ARRIVEDERCI EDM310!!!!!

Dear EDM310..you were the most time-consuming class that I have ever taken in my life. Thank You for everything that you have taught me but I am glad this class is over. And I survived!!! At times I thought that I would not...but you made me a stronger person, and for that I am thankful. :)

Here is my FINAL (woo-hoo) Post!!!!!

FINAL REPORT ON PLN

With my personal learning network, I have been able to organize everything that I need on one site. It has been extremely useful this semester. I have had so many webpages that I had wanted to keep track of and with my PLN, I have been able to bookmark everything I needed in one place and I have been able to access everything that I have needed for all of my classes. I plan on continuing to add as much as I can. It has been very useful to me now and I can only imagine the convenience it will bring me in the future as I jump into my career. I have learned so many useful tools this semester that I will carry with me. I hope that I can be successful in keeping up with the new trends in technology because I think that my students deserve to have an instructor who can open them up to anything that will make strive as a student.

FINAL PROJECT (PART 1)

ABC'S OF TECH LITERACY
Margeaux Estevane
Amanda Bosarge
Amberli Chastang
 

FINAL PROJECT (PART 2):

COMMENTS FOR KIDS #8-11

I just commented on my last student's blog for this class. I think this was a good experience for both myself and the student's of whom we commented on. When given this task, I had no idea that kids as young as first grade were posting blogs. It was fun to see the span of a first grader's blog up through a high school student's blog. This was a fun assignment, I enjoyed reading each one.

So, for C4K #8, I was assigned a first grader named Jackie. I commented on two of her blog posts. Both were drawings, one of her pumpkin costume for halloween and the other a picture of her eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and hands to illustrate the five senses. I told her she did a really great job on her drawings.

C4K#9 was a student named Melissa. She wrote a short post describing the people of the Eastern Woodlands. I told her she did a great job with her description of how the people of the Eastern Woodlands survived off of the resources of the land.

C4K #10 was a student named Melanie in Mrs. Melito's class. They had to make a wordle. Melanie made hers from a collection of algebra words. I told her about how we had to make a wordle and we had to do a paragraph about ourselves. She did a great job on hers.

C4K #11, we were asked to comment on a young girl named Yasmine's blog. She was a little upset that she wasn't getting any comments on any of her blog posts. So her teacher asked ours if we could all comment on her blog. She has done an amazing job on her blog and has posted a TON of stuff. The one that I had to comment on, she posted a video about a 3 year old girl riding her horse. The video was cute. Yasmine is apparently has a passion for horses. I told her that everytime I get around horses I break out into hives and that I wished I wouldn't because horses are beautiful animals and that I just love them. I told her she was a great writer and not to worry if she doesn't get too many comments because she is doing a great job on her blog, regardless.

COMMENTS FOR TEACHERS 4

I was assigned to report on Jenny Luca's blog, Lucacept intercepting the Web. Jenny is Head of Information Services at Toorak College in Mt.Eliza in Melbourne, Australia. I love her blog. She has a lot of really informative posts along with a lot of just for fun stuff.

The first blog I responded to was Google' s Book to Help Us Understand the Web. 20 things I've learned about Browsers and the Web. This is an online book which explain how the web works. My response to her post : I thought that it was a great online tool for anyone that has any questions about the Web. A lot of people just use the internet but do not really know a lot about what is behind it. This online book goes into great detail explaining what’s behind the different concepts like malware and cookies, and what exactly they mean. I think that it is safe to say that computers really are so much a part of our lives and predominantly will become more so over the years. Everyone should know as much as they can know about it, especially because for the average person, our personal information is out there.

In her second post..one of the "fun" ones..she posted several videos pertaining to Flash Mobs. Now I have never heard of Flash Mob before coming across them in her blog. Apparently a group of people just break out into a performance anywhere. In these cases they were at the food court in the mall and at an airport. Another one was a spoof of a flash mob from the TV show "Modern Family" Here are two from her blog that I thought were post worthy. It made me feel really good just watching them. I couldn't imagine how it would have been to actually be there. And the best part about it was how happy the people seemed to be in the midst of all of it. It seemed as if it were a really inspirational moment to be apart of. 

 

ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENT #5

Tom Johnson's Blog Pencil Integration is brilliant. This is an amazing middle school teacher who truly cares about his students and understands their learning processes. He takes the time to get to know his students and identify with them in a way where they have sort of a mutual respect for one another. He uses the idea of pencils to describe his teaching. Somehow he manages to make a metaphor for pencils in everyone of his blog posts. He uses one idea to explain several different ones. For this assignment we were asked to comment on four of his posts.
Just Teach Them to Solve for X  is a post in which Mr. Johnson asks the question, should we simply teach the facts or teach the process behind the learning. He states that memorizing doesn't help a student to understand. There is a quote that I really took to. "Confusion is a process which leads to clarity." In this post, he explains how a fellow teacher questions his teaching techniques on the variable "x". Why not just teach them the facts, she asks. Why not teach them the concept behind it?
Sketchy Portraits: 8th Grade Identity and Pencils    is about how a middle school aged child's life is constantly changing, their moods are constantly changing, and they are struggling to find who they are. They want the independence of being an adult, yet still yearn for the acceptance like a child. "In a fourteen year old's mind, everything is temporary and just about everything is changing." Just like a pencil. A pencil's marks can be changed, shaded, texturized, erased..same with that of a fourteen year old's life.
 He just like the Class for His Pencils Tom Johnson is often viewed as the "nice guy teacher." He is strict when he needs to be. He wants his students to enjoy learning but understand the importance of it and take it seriously. He takes the time to know his students and they respect him for it. This post is about a conference with a student, teachers, and parents, and Mr. Johnson was asked to sit in on it. The other teachers are criticizing him, shaming him, to the point where it brings the student to tears. "But he doesn't act out in my class", Mr. Johnson says.."it's because of the pencils" says the other teacher. "It's not because of the pencils" says the child, "it's because, well I don't know why, but its not the pencils" says the child.
The Medium Shapes the Learning
This blog post was a little harder to grasp the concept behind. So I am not entirely sure.  Here is a statement he makes in this post "Educators often believe that they have the power to wield each tool to fit their own purpose.  They assume that a lesson can remain virtually unchanged when a new medium is added." What I think he means by this is should we use every new technological device for learning? Just because something is fun, entertaining, flashy and new..can it be useful in a learning environment? And how?