C4K Summary Post (November)

C4K# 9

For my ninth comment for kids, I was assigned to comment on Mr. McClung's 8th Grade World post Lessons Learned. In this post Mr. McClung talked about spirit week at his school. The kids get to dress out each day in costumes that fit that particular day such as cowboy day. During that week Mr. McClung took part in a beard off contest. He wont the contest and had to shave his beard what ever way the kids chose.
I commented on his post and said that spirit week sounds like a lot of fun! I then mentioned how their spirit week is very much like homecoming week at the school I went to. I ended with saying that I enjoyed reading his post and looking at his blog. It brought back memories from when I was younger.

C4K# 10

For my tenth comment for kids, I was assigned to comment on Mrs. Yollis' Classroom Blog. The post I commented on was Skyping With Georgia! This post was about a Skype interview that Mrs. Yollis' class had with a class in Georgia. She ended this post with what some of the students had to say after the interview.
I commented on this post saying that I really enjoyed the blog post. The students really seem to enjoy Skyping with students from different states. One of her students, Ellie, made a comment after the interview saying that "They “shoot the Hooch” on weekends. That means they ride the
river on a raft." In my comment I said that Ellie's response brought back a memorie of mine because a few summers ago me and my family took a trip to Georgia and we got the "shoot the Hootch"! I ended my comment with telling them to keep up the good work!

C4K# 11

For my eleventh comment for kids, I was assigned to comment on Isara's blog. She did a post that was titled The Important Invention Named Chewing Gum. In this post she explains how Adam Smith randomly decided to chew on a piece of chicle. He then decided to add mint flavor to the chicle. This prompted him to open a factory and make chewing gum.
I commented on her blog post saying that she did a great job and I had never thought about the guy who invented gum. I thanked her for teaching me something new and then asked "I wonder what made him decide to try the lump of chicle?" I ended with telling her to keep up the good work!

Final Report on PLN

On my PLN I have added a few new websites. One of the websites I added was At the Teacher's Desk. Another website that I added is Adventures in Pencil Integration. Both of those websites are educational blogs that I came across while doing work for EDM310, I found both blogs helpful and decided they deserved a spot on my PLN. I still have a lot of empty spaces on my PLN that I hope to fill up as time goes by. I think having a PLN is great.

Blog Assignment 14

Top Ten Tips for Using Technology in the Classroom
By: Jose Picardo

In the video Top Ten Tips for Using Technology in the Classroom, Jose Picardo goes over his top ten tips for using technology in the classroom. His first tip is to use streaming video such as websites like YouTube. YouTube is a great website if used properly. There are a lot of educational videos on YouTube. His second tip is to use music. This is a good tip because people of all ages love music. Many people use iTunes for music but, it can also be used for educational purposes. His third tip is to use teleconferencing tools such as Skype. Skype is very cool. It can be used to talk to people from all over the world. It is a good way to communicate with other classrooms that are from different states or countries. His fourth tip is to create your own interactive exercises such as making games that can help students learn. His fifth tip is to use your interactive white board more effectively. I love smart boards. They are awesome and can do a lot of cool things. It can really help students learn because it is fun and it can get students excited about learning. His sixth tip is to create your own podcast. This is fun. For one of our group projects, my group created a podcast where we pretended to have a radio talk show. This is a good way to make a boring project more fun. There are several ways to make a podcast, Jose Picardo recommends Audacity. His seventh tip is to start a blog or wiki. I like having a blog. It is a good way for people to see your work and it is something that can show your creativity. His eighth tip is to use social networks. Before I took EDM310 I would have said no to that tip but, I have come to realize that using social networks for education is a really good idea. Having a Facebook page for a class is a great way for students to ask questions and get answers. His ninth tip is to use internet tools. There are a lot of free tools online that can help with education. His tenth and final tip is to make the most of your pupils' gadgets. This is a good tip because most students these days will have i Pods and/or cell phones. If you can find a way to incorporate these gadgets with technology, students would enjoy enjoy that because they are always on cell phones or i Pods.
Jose Picardo has some really good tips. I also looked at his blog and looked over his really long list of resources for teachers. This list is great. It literally has tons and tons of websites that can be helpful to all teachers.

Project 16 (Final Project)

Blog Assignment 13

For this blog assignment I chose option 1. I had never heard of WolframAlpha until I looked at the blog assignment for this week. I have also never heard of Google Squared until I looked at this weeks assignment. I was unable to use Google Squared because every time I clicked on the link an error message showed up.
This assignment asks " What percentage of China's population is the population of the United States?" I got two different answers to this question. Depending on how you interpret the question, I got 439% and 22.89%. If you do the math as China's population divided by the United States population, the answer is 439%. If you interpret the question as what percentage of 1.35 billion (China's population) is 309 million (United States population) the answer would be 22.89%. I copied the question from the blog instructions and pasted it into the search box on WolframAlpha and the answer it gave me was 439%. I also typed in the question but instead of the actual words, China's population and United States population, I typed in the actual number of the population and the answer it gave me was 22.89%.
I was also asked "What percentage of Indias's population is the population of the United States?" This question can also be interpreted two different ways. When I typed in the question exactly how it was stated, the answer I received was 393%. When I substituted the names of the countries with the countries actual population number, the answer I received was 25.54%.
After doing this research I still find the facts from our first blog assignment mind blowing. I can't believe how much bigger China and India are than the United States.
I think WolframAlpha can be very useful for my future students. It can be used when we do in class projects and projects at home that require researching different things. I think it might be more useful for students that are in middle or high school because I think that they will be asked to do more research than elementary students will.

Missed the Metaphor Special Assignment

I am not really sure why I missed the metaphor in Tom Johnson's post. I did not realize that the entire story was made up but, I knew that he was trying to get a point across. To help students understand metaphors, educators can go over the meaning of a metaphor and use them often. I think that people use metaphors to keep things interesting and not boring. They can also be used to really get people to start thinking more.

Project #15 SmartBoard Instruction Part 2

Project 14 Skype Interview

Blog Assignment 12

For this blog post I want you to make a video about your favorite author. If you do not have a favorite author, pick the author of your favorite book. If you do not have a favorite book, I suggest you do a little bit of research and find an author that interests you. The video should be at least 1 minute or longer. You are to narrate the video. It can be about the author's life or about a series of books the author has written, as long as it is about that author and/or something he has written. After you finish the video upload it to YouTube then embed it into your blog. I want you to also write a short paragraph stating what author you chose and why.



For this project I chose to do my video on J.R.R. Tolkien. I chose Tolkien because I am a huge fan of Lord of the Rings books. I think the books are amazing. I also love that he created his own languages. I think that is really neat.

C4K #10 Ms. Yollis' 3rd Grade Class

For C4K #10 we were assigned to thoroughly examine Mr. Yollis' class blog. Mr. Yollis is a third grade teacher in Los Angeles, California. Her class consists of 22 students, 11 boys and 11 girls. Not only is Mrs. Yollis a teacher but, she is also a student. She says in her Meet Mrs. Yollis section in her blog that she recently finished a Master's degree in Integrating Technology in the Classroom.
Mrs. Yollis' blog was a little overwhelming at first because there are so many things to explore! i really enjoyed looking over the section of her blog called Learn About California! In this section of her blog she has a video with a lot of interesting facts about California. I learned a few things that I did not already know! Another section of the blog that I really enjoyed was the section called Learn How to Shoot Great Images! This section has a great video that was made my some of her student's. In the video they demonstrate the do's and do not's about using a camera. Mrs. Yollis also has a page that is called Time Zones of Friends. I LOVE this section of her blog because it lets her students know what time it is where their friends from other classes are. I also love the Learn HTML Code! section of her blog. If I was in her class this section would be very beneficial to me because I can never remember those codes. I was really surprised to see Mrs. Yollis' CLustrMap so full of red dots! They get a ton of visitors from all over the world. I think that it is awesome that they can communicate with so many people through blogging.

Progress Report on Final Project

So far for Project 16, my group has met a few times and come up with some really good ideas. We have decided that we are going to put together an EDM310 Survival Kit. We are going to video each of us going over all of the items in the survival kit. I think that this video will be beneficial to future EDM310 students because it will give them a good idea of what they will need to survive this class.

Blog Assignment 11

Ms. Cassidy's First Graders in Mr. Cassidy's Class and Skype Interview with Ms. Cassidy

Little Kids...Big Potential is a video about Ms. Cassidy's first grade class. It shows how the students use blogs, Skype, and even their Nintendo DS's to help them learn. It gave me a good idea of what Ms. Cassidy's classroom is really like. In the Skype interview with Ms. Cassidy, she reveals that she began using the internet to help her students learn because she was given five computers for her classroom. She began figuring out ways to use the computers in her classroom because she did not want them to go to waste. The computers only had internet access and new programs could not be downloaded onto them which led to the use of personal web pages and blogging.
The first grade students seem to really enjoy blogging. Ms. Cassidy states that it makes the kids feel special to think that the whole world can see what they are writing about. She also points out that technology is not unusual to them, it is part of their world. I like how she mentioned that because it is very true. The children that we will be teaching are born into a world where technology is used by everyone, all day every day. Ms. Cassidy also mentioned how she keeps the identities of the children safe. The children's last names are not used and pictures are never placed with the children's names. She also teaches her students how to be safe on the internet and how avoid bad websites by staying away from advertisements and by using the links that she gives them.
During the interview Ms. Cassidy tells about "blogging buddies". The students from Ms. Cassidy's class and students from a different school read each others blogs and comment on them. The students can communicate through blogs and Skype to discuss how to improve their writing. I like the idea of "blogging buddies". It could even be used between different classes of the same grade that are at the same school. I am starting to realize how much children can really benefit from using technology in this way. After watching this interview it is clear to me that students really enjoy blogging and using tools like Skype to help them learn.
I think that in the future I could use blogging in my classroom. I could stay in contact with other elementary teachers in the area that use blogging so that the students could have "blogging buddies". The students could also use Skype to communicate with other students. I also really enjoy making videos. I think elementary students would get excited about making videos that we can share with other classrooms. I think that using technology like this can get students excited about learning.

C4K Summary Post (October)

C4K #5

For my fifth comment for kids I was assigned to comment on We are Kids with a View. I was to leave a comment for Ashira and I was to tell her something interesting about the United States. I told her that the crookedest street in the world is in Iowa.
I thought the crookedest street in the world was in San Francisco, California, where I got the chance to visit this summer.

C4K #6

For my sixth comment for kids I was assigned to two students. The first student was Aubrey. Aubrey posted a post that was about Halloween. She talked about how the Halloween traditions were started and what some of the traditions were. I commented on her post saying that I really enjoyed reading it and that she informed me of many things that I did not know about such as the symbol of the apple and the tradition of the Celts wearing animal heads as costumes.

The second student that I was assigned to was Walker. Walker posted a post about why they did not have school on Columbus Day. In his post he talked about how the Native Americans discovered America before Columbus and that Columbus pushed the Native Americans away. Walker says that he would never do what Columbus did. At the end of his post he asked if we understand why they did not have school on Columbus Day. I commented on his blog telling him that I agree with him and that I would not do that either. I then answered his question with yes, I understand why they did not have school on Columbus Day.

C4K# 7

For my seventh comment for kids I was assigned to comment on the video of Mr. C's 7th Grade Art Work. This video was a slide show of a lot of pictures that her class has drawn. I commented on the video saying that I really enjoyed looking at the art work. Each piece of art was very creative and that each student is very talented!

C4K# 8

For my eighth comment for kids I was assigned to comment on Brooklyn's Australian Animation. I left Brooklyn a comment saying that I loved her Australian Animation and that she did a wonderful job! I also told her that her video really shows her creativity. I ended with telling her to keep up the good work!