Blog Post 6

Project Based Learning Part 1: Experiences of a 3rd Grade Teacher 

• PBL is not only a means for students to show achievement, but a means for them to learn. 
• As the teacher, you should create a project based on the content the students need to learn.
• Projects should have an audience, be based on student interests, have a sense of community involvement, and be driven by content.
• Students should be given the opportunity to reflect upon and revise their work. Give them the opportunity to defend what they did. If you know what they were thinking when they did something, it may have help you to understand their view point better. 

Project Based Learning Part 2: Experiences of a 3rd Grade Teacher

• Teachers have to be sensitive to the parents' wants. Even though I don't agree with the parent Capps talked about in the video, I think it is important to try to reach a middle ground with them. I can understand why he wouldn't want his child to do a project about a culture that we are at war with, especially since the parent was in the military. So, even though I don't like the idea of giving the student an alternative assignment, I would do it out of respect for the parent.
• Don't limit students by giving them requirements. Instead, give them guidelines.
• Record (visually or written) students when they discuss the reasons why they liked one project more than another. This gives you feedback on how to improve the projects for later students.
• Give students a choice in doing the project: topic, method, etc.

iCurio 

• An online tool that allows students to safely search the Internet.
• It has a storage capacity for students to be able to save their search items.
• Students can search by criteria.
• It can read the webpages to the students.

Discovery Education

• It brings experts into the classroom via video.
• It gives students the opportunity to watch, rather than read, the material. This usually helps students to better understand certain concepts.

The Anthony - Strange list of Tips for Teachers Part 1 

• Be interested in learning yourself. Information is always changing. You have to keep up with it.
• Work is not separate from play. You should enjoy learning new methods and tactics for work. 
• Be flexible. Always have a backup plan. If something can go wrong, it can, and it will.
• Start with a goal in mind.
• Have student engagement at 100%  all the time for every project. 
• Allow students to reflect, revise, share, and work with an audience.

Don't Teach Tech - Use It

• You should not teach technology. Instead, just introduce it, and let the students learn how to use it themselves.
• Build off of preexisting knowledge of technology. Get students acquainted with one program, then add another later on. This gets students used to using technology. 
• Build in time to reflect on how well the use of the technology went with the project and how it can be improved the next time.
• Use the programs yourself before introducing them to the students.

Additional Thought About Lessons 

• Lessons should be thought of as 4 layers; year, unit, week, and daily.
• Use this method of organization to plan how to achieve teaching concepts.

C4K September

For my first C4K assignment, I received Dhara. She is an 8 year student at Pt England School in Auckland, NZ. In the post I commented on, Dhara had written two paragraphs describing the opening scene of an animated film, La Luna. After writing the two paragraphs, the kids were supposed to pick which one of their paragraphs that they liked better. Dhara had chosen her first paragraph as the better one. In my comment, I explained to her who I am and where I live. I agreed with her that her first paragraph was better. I told her that both paragraphs were well written, but I liked the first one more because it contained a lot of descriptive details. After reading her post and before commenting on it I looked up the clip up on YouTube. Her first paragraph made me picture a very similar scene when I read it.

For my second C4K, I received Keanan. He is a student in South Africa. In the post I commented on, the students were to answer to questions about The Elephant Whisperer. The first one was about how they thought the elephants felt being relocated. The second one was about what they thought would happen next in the story. Keanan thought the elephants were confused, shy, and angry. He thought that the leader of the elephants would break down the fence enclosing them so that they could escape. In my comment, I said that I've never read the book, but it sounded interesting. I told him that I agreed with how he said the elephants felt after being relocated. I also said that I hoped his predication comes true, so the elephants could be free.

For my third C4K, I received Madison. In this post, the students were to write a story using only 100 words. Madison wrote about a girl named Pepper that wanted a pet, but couldn't figure out what she wanted. Her brother suggested a crocodile, and her sister suggested a goldfish. They went to a pet store where she picked out an orange kitten. I commented that her story was very well written. It was so good that it could be a short children's book. She used punctuation better than some adults I know. I told her I was surprised by how well she could use quotation marks and that she did a really good job on the assignment.

My Sentence Videos

My Sentence is...

My Passion is...

Project 3 Presentation

Blog Post 5 Part A

Personal Learning Networks (PLN) are great tools for people in the education field. They contain people and resources that you can use for collaboration and advice. As described on The Fischbowl, PLNs tend to build off of one another. I've realized through reading the assignment for this week that, that is the reason why Dr. Strange requires us to include links in our blog posts. If someone likes what you have to say or has similar interests, they'll want to know where you got your information, what other sources you used, and where else they kind find MORE information on the subject. It's kind of like writing a research paper. If you find a source that you particularly enjoy, you'll want to see where their information came from. The original document may contain more useful information than the one you read. It's a never-ending cycle of knowledge. PLNs are just the way in which you access this knowledge.

The necessity of developing a PLN is best described by Michael Fawcett in his PLN video. On a small scale, a PLN can keep you in contact with your colleges from your school. If members of your school have a Twitter account, you can easily access them at anytime. It's a great way to keep in contact with coworkers and post reminders about upcoming events. Having a school Twitter page can keep parents and members of the community up-to-date on what the students are doing at school. On a larger scale, PLNs can connect you to educators worldwide. As we've been doing for the past few weeks in class, blogs are a great way to reach out/meet other teachers/students. Students in other parts of the United States may be doing work that is similar to what is going on in your classroom, so it may be beneficial to your students for them to read the others' blogs. Making the connections with students in various parts of the world become a meaningful experience. This makes learning more fun and the rates of retention become higher. It can expose teachers to new ways of thinking, different ideas on how to run the classroom, and new ideas for projects to incorporate in lessons. Think of it as a really big meeting. Who better to discuss work with than a fellow teacher?



I think the best way to start a PLN is through blogging and Twitter. These are gateways to great information, and the perfect place to start for beginners. Get your name out there. Post things that people actually want to read and things that you are actually interested in. People with like interests will find your posts and comment on them. Viola! There's the beginning of your PLN. The more time you invest in it, the better it will become. This is, in fact, how I am starting my own PLN. I was fortunate enough to be forced into taking this class. I must admit that I hated Twitter and thought that it was stupid before taking EDM310. I now see a usefulness in it. It has connected me to other people that want to become teachers, something I have searched for since the beginning of my college career. So, before I have even started my teaching, I have a network of people that can help me once I get started. It can only get better from here.

Blog Post 4

What do we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher?

A lot of times, teachers misuse the questioning process. They don't realize the potential knowledge that students can gain from the way questions are asked. According to Ben Johnson, one of the biggest mistakes that teachers make is when they ask, "Does everyone understand?" Some students may not realize that they don't understand. They may even understand part of what you are teaching, but they aren't quite sure at which point you lost them. Asking, "Does everyone understand?" is a waste of time. Everyone is either going to nod yes or say nothing at all. When classes are given questions that are open to everyone, the individual student is going to wait on someone else to answer. Johnson suggests asking a question, waiting three seconds, and then calling a name. This gives everyone time to formulate an answer. Make sure that you ask the questions in a random order. If the students know when they are going to be called on, they will zone out until it is there turn.

Asking Questions to Improve Learning tries to get the teacher to think about the purpose of the questions being asked. Do you want students to develop critical thinking skills or master a core concept? Asking a question in a certain way can change the outcome of the answer. If I ask a student to tell me their position on an argument, they only have to think about one side of the issue. However if I ask a question more like this," How do you think that this issue is viewed by those with whom you disagree?" The students will be forced to think of the subject from a different perspective. This could lead to changed views, better understanding of opposing sides, and even better comprehension of the issue at hand.


You should try to avoid leading questions. You want the students to be able to think of their own answers and not pull their answers from the question. The main point here being for students to THINK. If you ask yes-or-no questions, follow up with questions like: Why? How? Defend your answer. Explain why you answered the way you did. One of the best teachers I had was my 10th grade English teacher, Mrs. Danis. She always gave us multiple choice tests, but we had to defend our answers. I hated doing it with a passion, but I learned so much from that class. It makes you connect the things you've learned in class. "Okay you know that C is the answer, but tell me how you know. What made you put that as your answer?" Knowing that something is true shows intelligence; however, knowing why something is true take it a step further.

Other things to keep in mind when asking students questions are to ask one question at a time. Let the students focus on gathering one bit of information so that they can fully analyze it. Ask different types of questions: closed, open, and managerial. You may want to check to see if students are paying attention with a closed-ended question. Open-ended questions are great for having students think or to start discussions. Managerial questions are to check for understanding. Give students time to think about their answer before moving on. The more time they are given to explore an idea, the better their answer will be. Don't interrupt them will they are giving an answer. You may disturb their thought process. I think this is the most important thing to take from this blog post for teachers. Include questioning time in your lesson plans. Ask questions every day and as often as possible. Ask them in ways that get students thinking. Make them want to go home and research things on their own. Keep them interested!

Project 15

1.Bing
I've personally never liked bing. I think it may just be because I'm so accustomed to Google. However, I do love their image search. You can filter the results by size, color, type, layout, people, date, and license.

2.Yahoo
Yahoo is great for keeping up with the news and celeb gossip.

3.ixquick
This search engine doesn't save your search data. This could be useful if you are planning a surprise for someone and don't want them to find out about it.

4. Recipe Bridge
This search engine is a database full of recipes. This is perfect for snack ideas in the classroom and ideas for dinner tonight.

5. Dogpile 
Dogpile searches Google and Yahoo at the same time. This gives you more results in less time.

6. Ask (I think they should have left it as askjeeves.com.)
This search engine has a list of related searches and related questions. This is useful if you don't know how to word what you are trying to search for. They also have quizzes on their page that I find fun and informative.

7. Free Book Search
This site is great for avid readers. It searches several sites at once for book reviews, fan fictions, and even copies of the actual text.

8.WolframAlpha
This site is great for math problems. You can enter  symbols for pi, degrees, infinity, and square root
directly into the search bar. If you type in a type of food, it pulls up the nutritional information. It analyzes images: dimensions, size, aspect ratio, color space, and assumed color space. And so much more....

C4T # 1

For my first C4T assignment, I received Nathan Horne. He is the founder of iPhys-Ed.com. He uses this website to promote the uses of technology in physical fitness. In the first post I commented on, Horne explained how he used Google Sheets to provide students, parents, grandparents, and many others with live scores from the Swim Gala he was coaching in. Google Sheets is much like Excel. You can enter a formula in each cell, and have the document do all the work for you. After creating the document, Horne made it public so that anyone with a mobile device could view it. This provided everyone with access to real-time scores-- even the parents that couldn't make it to the event due to work. In my comment, I told Horne that I thought it was a great example of how technology is useful to 21st century teachers. The document can be used over and over again, it kept everyone engaged in the activity that was going on, and was accessible to parents that were unable to attend the event.

In the second post I commented on, Horne described an event called #100ActiveDays. The point of the event is to stay active for 100 days doing a variety of activities: hiking, kayaking, running, etc.







You can join the movement by doing the following:
1. Follow them @100ActiveDays or like them on Facebook.
2. Register here.
3. Post your active picture to twitter, instagram, and Facebook using the #100ActiveDays

In my comment, I included the obesity prevelance rate for Alabama (33%). I told Horne that this challenge would be a great way to get active and combat the rate of obesity in our state. We could instill a love of being active in our children that they could carry with them into adulthood. I think the best way to incorporate this into our schools is to pair up with another teacher and have physical activity competitions during recess.

Blog Post 3

Peer Editing

According to Tutorial Peer Editing  and Peer Editing, there are three steps to quality peer editing: compliments, suggestions, and corrections. Start out by complimenting the things that worked well in the paper. Was it interesting? Did it hold your attention? Did they explain things in a way that anyone could understand? What did you like most about it? After that, add your suggestions. Should they use more interesting words? Add more details? Explain something more thoroughly? Finally, make corrections. Use proofreading marks to show them things they make have forgotten to capitalize, words they may have misspelled, or punctuation they may have left out.

Think of the way you would react to someone criticizing your paper. Would you want them to focus only on the things that you did incorrectly, or would you want some positive feedback as well? (Watch this video for the top 10 peer editing mistakes.) It is important to let the person know the strengths of the paper as well as the weaknesses. Stay positive when giving feedback. Try to avoid negative statements, such as, "This paragraph doesn't make sense." Instead, say something like this, "If you add a few more sentences to this paragraph, it may make it easier to understand." Be specific. Tell the person exactly what they need to change to make the paper better. Mark grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors on the paper. If you suggest a change, tell them why the change would make the paper better. Remember that peer editing is to help the person to better develop their ideas and writing habits. Explaining why your suggestions would be beneficial to their work helps them improve on future assignments.