Progress Report

My group, team B.A.J.A., have met a few times since our last class meeting. We interact a lot with Google document where we can all leave feedback and give different ideas that we have.  Our idea for the project is to go through time and see the different eras of technology.  The video will start off with cave people who have no idea what the future will hold and time will progress and so will technology. This is going to be an exciting project to film. I can not wait to see the finished product.

C4T #4

Trusting Their Judgement 

For this C4T I was assigned to Teacher Tom. His blog posts are very interesting and you can relate to the things he talks about. The post I read is titled Trusting Their Judgement. In this post he talks about how he had this one student who was eager to sit on his toy dump truck and ride down a small hill. All Tom could think about was the harm that could be done to the student, but the student reassured him nothing bad would happen. So he let the student ride down the slope and told him to go ahead and if he gets hurt he will be there to pick him up. So the student rides down the hill and receives no injuries.

My comment to his post was "Your post was great and was very informative for future educators. As a future educator I believe I would have reacted the same way thinking of all the bad things that could possibly happen. Children are always eager to do the opposite of what you tell them, because they have their own judgement of the task at hand. I agree with your title we need to trust our students judgement. I really enjoyed reading this post!!"

C4T #3

Pact With the Devil

The teacher I was assigned to was teachernz. The post "Pact with the Devil" talks about how the school system is not set up for every student’s needs. The post says "They have no place in a modern education system or rich curriculum designed to work with diverse and disparate learner needs." The post talks about if we as educators do not fix this problem we are going to be the ones to blame for students not learning everything they need to know.

My comment to this post was "I agree with your post. Every student is different and some students do not think the same way as their peers. I agree if educators do not take a stand it will affect the generation being taught. Educators are the solution to this problem."

Blog Post #12

App Scavenger Hunt

Technology is very amusing to children in today`s society. Children find electronics such as cell phones and laptops very entertaining. As a future educator I would love to incorporate technology into my lessons, and also let my students have an input. This is why I have decided to let my students do an app scavenger hunt.

In this assignment students will use an iPod or iPad to look up educational apps. The app can pertain to Math, Science, Social Studies, English or Reading. After finding 3 useful apps the students will share what they find with the class and give a brief description about the app and what subject it can be used for. For a bonus the students can find an app that could be used in their PE class. After every student completes the assignment and shares their educational apps with the class we will vote on an app for each subject to incorporate into our lesson.

If I were to do this assignment these are the apps I would choose:

My Math App- My Math Flash Card App is for mastering basic elementary math facts. Its an easy to use and you can customize the application to enable focused learning.- this would be beneficial in Math.

Sight Words- This app allows you to make flash cards and helps children learn how to read. - this would be beneficial in Reading.

BrainPOP- this app allows you to watch a short clip and after you take a quiz.- The subjects covered in this app are Science, Math, Social Studies, English, Engineering & Tech, Art & Music, and Health.

Bonus- PE activity- Slam dunk Basketball- this app allows you to learn some basic rules about basketball.

Blog Post #11

Little Kids...Big Potential 

In this video Ms. Cassidy’s students show viewers how they can work with wikis, blogs, Skype, and also incorporate their Nintendo DS. Her first graders know so much about technology. It is cool to see that she is teaching her students how to write and publish blogs at such a young age. The title truly fits the video. If I would have learned how to blog at an early age, I would have probably been a blogger. I did not know how to blog until college. Ms. Cassidy is doing so much with her students.

Skype Interview with Ms. Cassidy

The Skype interview with Ms. Cassidy answered so many questions for me and also gave some great tips for educators. One great tip she gave is to start developing an online system. I already use websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Symbaloo, and many more. Ms. Cassidy also states how she keeps her students private. She talks about how she does not post their last name or does not post pictures of her students. Blogging is a great way for students to interact with each other. I never knew that kids at this young of an age were blogging. It is so cool to see how much they know about technology. Ms. Cassidy is doing a great job with incorporating technology into her lessons.

C4K for October

C4K #3

The student that I was assigned for this assignment was Karleigh,. In her blog post she talk about how she admired her friend Keela. She described how good of a friend Keela is to her. I replied to her post and said " I think your blog post is great. It is so cool how much you admire your friend Keela. It seems like she is a really good friend. Keep up the good work!!"

C4K #4

The blog post I read for this assignment was by Clara Beau about procrastination. In the post she talks about how she procrastinates a lot. She says that at the begging of the school year she makes an agreement with herself that she is going to be a better student, but it always fails. She ends her post with saying that this year she is not even going to let the procrastination cycle have time to set in.

The comment I left was "I thought this was a great post. I can relate to when you talked about getting assignments done early at the beginning of school, but as time goes on everything piles up and you wait until he last minute. I am a junior in college and procrastination is a huge weakness of mine. I absolutely loved your blog post!!" 

C4K #5

The student that I was assigned for this assignment was Vincent. In his blog post he talks about a roller coaster called X Flight. He talks about how him and his friend where at Six Flags in Chicago, Illinois. He starts out by saying it was a sunny day and they were waiting in line for the roller coaster. He talks about how he didn`t want to ride it at first, because of the long line, but he remained in line anxious the whole time. When he finally made it to the front of the line his heart is beating really fast. He says the ride was amazing, but he had a headache after the ride. He says the ride was worth the wait and headache.

My comment was " Your blog post was so descriptive. I felt like I was at Six Flags with you waiting in line. I`m glad you enjoyed the ride after such a long wait. I really enjoyed reading your post about “X-Flight.” Keep up the good work!!"

C4K #6

The student that I was assigned for this assignment was Mackenzie from Canada. In the blog post I viewed was a slideshow about Alberta. It was a slideshow of the things you think of when you hear Canada.

My comment was " Your slideshow is very good!! All the pictures describe Canada in a great way. I enjoyed watching your slideshow. Keep up the good work!!"

Special Blog Assignment

A world where grades will be left behind

In this article USA TODAY celebrates its 30th anniversary. They interviewed some of the USA's greatest visionaries to talk about the world of tomorrow. This article talks about how education will be free and available to everyone. The article states that these online classes would be taught by star professors from around the world. The article states that schools such as New Charter University and UniversityNow aim to make an online college education as affordable as a cellphone bill. It also talks about how a lesson could look something like angry birds. "You want learning to be as much fun as it is to play a video game," says Sebastian Thrun.

I think this is an article that makes you think. I know I rather take online classes, because you get to work at your own pace as long as you meet the deadline. I think this web based school would be better for only college students. I think younger students should be able to go to school and interact face to face with others. Being from the south we are trying to battle with obesity and this would not benefit our younger students.This would be hard for every school in the United States to do, because technology is expensive. Some school systems are also old fashioned and would not agree to a technology based system.

Project 11