C4T Summary Post

In Project Based Learning via Javascript this 7th grade math teacher talks about incorporating programming into her common-core-based seventh-grade math class this year. She stated she wanted to integrate the common core standards and teach programming with a purpose. To do that she used a lesson on congruence transformations. She gave her students the task of creating a computer program that created a design with symmetry. The program she used was Khan Academy’s Javascript. She said she chose Javascript because of Khan Academy’s easy integration with Google accounts and the class management tools given to teachers.

Here are some of her students work:

She encourages everyone to incorporate computer science in math. She says the key isto hold on to the mathematical purpose behind it. I really found this idea very interesting and something I could do in my own classroom.

My reply was:

Hi there! Im Cameron Hall, a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I really enjoyed your blog post! I think that this project is an excellent way to incorporate computer sciences into mathematics classes. And programming is something I think kids would get interested in easily, for class and something they might be interested in later on in life. I love this idea!

The next post I commented on was One Good Thing where the prompt was to talk about one good thing that had happened at the start of the school year. She thought of many different things she could talk about and came up with a few good ideas. That Friday something tragic happened in her community. They had a big flood, one that hadn't been so severe since 1976. She felt helpless and unmotivated to do anything since she couldn't go anywhere or help anyone else in need. She made a map that explained her location and what the different icons meant on the map.

My reply was:

Hi there! I am Cameron Hall a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. Sorry to hear about this tragedy in your community. I experience somewhat of the same thing here in Mobile having gone through Hurricanes Ivan, that hit us directly, and Katrina where we suffered a lot of damage. When we returned back to school after both hurricanes, one thing my teachers did was have us write about our experiences and have a class discussion about what happened. We did this in our homeroom classes. I think this is a great icebreaker to kind of get everyone to relax a little and get the elephant out of the room. After this everyone was a little more comfortable with continuing our academic day.

C4K November Summary

The student I had for November's C4K was Sisilia. Sisilia talked about her first day of school. She described her feelings and actions on the way to school and when leaving her mom. She spoke about being excited about meeting her teacher and what they did in class. She talked with excitement about lunchtime and recess and how she thought that was the best time of the day. When the bell rang she said said goodbye to her teacher, ran to the car and told her mom about her day.

My reply to Sislisia was:

Hey Sisilia! Im Cameron H. a student in EDM 310 at USA. I loved your blog post! Sounds like your first day of school was very exciting and filled with fun things to do! Practice working on your punctuation though, Good Work!!

Project #2: Final Report on PLN

Since my last Personal Learning Report, I have added a few more resources to my list of tiles. I have added iCurio. iCurio gives access to content of the curriculum to teachers, parents, and students. It provides examples for students to work on, content for parents to stay updated with, and engaging lessons for teachers to use in their classrooms. I have also added The Learning Network which is a blog done by the NYtimes about different topics in today's education. I chose this tile because I think it gives us teachers a way to comment and give our own opinion from experiences in our own classrooms. The next tile, Discovery Education gives access to resources for administrators, teachers, parents and students. I chose this tile because it would be a great tool for my classroom and for my students to use. At the beginning of the year, I can introduce Discovery Ed to the parents just to give them a resource that they can turn to when helping their children at home. The last tile I have added is TED talks. We have used TED talks a lot in EDM 310. I love the videos that are offered on this site. Recently I watched a video on bullying on TED talks and I loved it. Ted talks can be a great tool to use in the classroom for not only academics, but different social topics that arise in the classroom.

Project #2: PLN

For my PLN I chose to use Symbaloo. So far I have about 8 tiles. The first 2 tiles are my blog for EDM 310 and the EDM 310 class blog. I chose to list these 2 blogs because this gives me an easier way to access my own blog and the resources it entails for future endeavors in my classroom. I chose the EDM class blog because of the access to class announcements, links and resources that I might need now and in my future classroom. The next 3 tiles I have are my Gmail, Twitter, and Facebook accounts. These both give me access to my email accounts, both personal and school related. These give me access to contacting my instructors, classmates and even other teachers who can give me pointers to having a successful classroom. The next tiles I have are Pinterest and YouTube. I love Pinterest. They are both social networking sites where people can post their ideas through text and videos about projects done in their own classrooms and the classrooms of others. My next tile is Google search. I have this for information purposes for questions of my own and questions asked in the classroom. Google Search provides many different results from different sources about the question or topic asked.

SmartBoard Video Part B

Blog #14

In EDM 310 we have discussed things like technology in the classroom, what we have learned from other teachers and lesson plans for our students. I think that one thing we did not focus on was classroom management and control when using technology. I think a good blog post would have been to explain different ways to have good classroom management and control while our students use and experiment with these expensive technological tools. The Blog would be: "How Classroom Management, Discipline and Control Be Effectively Enforced In Your Technologically Advanced Classroom?"

How Classroom Management, Discipline and Control Be Effectively Enforced In Your Technologically Advanced Classroom? My ideal place to work would be in an inner city, minority school. With this being said, I understand that my students may not come from families who have a lot of money or families that can provide them with different technology tools that more privileged kids would have. I prefer to work with these kids. These students also may come with behavior problems inside and outside of the classroom. I think that they should be introduced to these tools despite that. Who knows? It could give them an incentive, a boost of motivation, or simply just provide a more exciting, hands-on way of learning. In math, we do a lot of hands-on group projects. One of the projects I have for my students is creating their own 3D geometrical shapes. Introducing technology into the classroom, I might have the students video their process of working in groups: assembling their geometrical shapes and working as a team. I would have one person out of the group to be the narrator/recorder.

Classroom Management

I realize that this may cause some outside disruption in the classroom, both the use of tablet for video and the group work itself. Students can get silly, playful and off task while working in groups with their peers. For classroom management and control while working in groups and with an expensive technological tool, I would make sure I circulate throughout the groups and keeping a strong eye on those who have been chosen to be the video recorder. My classroom noise level would remain at a certain height, not exceeding the limit that could disturb other groups or even other classrooms. I would time the groups so that they could be thoroughly monitored and helped if needed. I think this keeps everyone on task, allows me to circulate and make sure each group understands the task at hand and gives the students to work and learn the material without a lecture being involved.

Classroom Discipline

In my opinion, the use of technological tools is a privilege, but also is necessary for the advancement of our students. As stated before, students easily get off task, silly and playful when working in groups. In my experience, there is always that one that pushes the limit to what they think they can get away with in the classroom. While I do think it is necessary for their overall diversity and advancement of their education, it is also something that can be taken away. Sometimes our students, not having one of their own, can abuse what is provided for them. For example, using the tools for something other than for educational use, constantly getting off task, or simply being careless with the use of the tool. I think technology in the classroom, especially tools like tablets, is something extra and fun to offer the students but not mandatory. They can learn the same information with a book and paper...it just might not be as fun. Being that it is a privilege, I would have the students come up with the rules and follow up make the rules as visibly and understandably clear as day in the classroom. If I caught them not following the technology rules then for that activity, the technology used would be taken away from them. If the offense was reoccurring, they would not be able to use it period. They would work alone, taking it back "old school" with a good book, pencil, and paper.

I think classroom management, control and discipline are key when using technology and group work. They set the expectations, tone and standard for the students behavior, especially when working in groups and with technological tools. Working in a school now, I see daily where the discipline and classroom management play a key role in how your class, lesson and tasks/activities will flow.

Blog #13: What Can We Learn From Ken Robinson's TED Talks?

Eric - Mae Jemison: "Teach Arts and Sciences Together"

Mae Jemison’s video “Teach Arts and Sciences Together” is her saying that, as the title suggests, art and science aren’t two separate subjects. That there is a common misconception between intuitive and analytical. How scientists are ingenious but not creative and how artists are ingenious but not analytical. Mae Jemison says that by separating these two into such dichotomy we force people into a choice of being either analytical but not creative or creative but not analytical. Why can’t we be both?

She also mentions that many scientific advancements came around due to creative thinking, such as fiber optics, compact discs, and flat screen televisions, to name a few. She says by cutting the link between art and science we stunt our growth and hinder further advancement. I agree with her that science and art can be and should be taught together, just as she quoted Einstein on how there is beauty in the mysteries of the universe and how that it is the source of all art and science.

I would say let’s also go further on this. Not only teach the arts and sciences together, but also other subject materials. The basis for her argument was about how subjects are one in the same, specifically art and science, but still there is room to grow. Language and the arts are already taught to be the same as language arts, but what about math and physical education? Many more subjects can be taught to compliment one another, since all subjects are connected with each other. Mae Jemison’s proposal is just the start and I hope educators will go further on it.

Cameron - Shane Koyczan: "To This Day… for the bullied and the beautiful"

I have learned a lot from Shane Koyczan’s video To This Day… for the bullied and the beautiful,. Shane Koyczan begins with talking about the popular quote, “Stand Up for Yourself” and how at some point we are all told that. He talks about how that directly relates with definition: we are expected to define ourselves and if we don’t someone will do it for us. Defining ourselves comes from three places: how we see ourselves, what others have for us (peers) and when we are asked what we want to be (parents/teachers). Agreeing with Shane, I think that unfair question confuses and discourages kids. In a way, I even think it can be a form of bullying from the people they are supposed to look up to. Sometimes as teachers and parents, we ask them what they want to be, but shoot down their answers because we do not like them. This affects their own dreams and what they feel like they can do.

“Standing up for yourself doesn’t have to mean embracing violence,” Shane says. I think this is a great thing we should tell our students. Outsmarting can go so much further than violence against another person. He says that we should teach our students and our children that standing up for themselves is being yourself and accepting yourself while making others do so as well.

Shane also talks about how bullying really affects us. The sticks and stones rhyme only goes so far. The way I see and interpret it, is that the words we are called stick with us forever and hurt like stone. They affect us later on in life: in our jobs, in our relationships, and mainly in all of our interactions. I think Shane’s main point in this is to tell us that we can not tell others how to feel especially when it comes to bullying. The sticks and stones rhyme ending with “...but words will never hurt me” is a prime example of this. We can say this a million times, but in reality they can cut us to the core. Instead of telling them how they should feel or how they should take it we should teach them on how to accept themselves and make others accept them. We should show them confidence and how to use that to block those titles others put upon us. “Get over it” is a phrase lacking understanding. We can not tell others how to feel, how to take things or even how they let it affect them because unless we are in their shoes, we can’t even begin to understand.

Shane’s video taught me that as a teacher, I need to understand a better approach when it comes to resolving bullying. Simply telling one how to feel or how they can let it affect them is not enough or the right way, in my opinion. As teachers, we have to promote acceptance. We have to show our students how to accept themselves and how to make others accept them by defining themselves before someone beats them to it. Our own definition of ourselves is what makes us who we are and defines the rest of our lives.

Ronald - Salman Khan: "Let's Use Video to Reinvent Education" Several great things can be learned from the video Salman Khan: Let's use video to reinvent education. In this video Salman talks in detail about Khan Academy, his created educational video series. The founding ideas for Khan Academy came from YouTube videos Salman made to help tutor his cousins. He received a lot of positive feedback on his videos from teachers and students alike, and soon realized he had the makings of a major educational breakthrough. Salman ran with the opportunity and founded Khan Academy, which serves as a great technological tool for classrooms around the world. It features over twenty two hundred educational videos, subject mastery content for students, and detailed feedback on student progress for teachers.

The first of two educational things that I would like to talk about from Salman’s Khan Academy is giving students a solid educational foundation. Khan Academy offers subject specific programs for students to work on that focus on mastery of that specific subject. Salman stresses that gaining mastery on each subject is the key to students having a solid educational foundation to move forward with. Salman made a great analogy of this concept to learning how to ride a bicycle. He said if a student can only ride a bicycle at eighty percent proficiency, then he or she isn’t going to be ready for a unicycle. The same concept is true of education, students must be proficient in fundamentals of a subject matter before moving on to more difficult areas of that subject. Having a higher level of mastery can be the difference between future failure in a subject and future success.

The other educational point that can be learned from this video is about humanizing the classroom. Salman points out that many people view humanizing the classroom as having a good teacher to student ratio, but he offers a different view. He thinks humanizing the classroom is more about student to valuable human time with teacher ratios. Khan Academy offers this alternative classroom humanization technique. This technique can be accomplished by assigning Khan Academy video lectures as homework and then doing subject mastery homework in the classroom. Doing this will free up teachers from lecture and allow them to spend valuable face to face time with individual students. Khan Academy also offers spreadsheets to teachers giving detailed progress for each individual student which helps them to delegate their time with the right students on the right topics. Also, parents can access this information to play an active role in their child’s education.

Salman’s Khan Academy is a great educational option for classrooms around the world, but maybe even more importantly it can connect classrooms from around the world. Students who have mastered certain concepts can help other students who are having trouble with those concepts. Ultimately, it serves as a major aid to teachers giving them more individualized or human face to face time with their students. At the end of the day, I learned that excellent tools such as Khan Academy can make one a much more effective teacher. These tools lighten the load on teachers and enable them to give the much needed individual attention to students that can help them better succeed.

Blog #12

Eric: Changing Education Paradigms

What we can learn from Sir Ken Robinson in the video “Changing Education Paradigms” is that the world has changed since when educational institutes were thought up and embedded into our lives. Now that the world has changed since then, so should education. We shouldn’t devalue what we see as non-academic, we shouldn’t lie to students saying that a college degree guarantees you a job, we shouldn’t separate our kids by all of these classifications we have them in right now. Sir Ken Robinson believes we should encourage our students, wake them up and excite them.

Sir Ken Robinson states that there is a consensus that there is an ADHD epidemic, but he believes that there is no epidemic. He states that we live in a world filled with distractions that are meant to distract us, and expect our kids to focus onto something that is boring. So boring in fact, that what we focus onto devalues our divergent thinking. Divergent thinking stated in the video is the ability to think of multiple possibilities for answers, whereas in school we are taught there is only one answer, that it is in the back of the book, and to not look, else we are deemed cheaters. Children in kindergarten are genius level divergent thinkers and as they grow older they become less of a divergent thinker. This is bad because it is an anesthetic experience, shutting our senses off. We need to have aesthetic ways of thinking, where our senses are at their peak, and by being a divergent thinker is a way of telling where we are having an aesthetic experience.

In the video he states that the current education paradigm is a myth, just that we are blind to seeing it that way. He says in the last part of the video that we must think differently about human capacity, and I agree. Education is not something that can be industrialized anymore, but should rather be more individualistic and personal.

Ronald: How to Escape Education’s Death Valley

Sir Ken Robinson goes over some great learning points in the video How to Escape Education’s Death Valley. Ken believes the educational system is broken in America and offers several reasons why. Ken’s first reason is the educational system is about conformity. He highlights the No Child Left Behind Act as an example of this. The No Child Left Behind Act focuses on conformity with testing, and Ken says this directly clashes with the human attribute of diversity. He says education should celebrate all the different kinds of talents and diversity each student brings to the table, and not just shove each student into the tight box of standardized testing.

The next reason Ken gave for the failed educational system is lack of curiosity. He rightly points out that if students’ curiosity could be better sparked, then learning would skyrocket. Tapping into the interests and talents of each student is a way to reach their curiosity. Curiosity then leads to self motivated learning, which can be one of the most effective forms of learning.

Ken defined the third reason as a lack of creativity. He says creativity is the reason humans are so diverse and interesting. If creativity isn’t used in education, we are all selling ourselves short. Ken says the top educational systems individualize learning and promote creativity among students. Creativity should never be overlooked. So many everyday situations hinge on creativity. For example, if one is half way done cooking dinner and realize they are missing an ingredient, creativity comes into play. They then have to use some creativity to replace the missing ingredient and still make the meal taste good. School is the perfect place to facilitate creative growth. In the end, Ken relates the American educational system to Death Valley, CA. Both the educational system and Death Valley are not dead, rather dormant and with the proper nourishment they can be fruitful. Promoting individualized learning, creativity for both students and teachers, and curiosity is Ken’s formula to bettering a dormant educational system.

Cameron: The Importance of Creativity

In the Ted Talks video How Schools Kill Creativity Ken Robinson talks about how creativity is lacking in our education systems throughout the world for both students and teachers. The first part, he talks about is that education is what is taking us into the future and a lot of people cannot grasp that. The second part he talks about is the unpredictability of education. How are we to teach our students preparing them for the future, when we as teachers do not even know what things are going to be like ourselves? I personally think this is one of the greatest questions we have to ask ourselves when we teach. The third part he talks about is our students capacity for innovation. I think this is mainly where their creativity has the biggest growing point. Robinson explains that schools can take away from the natural talent, innovation and creativity our students possess.

“Creativity is as important in our education as literacy and we should treat it with the same status.” Robinson says that students are not afraid of being wrong, but teachers can sometimes relate “wrong” to being creative. His statement is that wrong is not always bad. Wrong creates some type of originality. In my opinion, as adults we need that really just for growing pains. Robinson also says that we criticize and critique mistakes instead of building on them. In turn we are educating people out of their creative capacities. When we take the creativity out of our students at a young age, it is removed and typically never gained back as they grow older. We get “educated out of it,” Robinson says.

We think about the world visually, kinestically, and sound. Intelligence is dynamic and covers all movements. Acknowledging multiple types of education is apart of the creativity we have as teachers. He says we need to pass that along to our students and cultivate creativity. In order to teach our students we need to rethink our teaching processes. Our education does not need to take away from the individuality, creativity, or originality each student possesses. Stripping our students of their natural talents is not the way to go. As teachers we need to build on those talents, influence originality and let our students be creative in their intelligence. We have to teach for the unpredictable future and by doing so create students and adults that can adapt to any and every situation they can encounter.

By: Eric Merryman, Ronald Griffin, and Cameron Hall

PBL #3: Writing! Reading! Acting!

Blog #11

Ms. Cassidy's Technology Implementation

In Ms. Cassidy's class she implemented the use of blogs as well as using their regular. Her students say that they love the use of blogs because people all around get to see them. They also say that the use of blogs has helped them with their grammar, pronunciation of words, the rules of commenting on their peers blogs and how to be safe on the internet.
She also implements the use of webpages. The students can get on the webpages during free time. The webpages have working links that take them to other pages where they can get extra help and use different online learning tools. The webpages are also available to the students outside of school for extra help at home.
The next online tool she uses is Wiki and Videos. The use of Wiki helps the students learn about broader information that can come from people around the world. They used this when learning about traditions, rituals and the alphabet. The videos are what the students used to show what they have learned in their own classroom. This is how Ms. Cassidy's students show their learning.
Ms. Cassidy also uses Skype to talk to people in different places such as those and other classrooms and experts. She lets her students use their Nintendo DS's in groups for practice in reading and word pronunciation. In using the Nintendo DS, her students have learned how to become better problem solvers and better sharing partners.


My Classroom Technology

The 2 uses of technology I would use are videos and a class. I would also use the blogging, but have only one class blog. I think that in a 6th grade middle school math class, these would be easy to incorporate into an every day class period. The students have to work in collaborative groups for the common core standards. So I would record their presentations to the class on video and make it visible on the class blog. I would also post extra credit work, absentee work, links to give extra help and examples and the different activities that we have done in class for parents and students to see. I think this would help the parents stay up to date with things that are going on in class and give students an opportunity to catch up on work they missed and possibly get extra help if needed from working links.

The videos are something I would use maybe twice a week when each task is done and ready to present as a group. I would use blogs at the beginning and/or end of the week to let students know the different things that have been uploaded for their use. I would also use them in the beginning, middle and towards the end of the semester in open houses or parent/teacher conferences to show them they have access to see what their kids are doing in my class.

Setbacks

By making the videos an in class activity the only things the students have to do is show up, participate and help present with their group. I would not make every student have a blog. I want to work in a low income, inner city school, I realize that most of my students would not have access to computers or internet. Therefore, I would only require a class blog that I would run, but have different activities so that they could be apart of creating and maintaining one class blog. I would do this by having them work in collaborative groups.


Beneifts

I think the main benefits for the students would be giving them a fun, more engaging way to present their work to the class using something other than poster boards or white boards. The benefits for parents would be that they are able to see everything their kids are doing in class and stay updated with the class events and activities. For me, the teacher, the benefits would be being able to showcase my students work, stay in contact and updated with my students parents, create a way to use less paper and give an alternative way for students to get assignments and make-up work.

Interview With a Teacher: Mrs. Angela Hall 6th grade Adv/Reg Math Teacher and Department Chair

October C4K Summary's

In Alex's Blog he told us about his Kiwi heritage and why they do the things they do. He seemed to have a lot of knowledge about his people. I told him:

Hey Alex! Im Cameron Hall, a student in EDM 310 at USA. I loved your blog! I think its great that you know so much about your history, ancestry and heritage. Sounds like it is a lot of great things that make up why you are kiwi. Good Work Alex!

In Evan's Blog he told us about the levels of the Alberta Forest. He also showed us the drawings that he did of the Alberta Forest. I told him: 

Hey Evan! Im Cameron Hall a student in EDM 310 at USA. I love your drawings! You seem to know and understand a lot about the levels of the alberta forest and which animals live where. Great work Evan!!

SMARTboard Project Part A

SMARTboard Project Part A

C4T #3

In From No Spoons, to Ladles and in Between Jonesy reflects on the experience of his class from the past 9 months. He talks about the tools of OneNote and  blogging he used and how it worked for his students. He also talked about textbooks and how because of tradition, not having them became a distraction. He altered his methods and began using snippets of the textbooks with the incorporation of laptops.
He came up with a plan including

• A real life approach to learning
• Cornell Notes
• Edmodo
• Making lesson delivery as vibrant and engaging as possible
• Quality exam preparation

With the plan he says that he is feeling more confident that he can pull this off with his class.

I commented:

Hey Jonesy! Im Cameron a student in EDM 310 at USA. I am loving your blog so far! I think the tools you have implemented in your classroom are great tools to kind of guess and check when it comes to your classes. Curious about how they are continuing to work or not work. Cant wait for the update!