have a great time together. I told her that her slumber party sounded like it was going to be a lot of fun and to not eat too much junk food before they tried to go to sleep.

C4K #11

In this C4K I was looking at Brianna H.'s Blog and she was told to explain "elapsed time". So to do that she gave an example of a boy named Sam who left at 2:00pm and returned at 2:45pm. She said that 45 minutes had elapsed. I told her that this was a great example and if she wanted to she could also relate this example to a math problem.

Yasmine's Blog

In this post we were to find Yasmine's Blog and comment on a post of hers. Well I got her post that had the video of the horse and the little girl who was training the pony. I thought the video was cute and I loved how well behaved the pony was for the little girl. It amazes me the things that animals are capable of.

Final PLN Report

I love my Symbaloo PLN( personal learning network) because as a person with OCD, it allows me to be completely organized. I keep all of my important and most used links on my page. If I need to add something or want to look up something, all I have to do is type it in the middle box and it will Google it for me. My Symbaloo allows me to customize to my needs and my likes and interests. This is one of the many tools I will keep from this EDM 310 class.

C4T #4 Summary- Jen Deyenberg

For this C4T I was assigned to read and comment on Ms. Jen Deyenberg Blog entitled "Trails Optional". The first of her post that I read was entitled Not for Your Edutainment- Great Online Educational Games which was about her wanting games that were challenging for students and not just a memorization game. She states that if the students just memorize the information, then they are not really learning and I have to agree. I think that too often students are given information to memorize and then tested on their memorization of the material and not what they really learned. The students do not learn this way and in this post Ms. Deyenberg gives some great links to find games that are challenging for students.


In the nest post I read entitled UK Microsoft Innovative Educators Forum- UKIEF #10. In this post she tells of her being at a conference and all of the great educational technological tools that she is seeing and is sharing them with everyone. Some of the tools sound really great and interesting like: Free Rice, Games for Change, and One Note. These are all to help educators help their students succeed and become more technologically advanced. She share these and many more great tools and stories on her blog so please feel free to stop by and look around. Just click Trails Optional.

Final Project #16 How to Make an A in EDM 310

Additional Assignment #5

Just Teaching Them to Solve for "X"

In this post, I believe Mr. Spencer is trying to convey that we should not be afraid of explaining the hard subjects, programs, and anything else that we would deem "too dangerous" for them to learn or even try to comprehend. Students are smart and they need to, no have to know "why?" to even try and grasp a concept. What good are we to them if we only give them a formula and some paper and do not explain the "why?" They might as well higher a computer to put it up in the screen because we are pretty much doing the same thing on a white board. There is no critical thinking with students now a days and we need to educate them and not memorize them out of their curiosity.

Sketchy Portraits: 8th Grade Identity and Pencils

In this post, I believe the main point being made is that life is ever changing and the world outside is a scary place and as we grow and mature decisions in our life become more and more "permanent" to the point we are scared to make decisions at all. Although we don't want to we all have to grow up at some point, wether it is when teachers and society tell us to is a completely different thing. Enjoy the "pencil" while you can but do not be afraid of your "pen".

He Just Likes the Class for the Pencils

I believe the message here is that even though technology and tools are fun, great for teaching, and really engaging for students for a while. It is the relationship we have with our students that keep them interested and engaged all the time. If a student trust and believe that we have something important to say and we demand their best, then they will pay attention and give their best because they know it is expected. Students have to be engaged all the time or they will wonder off into dream land. We as teachers need to spend the whole class time teaching and not just giving them things to memorize or ditto sheets. They are entrusted to us to learn and not just to learn from the fancy "pencils"

The Medium Shapes the Learning

In this post I was blown away by the transformation to the final thought. I had never thought of something being misinterpreted if I had not intended for it to be. I believe that Mr. Spencer wants us to realize that every tool we use has to be open to interpretation because you never know where a lesson may go if you give it boundaries and who knows it could go somewhere unintended if you don't let the students try and surprise you.

Blog Post #13

Alabama Learning Exchange (ALEX)

ALEX is a network that is available to teachers who need help finding and making lesson plans, finding what is expected of each grade level and subject, and communicating with teachers all around the world to find new ways to help our students.

1. Their is a link for Lesson Plans and is will take you to a page where you can create your own lesson plans or look at other teacher's and draw ideas from that. It is separated in to subject and then grade. It is easy, fun, and extremely helpful to teachers of any subject and grade level.

2. Next there is a tab for Course of Study and this tab takes you first to all of the different subjects and then once you click on a subject it takes you to grade levels and then you select the grade you want to look at and presto. It takes you to a list of objectives and requirements for that class for that grade level so that you know what they are suppose to be learning for that year and that subject.

3.If you click on ALEXville it will take you to a picture of a globe that is surrounded by houses and depending on what you click, it will take you to a ton of different websites and choices of educational paths and you can explore for days to see what all is offered in this ALEXville.

I believe that ALEX will be very helpful when I begin teaching because being a new teacher it will be very helpful to know what my grade level of students need to be learning and doing at what point during the year and when I do lesson plans it will be nice to have someone with experience to look at and get and help generate ideas from for my students. Also them many tools available here will help me solve any problem them may come up.


Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators, and Students Statewide (ACCESS)


This website is for Alabama high school students who want to further their education by either finding a class they want to take that is not offered at their high school, finding and obtaining an alternative degree plan online, or finding test prep or review exams to help pass AP classes, ACT tests and college prep. This website seems like it is directly geared towards getting alabama students brought into the 21st century and being able to compete for good colleges and winning. This website offers many great learning opportunities for any and all Alabama high school students.

Project # 15

Progress Report on #15

My partner is Ashley Goodwin and we have set up times to meet via SKYPE, e-mail, and phone calls to ensure we stay in constant communication about this project and all that it entails. This project came to me from out of no where. We are going to be shooting a video of "How to Make an A in EDM 310". We will show how to make Time Toast, a Symbaloo account, Comments for teachers, kids, and classmates, and everything else that is required to understand EDM and to make an A in this class. EDM is a lot of work but you learn everything you need to be a technologically literate teacher in today's rapidly growing technological society.

Project # 6- Questionnaire Results

This was a questionnaire that I sent out about SMART Boards and blogging in our educational system.
These are the questions and results of that questionnaire:

1. In any of your classes in elementary school, did your teacher ever use a SMART Board?

0- Said "Yes, K-2nd Grade"
0- Said "Yes, 2nd- 4th Grade"
0- Said "Yes, 4th- 6th Grade"
21- Said "No"

2. Did you have a blog in elementary school or even know what a blog was?

0- Said " Yes, I had a blog"
1- Said " Yes, I knew what a blog was but did not have one"
20- Said "No, I had no idea what a blog was in elementary school"

3. Did any of your middle school teachers use a SMART Board?

1- Said "Yes"
20- Said "No"

4. Did you use blogging in middle school?

0- Said "yes"
21- Said "no"

5. In any of your high school classrooms, did your teachers use a SMART Board?

0- Said "Yes, All of them"
3- Said "Yes, Math"
1- Said "Yes, English"
0- Said "Yes, Science"
0- Said "Yes, History"
4- Said "Yes, An Elective Class"
15- Said "No, None of my classes had SMART Boards"

6. Did you use blogging for assignment in high school?( on a scale from 0(Never)- 5(Always))

21- Said "0"
0- Said "1"
0- Said "2"
0- Said "3"
0- Said "4"
0- Said "5"

7. Did you know what blogging was before you got into Dr. Strange's Class?

15- Said "Yes"
6- Said "No"

8. Do you wish this class had been offered to you sooner?

2- Said "Yes, middle school at least"
8- Said "Yes, high school"
2- Said "Yes, first year of college"
9- Said "No, now is good"

9. How would you rate technology in the classroom? (on a scale from 1(Non- existent)- 5(too much))

1- Said "1"
7- Said "2"
11- Said "3"
2- Said "4"
0- Said "5"

10. Do you feel that we should be teaching students to use technology while they are learning their core classes?

21- Said "Yes"
0- Said "No"

11. Which of these do you feel would benefit younger students to know about?

12- Said "Google"
10- Said "Google Squared"
3- Said "Google Chrome"
2- Said "Safari"
10- Said "Wolfram Alpha"
3- Said "iTunes"
5- Said "Audacity"
3- Said "Drop Box"
0- Said "Wall Wisher"
6- Said "All of the Above"

12. Are you satisfied with the amount of technology you were offered in your academic career?

1- Said "Yes, I had everything"
13- Said "Kind of, it could have been better"
7- Said "No, I had no technology classes offered to me"



Looking at the results of the questionnaire, you can see that although our school system is getting somewhat better at introducing students to technology sooner, it is still lacking. Almost no one had seen a SMART Board or knew what a blog was in elementary school and most only learn nearer to high school. This class I believe is crucial to the development of giving our students the tools they need to survive in the technological age and if this class or a similar version was offered sooner then maybe it would not be such a struggle for those of us who did not even know what a blog was before entering Dr. Strange's Class. I believe the data speaks for itself.

Blog Post # 12

In this assignment we were told to create an assignment and then share it with everyone. Well one assignment that I feel we should have done was to create a Glog on Glogster. Glogs are a lot of fun and you can personalize them and use them for just about anything. I think these would be great to use as assignments or projects for students. The require almost no time at all.

To do this Assignment:
1. You need to go to the Glogster and create an account.

2. You need to set up your profile and I know everyone can do this because everyone has a Facebook or Twitter account.

3. Next click on the "create a new Glog" button and get started.

4. You need to select a page background, add graphics, add links you feel important and related to this Glog, and finally add text and effects to make you Glog interesting.

5. Save and Publish your final project and embed it in your Blog and tweet it.


This is one I created for EDM 310.

Blog Post #11

Ms. Cassidy's First Grade Class

        In these videos, there were a lot of great points made about technology and its' future in schools both Elementary and Secondary. Ms. Cassidy's class of first graders are doing things with technology that I just learned in my 3rd year of college.
         I think that all of the different tools Ms. Cassidy uses are extremely helpful and will benefit her students tremendously in their future classrooms. I think Mr. Cassidy is not afraid of any technology and will use any and everything she finds to help her students learn and succeed.
        I believe all of her techniques are great and would be beneficial in my classroom but I would most likely use  a web page, have the students do blogs, and use wikis. I am just not so sure about the Nintendo DS. I know that most students know how to use one, but I am just not sure what all you can teach students or what programs you could use that most principles would not consider games. I would love some feed back on this if anyone has some because I am just not familiar with them myself.
           I  know that using ms. Cassidy's approaches would benefit my future classroom greatly by having no fear in trying new things and being the "guinea pig" for a new idea for classrooms. I know just from being in EDM 310 how useful and wonderful Blogs are and I will keep one forever now and show my students them as well. Using the approaches she give will help get my future classroom off to a great start.

Project #14 Teaching How to Create A Time Toast

Comments for Kids 3-7

C4K #3

        For this assignment the class was from Pt. England School in Auckland, N.Z. For this C4K I was assigned a group of students instead of just one. Their post was entitled, "Diggin' Up Loot" and it was a short excerpt for a pirate story they were working on together about a hunt for buried treasure. The student's who wrote it were: Ashlee, Frankie, Isara, Jonita, Kaylee, and Robert. I told them that I thought they did a great job and that I could not wait for them to post the rest of the story.

C4K#4

      In this C4K, I read a student named Ryan's blog and came across his post about skate boarding. I he said that he love to skate board and really like the skate park down the road. I told him that I use to skate board and I knew how hard it was so to keep up the good work. He thought it was really cool that a girl could skate board.

C4K#5

        This assignment was for Mrs. W's class in Australia and was for a student named Lucy. In one of her post she mentioned that her class had been watching the movie 'Cars" and that they had been talking about friendship, since that was the main idea of the movie. She mentioned that to be her friend you would have to be: kind, loyal, and have a good sense of humor. I told her that those are great qualities to look for in a friend and that I knew me and her would be good friends because that is also what I look for in a friend.

C4K#6

        In this post we were responding to students post in Mr. Goerend and Mrs. Quam's classes. I commented on Caitlin C.'s Blog on her post called, "My Awesome Blog". IN this post she describes a scary creature who has slimy gray skin, no eyes, and walks like a bear. She ends the excerpt with her looking out of her window and the night was "peaceful". I told her that she could really turn this into a great scary story and to keep up the great writing.

C4K#7

        This assignment was for Mrs. Gilbert's 5th Grade class and the student I commented on was Daniel. The post of his that I loved the most was his "Red Ribbon Week" post. He talked about how his school was discussing how to stay off of drugs and he said that he was pledging to never take any drugs for all of his life. I told him that was great and that the only things drugs do is kill your brain and harm your body. I also encouraged him to keep up the good work.

These were just 5 of the great C4K's I got to comment on. There are a lot of great kids all over the world and I hope to keep in touch with all if them as they continue to go through school.

C4T #3 Mathew Needleman

During these past few weeks I have been assigned to read and comment on Mr. Mathew Needleman's Blog and now I am going to tell you about just two of the very informative post that I read on his blog.

Six Ways Teachers can Improve Education This Year

In the first post that I read entitled, "Six Ways Teachers Can Improve Education This Year", Mr. Needleman give six different ways teachers could and should improve their school for not only the students but the faculty as well. His first point was to say hello at the door as the students come in because this maybe the only kind thing they hear all day from teachers or anyone. second was to eat in the teacher cafeteria with the rest of the faculty even if they are being negative, maybe you could be the light of positivity and bring the "faculty family" together. His third idea was to teach the students authentic writing and make them define the purpose for their writing and teach them to write for themselves and not for their teacher. His fourth point was to incorporate Multi-Media into every lesson whether it be photos, videos, or CDs. The students would find this more entertaining and you could teacher them some about technology everyday. In his fifth point he talks about using art and a way to help you students find discipline and control and a way to use it further other subjects like using drums to learn rhythms. Lastly he says that teaching test prep for at least two minutes a day will prepare them for the game the school system like to call standardized test and says if they have to take it anyway, we might as well make sure they can play the game great.
I think that Mr. Needleman makes some great points and gives a ton of great ideas and think that this would defiantly change and help improve education.

3 Ways to Download Movies from Youtube

In this post Mr.Needleman give 3 different ways to download movies from Youtube and the ideas behind using each one. In the first way which he calls "the low-tech way", he suggest just downloading it at home and not closing the window but closing the computer and taking it to school and he says this is the best way if you only need to download one video. The second way is to use Zamar.com. This way allows you to put in a little work but to have a few movies downloaded at the same time. The last way is to use Download Helper for Firefox or Download Youtube for Safari. These two allow you to download a high volume of movies and work very well.
I want to thank Mr. Needleman for all of his great tips, tools and ideas and think that more people should follow his blog for more that I am sure is soon to come.

SMART Board Interview- Project #13

Blog Post #10

Morgan Bayda and Dan Brown's Views On Education

In this Blog Post assignment, we were assigned to read Ms. Morgan Bayda's post on "An Open Letter To Educators" and also watch Mr. Dan Brown's video An Open Letter to Educators where they both come to the conclusion that if schooling does not change with the world, then the people will decide they don't need or want it. To be completely honest, I have to agree. As they said, the world is changing and is in full swing of the Information Age. The schools are still stuck in the old industrial idea of "get them in and get them out". I can personally attest to this and hate that schooling is such bad shape. We are taught that things and people change and evolve. Well the world is changing, but the public school system has not changed at all. Like Dan says, they have added some tools but that is not change and change is what the people and the Information Age need.
In my high school, the teachers didn't really care how we did our work but just that we followed the steps and got to some answer. We can't talk to our neighbors because then we get our work taken away for cheating. I can remember when thinking outside the box was encouraged and as you go up through high school for some reason we are now in the box and it is shrinking. I thought once I got to college things would be so different to the point I was scared to come but when I got here, it was just like high school except I didn't have to go all day. The only class that has challenged the way I think and the way I use to do things is this EDM310 that I am in. I have always been taught and now I am learning and doing everything myself. I still get help and instruction when needed but I am doing something I have not done in a long time, think for myself and actually learn something that will not be on the test.

Tom Johnson's "Don't Let Them Take the Pencils Home"

In this post Don't Let Them Take the Pencils Home  I love the fact that during the entire post, Mr. Johnson does not focus on the what could happen, rather on the solutions to the what is happening. If they take their pencils home and play word games, then they are still learning words. So what if their parents work in a factory and the children think they are toy, the school has set up a program for the parents to get involved and that should defiantly help. This post should tell us as teachers, we need to look at the fact that students are learning and we should encourage learning all the time.


Two Questions That Will Change Your Life

Two questions that can change your life from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

This Vimeo is very inspiring and I have to say it is very motivating as well. Well this is My Sentence, "I will and am ever striving to make a difference in students lives and I will make time for my students to have FUN while LEARNING." School should never be too busy for students not to enjoy it. How else can we expect them to want to come to school and better yet want to come to learn if we don't make it fun and interesting for them. Answer: We cant't.

Additional Assignment #3

In Sir Ken Robinson's Video: Changing Educational Paradigms ,I think the most important point he makes is the one about the growing trend to medicate children with ADHD. Like Mr. Robinson says, I also believe there is so much going on in the world around us today that children cannot help but be distracted. Now also I am not say there is not this disorder but most of the children who are diagnosed with ADHD are just children who are artistic and are being starved of the creative outlet. The first thing to go in schools now if money gets tight is the art programs. This is horrible because the great thinkers of our time are not going to have anyone to construct their great inventions and ideas if we do not have creative tinkers to look outside the box to make things work. This will eventually be utterly devastating.
There is nothing in this presentation that I can disagree with that would not have great reason of rebuttal behind it. He makes great sense and points all throughout the presentation. Sir Ken Robinson's positions in this video run pretty congruent with what I am being taught in the college of education. The only major difference I see is the ADHD aspect, because the college of education just wants us to learn how to deal with it and not actually find a way to help them learn and express themselves. I feel the only things I can do to address the issues that Sir Ken Robinson raises is to try my best not to get caught up the 'get them in and get them out" craze and just make sure they learn and enjoy it. School is something we have to do for at least 13 years and I strongly believe that students can learn and have fun with it at the same time.
I thought the way in which the video was presented was very amazing and eye catching. I think it keeps your attention the entire time. I would however slowed it down just a little bit, because it was a little hard to keep up at times. If were to create a video like this, I would have to say that my job would have been Idea Generator or Author because I am not that great at the artsy stuff. I am way more right brain, as my fiance often reminds me.

Project #12 Skype Interview

Blog Post # 9 What I Learned This Year

 In this blog post we were assigned to read Mr. McClung's post entitled, "What I've Learned This Year". In this post Mr. McClung talks about the experiences he went through and observed during his first year as an elementary school teacher. He tells of him learning that school is for the students and not for the teachers. In his paragraph, "How to Read the Crowd" he says that "...I was so worried about how I was being assed by my superiors, that I lost touch with my audience when I delivered a lesson". I think we as teachers get this way sometimes and we have to step back and remember we are here for the students and no one else. The students and their future are what we need to focus on and not how perfect the lesson we made is going. Which transfers into his next paragraph, "Be Flexible" where he speaks about him trying to be aware of the fact that we are teaching students who " struggle remembering what they brought for lunch" and so we should not get upset and if a lesson doesn't go exactly the way we want it to. He gives us the advice that, "When things go wrong, simply work with it and try to better the situation... and make sure you do it with a smile on your face." I believe this is great advice because without being flexible, we are just being uptight and thus making the students miserable too. We just need to roll with the punches. Moving on through the post he comes to his thoughts on how important it is to, "Communicate". In this paragraph he expresses the importance of communication among our peers and students. He says without communication, the work place can become very volatile and work against the betterment of the students. He also says that communication is one of the hardest skills to develop and so we should practice all the time and I could not agree with him more on this. There is so much drama in schools and as teachers we should set en example for communicating and working out problems with others. In the next paragraph Mr. McClung talks about how to "Be Reasonable". In this he tells us how to not get upset when our students don't reach our expectations because at the end of the day, they are still children. I agree that we should not get upset but I will not lower my expectation because I want my students to know that I will never stop expecting greatness from them. In his paragraph on "Don't Be Afraid of Technology", he hilariously jokes about the fact that so many people are afraid of technology, but reassures them that, "... the water feel fine:)." I have to completely agree with him because I was afraid when I started this class but now I love it and I have learned so much.  In what I believe is a very touching paragraph, "Listen to Your Students", he tells of the absolute great importance of listening to our students because how can we teach them if we do not listen and get to know them. Lastly he talks about the fact that we should "Never Stop Learning". He puts it best when he says, "It is never too late to change your way of thinking, learning, or style." We as educators should be sponges and soak up all of the knowledge available so that we are better equipped to help and teach our students, they deserve it. I want to thank Mr. McClung for sharing his great insights into his first year of teaching because I know this has helped me feel a little less scared of my first year that is fast approaching.