Blog Post 9

Mr. Joe McClung What I've Learned This Year (2008-2009)







The first post by Mr. McClung that I viewed was "What I've learned This Year" (2008-2009). In this blog, he described his first year of teaching. I was really interested in reading this one! The main reason is because I think the first year is very critical in acquiring experience, expectations, and information. It is also the first step in establishing a career. The other reason I was very anxious in reading this post because I wanted to get his perspective on his first year of teaching. Many educators say that the first year, by far, is the most difficult.

The topics that Mr. McClung discussed in his blog really got my attention. The first and I think the most important was "How to Read the Crowd." He described how he developed a mindset that was detrimental to the education profession. He explained how he thought the teaching process was all about the teacher. As a result, he forget about his real audience the students. He also stated that this particular train of thought has become a common theme among educators.

The other topic that Mr. McClung discussed was "Don't be Afraid of Technology." He commented by saying many grown adults everywhere are afraid of technology. I used to be one of them he is referring to. Before I took technology classes similar to EDM 310, I thought technology was useless. I thought it was unsafe, unreliable, and overall a bad idea to bring to the education profession. However, as I learned how to use the tools of technology more efficiently, I had a change of thought! Mr. McClung followed that statement by saying that "Technology is our friend and it is essential to living in today's society." He also made me feel more comfortable about working with technology in the future when he said "We can not expect to master computer skills the first time we attempt them." That is what Dr. Strange has been trying to drill into our brain. He often says "we are life long learners especially when it is pertaining to technology because it is always changing."

Mr. Joe McClung What I've Learned This Year (2011-2012) Volume 4





Mr. McClung in volume 4 of What I've Learned This Year (2011-2012) took a different approach in writing this blog post. Nevertheless, it was still effective. He only talks about two topics. The first topic was "You Gotta Dance with Who You Brought to the Dance." He explained how he got over concerned with how his peers viewed him. As a result, he forget who opinion really counted. It was not his peers, but his students. Also, it was not his peers he came to the education profession to help or teach but again the students. It is very important to put a difference between the two, in order, to be a productive or effective educator. Oftentimes, many educators are trying to gain a self image that their peers approve instead of an image that their students approve.


The other topic that Mr. McClung discussed is the process of challenging yourself as an educator. Many educators reach a certain level and do not try to progress past that certain level. As a result, Mr. McClung explained how that can lead to laziness, on the teacher behalf, and non-effective teaching methods. Also, he explained how by not challenging yourself  as an educator causes the students to lose interest in the classroom.
 

Book Trailer Project 12

Smartboard Project 14

PLN Project 10

This is my first PLN. I used symbaloo to construct it. I am going to try to use it more extensively as the semester progress. I really want to add more websites and make it similar to the Seventh Grader's PLE.

Blog Post 8

This is How We Dream Parts 1 and 2











In part 1 of This Is How We Dream, Mr. Miller elaborated on the traditional teaching method. When he was in school, the education process consisted of teachers instructing lessons from paperback books. Students took notes, exams, and wrote papers with regular writing utensils. Mr. Miller dreamed and prepared himself for a career that would involve books, paper,pens etc. Nevertheless, time brought about a change! The first change Mr. Miller discuss is the incremental change. The incremental change changed the work space. The work space became the laptop and not the traditional classroom.

In part 2, Miller expounded on the new work space. He referred to it as the new digital era. He also explained how it work. Teachers are now able to download different materials, lectures, and lessons. It also pushes ideas to our culture.

In conclusion, I found it amazing how the transition of writing, reading, and the overall education process has changed. What really grabbed my attention is when he explained how the information that is being obtained from this transition is not been shared. I thought about that also. Many people are too busy competing with each other about ways they think would be best to do certain procedures or operations.They forget about working together to achieve more. That is also true about the education field , but as educators we have one goal and that is to educate our students to our full potential.


Carly Pugh Post 12

I think Carly comes real close to Dr. Miller's hopes for writing with multi-media. The video was very creative and interesting. I enjoyed her playlist, topics, and overall her perspective on creating this assignment. It was very beneficial. Assignments similar to Carly Post, in my opinion, brings the learning experience alive.


EDM is Different

The chipper series reflect the skills that Dr. Strange  wants his students to acquire from EDM 310. The video also gives scenarios on the benefit of having those skills. Last but not least, it emphasizes the value of an education.

In EDM for dummies a reaction of two typical students are portrayed at the beginning. At the end of the video, technology skills that were obtained from taking EDM 310 were discuss. The two students looked refreshed after taking the class.


Learn to Change, Change to Learn

The arguments made in Learn to Change,Change to Learn are valid. Teaching and learning in the 21st century is based on technology. Technology provides more opportunity for global connection and job security. That is correct.

However, I have a couple of questions. Are we going to depend on it alone? Is it going to effect all the students the same? I think these are vital questions that need to be answered before we really put all of our eggs into technology based education.


Scavenger Hunt

http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/?comix_id=467896091C821741

C4T #2

The teacher I was assigned to was Mr. Arvind S. Grover. He is the Dean of Faculty at the Grace Church School in New York. The first post I commented on showed all the learning sources or occupations that Mr. Grover had over the past year. In my comment I told him I was interested in knowing exactly what he learned from each source in more detail.

The second post that I commented on from Mr. Grover was "Meetings are not work.Work is Work." He added a link to a web-page that contained modern meetings standards. It examined techniques that would make meetings more efficient and less strenuous. I commented by telling him thanks for the advice and also that I was looking forward to use some of the strategies in the future.

Blog Post 7

The Networked Student by Wendy Drexler

I love the idea of network learning! It is an exciting learning experience for the students. It is also effective as for as communicating goes. You can connect with people around the world. It gives the students an opportunity to actually apply what they have learned in comparison to traditional teaching methods. That is vital for educating in the 21st century.

However, I do have some concerns about network learning. According to the video, network learning could be for any subject, topic, or issue. I agree to a certain extent. That is the first concern I have with network learning. Certain subjects, issues, topics, require different criteria. Some may require personal objectives that I think network learning is a little to broad or open for. For an example, in  a subject  like health education you may have to do assessments on the personal health history of students. Sometimes that may be a little emotional on the student's behalf  to discuss specific issues, such as that, over the net.

The next concern I have with network learning is that all educators are not big fans of the new technology movement. According to the video, teachers are responsible for guiding students in implementing, utilizing, and acquiring network learning skills and techniques. Can we say that about all educators? The answer is no. As a result, that is going to lead to an on-going conflict in the education profession in the 21st century. Many educators are going to say network learning is necessary. Others are going to say it is not.

In conclusion, I think network learning is a great idea! However, there is going to be major issues pertaining to it. That is why I think it is going to be hard to  implement it in certain school systems and districts.

A 7th Graders PLE












I really enjoyed the personal learning environment video. It was well organized, creative, and informative. As a surprise ,to me, it was all done by technology. I was amazed.

My PLE is very different. The main reason why is that I do not consider myself a technology guy. Although, I have basic technology skills I am still learning the more advance ones. However, I am looking forward to creating a PLE similar to the 7th grader's.

Project 8 Podcast Assignment

Blog Post 6

Randy Pausch Last Lecture

After I watched Dr. Pausch last lecture, I confirmed that he is an inspiration to the whole world. In this video he talks about life lessons along with educational lessons.  I will discuss some of them.

The first lesson that I will discuss by Dr. Pausch is the"head fake" lesson. He defines it as learning indirectly. He expounds on that idea by saying it is the best way to teach someone because it gives someone the indication that they are learning something that they know. In reality, they are learning something opposite of what they think they know. I can see myself using this skill in my teaching method. Oftentimes, when people do not learn certain material, it is not necessary that they do not have the ability to learn it. It is mainly because they do not put the effort to learn the material because they do not like it or for some other reason. That is a major issue among  younger adults, youths, younger children and overall, generally speaking, people period. I think the "head fake" method will improve situations similar to this one.

The second lesson that I will discuss pertaining to Dr. Pausch is the fundamental lesson. He acquired this method also from one of his old football coaches. He stated that his coach would often tell the team that in order to master more advance skills you have to master the fundamentals first. In "other words" if you do not get the fundamentals down the fancy stuff is not going to work. In the education profession, some educators have forsaken fundamental value all together. They have moved on to more advanced methods that are not efficient. That has caused problems in the education profession. In order to get back on the right track, fundamental value will have to be taught in education. For an example, I would put emphasis on fundamentals by providing basic learning concepts in my teaching method.

The last lesson or idea I will discuss by Dr. Pausch is the self-reflect lesson. We have all been guilty of not doing or giving our best performance when we know someone is not analyzing our work closely. Dr. Pausch said many people or more likely to put their best effort when they know it is going to reflect their image, work, or etc. That is why he required it in his class. That is why I would use it as a technique in my classroom.

Although, Dr. Pausch had an life-ending health problem. He did not let that dictate how or what he did in his lifetime. He was a good-spirited, high energy type of person. That is what I admired most about him. As,  I stated earlier he serves as an inspiration to the world. I will surely use some of his teaching techniques in improving my learning and teaching skills. I will also suggest to people who are having problems teaching, learning, or motivating themselves to view Dr. Pausch  last lecture.

C4K Summary (September)

Post number 1

The first student I was assigned was Faafetai. Faafetai explained in her blog how she used play dough to solve fractions in her math class. She started by rolling the play dough into a giant roll. Next, she cut them into sections. After that, she took away and added sections, as needed, to solve math problems.

I commented on her blog by telling her I was impressed on how she use her creativity to learn math. I also told her I enjoyed playing with play dough also but I never used it in a math class. In  the conclusion, I encouraged her to keep up the good work.

Post number 2

The second post was different than the first post. I was assigned to Mr. Capps 3rd grade class blog. It summarized and showed students using the close to 100 method. This method has taken off in the classroom. I commented on his blog by stating that the method looks energetic and engaging for the students. I also told him good luck with installing it in the rest of the classes.

Time Toast project 9a

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