Final Reflection

When I registered for this class, I was expecting a boring course about how to use Excel and boring things that teachers already use in their classrooms. Then, the syllabus and instruction manual was exposed, opening the door to new mysterious things such as Blogger, Skype, Audacity, Google Docs (I was a Yahoo! user), Aviary, Posterous, and many many more scary things. Soon after that, my exploration period began and my mind turned on and opened up to the wonders of the Internet that lie beyond the farms and frontiers of Facebook. I have to admit, I was very scared at first, especially with Dr. Strange's "15 hours a week" speech echoing in my head. However, I soon realized that EDM 310 is the way that a class should be and that new things are nothing to be afraid of. I can now say that I have a blog other than my Myspace blog, and that I have found many other blogs that have been very helpful to my intellectual journey.



This class has really helped me realize what changes need to be made towards education. The school system in Mobile County needs a technological revolution. Take Davidson for example, instead of building a dungeon fence around the school, they could buy better computers. They could develop a whole new curriculum and then teachers wouldn't need to sell pizza to use the copy machine for tests. Before this class, tests were an okay requirement because tests are common in determining what has been learned. Now, I do not want to plague my students with a test but assign them projects so they can really show everyone what they have learned. I think Randy Pausch demonstrated this method very well and has shown us all how powerful projects can be. Dr. Strange has also done this with his protests against burp-back education. It is like a light has been turned on for me. This class has also made and my son realize that it is possible to stay up past 10. I did some of assignments done earlier then midnight and those I am most proud of, because I still procrastinate a little bit.



I started telling people what we were doing in EDM 310 after the first two weeks of class. Everyone seems amazed that there are no tests and everything we do is visible on our blogs. I think these methods should definitely be spread because if learning takes the direction that we have gone this semester, perhaps more students will be encouraged and less will drop out. I think we all need to spread the ideas and concepts we learned and created in EDM 310 because we are the ones who will inspire the next generation to succeed. What better way to succeed than with free Internet tools? If everyone could just see what goes on in this class, more minds would open up to these ideas and education wouldn't just be a dusty old chalkboard anymore.



This class was a great inspiration and I think it truly will make my teaching career better for me and my students alike. I enjoyed the "self-learning" aspect and the fact that everything we have done is sitting here at my fingertips. I can look back on it, reflect on it, and grow on it. I plan on a green classroom full of computers and head fakes with projects galore. This is a different picture of my classroom than before I entered this class 2 months ago. I saw myself as any other English Teacher who sits at her desk amidst a pile of papers to grade. Not me. The center of my classroom will consist of students, not essays or reports. I will make the most out of technology and encourage creativity to allow learning to take place. REAL learning, not filling in bubbles.

Pixel Images by Cool Text: Logo and Button Generator - Create Your Own

Final Project- Ben Franklin and Blogger

Teach Someone

Blog Post 13

Alba Middle School Students' Videos
These videos were dead on depictions about what is happening in the Gulf. The media focuses on Louisiana and Florida, and it is great that these middle school students are letting people know what is happening in Alabama waters. Everything fit perfectly in these videos, the music, the footage, the words that they used. These videos honestly made me cry. We may have tech-literate society in the future but what about our natural resources? You cannot capture the true beauty of a beach from a computer screen.




What I thought about this:
Hi my name is Nichole Hassell and I am also from Dr. Strange's EDM310 class. I love how the oil spill is personified in this video and given a nasty voice to go with its ugliness. I think it is great that this class is taking part in having a voice for the future of our beaches on the Gulf Coast and is encouraging people to help clean the beaches. Thank you for sharing this video and keep on making more, videos are great ways to express your feelings!




My comment on this video:
This video made me cry. Words are hard to come by when trying to express the emotional turbulence behind this disaster, and this video really exposes those emotions and shows the real pain behind the oil spill. Humans and animals alike are suffering from this and this video is a great representation of both sides of the suffering. Please continue to make more videos because the ones that this class has made are great


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Comments for Classmates

Martha Yim's Smart Board presentation
Wow! You can't really help but smile while watching this because of all of the enthusiasm! I love how you incorporated class participation in your demonstration. I think involving the whole class is important to engage learning, even a simple class discussion is helpful. Great and entertaining work!

Maeghan Whitemire's Interview
And on a side note, did your group have trouble with keeping your smart board oriented?

I thought this was a really good interview. I liked how you exposed Clare to what we have been watching in this class beforehand so she could express her views on it. Also, I agree that teachers should at least know how to e-mail and keep up with their students outside of the classroom. It is a lot easier to receive your work over the Internet when you are out sick for a long time than having to come to school periodically to pick it up.

Awesome interview, Meghan, and keep asking great questions!

Tyler Tuveson's Post on Mrs. Cassidy's Class
Tyler,
I am a Secondary Ed major but it was so inspiring to watch first graders achieve so much in this video. Before this class, I never would have imagined any of this. I think it is great where education is going and that we can be apart of it. Legal forms and all, I think it will be a great learning experience for us and our students.

Blog Post 12

What I Learned This Year (2) by Mr. McClung

Mr. McClung has definitely changed, grown, and adapted in his second year of teaching. My favorite thing about this teacher is that he is honest and does not sugarcoat everything to make teaching sound like the Utopia of the career world. I also found it very helpful that he shared his experiences about teaching different subjects. This is a fear of mine, as I put it in my comment, I don't want to be thrown to the "historical wolves" and not know what to do.

M-Cubed: ISTE Presentation Video

While watching this video, it took me a second to realize what was going on. The children manipulated shapes with software on the computer and out of a printer-like device called a fabricator came the shape laid out in 2D to be assembled in 3D! If I only had this tool in geometry. I think this is a great concept and tool for children to better understand shapes and figures in math and science. The kids in the video appeared to be extremely excited and engaged in the process!

The Children's Engineering Initiative

In this video, Dr. Robert Pianta (University of Virginia) speaks about the "engineering initiative". He believes in combining math and science to better develop problem solving skills. I think this is what is lost in math and science classes today. It goes back to the familiar debate of the test, there are so many worries about getting test questions right that there is not enough time spent on problem solving skills. This was my worst area in math. I wasn't really bad at math but I would definitely skip a word problem if I could. Children need to develop a more complex thought pattern to not only get themselves through school, but through life.

The Principle of Least Change

This video features Dr. Laura Smolkin who talks about the "principle of least change". Dr. Smolkin recognizes that the use of fabricators is a big change in the students' normal routine and says that if this change is given in lighter doses, the students can better adapt. I think this is true not only for the students but for the teachers as well. It is just like someone who has been teaching from the books for a long period of time and suddenly they have a computer thrown at them. What is that teacher going to do? Most likely reject that method of teaching. That is why small doses of small change results in big change over time.

Comments For Kids 4

I watched a video on the blog Sustainable Digital called Alkaline Earth Metals. This video explains different metals and it recorded like an episode of MTV's Cribs.



Hi, my name is Nichole Hassell and I am also in Dr. Strange’s EDM 310 class. All of these videos are great and I loved how the Alkaline-Earth metals video was made like MTV cribs. However, it was kind of hard to hear but I enjoyed it anyway. Keep making science easy for us who struggle!

PLN status

My PLN is ever expanding. I have mainly been using Delicious, Symbaloo and iGoogle to build it. I have a Twitter account, and I'm following 60 teachers, but I just have not caught on to it yet. However, I am enjoying reading and drawing from all of these blogs that I have listed below.

These are my blogs on my symbaloo:
Maria Constantinides- TEFL Matters
Burcu Akyol's Blog
Connections
Mr. McClung's World
Edurati Review
The Follis Files
English Teacher, Too.
Graham Wegner
Weblogg-ed
Spencer's Scratch Pad
Ed Techie
Education Outrage
Teach Paperless
Treasure Chest of Thoughts
The Educators' Royal Treatment
The Innovative Educator
Cool Cat Teacher Blog
Drapes Takes
The Educator's PLN
Teach Web
Dangerously Irrelevant
English Companion Ning
Teacher Reboot Camp
English Raven
Teaching Village

These are some blogs I have on Delicious:
If Bees Are Few
Shakespeare Teacher
View From Room 309

Google Reader:
Hi, I'm Steve Moore

C4T- Jeff Utecht

July 1 2010
ISTE 2010 Reflections
This post was about Jeff Utecht's reflection about the International Society For Technology in Education conference that he recently attended. Jeff reflects that the themes are "mobile" and global" and that teachers need to "reach" out to make global connections for themselves and their students.

Hi Mr. Utecht,
My name is Nichole and I am a part of Dr. Strange’s EDM 310 class and I have been assigned to read your blog for the next 3 weeks. My blog is here
The thought of global learning never crossed my mind until I entered this class. The deeper I am getting into it, the more I realize that I’m not going to just stop once the class is over. It’s great for teachers and students. Where is there a better support system than that of kids from all over the world helping each other through blogs? That is collaboration at its height.
But, while what I said sounded great (at least in my head), the educational system is stuck in the past. I believe that the “old school” should be put to rest and let’s bring on an educational system that truly empowers children to grow in creativity and mind alike.

July 8 2010

Policies, Safety, and Social Networking ~ Steve Dembo ISTE10

This post contained a video entitled Digital Dossier. This video shows how a persons information is recorded from birth on the Internet and is very... sobering, for lack of a better word.

This video was very enlightening and rather scary. I think it’s very important for students to be aware of what they are posting to the Internet, especially the things that could be damaging later. It is amazing how quickly information can be collected about someone and that it all starts with a simple picture at birth.

July 13, 2010
Are We Teaching Networked Literacy

This post was about networked literacy. Jeff makes it a point that teachers are teaching from print resources more than anything else. He also says that it is important for kids to develop social networks and to be able to utilize them to find out information more than they use a search engine such as Google.

Jeff,
This post is what students are really asking for. If students could have a social network to turn to in school, the information would not only come easier, but faster. Sources could not only be based on facts, but personal experiences and the thoughts of other. If a student has the right people in their social network, instead of spending hours searching for the right article, they can directly ask an expert in their field. I think that if and when this method is utilized, it will not only make the students more attentive and eager to learn, but more willing to be active in the classroom.

My Survey Analysis

Blog Post 11

The first graders in Mrs. Cassidy's class are very lucky students! I would have loved to use a Nintendo when I was in the first grade. I think her teaching methods are good because they are hands on and encourage the building of social skills. I think it is great that students are blogging, using wikis, and making videos while being able to explain how to do these things. I think I would use a wiki in my classroom as a start to collecting research for projects and I will definitely be incorporating making videos into my classes.

One obvious obstacle for using this techniques is where is the money coming from? What if there is not enough money to buy an adequate amount of computers? Well, if there is no possible way to get money through grants or whatnot, I can utilize one of Mrs. Cassidy's lessons: sharing. However, the biggest obstacle that screams out in my mind is lack of cooperation with those "above me". Filters are eminent in school computers, they block everything that can allow you to talk someone. At least that is how it was when I went to school. I think this could be easily overcome by explaining my purposes and asking politely to lift the filters.

What will I benefit the most from? Watching my students learn. I think a lot of people are on common ground about tests being faulty learning methods. I don't want to see my students filling in bubbles. I want to see them engaged and interacting with one another. In my future I see videoed debates, videos of students acting out stories, essays posted onto blogs, and students coming into my classroom eager to learn.

2 Person Interview

I chose to interview my cousin Brittany who is going into the sixth grade at Dunbar Magnet School this year. She has the motor tics that comes from tourette syndrome so it is very hard for her to concentrate on a teacher talking. It is also difficult for her to take a test that has a time limit.

Comments For Kids 3

This post was about the beginning of a grass growing race in Mr. McClung's science class. I thought it was interesting that he was waiting for unique ways to water the grass to make it grow faster. I also thought it was a good responsibility exercise being that Mr. McClung did not tell his students when to water their grass. I also looked at the later results and it looked like some of the students pulled grass out of the jungle! While the thought of watching grass grow was boring, the "head fake" behind this project was awesome.

Blog Post #10

A 7th Grader's
Personal Learning Environment (or PLN)

I first watched this video when I completed my blog post concerning Mrs. Drexler. After watching it, I immediately created a Symbaloo and I love it. I have a Symbaloo specifically for my PLN, a Symbaloo for music, and a "miscellaneous" Symbaloo. I'm also beginning to get used to Delicious and I'm liking it more because it keeps everything organized, something I haven't developed great skill for yet. This 7th grader has a very well developed PLN for her purposes and I think that mine is expanding for my own, which are information, collaboration, and a sort of backbone support of teachers from all over the world.

Two questions that can change your life

Question 1: What is my sentence? It is not an easy task to smush up your "being" into one sentence. When I began to think about my sentence, I thought of my child, my education, my dreams, my future, my past, and my accomplishments. This is what I came up with:

I am a single mother of a beautiful child who is my greatest inspiration for my journey into the field of education where technology and English will collide in my classroom.

Question 2: Was I better today than yesterday? Since I am a parent and a server, this is always something on the top of my mind. I have a 2 year old so I have to be better than yesterday just to keep up with everything he is learning to do. I have to be better than yesterday as a server because I live "daycheck by daycheck", even though some days I wish I had a fast-forward button. This question is also going to be a foremost thought when I become a teacher. Everyday can we be better than the last with new ideas and a never ending amount of things to learn.

Blog Post #9

An Open Letter to Educators

I think that a large percent of the population has come to terms with the reality that the education system has remained relatively unchanged. I've had some of the same experiences that Morgan has had such as having problems focusing. Also, I've had professors who only give a midterm and a final. A professor that only gives 2 major tests in 1 semester is really the worst case scenario for me. If I absolutely have to be tested, I'd rather have 20 tests than only 2. By doing this,it leaves more room for error which is a concept I don't think many professors understand. As the old saying goes, "Rome wasn't built in a day" and I'm sure not many people have the mental stability to flat out ace a huge test when they've never been tested by this professor before. At least give me a quiz first. Please???

Concerning Dan Brown, I think he got his point across pretty well but I don't think he should have dropped out of school. His excuse for dropping out of college was an excuse that 70% of my friends used who dropped out of high school. Where are they now? Jobless, broke, and wishing they hadn't.

However, like I said before, despite Dan Brown dropping out of school, he did make some good points. Information is free in this day and age and we, as college students, pay hundreds of dollars to obtain it. I agree with Dan Brown that it is easier to just search for the information needed.



ALEX
ALEX(Alabama Learning Exchange) is a website dedicated to keeping schools in Alabama connected. This website allows teachers to share lesson plans, has websites for administrators, teachers, and students to visit, and it even has a "podcast treasury". There is also a link to the courses of study/objectives for every grade level.

Do I see myself using this on a regular basis? Not really. While the websites are great and it's nice to have different lesson plans to look at, I find the blogs and websites that I am using in this class more efficient for my purposes. However, one good thing about this website is the podcast page, where you can make them for other districts to hear. I recommend this as a site to glance at every now and then.

Smartboard Revolution