Blog Post #6

According to PLN: Your Personal Learning Network Made Easy , a Personal Learning Network (PLN) is,"the entire collection of people with whom you engage and exchange information, usually online." Going by that definition, we all probably have a huge PLN. It says the ENTIRE collection. This could mean email, Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. Think about how many times a day you access any of those. For me personally, it is alot! However, I do not utilize these sources as well as I should.

Dr. Strange provided us with two websites that are very helpful when creating your PLN. I liked Symbaloo the best. The other website he recommended was call Netvibes. Both are like a social media and website dashboard. You have access to all of your accounts on one page! This could be very helpful when looking up information. You could bookmark different websites and easily be able to go back and forth while comparing the information.

I think a PLN could be super useful as an educator. You could follow educational blogs and establish relationships with those authors. On Smart Exchange you could swap ideas with other teachers for interactive white board lessons. Maybe join a facebook group for new classroom ideas. Pinterest is a great site to find ideas for lesson plans, classroom decorations, organization, art and so much more! You could connect on Twitter through hashtags and following other educators.

I will create my PLN by using Symbaloo. I will bookmark all of my social media sites and news websites. By using facebook and twitter I will find people and pages to follow with educational updates. Hopefully I can find pages who are coming up with new ways to use technology in the classroom. I could search #technologyintheclassroom and see what I can find. The people who I find, I can connect with and have for future references. To begin my PLN I can find my teachers who use social media and those who blog. I can follow them and get their updates. To help broaden my PLN, I could see who my teachers follow. I can follow the people they follow and hopefully that will open up many opportunities for learning that I would not have found before!

Why Is Blue Dog Blue?

Blog Post #5

What do you learn from these conversations with Anthony Capps?

By watching the Youtube videos between Anthony Capps and Dr. Strange I learned a lot of useful information on how to be a great educator. Anthony is really into Project Based Learning. He does not want to just give a student a project at the end of the lesson and let them "burp it back" to him. He wants to present a project that cannot be completed without the knowledge they need. It pushes them to learn and stay engaged so they will be able to complete their project. He aligns these projects with the ACCRS. He also likes to relate the projects back to the students. When he incorporates projects back to them it is easier for them to be engaged.

I really love how we have been assigned to do so much research on Project Based Learning. Before this class I really did not know anything about it. I have heard my mother talking about learning PBL techniques from teaching workshops but I have never paid much attention to it. I am realizing just how great this can be for students! When I think back to my days in elementary school, my favorite activities were the ones I was deeply involved in. When you have fun learning it, you remember it!

Anthony and the Baldwin County School System use iCurio. It is a tool that allows students to search certain websites that have been filtered. This can search videos, audio, and pictures. It is a safe way for them to search school-safe information. It even allows them to have their own folders to save information they are finding. I am really excited to know about this search engine being that I want to stay in Baldwin County. This gives me a way to look into the technology that I might be using in the very near future!

Discovery Education was really cool to hear about. Children can learn from reading but add pictures and video and they can remember more! It brings professionals to them and they can hear from someone other than their teacher. Students are now accustomed to hearing and watching instead of just reading. Discovery Ed helps to cater to their learning preferences. This helps them to bring their reading alive!

I loved getting to hear all of Anthony's tips. These can help me when I become an educator. One great thing he said is to use technology, don't teach it! These students have grown up in the world of technology so they already have an extensive background in using it. It made me laugh when Dr. Strange said it takes the 3rd graders less time to use iMovie than it does me. It definitely took me a long while to figure it out! I am not great at using technology but I am trying my best to keep up with it!

My Passion

This Is My Sentence

C4T #1

I was assigned to read Angela Maiers' blog. She is a speaker, an educator, and a writer. The first blog post I read of her's was actually a guest post by an English teacher, Brian Denesha. It talked about how some teachers, the ones who really have an impact on your life are immortal. They will live on with their student. He often referred to Edward Bloom's life in "Big Fish". He told big, elaborate stories. His son always brushed them off because they were not true. Finally, the son realizes it doesn't matter if the stories were true or not. What matters is that Edward will live on in his son from the stories he told. A great teacher will live on in their students. When you make an impact on their life, they will carry you with them. In my comment I told him about how I had a teacher that is now "immortal". She was my English and Literature teacher. She had a different way of teaching than everybody else. She was kind, genuine, and would go out of her way to help you do your best. She now lives on in me, and I hope I can bring to my classroom what she brought to hers.

The second post I read was Hutto Geniuses Choose To Matter. Mrs. Angela is a motivational speaker. She dared the 6,000 students in Hutto, Texas to realize their capability to be geniuses. It was a two-day project. They got to break into groups and choose what real world problem they wanted to solve. They were given free reign and challenged to work together. The students came through with amazing thoughts and ideas. This video shows some of the progress made on this two-day adventure! I was really excited to see a post on a type of Project Based Learning. It really went along with the research we did for our presentations.

Blog Post #4

My mother is a teacher and she loves to ask questions that "start your engine". She asks very open-ended questions that let her students go in any direction they can imagine. Sometimes she might have to steer them back to reality but very often the students come up with some pretty great answers and ideas. When they get on a path to somewhere, she will ask questions that help them to dig deeper on that topic. It helps the students to come up with their own ideas instead of being told what to think. She also loves for her students to ask her questions. She regularly states, "There is no stupid question!" I think this helps to take the pressure off of the student. This way they do not have to bottle up questions that he or she may think are "dumb".

Wow. The Right Way To Ask Questions really opened my eyes as to how important our questions are as educators. I had never thought about how maybe students don't answer because they want to keep on going instead of backing up with the lesson. This article is very true. The teacher asks the question to see if the children are understanding. If they don't, the teacher will go back over the lesson to ensure they have grasped it. What if it is a boring topic? What if they are tired of hearing the teacher ramble on about photosynthesis? Easy. They can just nod their head and the teacher can move on. It is most beneficial to the students to ask an open-ended question, give a few seconds and then call on to answer.

It is so important to ask the right questions. And to give the opportunity for the kids to ask questions. Encourage them to ask questions. Tell them there is no stupid question. And since there is no way for teachers to know everything, let them know that you can find out. I love the motto in EDM310, "I don't know, let's find out!" It is a great motto to take on with us long after this class ends.

I also loved Three Ways to Ask Better Questions in the Classroom. First and foremost, as an educator we should Prepare Questions. It is fine to ask a question if a great one pops in your head. But have questions ready to ask. Know what time you want to ask them. And always ask yourself, "Is it the question that needs to be asked? When is the best time to ask it?" If it is a question that does not need to be asked, just don't. Make sure the questions are clear to the students. If a question is not clear, it will not help, it will hinder the student. Second, we should Play with Questions. Show a question at the beginning of class, but do not answer it until the end. This gives the student time to think about it without hearing just one "right answer". Maryellen suggests that you might try and tell the student to put it in their notes and think about it. You could ask for their answers the next day and see what they have come up with when they had plenty of time to think. Third, you should Save the Good Ones. If a question really engages the students, save it! Time and time again, it will engage your class. Keep notes of questions that really sent their minds soaring.

Presentation #3

Blog Post #3

In What is Peer Editing? and Peer Edit With Perfection Tutorial I learned so much that could be super helpful when editing my peers in EDM 310. Not only will the knowledge help me with this class, it will continue to help me well into my professional career. My students will need constructive criticism and I am thankful we had this assignment. The most important thing we can do as peer editors and educators is to STAY POSITIVE! No one wants to hear how horrible they did. They want to hear what they did right and how they can fix what they did wrong. Give compliments!! While staying positive, suggest what you think could help make their work better. Don't beat around the bush when trying to point something out, be specific! Finally, you should correct your peer on things that he/she might have looked over.

I also got to watch Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes. It is a humorous video put together by children with excellent advice! By using names like "Mean Margeret" and "Picky Patty" they help to identify the negative ways you can peer review. Each set of students showed a different problem that might arise. Most could be fixed with positivity. Other problems could be fixed by staying on task and paying attention. Each example was great and really got the point across. Be thoughtful when peer reviewing and don't make the Top 10 list of mistakes!