PLN Final Report

My PLN has became a huge group of my former teachers that I stay in contact with via Facebook. I don't use Twitter with them, because a vast majority of them do not use the service. I also bookmark every website that sparks any intrigued. It keeps all my useful resources just one click away. I have a tendency of extreme web surfing. I will jump from one site to another. I used to find myself getting lost or not being able to find my way back to the site if need to be. Now I have began bookmarking them so I can go right to them if needed.

C4T Summary Post #4

For our final C4T assignment, I was given Ms. Hadley Ferguson, who keeps up with the blog Middle School Matrix.

The first post I commented on was quite interesting. She went to ASCD conference session titled,  “Brain Based Strategies to Redesign your Classroom." The message in the session was that students learned at different times of the day. An experiment led to see that after 20 minutes, no matter the task, students began to lose interest. With these results, the teacher introduced new material at three different times. A week later she gave an ungraded quiz and the students had a 60 percent retention rate. These are remarkable numbers and they certainly will contribute to how my classes are organized.

The second post seemed to be some late school year motivation. She commented on how this time of the year it is quite easy to lose focus for both the students and teachers. End of the year distractions and spring fever can make students and teachers give on goals. Especially, when the goals do not seem to be in reach with so little time in the year left, but as teachers it is our duty to keep students motivated in reaching goals. 

Blog Assignment 13

I extremely dislike admitting failure, but with this assignment I failed. I wouldn't say I failed miserably, but it certainly was not an accomplishment according to the set of rules we were given. I knew from the beginning that it was going to be impossible for me, since I do not have a land line telephone. In fact, I couldn't think of anyone I know that still has a land line telephone. I live about three hours from Mobile, and keeping in touch with my mom is required at least once a day. This is where my cell comes into play. So knowing I was going to fail based on these situations, I took it upon myself to see just how little technology I could go without. My iPhone was probably one of the hardest thing to put away. It has so many apps on it to fight my boredom that I would catch myself reaching for it to play solitaire or baseball. It was a struggle, but I fought off using it except for calls and texts to my mom.

The absolute worse time I had with this experiment was no television or radio. I usually fall asleep at night listening to at least one of them. It was almost impossible for me to fall asleep Wednesday night without some kind of noise going on. I made several people angry for not answering phone calls or text messages. I never turned it off completely, in case of an emergency, but I would monitor who called. If it seemed it wasn't important I did not answer. This probably qualifies as using technology, but again I didn't have access to a land line. Facebook was not a problem to give up at all. I'm one of the few people of my generation that is not addicted to it. I actually find that I have to remind myself to check it from time to time to see if anyone is trying to contact me. I left my computer turned off for the 24 hour period.  I did get a lot of reading done for my classes that I have assigned each week. Usually, it is a chore to make myself sit down and read a book, but with the television and computer turned off it seemed a lot easier to get lost in my books.

This period without many of the technologies has shown me just how important they are in my life. I'm sure that was the purpose of this experiment and it's easy to put myself in my future students' positions. It's like them having to have a 8 hour period everyday where they are subjected to no technologies that they are so accustomed to using.

Project #15 SmartBoard Presentation Pt. 2

Blog Post #12

Do you find that learning and understanding history is still important today? Many people feel that what has happened in the past has nothing to do with today. Read the blog post Is History Still Important in Modern Times? by Rod Collins and the blog Common Sense Barrage, compare or contrast what these two posts are saying and write whether you agree or disagree?

In these two posts, both authors stress how important history really is in today's world. I have always heard that history repeats itself and understanding history is the only way to make it better the second time around. Both posts use every word to describe that exact saying. Mr. Collins even goes as far to say that at least a general knowledge of the past is a prerequisite for all education and truly knowing who we are as a nation and as a person.


 Unfortunately, they feel that historians are not listened to enough today and I feel it is quite a shame. I agree one hundred percent with every word they speak of. History is something that lives everyday. Everything you see in today's world has a past to it. It is important to know how and why it came to be. History is everywhere, there's no way to avoid it. 

Progress Report Final Project

My group, The Psychotic Salmon Berserkers, who I can not say enough good things about, have decided to do a video on surviving EDM310. We are going to take all our own experiences and collaborate a fun video for future EDM310 participants to maybe make their adventure through these unknown territories a little easier.

Creativity and Curiosity: My Thoughts - Special Post #12A

Do schools inhibit the creativity and/or curiosity of students? It's a hard thing for me to answer without being on both sides. Schools are going to teach what they think are important to a student's future, maths, sciences, histories, and languages. We all know these are things essential for everyday life. A student will only find curiosity in something if they are interested in it. Luckily, growing up history always grabbed my attention and curiosity, but for many kids none of the basic subjects get their attention. For example, a student may find interest in baseball, something that gets my attention as well. Just yesterday, a perfect game was pitched and that got my curiosity of how many perfect games have been pitched in the history of baseball, also how many were pitched by the American League and how many by the National League. I began looking these things up and feeding my curiosity, but you do not see schools teaching a subject of baseball in their curriculum. You maybe wondering where I'm trying to go with all this, well I'll tell you. A student is only going to have curiosity in something they are interested in. So my answer to the question , do schools inhibit the creativity and/or curiosity of students?, is yes and no. There is nothing a school can do to it's curriculum to make a student be interested in it. It would be up to the student to have an interest in what is being taught. Teachers can only introduce subjects to students. They can try to make them as interesting as possible, but if a student just is not into the subject it will be hard to have curiosity in it. I'm not saying there is nothing a teacher can do, I am just saying you can not force curiosity and/or creativity from a student. You can encourage your students as much as possible to participate in their own digging and information finding, which they should want to do if they are truly interested and curious about a subject.

C4K Summary Post April

For the world challenge, I was assigned a very interesting girl named Meghan. You can visit her blog by clicking here. She is from Vermont, which I learned from one of her posts. She discussed that Vermont is made up of mostly rural towns. I can really relate to that since where I'm from in Alabama is nothing but one rural town after another. Most winters in Vermont are really cold, but she said that this past winter wasn't that cold and that there wasn't very much snow.

The second post I came across was about Percy Jackson. She compliments on how heroic Percy is for saving his mom, who had been kidnapped by Hades, and return the lightning bolt back to Zeus. He has to overcome many obstacles and adversaries to achieve these goals. Along side him are some equally heroic friends and companions he meets along the way. Meghan sums it up by saying, "You are very brave and trustworthy Percy."

Her third post was about something a little more serious. In this post, Meghan expresses her concerns of global warming. The polar ice caps are already beginning to melt, which result in polar bears losing their environment and dying. She warms everyone who is contributing to global warming, including all uses of smoke, over use of gasoline, and littering, that the effects are hurting the environment and it needs to stop.

My other assigned student was Shelly from New Zealand. This was her very first video post to the blog. She told us all how much she enjoyed going to see a camp. She said there was a number of tents there and a lot of cooking going on. I believe she had a wonderful time there because of the smile she got talking about it.

Blog Assignment #11

Ms. Cassidy

I love that there are teachers in this world that are not as bullheaded as I used to be. Ms. Cassidy saw an opportunity and seize it. It amazes me how she started out with just five computers in her classroom that allowed connection to the Internet, with no programs, and turned it into one of the most influential teaching tools ever. She makes her teaching methods fun for kids. I think that blogging is one of the best things she has done for her class. The students post writing assignments on their blog for the world to see, which is quite wonderful for the kids.

What is one of the most important things to a child? I would think the answer to that question would be recognition, perhaps approval. Any synonym of those will work. I'm sure it is one thing for the students to have recognition from their parents and teachers, but to think someone across the world is seeing what they have came up with. It has to be a great feeling for them. I'm twenty-one years old and I still feel great when I make a clever Facebook post and start getting comments and likes. Everyone in our EDM310 class knows that exact same feeling. So, just think how it feels for a younger student to get that kind of recognition. That is why I know blogging will be something used in my classroom.

Along with blogging, videos will be a big part as well. I have mentioned in older posts about students performing plays or acting out important moments in history. Watching Ms. Cassidy's video of her first graders doing videos and blogging made a light bulb flicker in my head. "Why don't you have your students record their acting?," I thought quietly to myself as I sat on my couch. That way they can upload them on YouTube and even their blogs to get even more recognition. This would inspire them to be creative and fun loving. My only two thoughts holding me back from this is; the fear of reactions from negative comments on the Internet and apathy.

Apathy is something that's going to be found in every classroom around the world. My goal would be to make the assignments as fun as possible to make the students want to complete them. For the subject of negative comments,YouTube can be viewed by everyone in this world and unfortunately that means people that just love to bring others down. Just as a positive comment can make a student feel recognized, a negative comment can make a student just not want to try anymore. A quick, simply solution would be to disable the public from leaving comments, but that impedes from the positive comments. If anyone has any suggestions for me, I would love to hear them.

Ms. Cassidy's first grader's video really opened my eyes to how much fun a student really has once technology is introduced. No matter what age the students may be.

Blog Assignment #10

After watching the video Do You Teach or Do You Educate?, I lean back on my couch and just did some thinking. I then proceeded to look back on my past blog posts and some comments that were made, and then thought some more. Looking at everything I have said, I have been quite ignorant and bull headed about everything we have been doing in this class. I have made a complete 180 in my train of thought. The only problem I'm having is figuring out a way to not just teach my students, but educate them.

I find it hard to be a history teacher and not just stand in front of the class lecturing. That is what I have been exposed to my whole life. Perhaps required readings, where the students have to make their own opinions on historical subjects could be efficient. I have mentioned earlier in my blogs that having my students act out historical events could be help them understand how things happened back then. I would love to find online 3D models of historical towns and battlefields. I have also found that Google Earth is an amazing tool for referencing distances between places and even what places may look like today. With these tools and ideas, I want my students to live history as it was today and understand it with the fullest of their potential. Because we all know that understanding history helps keeps it from repeating.

Don't Let Them Take the Pencils Home

Tom Johnson's post Don't Let Them Take Pencils Home shows a instructor that is not looking for the easy way out. Instead of trying to avoid a problem, he is trying to solve a problem. It sounds like he doesn't care too much for standardized tests to begin with, and isn't too crazy about the research done to say that students with pencils at home do lower on tests. If all this does add up to be true, he doesn't want the students to continue with the same ideology. The plan of not letting the students take pencils home only avoids the problem of students not knowing how to properly use the pencils. Mr. Johnson's argument is to train the students to learn with the pencils. That way the students will benefit later in life. Gertrude's plan will only delay the inevitable. Yeah it may, by some chance, help the test scores, but when it comes to the real world they are surely to fail, which is what we, as educators, are preparing students for.

C4K March Summary

This month I got the pleasure of reading just one that, to my knowledge, would be on this summary.

The post I read was by Misba. Misba told a chilling story of her being trapped in a spooky tunnel with deadly skeletons. She was lost and had know clue where to go. She noticed a creepy figure approaching her, and discovered it was a mummy. The mummy spoke to her and asked if she needed any help. She displayed great bravery by actually speaking back. I would have defiantly sprinted away, probably in the wrong direction. She asked for the directions out of the tunnel, and the nice mummy told her. She said she ran out so quickly that she did not even have time to thank the mummy. You can read about Misba's experience first hand on her blog by clicking here.

C4T Summary Post #3

For this assignment, I was given Breaking Education Barriers by Annie Palmer.

The first post I read was about how leaders, being educators we are all leaders, do not do enough o show reward for the effort put forth for tasks. We all seem to reward once the goal is accomplished, but rarely do we "celebrate" the effort given even if the goal is not met. That is if there is effort being given. Sometimes we have to do more than just encourage students to meat the goal, maybe a little reward is needed. I do have to add that too much reward may lead to apathetic behavior in the student. They might begin to feel that as long as they show some kind of effort people will praise them, and not look for the celebration once the goal is met.

Her second post explained the need for introverts in the classroom. If a person is an introvert, many people would refer to that person as shy, this is not necessarily true. This simply means that a person likes to be to keep to themselves to further think about a subject. An easy way to think about it is they must self reflect to "recharge" their learning abilities. In classrooms there is a huge push for students to be extrovert. Not all students feel comfortable learning this way (Being extrovert is learning in groups and being in group projects.) There is a real need for teachers to have a great sense of balance for the two. That way students can learn the group skills needed in life, along with being able to "recharge" themselves to really soak in what it is they have learned. 

Blog Assignment #9

Mr. McClung's Blog 


I decided to read Mr. McClung's report on his first year as a teacher, and then read his latest report to see how thing have changed since the beginning.

In his May 27, 2009 post, What I Learned This Year (2008-09) Mr. McClung talks about how teachers get into the mindset of just the teacher. Teachers become so consumed in making a perfect delivery and lose sight if students are truly comprehending what is being said. His suggestion is to just let your audience drive the instruction. I got the message of not being stubborn. If your lesson needs to be changed, then change it. It is important to be flexible. He wrote about not being afraid of technology. This may have been what helped open my eyes. He mentions that teachers can not get over whelmed by technology. It is never too late to stop learning. I am slowly, but surely, beginning to release my stubbornness about the whole technology situation.

After reading his June, 23 2011 post, What I Learned This Year 2010-11, I seem to see I am going to be a lot like Mr. McClung as a teacher. He admits that you can not be afraid to be an outsider. He says you find yourself being concerned with what other teachers or adults think of you. The approval of his students is much more important to him than anyone else. Our decision making should be based on our students not the idea of pleasing adults. I feel this to be so true, I mean after all, the students are the reason I got into this profession. He mentions that a routine can sometimes result in a bad thing. I personally feel a routine is good. I think a routine is the most effective way to make sure objects being done are effective as possible. I do agree you can become apathetic, and the main challenge would be not to let this happen.

Like I mentioned before, after reading this I see myself being this kind of teacher. I feel as if I might have read my own blog post from many years into the future. This does gives me hope and a better outlook for where my teaching career is going.