Blog Post 13

For this blog post assignment I chose to do option two. Reading Stephanie Banchero's article My Teacher is An App I really enjoyed. This article shared facts of how more children are starting to do their schoolwork from home. Throughout this article an example is given about a boy doing his work from home. This vibe I felt was as if the child did not recieve the full amount of time needed to spend on the material because he was doing it from home.

I agree that some of our schoolwork should be able to be accessed and completed from our home, but I also am a firm believer in attending school both physically and mentally. I feel that this betters a child's chances of interacting socially with other students. I also feel that by attending school this helps children build social skills, by being able to ask and listen to questions of other students. I really enjoyed this article and I feel that it can help many educators understand the impact in which they have on children's lives.

Project 15

C4K #10

After viewing Mrs. Yollis' Classroom Blog I must say I was beyond impressed. I admire her tribute in which she posted in honor of Veteran's Day. I feel that Veteran's Day is one, if not the most important days out of a year in which we recognize and honor our troops and Veterans. Providing children with a full understanding such as the video clip in which Mrs. Yollis posted on her blog allows children to see all of the great things our armed forces do. As educators we must open the mind to our students and give them the tools and information necessary to knowing about days such as Veteran's Day. I feel as if this blog is used to share information of all kinds providing great details. It is updated very frequent and adequately. I feel students are involved by being assigned projects similar to the way we do in EDM310. This blog is very much connected and shared with many other classroom students and educators which I feel is awesome. Parents are involved because they are able to access from home or anywhere on their computer the material in which their child is learning. This blog keeps in contact through skype and blog posts with students and teachers around the world. Mrs. Yollis posts in detail the material in which she is teaching in each subject. She is very proud of her students accomplishments in the classroom and wants to share their knowledge and success to the world. I very much admire Mrs. Yollis.

Project 14

Progress Report on Final Project

For Project 16, my group and I have shared ideas in person, through email, text messages, and Facebook. We are all working together very well and creating unique ideas. Although we have not set our topic in stone yet, we have many good ideas flowing. Our goal so far will be providing a great tool and piece of information for EDM310 students and educators!

Blog Post 12

In this assignment we were suppose to create a blog post activity. In my activity students will view this Dr. Seuss YouTube video "The Sneetches" on diversity. After viewing the clip students will write an essay explaining the importance and what diversity means to them. They will also explain how it is shown in this Dr. Seuss video.



My essay:
Diversity to me is being different, unique, and yourself. It is about being true to what you personally believe in and stand for. I feel that it is extremely important to explain diversity to Elementary students while they are young. Providing children with the ideas of not everyone is the same at a young age I feel can help them learn and grow inside and outside of the classroom. Accepting and understanding diversity allows a child to be able to express their creative side without being ashamed or embarrassed to stand out and be different. This understanding can help children learn from each other with an open mind. If we as educators express and stress the positive sides to being diverse I feel that we can achieve greatness not only during a chills young stages of life but better their future as well. In this clip Dr. Seuss is expressing diversity by using the sneetches with green stars on their bellies. All of the sneetches at first thought only the best sneetches had green stars on their bellies, the ones without the stars were simply not as great. When an opportunity arose providing a chance for all sneetches to have a green star on their bellies everyone jumped to the idea at once. All of the sneetches went round and round, back and forth to having green stars and to not having green stars when they finally realized it was all so silly. The reality set in that being different is best, being all alike does not make perfection. Being able to stand out and be unique is what life is about what makes the world go around. We must encourage and support each other for our different talents, interests, and abilities and not be close minded but accept each other for who we truly are.

C4K Summary

I was assigned to view Kristina's page. She and I had a lot in common. In Kristina's post she shared with her viewers her nickname, who her best friend is, her birthday, and her dream. I was very interested in Kina's dream to becoming a fashion designer, I once shared this same passion. I feel that this is a great career path for someone to express creativity and personality. I think Kristina has fantastic goals and has a very bright future ahead of her!

Alvin was another student whom I was assigned to view his blog. I shared with Alvin our National bird and symbol for the United States of America which is the bald eagle. Alvin had a very cool dragon in which he created on his page who talks and gives information about Alvin himself!

I was next assigned to Raymond. Raymond is a very intelligent young man. He provided very detailed information in his post and incorporated an image of the periodic table focusing on the important parts of the carbon tile. I enjoyed Raymond's page he made learning about the periodic table fun and easy.

I then randomly chose to view Emily's page. She had a widget named "Poe" the Panda Bear. This image immediately grabbed my eye, my sorority mascot is the Panda Bear. I shared with Emily my thoughts and feelings on using experiments in the classroom. I expressed to her how I feel that experiments are very helpful and make learning fun and sometimes easy to understand the topic being taught.

I next viewed Ty, Hailee, Payton, and Cole's posts in which they created their own animals! This blog post was definitely one of my favorites to view. I loved reading and imagining each of their animals in which they created. Ty created a "Choth", Haliee created a "Giraphant", Payton created a "Catdacke", and Cole created a "Chipliz". Each of these students used their imagination in the best ways possible. They provided full descriptions of what their animal eats and enjoys to do. I was beyond impressed by their ability to be creative and use their own ideas!

My next page assigned was extremely interesting. Maroroa spoke about the Cooks Islands, a place in which I had never heard of! The Cooks Islands flag is awesome. Learning about their relationship with New Zealand was very interesting. After viewing this page Cooks Islands has definitely been added to my list of places to one day travel to.

My last student I was assigned to was Mike. Mike is much older than all of my other students in which I was been assigned to. He was a very intelligent, smart young man. He explained and expressed the importance he felt of finding which learning style works best for you personally. He then explains the importance of applying the learning style which works best for you to your school work in order to better understand the material being taught!

Blog Post 11

First Graders in Ms. Cassidy's Class
After viewing this video, I felt a huge emotion of excitement come over me about my journey to one day having my own classroom. Seeing and hearing children use and talk about technology made me realize the importance of myself as a future educator learning and engaging in what technology has to offer. I hope to always be on the search for finding ways to incorporate technology into my future classroom!

Skype interview with Ms. Cassidy
Ms. Cassidy's approach to teaching while using technology in the classroom was very interesting to view and learn about. I personally felt inspired throughout this entire Skype session. Ms. Cassidy has a very interesting background of ten years covering her adventure to using technology. Starting out with only five computers Ms. Cassidy explored the world of the internet using websites, blogs, and many more technological tools. Ms. Cassidy is always adding new things on her own with support from her technology friends. Throughout her years of teaching Ms. Cassidy has had many different principals, some of which were more supportive in her use of technology more so than others. Ms. Cassidy still engaged in seeking her interests in technology in her classroom no matter what others might feel of her teaching tools. In my classroom if using a blog I would use her technique of posting pictures of the students but never matching the picture to their name and only using their first names, never their last names. I feel like this bit of information shared was extremely important and should be used by all educators who incorporate blogs into their classrooms. A benefit by using Ms. Cassidy's approach I feel is that the children love technology and being able to use it. The kids will actually engage more in learning and want to explore new things!