Project #8 Book Trailer

Blog Post 6

What do you learn from these conversations with Anthony Capps?

After watching all of the conversations between Dr. Strange and Anthony Capps, I learned a lot about preparing to be a teacher that I had no idea about before. Project Based Learning is not something you can learn over night. It is a process you gain knowledge about throughout your entire teaching career. I learned how important it is to make sure your students are 100% engaged in what you are trying to teach them. When coming up with a project for your students you always need to factor in a few things, and always remember that it may not come out in the end how you have planned it. Make sure that important content is needed to be able to participate in the project. By doing so, it helps the students learn the key things they need to learn and have fun during the process. I have always thought that if you make a project seem like it is their idea, they will have more fun doing it and will retain the information longer. Create projects that will make your students go beyond what you are expecting from them. Make sure you get feedback from your students so you will stay up to date about what young people are into and incorporate some of those things into the projects you create. Let the students critique each other so they will all feel invested in each others' work, as well as sharing ideas to better their projects. Another thing I learned about is using art as a reward in a project. For example, if your students are doing a book report, have them paint a picture of their favorite scene only after they have written something about it and why it is their favorite. This gets them motivated to do their work because they have something exciting to look forward to. I learned a lot from watching these videos. It will not only help me as a student but will help me later in my career.

Discovery Education and Icurio are two websites that were brought to my attention after watching these videos. Icurio is a search engine that allows students to safely search the web for educational content. Meaning it is a safe reliable source that responsible people have filtered through to make it student friendly. The storage part of the site is a great tool to use to get young students used to virtual organization. It also plays a part in saving work quickly just in case of the need to vacate the classroom quickly. It has some really neat features to check out as well, like audio readings of everything you look up. That is very helpful for kids with disabilities. Discovery ed is a great tool for bringing text to life. Mr. Capps said in one of the videos that "If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video must be worth a million." I really like that statement because it is very true. Children, and some adults as well, retain information better with visual stimulation rather than just plain text. Discovery Education also helps bring experts into the classrooms through educational videos that students can watch while they're learning about a certain topic. I learned a lot of useful information that I really enjoyed by watching Dr. Strange and Anthony Capps' conversations. The things that I learned and will continue to learn are very important to me as a student and will stay with me for several years to come.

C4K Summary for September

C4K#1

I was assigned to leave a comment for Isaaka from Mrs. Lagitupu's class for my 1st C4K. Isaaka wrote about his part in a movie for an upcoming Film Festival. Him and his friends are going to dress up like Biggie Smalls and 2-Pac and they're going to perform a song too. He said they had to act angry, like they were famous. Here is the comment I left for Isaaka: Hi Isaaka! My name is Felicia Grantham. I live in The United States of America, in Mobile, Alabama. I am a junior in college. I absolutely loved reading your post about your part as Biggie Smalls. I was born in 1988, so I was around when he was very popular in the 1990s, 2-Pac as well. Good luck to you and your friends. I hope you all have a very fun time doing that activity. Keep up the good work! You're more than welcome to visit my blog. granthamfeliciaedm310.blogspot.com

C4K#2

I was assigned to leave a comment for Dominique from Madame Thomas' class for my 2nd C4K. Dominique had a very interesting and creative post. It was like a creative poem that made you have to think to be able to understand what was going on. I read the entire blog because that one post caught my attention. It is really hard to summarize, so see for yourself. Dominique's Blog Here is the comment I left for Dominique: Hey Dominique! I am Felicia, I live in Mobile, Alabama and I attend the University of South Alabama. I love the creativity of your blog post, and that is such a cool name for your pet anaconda. Suda-mista-poppernickle The 28th, (aka Jonathan) the anaconda that don’t!

C4K#3

I was assigned to leave a comment for Parker H. from Ms. Freitag's class for my 3rd C4K.Parker wrote about why he thinks school should start at a later time. He says that his school lets in at 8:10am, and he thinks it should let in at 9:10am so they can all have an extra hour of sleep. He also argues how sleep is very important to kids and teens. At the end, he adds that sometimes they have assignments that might take them until midnight to get done, therefore they don't get enough sleep. So if school let in an hour later they could sleep another hour and not be too tired to go to school. So cute and some very good points made!Here is the comment I left for Parker:Hey Parker! My name is Felicia. I live in Mobile, Alabama and I am a college student at the University of South Alabama. I totally agree with you about wanting school to start later in the day. When I was younger, I had the same wish and the same arguments about needing that extra hour of sleep. I’ll give you something to look forward to and tell you that whenever you go to college you can choose what time of the day you schedule your classes. I have one that starts at 2pm! Study hard and one day you will have your wish about school starting a little later. I really enjoyed your post, Parker! Keep up the good work.

Project #7 Part A

This is my sentence.

This is my passion.

Project #3 Presentation

Blog Post 5

I am learning a lot about what a PLN or Personal Learning Network is. My instructor, Dr. Strange said "Your personal learning network is the set of people and tools that you can call upon for help, consultation, collaboration or other assistance."

My personal learning network is just beginning. There are so many different ways to grow your PLN. Some of the most popular ways to do so is through Facebook, Twitter, Youtube videos, and blogs. I have always used Facebook and Youtube, but it was always for my own entertainment. I never thought that I had so much information about learning and teaching right at my finger tips. Using Twitter and creating my blog was new to me, and I was very uneasy about both. Now I know that all of these sights are a very good tool to have to create a good PLN. I can see myself using these tools in the future to better my education about teaching and collaborating with others. Having a PLN helps you reach out to other people for help and ideas on different things you are trying to accomplish. One day, as a teacher, you might want project ideas for science and you want to try something fun, new and interesting for the students. By looking on blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter and Youtube channels you can get ideas from different teachers around the world that are doing similar projects and collaborate with them during the process.

I am excited to experience new things about teaching and even more excited about growing my own PLN. Here are two website suggestions that are best for keeping track of your PLN.

Symbaloo

Netvibes

C4T #1 Comment Summary Post

C4T#1 Comment#1

I was assigned Ms. Edna Sackson's Blog, What Ed Said for my C4T#1

The first post I read was titled 10 Alternatives To Goal Setting This post was about how we should ask our students different questions about what they want and need to learn, other than just asking them to write down their goals. I learned that we should ask questions that will promote valuable reflection such as: How do you learn best? What are you fascinated by? What do you wish you could change? Here is the comment I left... Ms. Sackson, I really enjoyed reading your post. I am a junior at The University of South Alabama studying Elementary Education. This post has made me think a lot about my approach to teaching my future students. I am enthusiastically learning about new ways to teach, and I loved your suggestive questions to ask the students instead of having them write down specific goals. As a future educator, I hope to one day have the creativity and know-how to make my students better learners, and prepare them for this diverse world.

C4T#1 Comment#2

The second post I read was titled 10 Ways To Make Meetings (and Lessons) Meaningful This post was about how we need to always make sure we plan out our lessons and make sure they always have meaningful and valuable information that will make the children's mind expand and grow. Here is the comment I left... Hello Ms. Sackson, Thanks for another helpful blog post. I am starting to see the importance of having a great lesson plan and being ready for when learning takes us in a new direction. All of the questions that were asked are things that I need to know more about and I will more than likely be reading the book you mentioned. It’s great that teaching is leaning more towards problem solving and thinking about a situation, other than having a huge work load to deal with. It definitely was not like that when I was a child in school.

Project #15 Search Engines

WolframAlpha

What I really like about WolframAlpha is that it will help you solve math problems. I wish I would have known about this search engine sooner and I am so glad we were informed about it. I will definitely be learning a lot about it. I also like that it does not produce a long list of options for you to choose from after you have pressed 'search'.

Food.com ... Home of the Home Cook

If you like food and enjoy trying and cooking different things, this is the search engine to use for all of your food questions. This search engine is very helpful, especially for busy moms with families. It has 475,000 recipes available for you to try. No matter what you're craving, or if you're feeling adventurous to try something new, Food.com is the way to go!

YouTube

Youtube is one of my favorite search engines and can be used for almost anything! I have used it for guides to do math work, and for videos in History or science. I have helped my niece make her "Little Pet Shop" Videos, and helped her share them to Facebook and other cites for her friends to see. I search music videos on YouTube, it is also a great way to find older music that you may not find else where. Last but not least, I will admit that I use YouTube almost every night when I sleep. I search for 'rain sounds', put in my headphones and I am out like a baby.

Sportoos

Sportoos is a great search engine for sports. It keeps you from having to scroll through useless information to get to what you want to read about a certain team, player or sport. I have never used Sportoos until recently and I have shared this sight with some friends. I'm not much of a sports person, but I'm trying to learn about new things.

Yahoo

Yahoo is a search engine that will give you great ideas on different questions you need to know. If you search a question, it gives you comments from different people with different opinions about the topic. I have used it a lot in the past. Yahoo is much like Google when it comes to keywords and lots of random search results. Yahoo is great for news, videos and music as well.

Pinterest

I love Pinterest! Pinterest is a very useful search engine when it comes to Do It Yourself (DIY) projects, arts and crafts, style, and lots of other things. As a future educator, I could see my self using this a lot for ideas for my classroom and for different activities to do with students. This search engine can be used for educational purposes as well as entertainment and hobbies.

AskJeeves

AskJeeves can be useful when you're wanting to ask direct questions. Most search engines don't give you direct answers like AskJeeves will. However, just like lots of other sights on the internet, you must be careful and not believe everything you read because sometimes it may point you in the wrong direction due to misunderstanding. Anyone can post anything they want to.



iSeek Education

iSeek Education is a targeted search engine for students, teachers, administrators, and caregivers. This search engine has thousands of trusted resources from governments and universities. You get access to things like activities and lesson plans. This is a sight that will be very helpful for the rest of my college years, and after as well.

Blog Post 4

What Do We Need To Know About Asking Questions To Be An Effective Teacher?

Asking questions to students is a little more complex than what I expected it to be. I did not realize that there are so many different ways to approach questions to make students exercise their learning.

Preparing the questions that you're going to ask is important. If you're teaching a lesson and just coming up with the questions as you go, you may end up asking all sorts of different structured questions. That would result in them being unclear and confusing to the students. If you organize and prepare your questions ahead of time, they will be better understood by your students. It is better to take the time to do this before hand, so that you will have more time for teaching and helping the students with their questions and concerns.

When asking questions to students, you should always make sure you're helping them practice their skills, such as: Problem Solving, Critical Thinking, Sharing and Collaborating. When preparing your questions, structure them around having a limited number of correct answers to test the students' comprehension of the information.

Another thing we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher is to give the students the appropriate amount of response time. Five to ten seconds is a good amount of time to give the students to reflect on how they're going to answer the question presented to them.

This will increase the number of students willing to volunteer and give the answer. Also, be careful not to just answer the question for them after you have waited the appropriate response time, and no one has answered. By doing so, you would be letting them know that you will just give them the answer and they don't have to work to find it.

One more important factor is to never interrupt the students while they're giving an answer. Show you're interested by nodding your head, trying to maintain eye contact (even if they're not) and making positive facial expressions. Do not just stand there and look at your notes while a student is answering a question you have asked them. All in all there are many things to know about asking questions in the classroom. This post assignment has been very interesting to me and has opened my eyes to so many different things I had not yet explored.

Blog Post 3

Peer editing is a great way to improve your writing skills, as well as helping someone else improve theirs. Your peers are people that are the same age as you, and the people that are on a learning journey with you. After looking at What is Peer Editing? and Peer Edit With Perfection Tutorial, I was refreshed on how to properly edit my peers' work. I know that I need to always stay positive when giving criticism, and remember to give compliments to the post they have created. It is very awkward and sometimes intimidating to edit someone else's work. A person has to be confident enough to know where corrections are needed and not needed. It seems that it has to be equally awkward for the person receiving the criticism. I really enjoyed this information. It is something that every teacher and student should not only know, but practice as well.

The very funny, and my favorite video, Writing Peer Review Top Ten Mistakes demonstrates to us how NOT to act when giving or receiving constructive criticism. No one wants to deal with a "Pushy Paula" or a "Picky Patty". When it comes to editing someone else's work there is a right and wrong way to do it. I loved that the children gave the message in this video. I believe that the video was as interesting as it was because the children were the ones acting, and playing out scenes of different situations. I'm sure the video was also a very good way of teaching this lesson and making it stick with the children long term because they had so much fun participating in it. As a future educator, I really enjoyed all of these videos. They were very informal and entertaining, something I really needed to remind me of the proper way to edit.