Project #8 (Book trailer)

Dan, the Flying Man

Blog Assignment #6

What do you learn from these conversations with Anthony Capps?

The conversations form Dr. Strange and Anthony Capps were very helpful and beneficial to me towards my future career as a Professional Educator. They both talked about Project Based Learning and gave some examples on how PBL works and how students benefit from the program. PBL is a teaching method in which student gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to a complete question, problem, or challenge. As mentioned in the video Project Based Learning Part 1, the goal of PBL is not only a means to show that the students have achieve something, but a means to get students to learn something and be excited about learning and creating something as they discover their own knowledge. As a teacher, you have to create a project with all the content that students will need to know. Anthony Capps also stated that there are certain goals of a good project. You want to have an authentic audience, pick a project that sparks the student's interest, involve the community, and have good content.

Anthony Capps also mentioned some helpful online tools, such as iCurio and Discovery Ed. iCurio and Discovery Ed are online tools that are being incorporated into the Baldwin County school system to protect students from discovering something online that is inappropriate. iCurio is an online tool that allows students to safety search websites, images, and videos that has been pulled and filter for educational use. iCurio also have several other features to help students become better learners. It allow students and teachers to store information they think is valuable, it helps students practice organization skills, and it also have a read aloud feature that is helpful for students who may be deaf, blind, or who may have a learning disability. Discovery Ed accelerates school districts' digital transition through comprehensive standards-based content, professional development, formative assessment, and community engagement proven to positively impact student achievement.

Another interesting topic that Dr. Strange and Anthony Capps talked about is Tips for Teachers Part 1. I really wanted to discuss this particular video because I am studying to be a Professional Educator, and I feel it is highly important to learn everything there is to know about teaching. Dr Strange mentioned that in order to be a professional Educator, you must be interested in learning and model that behavior for other people so that they will be interested in learning as well. Anthony Capps mentioned that teaching is hard work and you must be consisted and dedicated to your work and constantly learn new things so that you will become better at mastering teaching skills. Another very important tip for teaching is that you must be able to respond to events that were not as planned, also all teachers must be flexible, creative, and cannot be permitted to one particular way of doing something.

C4K Summary for Month September

C4K #1

In my C4K #1, my student was a year 8 student at PT England School in Auckland, NZ. My student name was Mikaiah and in his most recent blog post, he was describing this Tukutuku pattern that he was assigned to do by his teacher. In his blog post, he simply explained how to figure out the steps in completing the pattern. He gave some examples of different patterns and he also created a list of steps that would help his audience figure out how to complete the patterns. In my comment to his blog post, I told him that I really liked his blog post and that we had a lot of things in common. Also I figured out how to complete the pattern and explained to him that the pattern was counting in multiples of three.

C4K #2

In my C4K #2, I was assigned to a 5th grade student by the name of Seth. In Seth most recent blog post, he wrote a blog about his job as being on safety patrol at school. Seth really enjoyed his job because he was able to leave class early so that he could set up and be prepared to perform his duties as a safety patrol hall monitor. He also mentioned that being on safety patrol is pretty hard and a bit frustrating because he had to stay on his best behavior and he hardly had a chance to hang out with his friends. In my comment to Seth blog, I told him that having a job at his age is a great way to teach him how to be a responsible student at a young age and keep him out of trouble. I also told him that he will inspire all the other students to be on their best behavior so that they will have an opportunity to be on safety patrol as well. You can visit Seth's blog and his classmates blog at Mrs Schramls Class.

C4K #3

In my C4K #3, I was assigned to a student by the name of Olivia. Olivia was a fourth grade student and she had a great talent in selling popcorn. In her most recent blog post, Olivia wrote a post about which is more important, "having a talent or hard work." She stated that hard work would be more important than having a talent, and I personally think she is correct. In my comment to Olivia blog post, I told her that hard work is more important than having a talent because although a person is talented at something, they still have to work hard in order to maintain that talent. I also told her that I was glad she was able to discover one of her many talents and that she did an awesome job on selling a $1000 worth of popcorn in two weeks.

Project #7 Four Movies (Part A)

My Sentence

My Passion

Project #3 Google Presentation

Project Based Learning

Blog Assignment #5

Personal Learning Network

A personal learning network is a powerful professional development tool that allows teachers and administrators to connect with other teachers and administrators across the country. A personal learning network allows educators to seek advice, trade best practices, or simply network with other professionals. These connections are typically formed through social media outlets including Google, Twitter, Facebook, and etc. A good way to create a PLN is to keep up with personal social contacts such as family, friends, and former students. Also stay connected with educators around the world who share best practice and resource information. You can also share bookmarks with others, see what others are bookmarking and join groups to get updates on new bookmarks.

In creating my personal learning network, I decided to use Symbaloo as my guide to getting started. While creating my PLN, I discovered so much helpful information that I can use now and in my future career. On the first row of my PLN, I decided to incorporate social sites that I thought would be the most beneficial and helpful to me towards my career. I added twitter, Google, Blogger, Yahoo, and Facbook. I also added other helpful tools such as, different pharmacies, the weather channel, Skype, and Youtube. As a professional educator, it is highly important that we do not assume we know it all. Know one is perfect and know one knows the correct answer to to everything.

Blog Assignment #4

What questions do we ask? How do we ask?

The reason teachers ask questions is to improve learning. A lot of times teachers ask really good solid questions, but the questions they ask do not allow their students to use critical thinking skills. As a professional educator, it is highly important that teachers ask questions all the time. To increase student's participation in the classroom, teachers must be aware of what questions to ask and how to ask them. The type of questions a teacher ask should provoke higher levels of thinking as well as brain storming to enhance the development of students thinking skills. Good Questions make students think, they encourage participation, and also improve the caliber of the answers students give and the questions they ask.

As mention on the Asking Questions to Improve Learning website, when preparing for class, a teacher should compose specific questions that they will ask their students (or questions they anticipate their students will ask them). Doing so will help increase students participation and encourage active learning. A few helpful tips teachers should remember before asking questions is to always avoid asking leading questions. A leading question is phrased in such a way that it suggests its own answer and therefore discourages students from thinking on their own. Follow a "YES or NO" question with an additional question. For example, follow up by asking students to provide evidence or an example, or have them explain why they answered the way they did. Aim for direct, clear, and specific questions. Also try using more open-ended questions versus close-ended questions. An open-ended question leaves the form of the answer up to the person who is responding and therefore requires more thinking. A close-ended question structure the response for the students, and it can be answer by one word, such as "YES or NO", which does not allow the student to form ideas at all.

Project #4

C4T #1 Summary #1

In my C4T #1 post #1, I was assigned to read Will Deyamport, III most recent blog post. Will Deyamport is a district instructional technologist, connected educator, and digital media learning consultant. I found his blog post to be very interesting because it was such a motivational post. In his blog post, he was talking about his Doctoral defense that he had to present to his committee. He started out talking about preparing for his defense and how nervous he was about failing or not being successful during his presentation. Although he did an excellent job in defending his dissertation, I personal think it is normal for a person to feel nervous or scared about something that their life depends on. My favorite part of his post was after he got accepted into the committee, he stated, "I was relieved, excited, overjoyed, and ready to ball out like I had just won an NBA championship." On my comment to his blog, I congratulated him on his success and told him that his post was very motivational and inspiring. I also mention that I was a student working on my Bachelors in Physical Education, and I would love to make it as far as he did.

C4T #1 Summary #2

In my C4T #1 post #2, I was also required to read Will Deyamport, III most recent blog post. In his most recent post, he was talking about three growing fields in healthcare. He mentions that after the economy continues to recover from the recession, several new job opportunities will play a critical role in the recovery. Health care and social assistance are expected to contribute significantly to new job creations between 2012 and 2022. The three fields of healthcare jobs that are expected to grow are Home Health and Personal Care, Physical and Occupational Therapy, and Medical and Health Management. He then begins to go in full detail and give a description of each job. On my comment to his blog, I thanked him once again for the amazing blog post. I also explained to him about how competitive any job in the healthcare and medical field can be and that it was great to know that there will be a lot more opportunities for those type of jobs.

For more blogs by Will Deyamport, III, visit his page at www.iamdrwill.com

Project #15

Search Engines

For Project 15, I had the opportunity to learn tons of information about different search engines and what they were most useful for. The first search engine I researched was Wolfram Alpha. Wolfram Alpha is a computational knowledge engine or answer engine. Wolfram Alpha is an online service that answers factual queries directly by computing the answer from externally sourced "curated data", rather than providing a list of documents or web pages that might contain the answer as a search engine might. Wolfram Alpha would be most useful for help with calculations, such as math practice. The second search engine is yahoo. Yahoo is one of the Internet's leading search engines. It is also the largest Web portal, providing links to thousands of other websites. These links include sites from the Yahoo directory as well as news stories that are updated several times a day. In my personal opinion, I think Yahoo would be most useful for searching for the latest news. Besides being a portal and search engine, Yahoo offers several other services as well.

The third search engine I researched was business.com. Business.com was started in 1999 as a search engine for business and corporations. So, as you can imagine, business.com would be most useful for searching for different businesses and corporations around the world. The fourth search engine I researched was Ask.com. Ask.com is a search engine that let you search by asking questions and responds with what seems to be the right answer to everything. Ask.com would be most useful for anyone that may have a question that they are unsure about. The next search engine I researched was AOL search. AOL Search provides users with editorial listings that have Google's crawler-based index. I find AOL search to be very interesting because the internal version of AOL Search provides links to content only available within the AOL online service. In this way, you can search AOL and the entire web at the same time. For the sixth search engine, I researched Hotbot. HotBot provides easy access to the web's three major crawler-based search engines: Yahoo, Google and Teoma. Unlike a Meta search engine, it cannot blend the results from all of these crawlers together. Nevertheless, it's a fast, easy way to get different web search opinions in one place. Hotbot would be most useful for someone would want to get different web search opinion all at once.

For my seventh search engine, I researched Live search. Live Search (formerly Windows Live Search) is the name of Microsoft's web search engine, successor to MSN Search, designed to compete with the industry leaders Google and Yahoo. The search engine offers some innovative features, such as the ability to view additional search results on the same web page (instead of needing to click through to subsequent search result pages) and the ability to adjust the amount of information displayed for each search-result. Live search is most useful because it allows the user to save searches and see them updated automatically on Live.com. The final search engine I researched is Alltheweb.com. Powered by Yahoo, you may find AllTheWeb a lighter, more customizable and pleasant "pure search" experience than you get at Yahoo itself. The focus is on web search, but at the same time news, picture, video, MP3 and FTP search is also offered.

For more information on where I researched my information on the different search engines, visit Search Engine Land and Top 10 Search Engines

Blog Assignment #3

A peer is someone your own age. Editing means making suggestions, comments, compliments, and changes to writing. All together peer editing means working with someone your own age to help improve, revise, and edit his or her writing. Peer editing does not come easy to all students, but like anything a person put their mind to, practice makes perfect. I personal think peer editing is an extremely important skill to master and great practice for all students majoring in education because as a teacher, you will have to edit and critique your student's papers.

In the two videos and slide show I watched about peer editing, they stated some very important factors about the proper technique for peer editing someone's paper. The number one rule of peer editing is to ALWAYS stay positive and remember you are helping to improve someone writing, not insult him or her for making errors. There are three important steps to remember when you are peer editing another students writing. The first step is to always start your peer editing with compliments, tell the writer what he or she did well on. Step number two is to make suggestions, give the author some specific ideas about how to make their writing better, remember, be specific and stay positive. The finally step is to make corrections, check your peer's paper for spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, missing punctuation, and incomplete or run-on sentences.

Working with your classmates to help improve their writing can be fun. But first, you have to learn what it means to "Peer edit" and how to do it correctly. Important things to remember about peer editing is to stay positive and try to make suggestion and corrections in a positive manner. Also, be specific and give the author specific ideas on how to improve his or her writing. And last but not lease be sure to incorporate the three important steps in peer editing such as; compliment, make suggestions and make corrections.