Blog Post #7

Video Chat with Dr. Strange, Mrs. Elizabeth Davis, and Mrs. Michele Bennett   

    Becoming a teacher in the 21st century will require us to better familiarize ourselves with technology and learn to properly use and accommodate for Elementary students. I learned a lot from watching the provided videos of Mrs. Michele Bennett and Mrs. Elizabeth Davis. They informed us about a lot of helpful and useful tools and information.

Using iMovie and Alabama Virtual Library in Kindergarten (AVL).
    Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Bennett explained to us about the uses of iMovie and AVL. In Gulf Shores Elementary, their kindergarten classes are using iMovie to produce book trailers similar to the ones we had to create in EDM. Mrs. Bennett was very impressed with the younger students knowing how to use these apps effectively. That goes to show that in this day and time younger students are more technologically literate than high school or college students. I would have never imagine being in kindergarten and being able to produce such work that students, that young, do in today's society. Also students at Gulf Shores Elementary want their work to be outstanding so they review and edit their trailers many many times before they turn them in. Most of the time college students won't even read over their work and turn it in as is with all spelling and grammatical errors and hope their professor won't notice.

We All Become Learners!
    As Mrs. Bennett stated, "Teachers teach students, students teach students, and students teach teachers. Everybody becomes a learner and a teacher." This statement couldn't be more true. I love how teachers learn new things from their students on a daily basis. It amazes me what students already know before they even start school just from one little device. The two ladies explain the use of the website Padlet. Padlet is a website where you can add people to a group and post questions or statements that everyone in your group can see and respond to. This is a great website to use for open-ended questions and group projects. Dr. Strange made a great point in this video when he said, "Students are so eager to share their work with everyone and they sometimes get their feelings hurt when they don't get the chance to." It makes students feel so proud of themselves when they can show their work to their teacher and classmates and if they can teach their teacher how to do something she may not know.

iPads in the Classroom.
    Are they beneficial? In this video, we learned about many different uses of iPads in schools. One of the teachers in this video explains to us that it gives her more of a variety on how she teaches each subject. If there is museum or field trip that a teacher feels that is a great way of engaging students,  but visiting these places are just not physically possible, they could visit virtual labs or museums and get the same experience right from their classrooms. Going along with the virtual field trips or museums, they could also help schools save money. They mention in the video that they could now put more than one teacher in the classroom to assist the main teacher. I also loved the app that special education students could use that had pre-recorded statements or sayings that they could just tap and interact with people.

10 Reasons to Use Technology in Education.

1. Students love it--it has cool factors and engages students. 
2. Engages the four key components to learning: Active engagement, participation in groups, frequent interaction in feedback, connection to real world experts. 
3. Professional Development
4. Makes life easier for the teacher--They can have online test and quizes and students can get immediate feedback and teachers don't have stacks and stacks of papers to grade.
5. Improves test scores--Students can now go at their own pace and progress at their own speed. 
6. Helps students with low attention spans--It keeps them actively engaged and busy working instead of staring into space. 
7. Lean from experts.
8. Encourages completion of homework. 
9. Saves money--As I stated before, they now can have more than one teacher in the classrooms to assist the main teacher. 
10. Remove obstacles--If you have students hard of hearing you can invest in a voice amplifying device to project your voice louder when you teach. 

C4K Summary for February

Ben's Blog

C4K#1:   I had the pleasure of reading Ben's Blog about Nebraska's state senator, Mrs. Crawford, visiting their school. Ben shared with us, that he and his classmates concluded that being a state senator is a lot of work. Getting to meet the state senator of Nebraska was very inspiring to Ben's class because she is such big named figure for their state, but soon learned she is just like any of them when it comes to her life outside of being a state senator. He and his classmates also learned from Mrs. Crawford which laws actually made Nebraska its own unique state.

Brenna's Blog

C4K#2:   Brenna's blog post, She Doesn't Need A Glass Slipper, was very interesting to me. I loved how she first told the original story of Cinderella and then went in to telling a different version. The second version was Cinderella standing up to her step mother and two step sisters, instead of, them picking on her and her just sitting back and taking it. Brenna's version of Cinderella should be the one told to young kids instead of the traditional one.

Bridget's Blog

C4K#3:   I was very impressed when reading Bridget's Blog; DC in December. It was about her and her family traveling to DC to visit some family members. I'm guessing there assignment to create a rhyming poem about a specific event. Bridget did an excellent job on structuring her poem and making the last word of every sentence rhyme.

Alexis' Blog

C4K#4:   This week I was required to read a high school students blog named Alexis. I choose to read her blog post, Valentine's Day. It was very interesting that she took the time to research what Valentine's day is really about. Most people don't know the real reason behind it and that it was named after a guy name Saint Valentine, who wrote a letter to his daughter right before he killed himself and signed the letter, "Your Valentine".

Project 7 Part B

To My Parents...

To My Students...

Project #8 Book Trailer

Fancy Nancy: Book Trailer

Blog Post #6

For blog post #6 we were given 6 different videos of interviews from a former South student named Anthony Capps. Anthony is now a 3rd grade teacher at Gulf Shores Elementary. In his interviews, Anthony gives very constructive information for future educators. I found all of his videos to be useful and informative, but the most useful to me were: ICurio, Discovery Education, and Anthony-Strange Tips for Teaching Part 1.

ICurio: ICurio is an online tool to allow students to safely search the internet to find useful information. I have never heard of ICurio before watching Anthony's videos. I think that this search engine is not only helpful for teachers but it also ensures parents that their kids are learning how to safely use the internet.

Discovery Education: "A picture is worth a thousand words"; Discovery Education is another useful online tool to help with listening-learning. Some students need visuals to help grasp certain concepts and material. This website lets you find pictures, videos, and audios about any particular subject or keywords. Anthony uses the example: If his students are learning about plants and they want to know what kind of plants kill things, they can type in "what kinds of plants kill things?" in to the search bar and it will give you all kinds of different visuals to teach them about different the plants.

Anthony-Strange Tips for Teaching: Dr. Strange and Anthony construct a list of tips that all new educators should take into consideration. I think the list that they create is a great start to any and all future educators. Here are the important things that they think we should prepare for as future teachers:

1. You really need to be interested in learning yourself. If you are not a learner then you will not be a successful educator. 
2. Teaching is hard work, but let your work become a fun and fascinating experience for you! 
3. Teachers should be flexible and creative.
4. Have your students engaged. 
5. Reflect on what your students do. 

Project #7 Part A

My Sentence...

My Passion... 

Blog Post #5 Part 1

Personal Learning Networks

What is a Personal Learning Network? A personal learning network is a way to describe the people or sometimes organization that you connect with in order to learn from their ideas, questions, reflections, and references. Its personal because you choose who you want to be in your group. Its also about learning you choose what subject or what content area you want to learn and choose people who have that same interest. Most people have a personal learning network and don't even know it. If you have accounts with Twitter, Facebook, Skype, A personal blog, ETC; then you have your own personal learning network. As a future educator, I would encourage young children to start creating their personal learning networks now and continue to add to it as they get older. Personal Learning Networks are very useful to classes that are project based. Students use online sources when creating different projects to help locate knowledge and skills.