Sunday, September 28, 2014

Project #8: Book Trailer

The Rainbow Fish




C4K Summary for September

C4K #1

Rugby
Sela
Sela's post was entitled Sports I Enjoy Playing and it was a presentation she made about all of the athletics she likes. Her favorites were NFL football and Rugby. She explained what each one was and certain details about both. Her favorite team for NFL football is the Pittsburgh Steelers and her favorite Rugby team is the Waikato Chiefs. Since I am unfamiliar about Rugby I asked her a question about the sport.

C4K #2

India
India's post was about the singer Chris Brown and his new album that was coming out. Since I am familiar with this artist it was easy for me to comment about the subject. It even got me interested so I went and bought the album and added it to my phone.  
Chris Brown

C4K #3

Caleb
Caleb wrote about how his school had a no backpack rule. He did not agree with this decision and felt that his school could take other steps to ensure safety instead of having a no backpack rule. I commented and said how I understood his point and that I would have a hard time carrying all of my things without a backpack too. 
Students with backpacks

Blog Post 6

Project Based Learning: Part 1 and Part 2

In the videos concerning Public Based Learning Anthony Capp spoke about how he had his class write letters to send to Congressmen. This is just one example of how we can use project based learning. The students voted and decided to send off only a certain number of letters and when they got responses back they were super excited. Anthony Capp seems to really care about his students and being a great educator. He and Dr. Strange gave me many ideas that I can incorporate into my classroom one day, and the idea of PBL will definitely be one of them.

iCurio

I had never heard of iCurio but I really liked the things it allowed you to do. It opens the door for children to be able to go and search for factual information that they can learn from. Anthony talked about how it has been a transition for him to start using technology such as drives and folders to store things. iCurio can help you store and organize your things and keep them very accessible for you.

Children using technology

 Discovery Education

This tool gives students a visual component to the text they are studying. It not only helps keep them engaged, but it helps them retain information as well. I feel like this could be a great resource for teachers to use in the classroom. Anthony commented on how he is not an expert on all things and he is constantly learning new things along with his students. Discovery Education can be used to bring experts into the classroom for the students.


The Anthony - Strange list of Tips for Teachers Part 1

Dr. Strange and Anthony Capp teamed up in this video to give us some tips for when we are educators. A few things they talked about really stood out to me. As Dr. Strange is always telling us, it is important that we as educators want to learn ourselves. This is going to be a huge part of our job one day. How can we expect our students to learn new things if we ourselves do not like doing the same thing? Also, it is important that we are flexible and creative. Sometimes things just do not work out the way we planned. We need to be able to overcome this obstacle and still make sure our students are getting what we need them to learn. Finally I really feel that keeping our students engaged during class time is extremely important. There are ways that teachers can make things interesting and more appealing to our students. Our children need to stay together, learning, not leaving anyone behind.

Don't Teach Tech - Use It

Anthony Capp talks about the importance of technology and how we should not teach it, but instead allow the students to use it and learn from it. Students years younger than me are easily picking up on new programs and learning all the ways it works. They are learning by physical use of the technologies instead of someone giving them step by step instructions.

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Blog Post 5: Part 1

PLN

PLNs, What Are They?
Before using the resources Dr. Strange gave me, and researching it on my own, I would have had no idea what a PLN was. PLN stands for Personal Learning Network and it is the people and tools that you consult about whatever it is you are interested in. I found Karl Fisch’s My Personal Learning Network in Action very helpful. Here Fisch writes about how using his PLN helped him have more understanding on a topic. The way he organized his work showed me that being apart of a PLN could really benefit me. Dr. Strange talked about how PLNs are like a stream in his work Developing A Personal Learning Network. I think that is an interesting way to view this. These resources are collective and so many people are contributing to it, I have a wealth of knowledge at my fingertips. I think we should all take advantage of this, and even contribute also. Since I have dedicated myself to being a life time learner, I will have my own ideas and knowledge to put out there for others use to further their education.

Creating My PLN
When I begin creating my own PLN there will be lots of people I can connect with in the education world. Since I've been working in schools, I will be adding the teachers I've met to my PLN. I share interests with them and I know their ideas and information could really help me when I begin my career. Also I think it would be a great idea to add Dr. Strange to this list. I've only been in EDM310 a little over a month and already I have learned so much. He really knows how to use technology to help teach people. Connecting with these people will lead me to others, and eventually my PLN will grow and I'll have a community of people that share the same ideas and goals as I do.

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Project #15: Search Engines

Below are a list of 8 different search engines that I found and also tried out. I also provided the link to them so that you can also try them for your self.

1. WOW.com This search engine has a very simple look to it and is easy to use. When I typed something into the search bar it gave me many pages to go through and the options of web, images, or videos. It also included  related searches list on the right hand side. This was easy to use, but not very complex.

2. Aol.com While this search engine offered more options it was still a pretty simple set up. I typed in the same word I did in the other engines, and it gave me about the same amount of sites to go to. It did give me a small biological search results that some of the other engines did not.

3. Yahoo.com This engine gave me tons of settings, options, along with recent news. It would be a good search engine if you wanted to see how your search was connected in current events.

4. Ask.com  This site not only gave me many options and settings, but it was more set up for Q&A. It would be a place to search when you had a specific question you wanted answered.

5. WolframAlpha.com After using this engine to search different things I came to the conclusion that its results were very scientific. Instead of giving me different websites to visit, it gives me various information and facts for what I searched. This would be a good place to go if you were gathering facts and technical data about something.

6. Webcrawler.com This was very similar to some of the other search engines in the way that it was simple, easy to navigate, and set up with the same options as most search engines. It was lacking some of the short cuts that other more well known websites have.

7. Info.com This engine's results were a collaboration of other search engines results. If you wanted to be get a lot of different websites through different engines this would be the place to look.

8. Bing.com Bing is unique in the way it sets up its cover page. You can drag your mouse over parts of the pictures and get randoms trivia and facts from them. When searching on this engine I found that the results and information I got back was more in depth than other engines. It would be a good place to search for any kind of information you needed.

Search Engines










C4T#1

I got to enjoy reading the blog Get Organized! by Frank Buck. The first post I read was named Happy 10th Birthday, Blog! This so happened to be the first post I read as well as the last post Frank will be putting on this blog. August 30th marked the tenth year since Frank began this blog. Not only did he celebrate this, but he also wrote about the pros of having a blog. There are multiple uses for blogs, whether they be for businesses, schools, etc. He also tells how simple keeping a blog is and how it will actually make your life easier. Blogs keep all their information on them and are super easy to go back and edit if the author finds the need to. He also list ten very good reasons why people should blog, and I agree with every single one! The more I learn in my class EDM310, the more I'm seeing technology in a new light. Blogs can be so versatile, why not make them work to our advantage? When I left my comment I made sure to let him know how much I enjoyed reading his latest post and that I definitely agreed with his points about the pros of blogging.
To-Do Lists

The second post I read by Frank Buck was titled Better Choices, and It's Easy. He described how helpful electronic to-do lists can be. This is something you can use that will assist you in keeping everything you have to do in order and make sure you get it done on time. His advice was to give the things on the list a due date so that you would have order to all the many things you needed to accomplish. I left a comment explaining what a great idea I thought this was. Sure, I've made plenty of lists of the things I needed to do, but I probably lost every single list before I ever completed the tasks. By having an electronic to-do list I can keep it right on my phone, and I know I'll always keep up with that device. I got one of the lists he suggested and have been trying it out. So far it seems to be a great idea and keeping me up to date on the many things in my schedule!

Blog Post 4: Asking Questions

How to Ask Questions the Right Way
As an educator, there are always different techniques you can incorporate in your teaching style. This past week I began familiarizing myself with ways teachers can ask their students questions. At a glance this would seem like a simple topic, but there is actually more to it than one would think. Ben Johnson wrote an article for the website edutopia called "The Right Way to Ask Questions in the Classroom" and went into detail on how teachers need to learn to ask questions in a way that will better their students. I found this article very helpful in the research of my topic. He broke down the types of students you would meet in a classroom and explained ways to best ask questions so that it would benefit all, not just a few select kids who like answering in class. The most effective approach to use when asking questions is to ask the question, pause three seconds, and then call on someone for the answer. This gives all the students in the class a chance to think about what answer they will have to give if they are the ones called on. This will minimize having the same students over and over again always answering while also putting a little more pressure on the other students to think as well.
Teachers Asking Questions

As my research went on I found a common thread among many of my sources: open versus closed questions. Children learn at different rates and in many different ways. As a teacher I need to train myself to ask my students questions that will involve them formulating an explanatory response instead of just a yes or no. According to Dr. John V. Richardson Jr., an open question takes more than a word or short phrase to answer. It requires more information to get to the answer. A closed question is the opposite. It is a simple, short explanation that satisfies the question being asked. (Open versus Closed Ended Questions. (n.d.). Retrieved September 12, 2014.).

We want our students to be intrigued in class, absorbing as much information as possible. Asking questions that will help them stay tuned in during class discussions is only a small part that we as teachers need to do. All students need to be participating as well as gaining knowledge in the classroom.






Saturday, September 6, 2014

Blog Post 3: Peer Editing

How Can You Provide Meaningful Feedback to Your Peers?

Peer editing is more than just telling someone what is wrong with their work. There are certain steps to take in order to provide meaningful feedback that will help the writer edit his/her work. After watching the video What is Peer Editing? I learned that not only do you critique other's work, but you are critiquing your peers. This means it is someone your own age. For many it is always easier to correct someone younger than you because the older person usually as more knowledge and experience, but when it is someone around the same age as you it can be more difficult. This video along with the slideshow Peer Edit with Perfection Tutorial I learned that there are three main steps to follow when peer editing: compliments, suggestions, and corrections. For compliments you should find something you like about your peer's work and compliment it. For me this is usually the easy part. When you make a suggestion about someone's work you are simply giving them ideas about how they can better their writing. Corrections are the step where you show your peer where they have made grammatical errors and others writing mistakes. No matter what step you are on it is very important that you always stay positive. No one likes hearing what is wrong with their work, especially if the editor is negative.
Writing a Peer Review Top Ten Mistakes
The video Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes is a funny video starring younger children teaching about how to peer edit correctly. They give many examples of how not to peer edit. While watching it made me laugh a few times, it was also very eye opening. The students acted out different scenarios and their reactions really showed me how peer editing can be difficult at times. I took away a lot of good information from this video because it was from the student's point of view and helped me understand their individual struggles.