C4K 4-6

Kobe
Kobe is a student at PT England school. I comment on his blog post about images. His class was learning how to add images as links to websites on their blogs. Kobe's image was a character from the video game Assassins Creed.

Room 8 at Melville Int. School
On this blog their was a video of a sports match between their school and another school. I found this video very interesting because I have never heard of this sport and was intrigued to watch it being played.

Blog Assignment #9

What I've Learned This Year



I hope to learn as much as I can in my first years of teaching. I think many of us have the mindset that we will teach our own way. But I agree that if we try to make it all about us then our student will not get the learning experience they deserve. I enjoyed reading this blog post and hope to learn from my students when I become a teacher also.

Smart Board Project

Blog Assignment #7

This was a very inspirational speech, given by a really incredible person. This speech was all about how to achieve your childhood dreams. It started out with listing his childhood dream and telling you how he achieved those dreams. He achieved all of his dreams, even if some of them were achieved a little different than he may have expected. He also talked about helping others achieve their dreams. As a virtual reality professor he taught students how to reach new heights in this field. But he did not take all the credit for himself, he acknowledged all of the people that helped him along the way. This speech is really hard to explain because it has so many elements, it is like watching a good movie that makes you feel good at the end. It is an amazing talk and everyone should take the time to watch it, because it can really effect the way that you set out to achieve your dreams and how you can help others achieve their dreams also.

My PLN

I used netvibes.com to create my PLN. I included all of the pages I normally visit for EDM 310 and my other classes. I also included all of my social networking sits.

C4T #2

I was assigned to comment on Bill Ferriter's blog, he is a 6th grade language arts teacher in North Carolina. He has some very strong opinions on some very interesting topics. The first post I commented on was about using social networking in schools. He chose ten responses, five negative and five positive, that people gave in response to their opinion about social networking. I enjoyed seeing the different opinions of people. I think that social networking is a great tool for learning, but as with everything, students may find a way to abuse it. The next post that I commented on was about interactive white boards. He does not like IWB's. I said that I have not used one yet so I can not have to much of an opinion. But I said that if a teacher can enhance a students learning experience then the IWB's are a good initiative.

CFK #1-3

Rachel from Ms. Naugle's Class
Ms.Naugle's 4th Grade Math Class
I commented on a blog post by Rachel. She was explaining how measurements can be fun. She gave the definition of capacity and said that her favorite form of capacity measurement was gallons. She put a great picture on her post that really showed how easy measurements can be. The definition of capacity that she chose was also easy to understand. I told her that my favorite form of capacity measurement was cups, because I understand capacity measurements best when I start with a smaller amount.

Senolita and Mary from PT England School
Podcast #336 by Senolita and Mary
Senolita and Mary read the book "Ollie's Bubble Bother". They put in stories of their own as they went through the story. These girls did a great job, and the stories that they added on their own were really entertaining.

Billy from PT England School
Billy From Room 16 at PT England School
Billy posted a summary of what was going on with the earthquakes in Christchurch. He also posted a link to video on Youtube that showed one of the earthquakes happening. I told Billy that the link to the video was a very good idea because it gave people a closer look into what was happening in Christchurch.

My Wiki

Geography for Students

Blog Assignment #6

The Networked Student
This video is a great way to show how students should be learning. This method is so much better than giving a student a text book that they will never open. With this method of learning they are not only connecting with others, but they are going to remember what they learn. With this method, where they have to go and find the information that they are looking for, the student will learn much more than if he/she would if they read 3 chapters in a textbook. There are some textbooks that are easier to understand, but most of them are complicated and boring and students want nothing to do with them. So where does the teacher come in if the student is finding all of the information on their own? We have to teach our students how to find reliable sources, and what the difference is between reliable and unreliable sources. And who are they doing this work for if they don't get a grade? Incentives are the most important part of this process. What is the students incentive to blog, search for scholarly articles and let his findings be known to others? The incentive is their grade. But by making students learn this way we are teaching them skills that they will have long after they leave our classroom.

A 7th Graders PLN

The video that this 7th grader put together is outstanding. And the fact that she as a 7th grader already knows so much about what technology has to offer shows just how important it is that we be technologically literate teachers. This way of teaching is showing children how to be organized and independent thinkers.

Smartboards

www.teacherslovesmartboards.com
Smartboards and Special Education

Blog Assignment #5

I listened to a very informative podcast about sharks on Eagles' Nest Radio & Class Blog. This was a podcast performed by third grade students. The students performing this podcast did a great job, they were all enthusiastic and very informed about their topic. I liked how they used music to transition from speaker to speaker. It made it seem more professional.
The next podcast I listened to was The Practical Principles. The particular episode I listened to was about one of the speakers being an interim principle, but he chose to treat it like a long term position. I liked the style of the podcast. It was not really q and a but it wasn't to much like a talk show either. It was really just like a well flowing conversation between principles.
The last podcast that I watched was on the Education Podcasting Network, it was about an artist who made fake food look good. The EPN website is really interesting. It is a website where you can find many different podcasts relevant to teaching.

Timetoast Timeline

My Sentence Movie

Blog Assignment #4

Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please?
I enjoyed Dr. McLeod's post, I agree with him that it really is not a very good idea to shelter your children from technology. But my argument is why even try to shelter your children from all thats out there? Not only does it leave them at disadvantage when other children are more technologically literate than they are, but it is a bad idea to shelter children from anything. When you tell your child that he or she can not do something that one of their friends is able to do, then it just makes the child want to do it even more. But why try to shelter them from something so easy to trace? Technology today makes it so easy for parents to know exactly what their child is doing. If you have the right tools you can see every text, every phone call and every webpage visited on your child's phone. You can also monitor their whole computer. You can see everything that they are doing on their computer on your computer screen. I know that children do not like to be monitored, but I am pretty positive than a child would rather have a cell phone and computer that is monitored than not have one at all. Also, computers at schools are so closely monitored and have so many sites blocked that there really is nothing to worry about when children are granted access to technology at school.
Scott McLeod is a Professor at Iowa State University and also helped to create the video we viewed earlier in the semester, Did You Know 3.0.

The iSchool Initiative
The idea that he presented in this video is very interesting. I like all of the apps presented that would diminish the need of calculators, text books and other costly school supplies. Going from an average cost of $600 per student to only around $150 per student could save the schools a hugh amount of money that they could use for other things. Also, having all of the tools you need on one device would cut out the problem of students forgetting calculators, books or pencils when it comes time to work. I always forgot my calculator on test day, and then I was left with the classroom calculators that did not have all of the functions that I needed to complete a problem. Not being able to separate one tool from the rest of your school supplies would make it much more difficult to forget things at home or in the locker. Being able to connect the students, parents and teachers all on one system would be great also. However, I do think that if this system was ever initiated that it would take many years to get it working properly. It would probably take even longer to gain the approval of the parents and teachers having to use the new system. I do think that the students would really like this system. No bookbag to carry around, and they can take all the tools they need for school wherever they want with no hassle.

The Lost Generation
This video was interesting.I would hate to think that our society was headed down the road that was first described. The second path is much more desirable. I hope children today realize that they are not the lost generation described but that they are a generation that can change things. I thought that it was a good technique to talk about reversing the way people think, and at the same time reverse the text to go backwards on the presentation.

Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir
This post was great! It is hard to believe that so many people who have never met could make something sound so good. It did not sound like a bunch of people on a webcam, it sounded exactly like a professional choir performing.

Teaching In The 21st CenturyThis video shows that students can get access to anything, at anytime. As future teachers our job is going to be to help our students learn the correct way to find information. We will teach them what sites are reliable and which ones are not. Also with the material we are learning in this class we can teach them new techniques to get information. I think what is means to teach in the 21st century is that to teach our students what they need to know, we are going to have to adopt a whole new way of teaching and learning.

The title of each segment is also a link to the video or post that I am commenting on.

Presentation #5

Blog Assignment #3

A Vision of Students Today
I think that this video is a great example of the average college student. I think the part most relevant to my college experience was the point made about buying hundred dollar text books and never opening them. I have spent thousands on my text book during the time I have attended USA so far, and it is very rare that I open any of them. Another part that I found to be relevant to my experiences was the note about students paying for class, then not attending. I do not think that it is stressed enough to high school students about just how much freedom they will have when they enter college. It is so easy to miss classes, there is no one there to make you go. And even when you do miss multiple classes, you do not see the consequences until you fail the class. If I had to stress one thing about my college experience this would be it. It is so important to attend classes, I missed as many as I could my freshman year and five semesters later I am still working to pull my GPA up from that one semester. Another important fact that they included was that you have to be a multi-tasker. If you can not balance school, work, fun and all the other things that you may have going on during the semester then it is going to be really difficult. Your first semester your teachers will tell you to get a daily planner, and I agree completely, without one I would never remember to do everything that I am supposed to. I really enjoyed this video, I think that high school seniors should have to watch this before they make their decision about college majors. I do not want to discourage youth from pursuing a college education, I want to encourage them to chose a meaningful major. Most students change their major a few times anyway, but it is important for high schoolers to see how different college is and how technology is rapidly changing and effecting the work force.

It's Not About The Technology
Kelly Hines made some really good points in her post. If you do not know how to use the technology effectively then what good is it doing. She is correct, for the technology to be a good learning tool the teacher must take the initiative to make it successful. It will be hard to change the mindset of many educators though. For some subjects it will be hard to integrate technology into the classroom, and even harder to get a teacher, who really is not interested in using it, to get motivated. But all teachers can teach their students to be creative and I think that is the most important aspect. When kids are using their creativity to all of their ability there is no telling what they will come up with. When you allow children to use enjoyable things in classroom activities, I think it helps them learn the material better. Encouraging your students to be creative is I think one of the most important things to bring to your classroom. Without our unique senses of creativity we would all be very similar, but as children express their creativity they begin to see talents they did not know they had.

Is It Okay to Be a Technologically Illiterate Teacher?
After reading this I do not think that it is okay to be a technologically illiterate teacher. I really enjoyed some of the examples that he used in this reading. He wrote that many parents use their poor math skills growing up as an excuse for their child's poor math performance. These parents said this in front of their children, and acted like it is socially acceptable to be illiterate in math. I liked this example because I tell people all the time that I am terrible in math, but I have never thought about it from this perspective. He says that many people use this same outlook when they talk about their computer skills. It is okay for people not to know how to use computers just like it is okay for people to be bad at math, but it is not okay for them to be completely unwilling to learn. He makes the statement, "If a teacher today is not technologically literate - and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more - it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write." I did not agree with him about this. I think that even thirty years ago a teacher who could not read and write would not be able to teach their students what they needed to know. Today even if you are technologically illiterate you can still teach your students what they need to know. But I do think if technology continues to grow at the pace it is now, that this will be the case and one day all teachers will have to be technologically literate to teach their students.

Social Media Count
This site was really interesting. It is amazing how much can happen in just a few second. I think what this means for us as future educators is that we are going to have to start learning things about technology now if we want to be prepared when we enter the class room. With things changing so quickly it is hard to imagine what will be available for the students that we are going to be teaching.

C4T #1

Retaining students? Not a good idea.
David Wees posted this topic to his blog, 21st Century Educator. He is arguing that grade retention is a bad idea. He tells a story about his first grade graduation, and how one of his friends was held back, and the look of disappointment on his face when they did not call his name. His point in telling this story was to show that it can be really painful for a child to go through that kind of experience. "The moments that we think kids will get over and forget about are actually the ones that kids remember most. If it would be a painful memorable experience for an adult, it's a painful memorable experience for a kid". To summarize my comment, I said that in certain cases I think that grade retention is okay. I said that it can have emotional effects on some children, but ultimately if the child did not successful complete that grade then they should have to repeat it,or at least get some form or tutoring. Moving on to a higher level, when you do not understand a lower level, is not a good idea.

Understanding Nature
On this blog post David Wees is discussing how more children should have the opportunity to see nature and how amazing it can be. I agreed with him, I think it is really important that children get a chance to see and understand all of the beautiful places that are out there. If children got the chance to see a little more of nature than maybe they would have a greater respect for it. I suggested taking more nature focused field trips.

Blog Assignment 2

Did You Know 3.0

This video was really interesting. It shows how quickly new technology is being developed, and how it has grown over the last few years. My favorite segment in this clip was the one about text messaging. It said that today, less than ten years after the very first text message was sent, there are more texts sent daily than there are people on the planet. It is incredible how fast things can develop into worldwide phenomenon's. The clip also shows some statistics about the huge populations in other counties, specifically China and India. Even our language is still growing and developing. The video showed that there are five times as many words in the English language today as there were during Shakespeare's time. Technology is growing so quickly, and this video proves it, that we can not hope to understand it all. But this video also shows that we have to learn as much as we can, if we don't then how will we cope in 20 years if technology really does keep developing like this video says it will.

Mr. Winkle Wakes
This is such a good example of how schools operate. There really is not much about schools that has changed in the last hundred years. Computers are integrated into some classrooms, but not as much as they could be. The majority of the educating community still teaches with the same techniques teachers used when they were in school. As a college student I get bored when my professor stands up front and reads out of a book, so I know grade school students must get just as restless. By introducing more technology into your classroom, and teaching the students skills instead of random trivia, there is a higher possibility that you will be able to keep their interest. Some teachers are incorporating these kinds of things into their class room, such as the teachers that have their students create blogs. I know in certain subjects, such as history and english, it is probably hard to find a way to use technology with the students. But I want to be the history teacher that researches and finds tools and techniques that will make my class interesting to my students.

The Importance of Creativity
We are educating kids for the future. Sir Ken Robinson makes a really good point when he says this, it is something to think about since we really don't have any clue what will be happening five, ten or fifteen years from now. He focuses on persuading children to be creative,and offering more subjects that use that creativity in schools, rather than just the basics that all children are required to study. We are preparing to be teachers, and if we want our students to be creative then we also have to be creative. To be good teachers we have to know and understand what we are teaching, but to be great teachers we have to take the initiative and research new and creative ways to help our students learn. We have to think like Sir Ken Robinson, education should not be the same old thing set in stone like it has always been. We should focus on each child's creative talents, and use the interests that child has to help them learn.

Cecelia Gault Interviews Sir Ken Robinson
It is such a great opportunity for Cecelia Gault that she was able to interview Robinson. I wish more kids had opportunities like these. Robinson talks about how creativity is not limited to certain people, everyone has the ability to be creative. In my classroom I hope that I will be able to get all of my students to find something that they enjoy doing, and getting them to use those interests to help them learn. Also Robinson says that there is no set definition of intelligence. I think that this is a great concept, all children learn differently. There are some children that just learn things very quickly and there are others who have a hard time understanding certain things. But if you take the child that has a hard time grasping a concept, and introduce a creative and fun way of learning that concept, then there is a possibility that they will pick it up rather quickly if they are having fun doing it. I love history, but many students do not. I want to take the students that really are not interested in history, and show them that it can be very interesting. For example; a jock, he does not like history but loves football. I would try to find football analogies that would grab his attention and apply them to my history lessons. There are also many sites available that utilize games to make studying for history fun. I want to introduce sites like these to my students so that they will not feel that studying for my class is a hassle, I want to make it fun.

Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts
I love that the students at this Georgia school are able to take a class like this. I wish the students in Mobile County were required to take a course like that one. Really not just students in Mobile but students everywhere should be introduced to these technologies. The things that her high school students are learning how to do I am just now learning to do in my junior year of college. Knowing how to use those tools can open up a lot of opportunities for those students. I also really liked that the teacher did not define everything for her students. She made them take the initiative to search for answers. But she gave them all the tools that they needed, they just have to know how to use them. I hope that more schools begin to offer classes like these. They are such great tools to introduce students to what is going on with other kids their age around the world.

Wordle



Wordle for Blog post #1



Blog Assignment 1

My name is Courtney Mathis, I am currently a junior at the University of South Alabama and my major is Secondary Education in Social Sciences. I was born and raised in Mobile, Al and graduated from Davidson High School in 2008. My original plan when I graduated high school was to go to college at Ole Miss, because that is where my dad went to school. But in the end I decided that I would rather stay at home, I would have missed my family to much! I'm glad I did stay home because I have really enjoyed my time at USA. Also I work at Christ United Methodist Church, I grew up in this church and around two years ago a position became available at the Recreation Desk and I have worked there ever since.
As I mentioned before I am a Secondary Education major specializing in Social Sciences. I just changed my major two semesters ago; my original major was Elementary Education. I chose to change my major for three reasons. First, I started babysitting/tutoring my nephews Austin and Ethan. Austin is in the Second grade and Ethan is in Kindergarten. I really love them but they were a lot to handle and they are family! So they helped me realize that I did not want to work with young children. Second, I began volunteering with the Youth Ministry at the church that I attend. The more time I spent with these youth I realized that they were the age group that I would really enjoy working with. So I did not have to look far to find my new major. Lastly, I am not very good at math and sciences, and when I got in my Elementary Education how to teach math and sciences classes I realized that I did not think I would be capable of teaching one of those subjects. But I really love history and originally wanted that to be my major, I just did not know if I would be able to find a job with that major. So I switched, and I love the major that I chose.

Practice Post

My first post.