Blog Post #9

In Seven Essentials for Project Based Learning, John Larmer and John R. Mergendoller give seven thing that a good project needs. Out of the list, I found the most important was Student Voice and Choice. Students learn better when they are interested in what they are learning about. If the students don't care about that particular subject they aren't going to be as engaged. Another one that I found important was A Publicly Presented Product. Students seem to put more into the project when they have to present it publicly. No one want to be the group with the least put together project. 

The video Project Based Learning for Teachers did a great job of explaining what project based learning is. I used this video in my presentation of project learning and enjoyed watching it again. Project based learning is centered around a driving question. To answer this question, the student must research and share their finding.

In Andrew Miller's blog post Project Based Learning and Physical Education, he talks about the Seven Essentials for Project Based Learning. He bases is blog post off of the information that Larmer and Mergendoller give and applies it to Physical Education. He follows the same key points and gives an example of Project Based Learning in Physical Education.

In the post Ten Sites Supporting Digital Classroom Callaboration In Project Based Learning, we are introduced to websites that can help enhance project based learning. One site listed that we have used before is Google Docs. This site is used to help students work together even if they can not be in the same room. It allows them to share documents and presentations within their group and put in everyone's input. Another site that I found interesting was Lino. It is a way for you to share what you are writing on your SMARTboard with your students and they can add on as long as you provide the URL. I think this could be a great tool for students who can not come to school. If a student is absent because of being sick then they can pull up the URL and still see what is going on in class and also participate.

I found Two students solve the case of the watery ketchup by designing a new cap very interesting! Two students try to come up with a different bottle cap to stop the water inthe ketchup bottle from coming out.  It's so cool that they legit researched what had already been tried and came up with something new.

Special Blog Post

In William Chamberlain's blog post, he addresses a very important question: Why do I have to learn history? I think that we need to learn about history so that we do not repeat our mistakes. We also need to look at what we have done in the past that has worked and do it again. History is kinda a guide to what direction we need to be heading in. Sometimes as humans we do not heed history's warning about certain situations and we do it anyway. Most of the time we can look back and find where it has happened before and what the results were.

Project #12 SMARTboard Part A

Project #14

My project plan in for 1st grade.





Lesson Plan

Project Calendar

Project Rubric

Project #9

C4Ta#2

My teacher for C4Ta is Dean Shareski.




The first blog of his that I commented on was entitled "Things I was Never Told". He talks about how young teachers don't realize the world they are entering by becoming teachers. He states that he wants to give new teachers a heads up on some issues they will face. The first issue is the lack of professionalism. Teachers used to be as Shareski says "isolated". They could shut their door and just teach without fear of doing something wrong. Now days their is a tension between the administration and teachers. The second issue is rolling the dice with schools. More and more research is showing that the principal is the most important person in a school. If a principal rallys behind the school and is excited about what they are teaching and doing, teachers are happier to teach and students are happier to learn. However, if the principal doesn't care very much it adds pressure on the teachers. The third issue is you're not an instructor. When Shareski graduated college he focused on strategy, instruction, and methods. He says it took him a while to figure out that instruction was only part of his job. 30%-40% of his time was devoted to guided individual learning.

The second blog I commented on was entitled "Visitors and Residents and Virtual Citizenship". Shareski talks about when a school is looking to incorporate the internet into their curriculum, they must first emphazise the dangers of thoughtless online behavior. Most educator just tell their student "don't do bad stuff". He says that this its mostly damage control. Most students are more than visitors of the internet. They are more like residents. Telling a child to not do bad thing online is like telling an American how to be a good US citizen.

C4Tp#2

The first post of hers that I commented on was Back to the Future Project. In this particular blog, Tolisano writes a sentence in English and then a sentence in Portuguese for the majority of her blog. It is kinda distracting but it's part of her blog. She talks about a how Portuguese teacher named Ana Cortez got her 7th and 8th graders excited about learning a target language by using a Life Cycle unit. She asked her students to create a fake facebook page for a character's life, from birth to retirement. (Tolisano includes Cortezs lesson plan in her blog.) They used Google docs. These are some of the examples from Cortez's students:
  

The second post I commented on was "Copyright Flowchart". Tolisano states that it is the educators responsibility to model good digital citizenship for heir students. The waters are very murky when decided what you can and can not use. When teachers were in school we didn't have all of this technology at our fingertips so sometimes we are not familiar with online policies. This doesn't mean that we can just do whatever we want and then claim innocence. It is our job as teachers to become familiar with these type of things so that we can make out students aware. I loved this chart that she include in her blog. (Sorry it's so big! The next size down was too small to be able to read!)

Blog Post #8

I admire Randy Pausch very much! I love his positive attitude in his last lecture despite that he has cancer. The fact that he could laugh and joke around is awesome to me! My favorite quote from his lecture is "We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand". He has such a positive outlook on life and accepts the fact that he was given only a few months to live. This only made Pausch start living life to the fullest and following his dreams. 

During the lecture, Pausch talks about following your childhood dreams. His childhood dreams included being in the NFL and being a Disney Imagineer. He says anything is possible if you want it bad enough and you work toward it. He accomplishes most of his dreams by the time he did his last lecture. As a child, I had millions of thing that I wanted to accomplish in my life. Now some of the things on the list seem silly but others I still with I could do. As teachers, we need to encourage the dreams of children and help then set goals. One thing that really stood out to me in his lecture was when he says “The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”  Sometimes when times get tough we just give up. It is very encouraging to know that even through the tough times Pausch was going through, he broke down his brick walls and kept a positive outlook on life. I have a hard time doing this sometimes. Sometimes I can be a pessimistic person. After watching this video I have realized I don't have a reason to be! I need to quit giving up and break my brick walls down. 

Blog Post #7

One great technology tool I have found is Pinterest! This is my Teaching Pinterest Board. I am constantly looking up lesson plans, crafts, and other activities to do with my students. There are plenty of teachers who share their lesson plans or other resources that they find helpful. I see pins everyday from teachers from around the world. Teachers post how it actually happened in their classroom so I get to see what other students are learning and how well they like the activities. It makes us as teachers more creative and makes our lesson plans more interesting. I strongly recommend that teachers get accounts! It is awesome!

Other sites I have found using Pinterest are Turtlediary.com and FunBrain.com. Both of these sites have tons of games sorted by grade and subject to help the students practice what they are learning. Turtlediary also has worksheets based on the games that you can print and use in class or as review.

Project #13 Lesson Plan #1

My group did a lesson plan on Kindergarten math. This is an overview of our lesson plan.

Blog Post #6

Video 1

In the video Project Based Learning Part Anthony Capps discusses his use of Project based learning in his 3rd grade class. Anthony explains that when they involve a real audience and include the community they care more about their project so they do better work. He also talks about using project based learning in your teaching and not just as a side note to your lesson. He talks about how his students sent in letters to Jo Bonner about women in combat. This project included writing, reading and social studies. Students were also able to learn from their community and that was really cool. I love seeing things that we learn in this class applied in a real classroom.

Video 2

In the second half of Project Based Learning Anthony discussed how not all projects have a great outcome. Anthony shares that his class was studying Afghanistan and learning all about the people and one of his parents did not want their child learning about that culture. They also did not want their child participating in the project in anyway. This shows how not all projects are successful. His students learned a lot from this project. I really loved when Anthony said "create an opportunity for your students to go beyond what you expect." I think this is a great motto to teach by!

Video 3

In this video title iCurio Anthony Capps moves on from his discussion of Project Based Learning to iCurio. Anthony uses iCurio to help his students stay organized and keep track of all of their notes and information. I love that iCurio is kid friendly and blocks thing that could be inappropriate for children. I found how you can search with categories. I feel this could be very useful in my future classroom, when my students need to do a research project or assignment.

Video 4

In the video Discovery Education we learn about the site Discovery Education. In this video Anthony uses the quote "If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video must be worth a million" I agree with this quote, and also in the use of Discovery Ed. Sometimes I feel that videos are used to take up time not actually teach but if you find any informational video that your students will enjoy they are more to learn something. I really liked Anthony's example with studying plants and using Discovery Ed to enhance the study and viewing pictures and videos about the plants.

Video 5

In the video, The Anthony - Strange Tips for Teachers Part 1 Dr. Strange and Anthony Capps give tips to future educators. These tips covered key topics, that any new teacher should think about. Dr. Strange and Anthony suggest that you should be interested in learning yourself. Teaching is work but it should be interesting and enjoyable. Another tip is to be flexible. You must keep your students engaged or they won't pay attention and learn anything. I feel that if that means cutting your lesson short because half of your students aren't paying attention then you do it and come back to your lesson later. Anthony emphasizes that you can keep your student attention by talking about things the students care about.

Video 6

I really agree with everything Anthony said in the video Use Tech Don't Teach It. Gradually adding in the technology is a great way to help the students understand how to use them. Anthony uses the term scaffolding as a way to describe how he introduces it into his classroom. Every week he adds on to what he taught the week before. His example is starting with research tools and video tools and turning them into research videos about the information they researched.

Video 7

In the video Additional Thoughts About Lessons Anthony made some very good points on how there are four tiers in lesson planning; the school year, the unit, weekly, and daily. You start with everything you need to cover in the whole school year. Then you break it down into units, which would be about 6 weeks long. By the end of the unit the students should be able to do X in that subject. When looking at your unit, you should divide the lessons into weeks. For example if our unit is plants, week one may be all about what is in the dirt and what needs to be in the dirt for something to grow, week two could be focusing on the roots, week three could focus on the stem and leaves, and so on. At the end of the unit  the students should know all about plants; how they work, what they need to survive, etc. Your weeks then need to be divided into days.

The days to week act just like the weeks to unit. On Friday, your students should know X about that subject. If we continue with the plant unit, in week three the students should know all about stems and leaves and their functions. So Monday the students should learn where the stem and leaves are on the plant, Tuesday they can learn why the stem is important, etc. On Friday, the students should know all about stems and leaves. My biggest fear about teaching is not having enough time to cover all of the material well enough that the kids understand it, but I think that this tier lesson plan idea will help.

Project #8 Book Trailer

Blog Post #5

A personal learning network is a group of people and/or tools that you use to help you grow as an educator. These are extremely important when you start working in the real world. Being a new teacher, you may want to add the more experienced teachers into you PLN so that you can learn from them and they can learn the new techniques from you. Many teachers go into teaching thinking that they know everything but soon realize that they don't. If they have a PLN then they can go to elder teachers for advice on what to do. The same goes for a new teacher coming in who has a better way of teaching a certain topic.
When I go into my school, I think that I will create my PLN by selecting teachers in my particular grade/subject and get to know how they do things and what works for them. Then I would open it up to anyone no matter what they teach because we can all learn something from each other, whether it be curriculum related or even how to handle a situation.
The main perk of knowing so many people who are teachers is that before I even start teaching I have a huge PLN. So far in my PLN I have the teachers whose blogs I have viewed, my professors that I have had so far, and many teachers at many different schools in Mobile, Baldwin, and Washington counties. Many of these teachers are people I talk to on a weekly basis about the classroom. They always are happy to share information or give me advice to help me. I like that the teachers I know personally don't sugar coat anything. They tell me how it is so that I can be prepared and not have a skewed view of what I am getting into, especially being a special education teacher. I have spent much time in different schools and extremely different class setting and I am grateful for being able to experience a wide variety thanks to my wonderful teachers in my PLN!

Project #3 Presentation

Blog Post #4

I feel that sometimes as teachers we ask a lot of questions but we do not ask the correct questions. We wait until the end of our lesson, then ask "does anyone have questions?" Most of the time no one says anything so the teacher assumes that everyone understands and that she can move on but that is not always true. I have always hated being the only one who didn't understand so I would wait until we were working individualy with the teacher to ask my questions. I still do this, even in college! After using Padlet, I realized that it would be a great tool for the students to ask questions anonomsly. In The Right Way to Ask Questions, it is brought up to ask a question like ""What is it called when a bear sleeps for the winter?" and give the class three seconds to think about the answer then call on a random person. When doing this instead of calling on the ones that have their hands raised, it forces everyone to think about the answer so that they will be ready if they get called on.

Project #15

WolframAlpha is a search engine much like Google. You can type in math problems and it will give you the result or a question and it will give you an answer.
Cha Cha is a website that you can ask any question you can think of and they will come up with a direct answer. I used this website in high school all of the time because you don;t have to be on the Internet to use it. You can text 242-242 and ask your question and receive the answer with in minutes because the question is directly sent to a person who know about the subject you are asking about.
Bing is the competitor to Google. You can type in key words and find out information n anything you want to know about.
Ask is also a similar website to Google and Bing.
WebMd is an online doctor source to put in your symptoms and it can give you some possibilities to what you could have. You can also look up different sicknesses and see the symptoms and treatments. You must remember that it is not always correct! It is not a real life doctor.
Yummly is a food website where you can look up different recipes or type in the ingredient that you have and it will give you a meal to make.
Realtor is site i have been using a lot lately. You can search for houses for sell around your area. You can change the settings to show you only houses with certain features like 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, or even a porch.
Pump Up is used to search workouts to do with the equipment you list. It will ask how long you want to work out and what equipment you have and then will make you a perfect workout.

C4Ta #1

The Dr. Will Show (Episode 18 - Talking Quick Key App with Co-founder Walter Duncan IV)

Walter has spent the past fifteen years committing his life to teaching and closing the achievement gap. As the husband of a young professor whose career has taken her across the country, Walter has had the opportunity to teach in all sorts of classrooms, from private to public, urban and suburban, privileged and underprivileged. He has a record of success in building consensus and bringing together all stakeholders to solve shared problems.

Walter has consistently improved achievement for his students, throughout his career. During his time at KIPP, a charter school management organization known for effectively closing the achievement gap, his students showed dramatic improvement on the DC CAS and NWEA MAP exam.  As an English teacher at South Shore Charter Public School, his students scored in the top 15% on the MCAS ELA in 2012!

As Director of Administration at the Brooklyn Waldorf School, a small private early childhood and elementary school in its second year of operation, Walter added an extra early childhood class, and doubled the school’s student population for the 2007/2008 school year!


It is this attitude and work ethic that he brings to his transition to entrepreneurship. Walter has accumulated 15 years of experience as an educator, which he applies to his day-to-day activities as the head of Marketing for Design by Educators, Inc., the company he co-founded in 2012.

My Comment:

Hi! My name is Savanah Moore and I am in Dr. Strange's EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. I really enjoyed browsing your blog! I really enjoyed learning about Walter and can't wait to try out the Quick Key app!

The Dr. Will Show (Episode 17 - Find Your Ed Calling with Maria Vibandor)

Maria was born in Manila, Philippines and immigrated to Chicago, IL with her family at the age of three.  She spent most of her adult life in the Greater Chicago land area and graduated from DePaul University with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Interdisciplinary Science with a concentration in Health Studies. 

Although happy at her corporate job and the view of the big city from her cubicle, she was inspired by a group of 8th grade students at an after school mentoring program to join the world of education.  

By 2008, she left corporate America and found herself joining Teach For America and moved to New Orleans with only two suitcases and a positive attitude.  She spent her first years teaching 9th and 10th grade math and science and then elementary grade levels as a reading and writing teacher.  Soon she realized that reliving high school was more attractive than having her skirt tugged by small children, so she transitioned back to the high school setting as a math specialist.  Needless to say, numbers is her game!  Little did she know that she would soon catch the EverFi bug and join the Gulf Coast team as a Schools Manager.  

She continues to be passionate about developing young adults into great leaders of the community and also training them to read food nutrition labels.  Once in awhile you’ll catch wind of her inner foodie and may even get a taste of her newest culinary delight. 

Maria and her family reside in New Orleans, LA, and oversees EverFi implementation in both Louisiana and Gulf Coast Mississippi.

My Comment: Hi! My name is Savanah Moore and I am in Dr. Strange's EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. I really enjoyed browsing your blog! I think that it is awesome that Maria got to teach so many different ages and subjects!

C4Tp #1

And You Thought it Could Not Be Done: Blogging in Math

Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano's post is about blogging in math! She says that she was very surprised (in a good way) when she saw this. The teacher she observed doing this made it more about presenting their work for feedback. She includes tons of examples of students blogging about math that are great! In one example students were to create a presentation then view 2-3 other classmates presentations. They were to give helpful feedback. I love that she post screenshots of their actual post!

My Comment:
Hi! My name is Savanah Moore and I am a student in Dr. Srange’s EDM 310 class at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. I never thought about being able to blog with math! This is a great idea! I enjoyed reading your post!

Blogging as Pedagogy: Facilitate Learning

Pedagogy is defined as the strategies, techniques, and approaches that teachers can use to facilitate learning. She talks about the main four areas blogging supports: Reading, writing, rreflection, and sharing. She goes into depth about each of the four areas and how blogging improvees them.

My comment: Hi! My name is Savanah Moore and I am in Dr. Strange’s EDM310 class the the University of South Alabama! I enjoyed reading through a few of your blogs. I love all of the different ways you listed that blogging helps in reading, writing, reflecting and sharing

Blog Post #3

When peer editing, you always need to be positive and uplifting! Tim Bedley's class did an excellent job of demonstrating what not to do when peer editing in Writing Peer Review (Peer Critique) TOP 10 Mistakes. No one wants a Picky Patty nit picking their paper and saying that you didn't underline one letter of the title or that you wrote too big. Also no one wants a Whatever William who doesn't even care about the assignment in the first place. The whole point of peer review is to help make your paper better, not to make you feel dumb. This video would be great for beginning peer editors!

The What is Peer Review video and the Peer Edit with Perfection slide show talks about the three steps of peer editing: complement, suggestion, and correction. You should always start off your comment on a positive note! Tell them about what you liked most about their post. Always leave a complement in your comment! The next thing you should put in your comment is something that could enhance their work; whether it be a different word choice or to add something. The last thing that should be included in your comment is the correction you need to make. Don't go over the top with the corrections and be sure to say them in a nice way. You don't want to publicly humiliate the author and make them feel dumb. Everyone make mistakes!

Blog Post #2

Mr.Dancealot

In the video Mr. Dancealot, the professor is trying to teach his students how to dance by taking notes. The professor gets angry when the students attempt to practice the dance moves he is telling them about. He also did not approve of the students asking question. The central message of the video is that students do not learn very well if you just tell him what to do. You have to demonstrate what to do and let them practice. In the end of the video, when it was time for the final exam none of the students were able to demonstrate the dances and most of them had the textbook in their hands while trying to dance.This is how the author makes his case for his conclusion that students have to practice to learn. I agree that students need to be taught but also let practice so that they better understand.

Teaching in the 21st Century

In the video, Roberts feels that technology is the main teacher for students. The position described in the video is that as teachers we have to keep our teaching interesting. As an educator, It is important for me to know that my students have many other sources other than me. If Roberts is right, as teachers we will use more technology in the classroom and we will become more like an aid to guide them in the right direction but ultimately they will be teaching themselves.

The Networked Student

In this video written and directed by Wendy Drexler you are given an example of a student going into college. The student starts to build his network. The students learns to blog, and share information using sites like Google docs. The student starts out not very motivated. The video ends with the student being connected to a top professor at the University of California Berkeley. The networked student needs a teacher because they need to learn the proper procedures on how to create their networks. The student will may be able to figure it out but they may not do it correctly. The teacher would help improve the students success rate in widening their network. The video is very informative about creating and continuing to build your network. The video talks about the importance of going through the process of creating a network, how to develop that network, and understanding how to properly build your network.

Harness Your Students’ Digital Smarts

In this video Vicki Davis uses technology to encourage her students to learn for themselves and to be more self sufficient when using technology. The students are able to teach themselves and other students how to use different programs on the computer. Davis when in her classroom acted more like a guide rather than a teacher. This approach of teaching can be good in letting the students become more technology literate on their own but is not appropriate for all students because all students have a different skill level. Students who do not use technology as consistently as others may fall behind because they are not as familiar with the software.

Flipping the Classroom
In the video, they talk about giving the students the lesson the night before to go over at home to save class time. I have had to read things for "homework" then we took a quiz to make sure we read it the next day. But if you didn't read it, you just didn't do well on the quiz and the teacher never went back over it so they just didn't learn about it. I see the advantages becaue it saves classtime but I feel some things need to be taught in the classroom so that the teacher knows that the students understand.