My PLN is vastly growing each day. My teachers are all very helpful in providing links to useful websites. Sometimes they are just favorites of their own and sometimes they are resourceful pages I will be able to use throughout my educational and professional careers. YouTube, TeacherTube, Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, SKYPE, Timetoast, and Goggle are just a few that I use everyday. Some other helpful sights that I have found are Scholastic, Crayola, Pinterest, PBS, and Alabama Virtual Library.
Symbaloo is the easiest way for me to keep up with my PLN, although there are other options. I can simply type in the website I want or create a new tile of a website that I find helpful. Learning can be so fun and technology certainly helps keep us on our toes and up to speed. Just a few years ago one would have been required to keep a list of websites to hold on to all of this useful information.
October 7,2012.
Ms. Dunlop and Monighan's 4th Grade Class Blog Click here to view Class Blog
This students' blog post was about a trip to Oklahoma. It was short, only 3 sentences. One sentence made up the majority of the information. She had a few spelling, capitalization, and punctuation errors, which is probably common for a fourth grader. However, her post seemed a little rushed and lacked details.
Raven's Post:
"oklahoma
September 13, 2012 @ 3:45 PM 1 Comment
Hi its Raven and I want to tell you about my trip to oklahoma.When I went to Oklahoma I was a little scared because I diddent know who would like me or not,but then I found out that it would be really fun cause I got two new dogs and made a new friend named Ella.It was really fun.So if you ever move dont be scared cause it will turn out to be really fun. "
My comment to Student:
Hi Raven,
My name is Annie Turner. It sounds like your trip was really, "Fun!" I am glad that you made a new friend. Moving and making new friends can be a lot of fun. Two new dogs, that sounds like a lot of responsibility. I love dogs! I have two myself, Atticus and Marley. What did you name your dogs? I enjoyed reading your post today, Raven. The only thing I would change is your second sentence, it's a little long!
This particular blog post was very different from any other blog that I have commented on this semester. The blog post was a collage of items not a structured paragraph. The entire blog was like this almost all of the posts. It was however very neat and unique, I liked that. The link above will take you to the students' blog directly so you may view her post.
This was my comment to the student:
Hi Jazmyn, My name is Annie Turner I am a student at The University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. I am in Dr. Strange's EDM310 class. I really enjoyed viewing your blog! It is unlike any other blog I have viewed this semester. I like how you used a collage of information for your blog, and how every week's post is created different. I noticed you had one post with a WORDLE, I love making wordles! I did notice that your most recent post had a few empty items. This may be intentional or because you just have not completed the post yet! Either way, keep up the good work! Annie Turner EDM310 @ATur8916
Wesley Fryer's most recent blog post was about an Honor Flight in Kansas. This is actually something that I hold a great interest in because I was fortunate enough to be allowed to help with the Mobile Honor Flight back when I was working at Eastern Shore Toyota. Recently, my daughter got to go and meet her Grandpa and his father (her Great Grandpa) at the Mobile Regional Airport as they landed from the honor flight mobile. Wesley Fryer talked about how neat this experience was, and this is a piece of what she wrote:
"Last week my father had an opportunity to serve as a ‘guardian’ on a KansasHonor Flightto Washington D.C. Approximately 25 World War II veterans flew from Kansas City and 25 from Wichita, Kansas, to our nation’s capitol to visit theNational World War II Memorialas well as other historic sites."
In her blogpost she added a slideshow which I have embedded here for you to see:
For those of you who do not know what an Honor Flight is I have listed the definition below, as well as a link to the: Honor Flight Website.
"The inaugural Honor Flight took place in May of 2005. Six small planes flew out of Springfield, Ohio taking twelve World War II veterans on a visit to the memorial in Washington, DC. In August of 2005, an ever-expanding waiting list of veterans led our transition to commercial airline carriers with the goal of accommodating as many veterans as possible. Partnering with HonorAir in Hendersonville, North Carolina, we formed the "Honor Flight Network." Today, we continue working aggressively to expand our programs to other cities across the nation."
This blog post was very different from any of the others that I have been assigned to in EDM310. Wesley Fryer got sucked into the latest frenzy; the song and the videos for "Gangnam Style".
She admits to finding them amusing and post several of her favorites onto her page. This was her post :
"I’m a bit embarrased to admit a recent lack of YouTube cultural literacy: I didn’t follow or know about the “Gangnam Style” song and video sensation until a few weeks ago. I remember hearing the song in early October when our family went to “FrightFest” at Frontier City (our local amusement park in Oklahoma City) but I didn’t know what the song was or why it was significant. Today during his presentation at EduCause, Kyle Bowen mentioned the Forbes article, “How Much Did It Cost YouTube To Stream Gangnam Style?” and it inspired me to watch a few videos this evening. My mom had mentioned these US service academy remakes of the Gangnam Style video to me a few weeks ago but until this evening I hadn’t watched them. As a USAFA grad, I found the third one in this series (below) particularly amusing. See what you think."
This was my response to her post:
"My brother asked me if I had heard of this song awhile back, and I had not until he showed me! My first thought was , is this a joke? Of course this was in response to the original video. Then I had just about forgotten about it when I heard the song come on the radio. I could not believe that it was so popular, the song seemed so silly and I don't know about you but I cannot understand a word he is saying. Soon after that all of the videos started coming out of people doing it here and there and they featured it in an episode of Saturday Night Live. The video that you said was your favorite it cute! It just makes you laugh and smile. Which is the purpose of comedy anyway, right?"
“NO LESSON IS EVER PERFECT. THE LESSON YOU TEACH AND THE ONE YOU PLAN ARE ALWAYS DIFFERENT."
The blog post What I've Learned This Year (2008-2009), written by Joe McClung reflected on his first year of teaching. He talked about his first year accomplishments as well as those things that he learned from. Reading his reflections gives you a firsthand look at his personal experiences. These experiences can be related to when you are going through your first year of teaching. I think it is important to notice that he did not have a PERFECT first year. He was human and he LEARNED as much as he TAUGHT in that year. This blogpost was reassuring and made me feel less worried and more confident about being in the modern technologically advanced classroom. He gave advice on how to read a class or crowd of people, this is a very vital and important lesson to learn and remember. Mr. McClung thought teachers were often too worried about pleasing the administration and staff rather than focusing on the students, and the the lessons at hand. He included in his blog a reminder to teachers to be flexible, this is very good advice. Students lives and classroom disruptions are unpredictable and change on a day to day basis. Communication and interpersonal skills are very important when building relationships with children and adults, with students, parents and staff members.
What I Learned This Year
What I Learned This Year was Mr. McClung's third year blog entry. He spoke of his second and third year teaching in the same school. He spoke about really knowing who you report to and to focus on the students and not on impressing other teachers. If you spend your energy worrying about other teachers or staff members opinions, you lose focus on your students. Your goal as a teacher is not to be a people or student pleaser, your goal should be to TEACH your students and help make them truly learn. It is very important to remember that focus. Mr. McClung also commented on not getting too comfortable and how experience made his job easier. However, if you become too comfortable in a classroom setting you are more likely to fall victim to routine. Don't get me wrong routines can be great habits to form, but routines are boring. Routines cause us to lose focus. Mr.McClung warns us of this habit in his blog posts. I enjoyed reading these posts very much, they are very helpful, and honest.
Carly did an excellent job with this post. It is a very creative and motivational assignment that also provides a lot of freedom in the workspace. It's kind of like having a playlist of music that describes your mood, but instead it's videos that describe your goals and thoughts on teaching. Carly demonstrates Dr. Miller's hopes for writing with multi-media by being creative and using the unlimited resources on the web to teach something not only to herself, to others. I never thought about all of the possibilities that were right at my fingertips and a mouse click or iMovie away. With this assignment, I can show my teaching techniques through videos. This post was definitely an asset to my list professional blogs, videos and people to follow.
This Is How We Dream - Parts 1 and 2
In Part 1 of this series, Dr. Miller states that we are
living in one of the greatest times for communication technology. He is absolutely right! He makes the point
that with the internet we constantly and instantly have access to
information. While, if we were in a library, people check out books on a daily
basis, therefore that book (reference) is inaccessible until the borrower
returns it! Books have only just recently gone digital, the majority of us have
grown up on real, paper books! The new technologies that are merging their way
through our society are very promising and will greatly enhance the way our students
learn. Dr. Miller also points out that the internet has given us the power
to collaborate on work, or projects without ever actually having to meet in
person. Everything can be handled through the internet, this means that
teachers can collaborate with other teachers from around the world. And
students across the nation and around the world can read one another’s blogs
and collaborate as well.
In Part 2 of this series, Dr. Miller states how our methods of
research have changed. It could take years for usable material to reach
the libraries shelves, or archives. Information on the Internet is updated
by the second, however this information might not always be as reliable or
factual as a book form the library. The Internet is more reliable in terms of being up to date, but anyone can
post anything at anytime on the Internet. Unfortunately, some schools feel that
they don't have "room" to teach classes based on this. I feel that if
we could teach students these things at an early age then they could make a
huge difference in the future. As teachers, we need to take the initiative to
broaden the horizons of our students and show them the possibilities that are
out there. I f students do not use the Internet to their advantage in every way
possible to keep them involved and excited about learning then we as educators
are not doing our duty to show them the proper way to learn from the Internet.
“We put limitations on ourselves and we have the power to take them away.”
These videos made some very good points. The Chipper Series
tells a story of a student who dropped out of college because it was to hard
and time consuming. She ended up working as a garbage collector. Stories like
this happen more than I would like to imagine. Students think that the problem
is the school or the professor, but the true problem is within the student. In
order to be an effective student, you need to be able to follow the instruction
of a teacher. Getting your degree isn't going to be a piece of cake. You
actually have to work at it. These two videos made me think of a video
that I would like to create explaining how YouTube can change your life. So
many videos that I've watched in this class have changed my opinion of things.
I want people to know that whatever your searching for in your life, there is
probably video talking about or showing someone going through the exact same
thing... or worse. YouTube is a wonderful website for soul searching.
This video talks about the importance of change in our school
systems. Students need to learn how to be modern students. If learn by doing,
and practicing rather than memorizing facts and reciting them, They need to
know how to find those facts on the web, make sure they're legitimate, back the
facts up with learned knowledge learn how to communicate it. Technology is
going to keep on advancing whether we decide to learn to advance with it or
not. One of the speakers stated that, "Technology is not a choice."
This is so true! We now have technology like smart phones and iPads, and
practically everyone owns one of the two or both! We could show students how to
use these devices in education. We could teach them about communication
throughout the world. In doing this we open our students minds up to new
opportunities and allow them to learn about other cultures. Learning shouldn't
solely be about education, but about building a community and new
relationships. Practically everything I learned while I was in grade school was
memorized and forgotten as soon as I turned the tests in or took a final exam.
This type of learning in no way prepared me fro my intellectual journey,
college, or the real world. This new teaching style, will truly prepare
students for the real world, higher education and a successful intellectual
journey. We need to instill in ALL of our students, or we really cannot call
ourselves educators. Scavenger Hunt Make Beliefs Comix
This blog post was titled, "Don't be afraid to lead." It was posted on September 11, 2012. He starts by stating that leadership matter. I believe that is true. Even if you are not a "follower" there will always be someone who looks up to you and mimics your beliefs and behaviors. Especially for us as educators, and myself in particular as a mother. Tom says that the most common and worst type of leadership is "ineffective leadership," this is the kind of leader that sets a bad example for people to follow. Even worse than that, being an ineffective leader yourself. If you try to tell a group of elementary children not to say words that they hear you say, they will think that is behavior is acceptable, and mimic it. ACTIONS speak volumes more than words ever will. I see this effect at home with my own daughter. She says things everyday that sound like me, more and more. Usually it is O.K. things such as big words that she does not know the meaning of. For instance today she said,"Mommy, Marley(our dog) is not cooperating." This made me laugh because she is four and hardly believe she knows what that word means. Earlier in the day I said, " Riley, please cooperate with me!" This situation of leadership was O.K. Had I said a curse word and she followed my lead, that would have been a result of ineffective leadership. I think that our president(s) sometimes are prime examples of ineffective leadership. They represent our country, yet term after term we watch out nations leaders devalue their position of power with mistakes they make or scandals they get wrapped up in. This is ineffective leadership at it's finest!
A quote that Tom had on his blog was by Steven Covey, who once said,
"It doesn’t matter how hard you climb the ladder of success if your ladder is up against the wrong wall."
Tom himself later in the post said this,
"The real question is when; when can a leader be the leader and lead? It really comes down to two things: trust and credibility."
This is such a valuable post that everyone could learn or revisit from time to time.
To be a follower you have to Trust your Leader. And to be a valuable leader you have to be a credible human being. Credibility is a huge part of our character, as people and as teachers. As a teacher especially your students' parents are putting their trust to educate their children in your very hands. At that moment you have to decide are you trustworthy, and credible? Are you worthy of teaching, or are you an ineffective leader?
Tom Schimmer's Second to most recent blog post was title, "Real Strength." He simply listed a few points of what strength is or is not to him. Then he asked, "What is strength to you?"
This is how Tom described Strength:
"...means being able to admit you were wrong.
…means being as happy for others’ successes as you are for your own.
…is allowing yourself to be vulnerable.
…means giving more credit than you take.
…means saying more with your actions than you do with your words.
…is liking yourself despite all of your imperfections.
…is never allowing others to determine what’s possible for your life.
…is choosing happiness instead of waiting for it.
…is believing you can when others say you can’t.
…means using every experience as an opportunity to learn & grow.
…is not needing to be the loudest voice in the room.
…means respecting the disrespectful.
…is recognizing when your ego is taking over.
…means trusting people’s intentions.
…means believing in your greatness without needing to prove it to others.
…is about being grateful for what you are instead of desperate for what you are not."
This was my response.
"Strength to me is somewhat unmeasurable. All people can be strong for a number of different reasons. You could be strong from something specific that you have been through in your individual lifetime. You could be strong for a medical reason, a survivor of cancer, or a medical disorder. You could be physically strong, or spiritually strong. Strength to me is the one thing that makes you special, makes you stand up and stand out. Strength is something that makes you a better person, teacher, friend, or neighbor."
The Networked
Student. Is a video that shows us that teachers are prime examples
of people who can really get the most of out having a networking program. It is
absolutely imperative that in today’s classrooms our teachers be 110 % up to
date in technology, so their students can become 110% technology literate.
There are many teachers out there who earned their certifications and degrees
many years ago, they did not grow up on technology like we all have, and
probably do not use it too often if they are not very familiar with it! If a
teacher does not understand technology, how can the students learn to or be
expected to utilize? Everything about our society links back to technology.
This is why we all must be up to spend on the latest and greatest methods. Networking
is so very important for teachers, a necessity truly. Because Networking makes
students and teachers and even parents lives easier. When teachers use Networking
apps with students it allows the students the opportunity for students and
teachers to have a closer relationship. Teachers can meet with parents as often
as needed using a networking medium. This promotes good parent teacher relationships
and that's good for the students. This opens many doors for the students’
educational sources. Networking is a fabulous source that can integrate the
arts and academics. This whole idea is so powerful, it allows people to
communicate and hear others ideas. These sources are a great way to keep
students and teachers current on ever- advancing classroom tactics.
The student
in the video is a 7th grader. I was very impressed with the student. I'm sure
this student was trained prior to using the Symbaloo application and not left
to figure it out on her own, however the fact that she was so great shows a lot
of hard work on her part. Her teacher has done an excellent job engaging her in
learning, and insuring that this student really got all she could out of the
Symbaloo APP. I hope to be able to use Symbaloo as well as she does by the end
of this class. I am just starting my PLN at this time and really have nothing to
compare to what she has done!
Preschool By The Bay is where I work, where I am a PreK-3 Teacher Full Time.
This is a summary of events that the school has gone through in it's short four year journey to SUCCESS.
In Randy Pausch Last Lecture, he spoke about his childhood dreams and all of the things that he’s accomplished. This was his last lecture because he was only given 6 months to live due to tumors in his liver. This Video was filmed at Carnegie- Mellon, where he actually received his PhD. When the title of this lecture was created ironically he was not ill and after he become ill he said how ironic. The title,” The Last Lecture” was intended to be motivational. If you were going to die and had one last lecture to give, what would you say? I think it was very neat how he took that and ran with it, he made his last lecture the most motivating, funny, and spirited of all of his lectures. Randy Pausch was once told, "You're such a good salesman. You should be selling something worthwhile, like education." That is precisely what he did. He touched on the subjects that matter and focused on, “Achieving your childhood dreams.”
Wow, I mean if we thought like that as teachers more everyday it might really help us be more active with our students and hands on. I can count on one hand how many teachers that I had as a child who pushed me and made it known that they cared about me, as their student. The educators who pushed me towards my dreams and believed in me are the ones that I still remember today. Those are the teachers whose voices and encouragement stick with you throughout your entire life. That is what teaching and learning is all about and what a world we could have if ALL teachers were that powerful and encouraged students’ childhood dreams! One thing that he said that really hit me hard was,“When you screw up and no one says anything to you about it, then they've stopped caring.” This was one of my favorite quotes in the entire lecture. This is true. I am a teacher, and I sadly have done this with a difficult child. Never permanently but in the moment in one awful day, I know I have thrown my hands up and said today, I give up. I am going to remember this quote throughout my entire teaching career. And I will never make that mistake again.
Randy Pausch's childhood dreams were: Being in zero gravity, playing in the NFL, authoring an article in the World Book Encyclopedia, being Captain Kirk, winning stuffed animals at the fair, and being a Disney Imagineer. He was able to experience zero gravity with a student group, but he had to pretend to be a journalist. He said, “Do you know how easy it is to get a Press Badge?” He never played in the NFL, but he did play football and learned several valuable lessons from it. He did write for the World Encyclopedia, he became like Captain Kirk (He REALLY liked Star Trek , and referenced “Captain Kirk A LOT)by being a leader in a virtual reality project, and he manage to win A LOT of bears. Pausch says that, “Brick walls are there for a reason; they let us prove how badly we want things. They’re there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough.”By “brick walls” he means obstacles that everyone will run into at some point. If you can get through it, then it proves how badly you want what’s on the other side. He worked on a virtual reality program at Disney. It was a virtual Aladdin flying carpet ride. They asked him to become a permanent “imagineer”, but he said no and became an imangineer consultant. He asked the question “how can I enable the childhood dreams of others?”
My absolute favorite thing Pausch said was,
“To always keep the child-like wonder.”
Mr. Pausch really inspires me to have fun every single day of your life, in everything you do, and do to it with your whole heart. He is a prime example of life being too short and fragile to ever waste a minute of it not doing what you love, and being the best you can be. To me, that motivates me to be the best teacher I can be every single day, because you never know what kids have going on at home, but you want to all you can for them at school. Shape their futures, promote their dreams and believe in them, even if no one else does. Sometimes, that is all any of us need if just one person to believe in us, and what we DREAM to be.
“ Be a Tigger, not an Eeyore. Tell the truth. Be earnest. Apologize when wrong. Focus on others, not yourself. Help others.”
This reminds me of a country song called, “ Love Like Crazy.”
In this video Pausch discusses the highlights of his life and he tells you what he took from his experiences. then he tells you what you can expect to get from your own life. This lecture teaches you how to help someone else achieve their dreams, without letting you sell yourself short of achieving your own dreams at the same time.Paunch also talked about his time at Carnegie-Mellon. He mentioned that in his graduate class he did not use a single textbook. It was solely a project based course. He was so surprised by his students work he thought they all did a fabulous job. However he still told them all,"That was pretty good, but I know you all can do better." He was a great teacher he pushed his students because he believed in them. he pushed all of them and they surprised him and rose to the challenge, and became amazing.
Pausch had four main points to live by:
1.) Be good at something, find out what it is , and go after it because it makes you valuable.
2.) Work hard at everything you do, impress people, impress yourself, give your all, do your best.
3.) Find the best in everyone you meet no matter how long it may take to find, and show people the best in you, be awesome.
4.) Be prepared because luck is where preparation meets opportunity.
If you live your best life, and follow your dreams, respect others , and learn all you can, SOMETIMES your dreams follow you. Be a good person, AND a great educator. LIVE your dreams and inspire others to do the same. I was really dreading this “ Last- Lecture Video,” simply because it was an hour long but I must say it was one of the most spirit- filled and inspiring videos I have ever had the pleasure of viewing.
On Saturday we celebrated my little cousins birthday. I felt so excited because I wanted to eat cake. In a loud voice I shouted "WOW" as soon as I saw the big beutiful cake.
My cousin is a girl and she turned 3 on Saturday. As soon as she blew her candles that were on the cake, she started to clap and we sang the happy birthday song in english and samoan. It was time for us to cheer and we said "hip hip horray, hip hip horray, hip hip horray."
We ate the cake after we cheered and we said in samoan "Manuia" which is "Take care". We started to eat and when we all took first bite, our faces looked so so suprised because of the prettyness, awesomeness and tasteness of the cake! We were happy that we got to go to her birthday.
My favourite part of my cousins birthday was eating the TASTFULL cake!!!
My Comment:
I was assigned to comment on a 5th grade students blog. The student I chose blogged about his little cousin's 3rd birthday! He does a great jobs describing the cake and how it tasted, he included a picture that he drew on a computer in the post. It was a short and concise post about the birthday party and one fabulous cake from a 5th graders perspective!
My comment went as follows :
"WOW! I really want a big slice of cake now! Your description of your cake was wonderfully worded! I could almost picture the cake myself! It is very cool that you got to sing "Happy Birthday," in English and Samoan! I wish I could speak two languages. I love the picture of the cake that you added to your blog, did you draw that yourself ? I hope that your cousin had a wonderful 3rd birthday, and enjoyed her cake as much as you did! Keep blogging, you are doing so good!"
I commented Iron's most recent blog post again to follow up with him. Here is his latest posting:
During the beginning of our holidays, we had to start rehearsing for white Sunday because its coming up in the second week of the holidays. I am looking forward to our White Sunday! I like doing speeches in front of people and dancing.
I wondered how many speeches was I going to do? Hmm I am doing 2 speeches and they are short. I have got my speeches off by heart and I know how to do the dance.
I am feeling enthusiastic for next week on White Sunday. Hooray!!!
My Comment:
Hi Iron,
This post is much longer than your previous post I read. Your blog is coming along fabulously! The picture you drew is beautiful. I like the quote, God is great and good! I love that you used the word enthusiastic, what a great descriptive word! Now, I am dying to know what is, "White Sunday?"
Also, I just learned recently that when you are typing number words one thru ten, apparently you are supposed to spell them out! When the number is bigger than ten you can type them.
Keep up the good work Iron!
Annie Turner
EDM310
@ATur8916
These videos made some very good points. The Chipper Series
tells a story of a student who dropped out of college because it was to hard
and time consuming. She ended up working as a garbage collector. Stories like
this happen more than I would like to imagine. Students think that the problem
is the school or the professor, but the true problem is within the student. In
order to be an effective student, you need to be able to follow the instruction
of a teacher. Getting your degree isn't going to be a piece of cake. You
actually have to work at it. These two videos made me think of a video
that I would like to create explaining how YouTube can change your life. So
many videos that I've watched in this class have changed my opinion of things.
I want people to know that whatever your searching for in your life, there is
probably video talking about or showing someone going through the exact same
thing... or worse. YouTube is a wonderful website for soul searching.
