Comments4Kids #8

GIRAFFE

My comments 4 kids assignment this week was of a giraffe drawn by a little boy names Henry. Henry said that the giraffe enjoyed eating carrots! This picture was so cute and I enjoyed getting to see it!

March 28th Blog Assignment

I thought this blog made some great points about pointless time in class and the way class should be. There are so many things I have learned with hands on experience in my computer class that if I wouldn't remember after just being told. I have sat through many lectures in my life and I cant even think of how many times I walked out of the class asking "ok what was that all about again?" I believe that with all of the technology we have today that we should take advantage of it. Why should we keep doing things the way that we have been doing it for years? if we are so much more advanced these days shouldn't our learning be more advanced too? I mean it just seems like such common sense. I mean most professors put their class lectures online with power point any way why would anyone want to go listen to a lecture on something they already have. I mean I understand lecture time for students who might need extra help or that might want to know more but if thats the case then why can't

My PLN so far....

So far on my PLN...

I am a user and active member of Facebook

Podcast I am subscribed to include:

Middle School Matters

SMARTboard Lessons

EDTeck Weekly

Blog I follow:

The Follis Files

Comments4Teachers Part 1 (Weeks 7,8,and 9)

WAITING AND TEACHING (WEEK 7)

This post was AMAZING! In this first post by Mrs. Follis she talks about how jobs in her past taught her things for her teaching career! She was a pizza girl and her job was to serve the customers that came in. She compares this to things she does now by stating the students are like the customers, even though they might need something they may stay quiet. She alerts teachers that we shouldn't just sit at our desk and wait for student that have questions but that we should know by looking at them. This post really hit home for me. As a student I was always so scared to raise my had and ask questions, I was scared my classmates would think I was stupid or that what I might say was the wrong answer. I would sit at my desk in complete confusion about my work and not do anything. Sadly I didn't have a teacher like Mrs. Follis. My teachers never noticed I was struggling because they weren't looking for it. They sat at their desk and expected me to come ask. The reason I loved this post so much is because it really opened my eyes to how important it is a a future teacher to pay attention to the children. I never really thought about this issue until I read this post. As teachers we are suppose to do everything we can to make sure every student has an equal learning opportunity and if that means walking around and asking every student that looks confused then thats what we should do. No more waiting at our desk for students to come to us, we should go to them!

COLLABORATION AND COOPERATIVE LEARNING (WEEK 8)

Another amazing post by Mrs. Follis. In this post we are reading about group work for students. I completely agree with everything Mrs. Follis is saying. When group work is assigned a think it is very important to allow the children to choose their groups. This is because as stated in her blog children will choose other kids with the same mentalities as themselves. This make the group work setting about as fair as possible. The danger of the teacher assigning groups is there will always be students who try hard and want their A and work for it and there will also be students who don't care as much or don't want to try. When these two very different students are paired together disaster strikes. Often there is one student who does all the work while the other student sits back and collects the benefit of a free A. However if the student choose their own groups the over achievers will pair with other over achievers and get everything done together and the students that don't care so much will be paired with other careless students but will have no choice but to do their work for fear of the other student not doing it. This is such a simple but true logic. Im sure anyone who has ever been a student knows the difference in choosing their own group and being assigned one. I know I have been there! I in some cases got lucky and was paired with over achievers that wanted everything done right and perfect so it was easy to work with, but I have also been in groups with the people who didn't care so I had to do EVERYTHING! Also after reading this post I came up with another idea. If a teacher insist on choosing groups for whatever reason why not make the projects in parts to make sure student workload is fair. Any project can be easily tweeked to where all students have a part and then the final result equals GROUP work. The example I used on the Follis Files was for a literature project. If students read part of a story and are told to predict or make up the end the assignment could include for each student to come up with a section then the group work would be to put everyone ideas in the final draft. I believe things like this could work wonders in group learning settings! I know that when I teach I will always allow students to choose their own groups and if I don't I will be sure to make all the projects fair work load to where every student must play a very important part and if they chose not to do so it would effect their personal grade only and not the student who might actual be hard workers!

NEW FAVORITE READING HANDOUT (WEEK 9)

This post explained a new strategy Mrs. Follis is trying with her students. I completely agree with the way she is coming up with new ways for her students to learn. If more teachers were like her and would use their brain rather than just going by the books we would be in a better place as far as the world of school goes. Mrs. Follis talks about how she is using group work to teach the different sections. say there are 5 parts to an assignment. why make every student do all five parts at once? it just makes more since to do this activity on parts. you get your groups and and assign each group a part. after every group has alternated and done every part you go over it as a whole and make sure everyone understands from not only personal experience but from what their fellow students discovered as well! I love this idea and will most certainly be using it in the future!

Comments4Kids #7

FIRST DAY

My comments4kids assignment this week was about the first day of school. I really enjoyed reading this post because as I was reading along it reminded me of when I was young and experiencing my first day. I remembered all of the emotions of not knowing who was in my class, and how it would go! I was a bundle of nerves! This post was so detailed and it made it a lot easier to identify with and to know exactly what was going on. I really enjoyed reading it!

March 12th Blog Assignment

ALEX

I believe this could be a VERY useful source to teachers. There were so many different topics covered such as Course of Study where you find a list of all possible subjects, incase you want to specialize in a certain one, in this section it also allows you you be very specific right down to the exact grade level of your choice!

There are also sections labeled lesson plans, professional learning, podcast, web links etc. That offer even more helpful information. You can search for already made lesson plans which is a HUGE deal to teachers and future teachers. You go to professional learning and learn about how to use different tools to enhance learning and you can even watch podcasts created by teachers and students from all over the place. There is even a section called personal workspace that is basically an online planner that will be a major help to people who are less organized and need that extra reminder and back up plan book.

Every thing offered here is very good helpful knowledge. Places like this can work wonders for teachers and we are so lucky to get to know about all these cool things. It just makes it easier for us. Teachers in the past have had to learn through trial and error and we just get to sit back and learn from their mistakes. I am so thankful to have such great incite!

ACCESS

This site also would be very helpful and useful for future teachers. There are tabs that include courses, where you can register and take test. There are the tabs educators and students where either educators can go and put all of their resources, and the student section offers questionnaires, tech support, and other teacher policies etc.

The section I found most interesting and thought could be the most helpful and useful part of the whole thing, was the resources tab. This tab offered so much. It had a place where students can go and get help and learn how to do the things they might not understand in class. I know exactly what it is like when you don't get the material in a class. It is horrible! Students panic when they don't understand. We start flipping pages, calling classmates, doing anything to try and understand before we are tested. This tab however offers an answer to all problems. I would have loved to have something like this when I was in school! In my opinion it just makes learning so much easier and more affective!

Comments4Kids #6

EXCITEMENT

My comments4kid post for this week was by a little girl named Emelia. Emelia's post was a video showing the emotion excitement. Emelia used how it feels when you run a race and win as her example. She made a video of her and her friends racing. At the end of the video when she has won the race she does an excellent job showing her excitement by jumping and celebrating.

March 7th Blog Assignment

RANDY PAUSCH'S LAST LECTURE

I really enjoyed this video! Randy was so funny and had such a good attitude and personality. I really love that he started off talking about having a list of childhood dreams. I believe it is so very important for children to have dreams and actually work towards them! Most kids these days have dreams but don't ever work towards them. They just leave it at a dream not something they could actually do. Some children are even discouraged about dreams they have and thats just sad! I think as future teachers we should always encourage kids to be all they can and that if they work for their dreams they can accomplish them! I also love that he stresses the fact that he actually did everything on his list and learned from every single experiences even if they weren't exactly what was on the list.

My favorite part of the whole post would have to be when he talked about his old foot ball team. The main message was "when people stop correcting you they have given up". That statement alone just speaks volumes. It was so encouraging and it reminds us that we should never give up on anyone! Just try, try again. This I believe is a very important for teachers around the world to understand. Not just because it is our job, but because every child should have someone that believes in them and if you just give up on a kid they too will stop trying!

Another part of the video I like was when he was talking about the students learning from making things and doing things. Not just book learning. This idea caught me because I am a firm believer in the fact that children will remember things they experience for themselves better than something they are just told or taught. I think as teachers it is important to take advantage of every bit of hand on activities we can for students. The difference comes from the children actually doing activities and learning from experience rather than just memorizing information for test them forgetting about it after they get the grades.

I absolutely agree when he talks about how important it is to just have fun with it. These days I feel like there are more students that wake up in the morning dreading having to go to school. This isn't just in older kids but even young kids these days! This is so sad to me. Kids should enjoy going to school not feel like its a chore. So many children get discouraged at school and it is a pity because the younger they are when they start hating school the less likely they are to ever graduate high school, let alone college! Kids should enjoy learning and it is up to us as teachers to keep their interest growing! Watching this post was just so amazing and encouraging to me as a future teacher. I think if there were more teachers like Randy there would be much more success in schools these days.

Comments4Kids #5

MONKEYS

My comments4kids assignment this week was a post by a girl named Cindy. In Cindy's post she wrote a poem about Monkeys! She did such a good job describing the different characteristics of the monkey. I really enjoyed reading her post! This is a really good example of one way technology can be used in the classroom. Its basically the same things we do by posting blogs about everything we do for class!