Blog Post #8

#1 In Richard Miller’s This is How We Dream Parts 1 & 2, he describes how we write is changing because of where we do the work, where we research the work and where we publish our work is so different in the age of technology as opposed to writing with pencil on paper and doing our research in a library. In order to keep our students loving to read and write, we must be willing to teach them to compose and read digitally. In order to do this, we must be willing to learn and do it ourselves.
I liked the way he presented this change incrementally at first and in the future it would be fundamentally different because you would not be just writing words but using the entire scope of the web to add value and beauty to the writing. The incremental changes leading up to this fundamental change involves freely sharing knowledge and collaborating with others with what they have learned. You begin to add visual images and sound and weave them together as you collect information. The finished product is much more than just the printed word.
“The end product is not technology itself”, he says, but what it makes possible.” It is a great way to make our ideas and dreams become visible. Although this may not be possible at the moment for many educators to do, it helps us see the need for creative teachers and resources to help us do it. This class has certainly challenged me to look at the options that are available to teachers and their students because of technology.

#2 Blog Post #12 by Carly Pugh was a great idea that answered the question posed by Dr. Strange, “What should he have asked you to do that he did not during the course.” She responded with a wonderful post that gave the idea of creating playlists for other teachers to help in their particular field of teaching. She shared great at ideas for other English teachers to use the touch of their computer. She did a lot of research, especially on You-tube, and made it easier for others not to spend hours searching for information.            
          Her “6 Questions to Ask Each Day” I thought was a wonderful example of what Richard Miller was talking about. She didn’t just write out 6 questions and challenge you to answer them. She put the questions to music and paired the questions with pictures that gave an example of the question. This made it much more interesting and inspiring. Not only do the words inspire but the entire presentation.

#3The Chipper series and EDM310 for dummies. I really enjoyed these two videos. I think we all get a little overwhelmed with everything we have to do in EDM310. I really like point of what the videos messages were. As college students and future educators we are going to have to work to stay in touch and up to date with education and technology, it’s not going to be handed to us. This class, though tough at times, has really been fun and allows for so much personal creativity and views in all the project and assignments we have to do. As for creating a video that could be beneficial I would like to create something that shows how to create and set up your blog. Showing tutorials on how to set it up and enhance it with all the extra tools like adding pictures, music, video, and links.

#4 I agreed with everything that was said in Learn to Change, Change to Learn. These educators were confirming what we are learning in this class and that is the structured, rote memory classroom is a thing of the past. As one man pointed out, “Technology is no longer a choice; it is a must in 21st century education”. Technology not only provides a community system instead of a classroom system, it allows students to be creative and innovative. It allows students to reflect, research and connect with others. Today’s students are clearly more stimulated outside of the classroom instead of in one. Through the use of social networking, tweeting and googling, students can express themselves and be challenged to explore many possibilities than when they are at school. But most of these expressive activities are banned from the schools. This again leads back to one of the important roles of a good teacher and that is responsible use of the technology that is available. It was good to hear from teachers’ points of view instead of students. Most of these educators looked as if they were veteran teachers and I am glad to hear that they are willing to make a changed for the benefit of the students.

#5 Scavenger Hunt 2.0

1) Edmodo is a social networking site for schools. It is set up very similar to Facebook. The site has many features and tools allowing teachers and students to communicate easily. There are sections designated for assignments, quizzes, alerts, and a list of all your students. You can post class discussions, polls, connections to other sites, and updated feeds for in class use. The page can be exclusively for the teacher, faculty, or parents. This site is a very creative and useful site for teachers and students.

2) EDM310 Comic

3) Polls Everywhere


<img alt="Poll Everywhere" src="http://www.polleverywhere.com/multiple_choice_polls/MTQ3ODAzMjg5NA/chart.png" /><div style="font-size: 0.75em;"/>Replace your <a href="http://www.polleverywhere.com/audience-response-system">audience response systems</a> with <a href="http://www.polleverywhere.com/">Poll Everywhere</a>
</div>

Project #12

Project #11

Blog Post #7

The Networked Student by Wendy Drexler

The connectivism concept is definitely a learning technique that can be very effective in the 21st century! Social networking has opened the doors to connect with others that have the same interests so why not connect with others that are interested in learning the same topics. As the video points out, students take control of their learning through networking with others. They not only share the information they have learned but can learn from what others have found.
The one thing that concerned me was the statement that “others can learn from his hard work”. This could make it easy for some students to just “copy” the websites and information others have found and use it for their own credit. I am sure some guidelines have to be set because as in any group work, some will work harder than others.
As for the question, “Why does the networked student even need a teacher?” the video points out several good reasons. The teacher is needed to help teach the student how to build the network and guide him when he gets stuck. The teacher is there to help the student learn the difference between credible information and the information that is not and how to organize the amount of information that is found. The most important role of the teacher is to teach the student to use this networking technique to not only navigate his learning but also his future. This will be of value to all of us as these students learn to creatively solve the world’s problems.

C4T Summary #2

MY SECOND C4T SUMMARY

For my third C4T assignment, I was given Wesley Fryer’s blog, Moving At The Speed Of Creativity. It is a personal blog Mr. Fryer uses to digitally document his own journey of learning and collaborate with other educators and lifelong learners around the globe. Focusing primarily on issues related to engaged learning, web 2.0 technologies, digital storytelling, educational leadership, literacy, blended learning, creativity, appropriate uses educational technologies, digital citizenship, and educational transformation. My first comment was on his blog post entitled Changing the Pictures of the Classroom in Students Heads. This post was on Mr. Fryer’s notes from John Nail’s presentation, “Necessary Accountability for Individual Learning” at a Yukon Public Schools professional development day. The article was about involving and motivating students to learn through personal accountability so the process would relate to them personally. One of the best ideas I took away from the article was the idea of a goal sheets he uses with his students. The idea of a goal sheet was very creative in how the student’s own personal goals engage them directly with their learning. It was great how the goal sheet gets the student to think or create their own picture and become motivated by self-reflection creating ownership to their goals. This article really gave some good insight on how to help students become engaged and motivated to learn.
The second blog post from Mr. Fryer in which I commented was Let’s Stop Encouraging Teachers to “Teach Technology”. This article was about how we should be using technology tools, not teaching technology like it’s a separate subject. Much like EDM310 class approach Mr. Fryer stated in the article, “As I continue to teach, I grow less enchanted with the idea of “teaching technology” and more enthused about “using” the tools I need to learn what I want to and/or have to learn.” I think my point of view on this article would have been completely different if I were not taking EDM310. I was more of an average Joe who used a computer for web surfing and face book along with the occasional writing a paper for class. Before this class I never thought blogging,

Project #10

My PLN is coming on nicely. Now that I have it is very helpful. I will be working on my PLN and putting more useful links into it to help me a long the way.

Project #8

C4K Summary

C4K February
The first C4K I was assigned to was Shalom a fifth year student at Pt. England School. He was telling us a story about how is Christmas break wasn’t going well for him. Things took a turn for the better when he found some fun shooting basketball and daydreaming about his team the Breakers winning the cup after beating the Miami Heat. The objective of the blog post was for the class to keep in touch by blogging during their Christmas break. His blog was very good with a few grammatical errors here and there, but overall he did a great job.

My second C4K I was assigned was Alicia from New Zealand. Her blog was very neat. She created a animated video where she was interviewing the historical Italian navigator and explorer John Cabot. It was very unique, unlike a post where someone has to read, she was able to give information in a very creative way through the video. Overall her blog was great. It really showed me how through the video she was able to display knowledge gained through her research and information gathered for the project. I think this a great way to get students motivated to learn.


         My third C4K was a student a 5th Grader named Emily from Canada. Her blog post was about sportsmanship and teamwork, something they had been talking about in her P.E. class. I felt I really could relate to the topics being discussed because I was very involved in sports throughout high school. It gave me a unique opportunity to help a student through a reply post. Hopefully, I gave her great information from my past experiences by my response. Much like this class, it shows how technology is breaking through the walls of education to where instead of a classroom setting, you can teach and learn all over the world.

Finally my forth C4K I was assigned a 10th grade Modern World History class. It was a post that talked about the Bill of Rights and whether or not they were still relevant in today’s modern world. It was set up much like a online class, which I think is very beneficial at high school level of education. For example, if a student is absent, they are able to read their blog so they don’t get behind in class and it saves time for a teacher by not having to re-teach the same lesson. I think, a class blog is just one of many tools that is helping revolutionize education.  

Blog Post #6

Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

          This lecture was originally about achieving your childhood dreams but it was also about helping others achieve theirs. He expresses that as you get older, you may find that “enabling the dreams of others’ is even more fun and that we must not lose sight of the fact that the inspiration and the permission to dream is huge. Through all that he has learned in his life, helped bring him to be able to say, “We can’t change it, and we just have to decide how we’re going to respond to that,” after learning he only had months to live with liver cancer.
          One great teaching tool that all teachers need to perfect is what he calls “head fakes”. This is when you have your students doing one thing but they are really learning another. For example, in sports you may be learning specific skills but you are really learning the importance of fundamentals, teamwork, leadership, sportsmanship and perseverance. Lifelong skills that can be applied to any job or endeavor instead of just the skill of the sport.
          When creating the course called Building Virtual Worlds he allowed his students to create anything they wanted except for porn or violence. Giving them the freedom to create their own worlds produced some of the best work he had seen and he had no idea what to tell them to do next. A very wise mentor told him to tell them that the work was very good but he knew they could do better. Confirming the fact that the challenge to always do better or perfect what is already done inspires students to try harder and think harder.
          Not only did he allow his students to work in teams and create these virtual worlds, he also allowed them to share their knowledge and creativity with others which gave them the chance to know what it feels like to make other people happy and get excited about learning. That is a tremendous gift.
          Another big success of his teaching was teaching people about feedback. About every two weeks he allowed all teammates to rank how easy it was to work with another person. He shared the results on a bar chart telling them where they stacked up against their peers. It caused his students to think about how they were treating others and if they were contributing enough to the team. He states that the best gift an educator can give is to get somebody to become self-reflective.
          Some other great advice he shares is to never lose the childlike wonder, it is too important. It’s what drives us. He also encourages to never give up.  Brick walls allow you to show your dedication. They are what separate us from the people that really don’t want to achieve their dreams. Show gratitude to others. Don’t complain. Just work harder. Be good at something, it makes you valuable. Find the best in everybody and always be prepared.
          This was wonderful advice coming from a very successful person. It was very evident that he had loved the life he had lived. As he said at the end, this lecture wasn’t about how to achieve your dreams; it was really about how to lead your life. It was very fitting that the greatest head fake was that the talk was not for us, but for his kids.