C4T #4 Summary

C4T#4 Post#1

I chose Mr. Fix's Blog for my C4T#4 Post #1. He shared a video on how to introduce your students to heat energy. He had two different blocks made out of different things and seen which block melted an ice cube faster. One block allowed the heat to come through enough to rapidly melt the ice, and the other block kept it from melting. Here is my comment:HI,My name is Felicia Grantham. I am a student at the University of South Alabama studying Elementary Education. I really liked your video/blog post about heat energy. I enjoy science and hope to be a really fun, interactive teacher in that subject. If I ever have to teach about heat energy, I will try your method to introduce it to my students. Thanks for the information.

C4T#4 Post#2

I chose Ms. Sandi's Blog, Rubber Boots and Elf shoes. In her blog post, Ms. Sandi showed a picture of a sensory tray decorated like Van Gogh's Starry Night. It is a very beautiful, simple project for a class to participate in while studying Van Gogh, or just studying art. Here is my comment:Hi, My name is Felicia. I am a student at The University of South Alabama studying to be an elementary education teacher. The Starry Night sensory tray is beautiful. I enjoyed learning about Van Gogh in my art classes and this is something I will definitely try out in my future classroom. Thanks! I really like a lot of your creative ideas.

Blog Post #5 Part 2

My Personal Learning Network, or PLN, has grown dramatically in just this semester. I have learned so much about how to utilize different tools and websites to be useful in the classroom. I now know that I have access to endless amounts of information from teachers, other students, and students in Elementary schools as well. I have to say that my eight year old nephew, Trey, has helped me out a lot with insight from his class. I would include him as a part of my PLN, along with other children that I am close to in that age range. Building a PLN is very important to an aspiring teacher, as well as young students. This helps to prepare children for real-life problems they will face in their career as an adult. Learning to work with others is essential for everyone to be able to do. I hope to keep building my PLN in hopes to one day help my students become better learners. This website has a lot of great information on Personal Learning Networks and how to get started. Online Learning Insights

C4K Summary for November

C4K#8-Scott..... Scott wrote about his feelings on technology. He explained how he did not like spell check and he likes chrome books because he gets to listen to music. Here is my comment:Hey Scott, My name is Felicia Grantham. I live in Mobile, Alabama in The United States of America. I am in college studying to be a teacher one day. I like how you told your feelings on technology. When you get a little older, I promise you will like spell check. I use it when I need to spell big, long, complicated words. It is a pretty handy tool. Keep up the good work, I look forward to reading more of your posts. I Hope you have an awesome day.

C4K#9-Cameron..... Cameron’s blog post was about product design. He talked about designing a pair of glasses with changeable lenses. Grey lenses for day-time when it is bright, and red or orange for night-time when it is dark. Here is my comment:Hey Cameron, My name is Felicia Grantham. I live in Mobile, Alabama and I am a college student at the University of South Alabama. I am studying to be an Elementary School Teacher. I love your creativity and I love the product that you designed. I have to wear glasses every day, so I would enjoy a pair of these. It would be neat if you could make some different colored prescription lenses as well. Keep up the good work!

C4K#11-Connor..... Connor wrote about his progress in the first quarter of school. He learned new things in social studies like our Constitution and The Bill of Rights. He also had a good use of vocabulary in his post. Here is my comment:Hey Connor, My name is Felicia Grantham. I am a student at The University of Alabama studying to be a teacher. I love your use of vocabulary, it is always superb to use better words when you are writing. I am very happy to see that you are learning about new things in school. Keep up the good work!

Blog Post 14

In the article Teaching can be a profession, written by Joel Kline, he talks about how self-discipline and high standards can secure the future of public schools. Here are a few problems he wrote about...He thinks that teaching should be professionalized. For this kind of change to happen, a few things would be required to change. First, better academic training for prospective teachers. Next, a new approach to recruting teachers. Right now, anyone with a college degree can become a teacher. Finally, changing how teachers are rewarded would help bring about this change. Another thing he talked about that needed to change is the seniority distraction in our schools. It is very clear that schools operate on job security and seniority. This makes it close to impossible to get rid of a teacher that is not doing what they are supposed to be doing. A lot of this can be cut out by giving teachers tests similar to what lawyers and doctors have to take.

I believe that a teachers job is very important to society. Teachers are there to educate our youth and prepare future generations for the real world we face everyday. I think that it would be a great idea for teachers to undergo more intense training and learning to graduate. Our schools would have more great teachers if the way they were chosen for a job was changed. Klein believes that we should do what other successful countries do and recruit our teachers from the top third of the graduates. Seniority is not a good way to determine the job security of a teacher. It is not fair that teachers get paid the same amount for such different performances. If teachers were rewarded in ways that motivated them to be better, our students would have a lot better of a chance getting a teacher that is passionate about what they are doing. Making these changes would benefit our teachers, and our students as well.

Blog Post 13

Instructions for Blog Post #13

This week, write a blog post about the pros and cons of technology in the classroom. Explain your thoughts on both sides of the argument. Here are some resources to get you started! Feel free to add your own research.

Edudemic.com

Concordia Online Education

Pros and Cons of Technology In The Classroom I have come to realize that there are many arguments about technology in the classroom. I believe that technology does help children advance further in their education, but I also think that it could be bad for some as well. Technology helps children with research, collaboration, and other skills they need to succeed in life. Technology has changed the way that teachers teach and also the way that students learn. It helps teachers engage their students more, and makes the students more interested because they are "playing with technology". There are so many different devices that are good to use in school like ipads, tablets, Macbooks, and even smart phones. There are also millions of different apps and websites that students can use to help them with anything they need help with, the opportunities that technology gives to students are endless.

Blogging has become a big part of the elementary education world. Students of all ages are writing blogs about stories they have read, projects they create, and personal stories they may want to share. People from all over the world comment on these blogs that students create. It is exciting for a student to see someone from another school, another state, or even another country leave comments about their work. Blogging motivates students because they know they are no longer just writing for their teacher or for a grade, they're writing for people all over the world; and that can be very inspiring to students and teachers as well.

However, after studying and being in the elementary education field, I have heard a lot of teachers' opinions on technology being used in the classroom. Although, the teachers I have talked to that have a different opinion on technology are those that teach grades K-2. I observed a 1st grade class recently, and after looking around for a while I realized that the only technology in any of the classrooms in that school was a smartboard, and one laptop computer (no Apple products). So I asked her how often she used technology while teaching and what she had to say after that was very interesting and made me think of things I had not thought of before.

She believes that the instant response that students receive when using their technological devices are not teaching them how to be patient. This makes the students expect everything to come to them in an instant, and when something does not work out that way outside of technology, they are not very happy campers. It is important that you not only teach children the curriculum, but also teach them real-life skills that they will need to succeed in life. Also, students this young (1st grade) have a hard time sharing or waiting their turn when having to do something with a group of children, so with that, only brings more complications and wasted time for the teachers.

Personally, I see both sides of the argument having valid points. I can see how technology helps children tremendously with their education and real life skills. Also, I can see how it could be more of a distraction than a better way to learn when it comes to younger grades like K-2.

Project #12-B Delivering A Lesson Via The Smartboard

C4T #3 Summary

C4T#3 Post#1

I was assigned Ms. Vierstra's blog for C4T#3 Post #1. Her blog post was about different educational activities to do during Halloween. I enjoyed all of her suggestions. One of the suggestions were to compare and contrast different versions of the same Halloween story. This activity helps with reading and writing skills. Ms. Vierstra explained how she had her students make costumes based off of characters out of a book they were reading. One of her quiet students excelled at this activity because she wants to design clothes one day. All of the students enjoyed her presentation. Here is my comment: Hey Ms. Vierstra, My name is Felicia Grantham. I'm a student at the University of South Alabama studying to be an elementary school teacher. I really enjoyed reading your post. Halloween is my favorite holiday. I'm very into decorating and doing crafts with children, so I can't wait to have a class to teach during Halloween. Thank you for all of the different sources you mentioned in your post. Those will be very handy to me in college, as well as after I graduate. I'm looking forward to reading more posts.

C4T#3 Comment#2

I was assigned Ms. Wessling's blog for C4T#3 Post#2. Ms. Wessling wrote about "Skinnying" the standards. She sorted out lots of common core standards into six buckets that she keeps in her classroom, each bucket has a different category. The students in her class really seem to enjoy this technique she has, and a few of them even said that they did believe it helps them. She includes a very inspiring video in her blog post that explains it all. Here is my comment: Ms. Wessling, Hey! My name is Felicia. I'm a student at The University of South Alabama studying Elementary Education. I really enjoyed your blog post and video. I am very inspired by your idea. I love how you took control of these common core standards to better your students' education. Teachers like you are who inspires me to be the best teacher I can be. Thank you so much for sharing.

Blog Post 12

Blog Post 11

What can we learn about teaching and learning from these teachers?

In Brian Crosby's, Back to the Future, he showed us a few different ways he has used Project Based Learning in his classroom. He has great ways of making his students passionate about what they're learning. Students having passion and interests in what they're learning, goes a long way with how they will retain the information. Mr. Crosby had lots of different fun ideas for the students in his class. I really liked how different students from all over the world was wanting to do the fun projects in their classrooms that he done with his students. Mr. Crosby even Skyped with another teacher from New Zealand to show her how to do one of the projects. My favorite part of the video was when he showed how he incorporated Celeste into his class. Celeste is a little girl that has cancer and a weak immune system, so she can't physically go to class. Mr. Crosby Skypes her into the class so that she can participate with him and her classmates; the classmates are very accepting of Celeste, which shows how well of a job Mr. Crosby is doing with his students.

Mr. Paul Andersen came up with a great way to help his students learn. He explained his process in a video called The Blended Learning Cycle. He took two learning techniques (Blended Learning and The Learning Cycle) and blended them together to become the Blended Learning Cycle. He uses the word "quivers" to define the six steps he uses. Question...Investigation...Video...Elaboration...Review...Summary Quiz. He says in his video that he teaches his students how to go through a text book to find what they're looking for and actually know what they're reading. I think having this skill will be very helpful to students when they reach college age. I took too much time in my first couple of semesters trying to learn how to find information I was looking for and trying to learn how to use a textbook. That even goes hand in hand with finding things on the internet. They're both great resources for finding information and I think it is critical for students to learn how to do this at an early age.

Making Thinking Visible is a book written by Mark Church. In the Ad, it shows how he asks his students a driving question before getting deep into the lesson. After a couple of weeks, he asked the same question to see if any of their views have changed. He is making them aware of how they are learning, and ultimately making thinking visible to his students.

Here are a few more videos that do a very good job demonstrating how Projects Based Learning works.

Building Comics

Project Based Learning

Roosevelt Elementary's PBL Program

Project Based Learning allows children to explore more into what they are being taught. This ususally makes students more interested, which triggers better understanding about what they are learning. With Project Based Learning you can have a whole community come together to help students learn. Project Based Learning gives students real world problem solving skills to be able to think for themselves as they enter their adult life.