Blog Post 10

"An Open Letter to Educators" -Morgan Bayda 

Morgan Bayda is a teacher in Saskatchewan, Canada with a degree in Elementary Education. Morgan posted a video to her blog by Dan Brown. This video explains how Dan made the decision to drop out of school because school was "interfering with his education." Yes, I said that correctly. Through this video and blog post, both Dan and Morgan make very true points that I can completely agree with or relate to.

Dan makes the point that a strong education is essential to be successful in today's society. I agree. Simply memorizing facts of information is no longer good enough. Like Dan says, many years ago...people went to universities to learn information because information was valuable. Now days, the value of information is diminishing. We are in the midst of a technology revolution and it is taking full force. Since the creation of the internet, information is FREE and available with a few key strokes. I think this is wonderful, but I also think that means skills are what is needed now days...not the ability to regurgitate facts. We can get on our phones and look up a fact within a matter of seconds if needed.

Morgan and Dan both make the point that they feel "cheated" out of an education at universities. I know many times I have felt cheated. I absolutely hate sitting through two or three hour lectures nearly every day of the week, especially with professors who do not have a clue who I am. I actually had one class in nursing school that was a straight powerpoint lecture from 8:00am-3:30pm twice a week. Can you imagine how sleepy and bored we were? Facebook was my best friend during that class. Also, do you realize how scary that is for a room of nearly 120 nursing students to be struggling to stay awake, taking hour long "bathroom breaks", or sitting of Facebook that will someday being taking care of us? After those lectures, we would then go home and spend the rest of our night studying the book to memorize facts in order to pass a test. After the test, the majority of those "facts" went out the window. I still believe a more hands-on method would have been more beneficial to all. Our school systems are definitely in need of reform. Learning facts is not preparing students for the real world, or preparing them to be successful. Teachers think because they have began using a SMART board rather than PowerPoint that they have embraced this change, when truth be known...to reform our schools, it is going to take a little more than adopting a few tools such as SMART boards and e-mail. Students should be collaborating, creating, and learning skills that teaches them how to become life-long learners.

I can also relate with Dan to how he would spend hundreds of dollars on textbooks that he never opened. I have yet to have a semester where that didn't happen. It is so much easier and quicker to type what you are looking for into a search engine and have an unlimited amount of resources pop up. Also, since enrolling into EDM310, I have found Twitter is an amazing site to find resources.

I guess the one positive point I can agree with is the fact that my Education Computer class has truly embraced the changes in time. EDM310 is not a lecture based course, although Dr. Strange and his staff is available nearly any time of day for assistance. We work with a countless number of tools. We collaborate with classmates, educators, and students from all over the world. We create projects, which in my opinion is better than sitting through any lecture. It also allows us to teach ourselves, which is a skill I feel anyone has to know to be successful. I have also learned more about myself as far as my organization skills and time management. I believe I will take more away from this class than any previous class.

“Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Project #12-Recorded Skype Interview

Blog Post 9

"What I've Learned This Year" -Mr. McClung

In May of 2009, Mr. McClung completed his first year as an elementary school teacher. As a first year teacher, Mr. McClung says he was young and inexperienced (as most of us will be) so he decided to reflect on that year and share what all he had learned. His thoughts are:
1. Learn how to read the crowd. Mr. McClung experienced what I think most first year teachers would experience, and that is feeling nervous about his superiors observing him. He claims he would lose touch with his students while delivering his lessons because he was not focusing on his students' comprehension, he was focused on himself. "In order to be effective, you have to be able to let your audience drive your instruction." I completely agree with this. Lesson should be student-centered, and their comprehension is key.
2. Be flexible. Mr. Mclung states, "No lesson is ever perfect. The lesson you teach and the lesson you plan are always different." This makes me feel 98% better about my first year of teaching because I am a perfectionist. I think I would definitely be the one to beat myself up over a lesson not going as planned, especially if that day happens to be one I am being observed. I think I will be nervous regardless of the preparation I have before entering the classroom, but this has made me feel better.
3. Communicate. Communication is they key to anything in my opinion: a relationship with co-workers, a personal relationship, a student-teacher relationship, a parent-teacher relationship..etc. Talking out issues is definitely best, rather than letting tension build. I also agree with Mr. McClung that communication skills are one of the hardest skills to develop. I feel that is because sometimes you have trouble reading people and also cautious as how you appear to them. Communication skills develop as you learn more about someone. I believe it is something you just have to do regardless of the awkwardness at first, and let the relationship grow.
4. Be reasonable. Mr McClung says to not set expectations and goals too high for students because it only allows for disappointment for the students along with disappointment to yourself. I definitely don't think a child should be "scolded" for failing or not achieving their max potential. You should encourage them to try again. With that being said, what is their max potential? I don't believe you can learn that without setting the bar high and continuously setting it high. If a student thinks they are doing the best work, they won't try harder. If a student thinks they are a failure, they will also never reach those goals. It is best to keep encouraging all students and all set high expectations. (Let me get off my little soapbox...)
5. Don't be afraid of technology. I think some adults in today's society think computers are taking over the world and going to run us one day. I like to point out that technology is man-made tools that are to assist us, whether is be for speed, for cooking, for documents, for communication...whatever. Technology is essential for living in our society and it is important that not only we use it, but we also teach our students how to use it so that they, too, may become productive citizens.
6. Listen to your students. "You may be the only person that does." That is so true. It is important to build a student-teacher relationship and know the students in your classroom. Let them know you care about their well-being, their feelings, their schoolwork, their future...everything. They should feel comfortable.
7. Never stop learning. It is important for an educator to continue learning throughout their career. How are you supposed to teach a student to become a life-long learner if you are not willing to do the same. Set an example for your students.

I am very happy this was assigned to our class. It makes me feel better about my years to come. I love having insight from those with more experience than myself! At The Teacher's Desk is definitely being added to my PLN!

You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.  -Clay P. Bedford

C4K

C4K #4

So, I once again got to work with a student from Pt. England School in Auckland, New Zealand. This student's name is Sione, and he is a year 8 student at Pt. England. Sione is in Mr. Mike Harris's Room 19. 

The post I commented on was titled, "My Usual Mornings." This post basically tells about a typical morning for Sione. He says, "As I woke-up with my head dangling on the side of my bed, I heard my Mum ''Roaring'' across the hall-way ''Sione GET UP YOU HAVE SCHOOL TODAY'' as I draged myself out of bed to go wash my face and brush my teeth, looking outside to check the weather, I said to myself ''It's going to be a really hot day today'' as I entered my bathroom half a sleep I dipped my face in freezing water then I was wide-awake. Later after that I walked into the kitchen smelling pancakes almost thinking I was in a pancake shop I dashed to the plate cupboard and then zoomed to the oven for some pancakes I chomped and munched on each pancake it was like heaven on earth soon after that I packed my lunch."

Yes, I realize that post is nearly an entire run-on sentence; however, I liked the story. I left Sione a comment stating that I really like this post because of the verbs he chose to use. "Zoomed" and "dashed" were great choices. I like "chomped" too! He also used a great simile, "each pancake was like heaven on earth." I can just picture how amazing they were!

C4K #5

The next student also attends, Pt. England School in Auckland, New Zealand. This blog is combined of 3 classes of 5 year olds, which is year 1 students. Impressive, right? The teachers at Pt. England are on their game! The student I interacted with is named Somoa, and her post was titled, "Splash!" Somoa dictated to her teacher that she likes swimming in the pool.


I commented on the post by telling Somoa I like swimming in the pool, too! I also told her how much I liked her picture she had drawn.

C4K #6

The next class I worked with is located in Tauranga, New Zealand. (Another class from New Zealand? Yes, indeed!) Rochelle Jenson's class contains years 5 and 6 students.  The first post I made a contribution to is titled, "Exploring Innovation." In this post, they had box where anyone can submit keywords related to innovation. I submitted, "improving."

The second post was titled, "Christchurch Earthquake." The students listed some faces about the earthquake. "The earthquake struck on Tuesday 22nd February. It was magnitude 6.3 and struck at a depth of 5km, 10km south-east of Christchurch CBD. It was shallower and closer to Christchurch than the 7.1 magnitude quake on September 4. The quake has caused devastation. Emergency services are reporting multiple fatalities, serious injuries and extensive structural damage to buildings."


I left a comment saying I had no idea this earthquake had even occurred. I have never personally experienced an earthquake and don't want to. I cannot imagine the devastation they cause. I plan to keep the victims of this earthquake in my prayers along with the victims of the Japan earthquake and tsunami. 

Blog Post 8

"This is How We Dreams" Parts 1 & 2 -Richard Miller

During this presentation, Richard E. Miller uses multimedia to show, "what can be done to change from a reading/writing culture to a listening/watching culture and still have our students contribute to the products being listened to and watched."

I love books, so I can definnitely relate to Dr. Miller and I think they are wonderful tools for teaching. I do not entirely agree with his thoughts on becoming what seems to be a paperless world. It seems like a good idea in theory. For example, he says that even when you take something from the web, it's still there for others to access, unlike when you check out a book from the library. That is an excellent point! What I don't agree with is, we shouldn't steer completely away from real books and writing on paper. There are skills kids learn from doing those things. When writing a paper, there is no spell or grammer checks. Kids also improve their handwriting by writing on paper. I know I have become entirely too dependent on things such as spell and grammer checks, and hitting they "synonym" button. I believe it is an injustice to students to have them do all of their writing on computers.

Overall, I like the concept. Being able to access all kinds of information is completely awesome. I do believe; however, that we just need to be careful to not let it take over. Books, in my opinion, are important. Many may not agree with me, but I don't think we should steer away from making kids learn skills like writing properly.


"The Chipper Series" and "EDM310 for Dummies"
Both of these videos were very informative. I think "The Chipper Series" captivates the minds of many college students. I rarely procrastinate and always like to stay ahead; however, I do like to work on my own time frame. I do think some students believe the "present is the future" and like to procrastinate or let the time get away from them. I have to disagree with Chipper that Dr. Strange is not doing his job because I believe we do get taught in this class, possibly more so than others. I don't think it's completely the teacher's responsibility to do ALL of the teaching; I believe they should be there for guidance. Teaching yourself forces you to learn (if you want to learn). To me...sitting on Facebook while tuning out a lecture is not exactly a quality education and you definitely aren't taking anything away from it besides knowing Jane Doe just ate lunch, your mom misses you, and Billy just went to the restroom. (I love Facebook, just think it should be used outside of class.) Sometimes we students think we know best, and a lot of students want an easy way out and don't want to learn. EDM310 takes commitment and responsibilty to get the weekly assignments complete and submitted on time! If you have questions, it is also your responsibilty to get those answered. It is a fun class if you like to learn and are good at teaching yourself, but there is no "easy" way out.

"EDM310 for Dummies" was a very cute video. I also love the way it was set up as a commercial. I guess when you put it into perspective, it's a lot easier than we think. To begin with, I thought I was in over my head and was confused beyond belief. Now, it is a fun and very interesting class. I am constantly learning new things and expanding my PLN. All students should see this video at the beginning of the semester and hopefully know, there is no reason to "go crazy."

I think someone should make a "Google Docs for Dummies." I know there are tutorials everywhere for it, but I think it could be better explained and learned from students who have encountered the same problems. Google Docs essentially isn't hard to use, the different buttons and tools just are not exactly the same as Word. It is also complicated to figure out how to get the summaries from the forms posted to our blogs. The video that was referenced in the blog instructions no longer works.


"Learning to Change, Changing to Learn"
This video "fundamentally attacks much of 'schooling' as we know it today." I agree with this video that kids have a more stimulating environment outside of school than inside the classrooms. Schools are just one of the many places students learn. A lot of their learning comes from online resources, people in the community...etc. Sadly, most of the tools students use to communicate and collaborate and learn from are banned from schools. I believe the classrooms should change from classroom systems to community systems, where students come to school to work on joint projects while using social collaboration and their resources from the community and possibly world-wide. Technology is needed to better prepare our students for college and life. Our world is a technological world and our students do not need facts crammed down their throats to "burp" up on test. They need skills to: find information, validate that information, synthesize the information, communicate the information, collaborate with others, and develop the skills to solve problems. I totally agree it is "foolish" to teach toward Standardized Tests that essentially will not benefit the students' lives.


"The Secret Powers of Time" -Philip Zamardo
In this video, Philip states there are 6 times zones people live in:

Past- 1. People who focus on the good times (past positive).

         2. People who focus on the bad times (past negative).

Present- 1. Hedonistic people who live for pleasure and avoid pain.

              2. Believers of "fate".

Future- 1. People who work rather than play, hoping for success.

            2. Believers that true life begins after their life here on Earth ends.

Mr. Zamardo demonstrated how time perspective characterizes nations. Here in the United States, cities who have a higher pace of life also contain more men with coronary problems. I believe this is possibly because they do not take the time out of their busy, daily schedules to exercise or eat proper meals. "Waiting is a waste of time." Mr. Zamardo also makes a very interesting illustration concerning boys in todays' society. In the United States, a child drops out of school every 9 seconds. Yes, every 9. This problem occurs more amongst males. Mr. Zamardo believes this is because males spend oodles of time playing video games and their brains become rewired. After this happens, they no longer fit into traditional classrooms that is sadly mostly analogue. Because of this rewiring, school is boring and does not keep their attention. This is another reason why schools should embrace the time revolution and start incorporating more technology into their classrooms. If classrooms are more engaging, I think students are more apt to come to class!


"Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us." -David Pink

This video is also very interesting. Mr. Pink states, "We are not as endlessly manipulabe and predictable as you would think!" He told about a study and has shocking results. He believed (as most all do) that, if you reward something you get more behaviour you want. If you punish something, you get less behaviour you want. They carried out studies all over the world where people were given incentives such as bonuses and more pay for better performance. The shocking results were, they found larger rewards led to poorer performance. For task such as, "If this...then that" outcomes were great. For task that took more cognitive ability such as using algorithms, performance suffered. Mr. Pink list 3 factors that lead to better performace:

1. Atonomy- I totally agree with this because people like to be self-directed.

2. Mastery- People also like to master skills and things they are interested in.

3. Purpose

I wouldn't have guessed that incentives like higher pay would result in poorer performance....interesting stuff!

"Education is what remains after one has

 forgotten what one has learned in school." 

-Albert Einstein

Project #13-Our Solar System

This is a presentation using the SMART Board about "Our Solar System." The video is a collaborative project by Jenna Baxter, Kelsey Robinson, Kristan Steele, and Woodie Holloway.

We used Google Forms to creat a test. After teaching our lesson, we sent the test to our "students". Three, of our four students scored 100%. The fourth student only missed one. Great job! The following is a summary of the test results:

I really enjoyed working with the SMART Board, especially for the class activity. If given the opportunity, I would love use a SMART Board in my future classroom. Through this project, I also learned how to make surveys, forms, and tests using Google Docs. I love how all responses are sent straight to a spreadsheet and very organized. Google Docs is the "bomb.com!"  

Project #11-Short Movie Reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle

C4T #2

Scott McLeod is the teacher I was assigned to this week. He is the author of the blog Dangerously Irrelevant. Scott is an Associate Professor in the Educational Administration Program at Iowa State University. He is also the director of (CASTLE). I chose two of Mr. McLeod's post to comment on.

1. Some big questions for educators (and parents and policymakers)- Scott made this post when he could not make it to Educon this year due to snow. So, he shared "some questions for attendees to ponder as they interact with each other" during their weekend. The post consisted of 18 questions. Here is the general gist of each. 

1. When are we going to start integrating technology into our schooling lives like we do in our personal lives and in our non-school professional lives?
2. Is your school organization serious about educational technology?
3. What percentage of your school technology budget goes toward teacher-centric technologies - rather than student-centric - technologies?
4.  What can you do to tap into the educational power of your students as online collaborators creators sharers and contributors?
5. How can you tap into the power of open access and open educational resources for your staff and students?
6. How are you (or should you be) tapping into the power of technology to facilitate differentiated individualized personalized learning experiences for your students?
7. Are you facilitating linear or exponential change in your school organization?
8. In all of our efforts to teach students safe appropriate and responsible technology use are we forgetting the more important job of teaching our students empowered use?
9. When we teach our students how to write are we teaching our students how to do so in hyperlinked networked interconnected online spaces for authentic relevant worldwide audiences?
10. When e-books or e-textbooks now can contain hyperlinks embedded video live chat with other readers collaborative annotation where you see others’ notes and highlights and/or interactive maps games and simulations does it still make sense to call them ‘books?’
11. When all of the books in your media center become electronic will you still need a physical space called a ‘library?’ Will you still need ‘librarians?’
12. Do we really understand what our kids are doing with social media or is what we know primarily from the news media?
13. Are we intentionally purposefully and explicitly modeling these new technology literacies for our students?
14. What percentage of my job could be done by robust learning software that not only delivers content in a variety of modalities to students but also assesses them on their mastery of that content? 
15. Am I doing what really needs to be done to prepare students for a hypercompetitive global information economy and for the demands of digital global citizenship? In other words am I preparing students for the next half century rather than the last half century?
16. If as a teacher I’m not incorporating digital technologies into students’ learning processes in ways that are relevant meaningful and powerful on a regular and frequent basis – should I get to keep my job? 
17. If as an administrator I’m not creating facilitating and maintaining robust technology-infused globally-interconnected learning environments for staff and students should I get to keep my job? 
18. f as a policymaker I’m not allocating fiscal and policy resources in directions that move schools and society forward in the appropriate directions am I willing to be held accountable for sacrificing our children’s futures for the fears and political pettiness of the present?

I commented on this post by first introducing myself and stating I am a student in Dr. Strange’s EDM310 class. I chose this post to comment on because I think these are questions everyone in and going into the education field should think about. In my comment, I addressed questions #10 and #11. I personally have several e-books and e-textbooks. Being a college students, I have found e-books are the way to go. I would normally spend about half of what I paid for tuition buying textbooks. With e-books, I spent less than $100 this semester. That’s unbeatable! The books can be updated quickly. I do not have to go through a pack of highlighters a week in order to highlight my text. Also, e-books are a lot better for our environment, and our school systems could save tons of money. 

If you would like to respond to any of these questions, read the post more in depth, or see others' responses to the questions...please visit Scott Mcleod's blog to do so. 

2. Big Move #2: Does a faculty member need to live near his university? is the 2nd post I chose to comment on. Just so you are not lost, there was a previous Big Move #1. Mr. Mcleod was asked to become a writer for Big Think, and his blog Dangerously Irrelevant is now hosted there. (Might I add, Big Think is an awesome site!) So...back to Big Move #2. Scott asks the question, "Does a faculty member need to live near his university?" As I mentioned above, Mr. Mcleod lives is Iowa, but he has accepted a job at the University of Kentucky (UK). He did not feel it was the right time to pick his family up and move to Kentucky, so he pitched a 'global worker' proposal to UK and they said yes. 

First, I congratulated Scott on his big news. I also stated how this shows us just how useful technology can be...we students can have wonderful teachers that are not physically there. UK is lucky to have someone so passionate. I told Mr. Mcleod I look forward to keeping up with his blog and seeing how this new chapter of his life turns out. I also had to throw a friendly "Roll Tide" in there as well.