Blog Post #6

Learning about Project Based Learning from a former student was very interesting. Anthony Capps is a former EDM310 student, who now teaches third grade in Baldwin County. He shows how he implements Project Based Learning in the video  Project Based Learning Part 1 and Project Based Learning Part 2. It was a nice surprise to see that teachers are using this method to teach and enjoying it. Mr. Capps mentions that he records feedback from his students so that he can continue to do things that interest them. A key quote Mr.Capps based his teaching, and what most teachers should believe also, was, "Never limit your students, by giving them exactly what you want them to do. Create an opportunity for them to go beyond what you want them to do. They will do it." The comment is basically saying that if you give students free reign, they might surprise you.

The Anthony-Strange Tips for Teachers Part 1, was another video I watched. In this video Dr. Strange and Mr. Capps gave tips for teachers. The first two tips were key given in the video. First stated was that as a teacher, one of the key factors is to be interested in learning also, which is preached constantly in EDM 310. Secondly, stated that when you are teaching, the work you do should also be fun for yourself. If you want students to be interested in learning, you have to give them something interesting to learn. That second tip is one of the things that made me want to be a teacher in the first place, to make teaching, specifically math, something interesting to learn, not boring. With Dr. Strange you learn that you should never expect a student to say something, so you have to expect for anything and be ready to respond to them effectively. Overall, Mr. Capps and Dr. Strange gave some great points that I had never given much thought to until I watched this video.

Project #8 Book Trailer

Project #7 Part A: My Sentences

My Sentence is....

My Passion is....

Blog Post #5: Part #1

What are Personal Learning Networks(PLNs)?

 Personal Learning Networks seem to be the best way to connect with people and tools that you can use when you need help, someone to talk to, and collaboration for new ideas. Teaching in the 21st century you have to be up-to-date on all the technology children are using, which is changing constantly. Incorporating this into your every day classroom prepares them for the future. Through PLN's you can ask questions, find websites, blogs, and get help in a matter of seconds.

 How can they help you as a teacher?
With it being the 21st century, technology is constantly used to teach students, teachers must learn new methods and practices to prepare students. Personal Learning Networks (PLN), can be a network of people, ideas, blogs, videos, research, and other resources. Teachers can use sites like Discovery Education, Edutopia to help students understand their material if they need extra help or other ways to understand it. Personal Learning Networks can also be used to help teachers connect with other teachers from around the globe and share lessons or ideas. Some of the resources for educators would be Classroom 2.0, ED Web, and Professional Development.
How are they formed? How can you create your own?

There are many ways to form a personal learning network.  Twitter has been the main source introduced in this class, provided are sites that help you organize PLN's, Symbaloo and Netvibes. . PLNs teach students how to be organized with their school work and students can prioritize what they would like to work on first. Symbaloo organizes different webiste icons by title blocks, Netvibes organizes RSS feeds of sites into block arrangement. Both of these websites are strong tools in building your PLN.

Who will be the first additions to your PLN? 

Since being in this class, I have added Mr. Lomax, Dr. Strange, the EDM310 Staff, and classmates to my PLN. Although, I am just starting my PLN I can already see the benefits of it. I think PLN will be a great resource to use in my career as an educator and I am excited to see how big my PLN will become in the future.

Project #3 Presentation

C4T#1 Post #1 & #2

http://billgx.com/

Post#1(Amazing Valentines). February 7th, Bill Genereux talked about blogged Valentines Day cards one of his friends on Facebook wife made. They were digital made through a digital media company and had pictures of his friend's kids on them. He also mentioned how these cards would be a good idea for a class project. It was a very short but interesting blog post.

-The comment I left on his page was basically saying how doing the valentines day cards would be a cute and fun idea to do in the classroom. I also mentioned how I wish teachers had that idea back in the day when I was in the 1st and 2nd grade and we would just pass around candy and cards.



Post #2(Social Media Technology). January 14th, Bill talked about how a new semester is starting for him and he is excited to be teaching a class on social media. He understands that social media is embedded in our digital world constantly and knows it will bring an open discussion in his classroom

-The comment I left this time talked about how I know social media should be an interesting topic to teach. I also said that I bet young students in his class should Ace the course since we are surrounded and use social media on a daily basis. I ended by saying social media would be a class I definitely wouldn't mind teaching.

Project #15( Search Engines)

Search Engines

1. WolframAlpha
This search engine is a site mainly for mathematical, units of measure and scientific questions. It provides you with explanations and answers to your questions. I think that this would be a helpful website for any computing knowledge that you want to know. I have used this in most of my math classes for homework when there is a questions I do not know how to solve.

2. DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is a site that is all about privacy, pretty interesting actually. They help you find your answers faster with fewer clicks and keyboard shortcuts. This sites only priority is searching, they do not promote other sites while you search! I have never used this site personally, but will in the future when needing an answer quick.

3. Ask 
The search engine "Ask" is a site that is very useful when needed a questioned asked and wanting to see what other people responses are. I have used "Ask" for a very long time, even when it was "Ask Jeeves". Ask has so many options, it even has its own blog. I think that it is user friendly and it does have answers to questions, but you never know if they are accurate.

4. Bing
 Bing is more similar to Google than any other search engine. It has a simple layout with a quick search. I have used Bing, and the layout is user friendly because all that is displayed is a background picture and the tool bar where you enter in what you want to search.

5. Yahoo
This is a well known search engine that provides information on anything and everything. This search engine is very user friendly. It is easy to use because the search box is in plain view and it searches in every category. I would recommend using this search engine for basic information, questions, or certain topics you want to know more information about.

6. RefSeek
This search engine is great for students and researchers. It provides academic sources from the web, books, academic journals, encyclopedias, documents, and more. You will see these items listen under "directory." When you search a single time it searches through one billion sources to find the best information to match your search. This search engine would be best to use when writing papers or doing research for class when you have a topic you need to gain more academic knowledge on. The site is very user friendly and through my own research it told me everything I needed to know about the search engine and what its purpose is.

7. WOW
This search engine is technically "enhanced" by Google, so it uses about the same searching techniques that Google does. This search engine is more of  a broad searcher and the results may not always be accurate.This would be used more for basic questions, or something not complicated to look up.

8. Dictionary
This search engine is very popular because we all like to know the definitions to words we are using. This engine is especially good for looking up the meaning of words and also access the thesaurus. This site is very user-friendly because it is set up in a simple way. This site is most useful when writing a paper or other documents that require you know in detail what a specific definition is.

Blog Post #4

What Questions do we ask? How do we ask?

Questions are an important part in learning and being an effective teacher. Asking students questions is the main way students stay engaged in any activity or lecture in the classroom. As teachers, we need to ask questions based on how we think they will best benefit our students and understand the material being asked. After reading the articles and watching a couple of videos, there were three main tips for asking questions.These tips are: Randomly chose students to answers; Prepare and revise the questions that are asked; Ask open ended questions; 

  The first video watched was Three Ways To Ask Better Questions in the Classroom . First step is to prepare questions while we are creating or writing lecture, Next, engage students in the question asking process, Lastly,  preserve good questions. Good questions help students to see the importance of questions and how they make us think.

Asking open ended, or divergent, questions is a great way to open the student's minds. A video by Thoughtful Classroom demonstrated that asking open ended questions help the children in four areas: mastery, understanding, self expression, and interpersonal thinking.  The video showed ways to ask divergent questions through multiple techniques. Randomly calling on students is an important part of asking questions because it gives every student a chance to respond to the teacher and interaction is an essential part to the learning experience.

 Lastly, to look at "How do we ask the questions?" In the last video we watched, Questioning Styles and Strategies, teachers asked in a self-expressive way to get the students attention or use an extended questioning method to further students thinking. There are many ways that teachers ask questions to students. If teachers take the time to value the questions and really think about how they ask them, then the students will benefit greater than listening and not comprehending questions being asked.

Blog Post 3:Peer Editing

How Can You Provide Meaningful Feedback to Your Peers?

Peer editing can be a difficult task to do. There are certain steps to take in order to provide meaningful feedback that will help the writer edit his/her work. A key factor in peer editing is making sure your feedback isn't mean, which is shown how that can be avoided in the videos What is Peer Editing? and Peer Edit With Perfection Tutorial.The videos give the proper steps to peer editing, with first letting us know that we need to compliment first and then make a suggestion as to what the person did wrong and how they could improve it. Lastly, check for corrections. . Corrections are the step where you show your peer where they have made grammatical errors and others writing mistakes. Whichever step you are on it is very important that you always stay positive. No one likes hearing what is wrong with their work, especially if the editor is negative.

The video Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes is a humorous video with younger children teaching about how to peer edit correctly. The video also shows the multiple incorrect approaches to peer editing. The main factors that stood out were to not be picky and, some people just think differently than others and they should not be harshly criticized or ridiculed for that. Anyone can point out faults, but it takes a better person to help and provide good and meaningful advice to a peer. The videos gives excellent examples on what not to do in a peer review.