Blog #10

What can we learn from Sir Ken Robinson?

  Sir Ken Robinson, an English author, speaker, and advisor on education, was spot-on in his YouTube video entitled Bring On The Learning Revolution. I have never listened to such a subtle man with so much passion on what he had to say to the public. It was almost like he was talking to me on a one-on-one basis.

                               

                 

                    In this eye-opening video, Sir Ken Robinson explains how we as people should do something career-wise in our lives that we thoroughly enjoy, not something that society or even our teachers expect or want us to do. We should not let our natural talents go to waste by any means. We essentially don't need to go to school to find out what we will be there, but rather use school to enhance our talents to do what we want to do in our lives. He gives an important example of a child who was in school, and all of his teachers asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up. His answer, to no one's surprise at the time, was to be a firefighter. Well of course, everyone at the time wanted to be that, so none of his teachers took him seriously. One teacher, though, told him that he will never make anything of himself if he goes down that path of being a firefighter. But the teacher's comment did not inhibit him from reaching his dreams. He applied to be a firefighter years later, and was accepted. A couple of months later, he saved that teacher's life and his wife's life in a car accident! It just goes to show that when you dream of something, do not let anyone get in your way because later down the line you can prove that person wrong and possibly open their eyes too.

 

                 Another important point that Sir Robinson mentioned was that the world was always changing, especially education, and that we should not rise TO the occasion, but rather rise WITH the occasion. Instead of being apprehensive about changing matters, we should as educators learn as much as we can about the new thing and go along with it for the sake of our future classroom! By going backwards in the education system, we are not accomplishing anything for our students. It all goes back to students fulfilling their dreams in life. If we do not rise with the occasion (or in other words, technology), we are limiting our students in their abilities as people in the real world. The greatest gift we could give our students is a new medium of learning and understanding.

 

 

 

 

                



Blog #9

This week, I watched a video called Little Kids...Big Potential, and it was made by a first grade teacher named Mrs. Kathy Cassidy. The video gives you a rundown of all different types of exciting technological mediums that her students use to learn! It is quite fantastic when you see the children get ahead in this world full of new things. The kids in the video use blogs, wikis, Skype, and other marvelous to learn about specific topics in their lessons for that week.

Dr. Strange had a three part Skype interview with her about four months ago to see how she goes about using technology in her classroom. Click the links to see Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Her answers to his questions were astounding to me! She talked about how we as future teachers should not by any circumstances think for one second that we do not have to be technologically literate to teach a modern day class. Instead, we need to learn as much as we can before teaching in a classroom because the world is changing everyday and we need to change with it, whether we like it or not. Besides, the experience we get from learning something new will encourage our future students to do the same! The joy that children get when they come to school and they don't need to "power down" is a huge plus when it comes to getting them to focus. Technology is their world, and something that is familiar to them, so not going with the flow of the changing world will be not beneficial to yourself and your students.

I also liked how she talked about the blogs that the children do. If I were to pick a learning technique that Ms. Cassidy uses in her classroom, I would choose to encourage blogging. The children's reactions to the blogging is something I thought I'd never see from children. They absolutely love when they look at their view count to see how many people have already seen their blogs. It also helps them to write more effectively and creatively. That would benefit the kids in so many ways. They will be more eager to write, do their assignments, read, and learn more about technology and be more enthusiastic about it! Now, I understand that there will most likely be kids in my class who do not like to write or take time out to work on their blogs. The ways I'd address that is I'd show them what they'd be contributing to the world, and show them the view counts and comments that others have left. That should make them more eager to write and post their blogs.

Ms. Kathy Cassidy gave us some very insightful information on how to deal with the changing world and how to teach your students to adapt as well. Who knows, maybe our students will be the ones teaching US.

Project #14

Click to view my project website! Flags Around The World Project

 

 



 The project that I have created for my future third grade class will be based off of a lesson about different countries and their cultures, as well as diversity, in social studies. The students will learn about many different countries and their flags, and I will assigned them a country, in which they will conduct research on what the different symbols, colors, and designs of their flag means. At the end, they will present it to the class, and I will have them make their own flags that represent them and who they are as a person, in which I will hang on a wall in my classroom! The name of the project will be called "Flags Around The World". It will be a fun, hands-on learning technique that will let their creative juices flow as well as help them gain understanding about different cultures, their values, and social standings. 

                              

Project #9

Our Video Book Commentary about "Teaching Digital Natives" by Mark Prensky

           

Blog #8

21st Century Learning and Communicating Tools

                 I know for a fact that EDM310 has opened my eyes to so many things that I never thought existed. Being a new individual to this new major, I thought teaching would be so bland, with not many resources available. Well, I was extremely wrong! After doing some research on different technological things I can do in my classroom to engage the students, I found a few things that I would absolutely love to use.

                The first site that I found was Voki, a fun little site where kids can create and personalize an Avatar, a cartoon image used for posting for themselves! I plan to have a class blog for my future third graders, and letting the children create Avatars for their profile picture would be fun, interactive, and lets them be creative. Sometimes, parents don't like the fact that teachers have pictures of their kids on them, and Avatars will help alleviate that anxiety and benefit the kids and parents in the long run.

               Another site that I found is called Animoto, a fun site that lets kids create stunning and beautiful slideshows of anything that they are learning at the time. Students can add music, photos, and just about anything to personalize their presentations! I am all about letting my future kids express their inner selves and allowing their creative juices to flow, and this amazing site lets them do just that and accomplishes so much more! I already have so many ideas in my head that involves using Animoto, like letting the students create their own story, designing a movie trailer of their favorite book, a video analysis of a chapter in a book we are reading, be it science, social studies, or english, and even make a show for show-and-tell! Animoto encourages the kids to go above and beyond just regular school work

           Next, I found PearlTrees. This was the most unique site that I've ever come across. Basically, it allows me as a teacher, and my students as well, to create a list of URLs to collect from sites that we may be interested in or that may be relevant to a lesson we are learning. After we find those URLs, we organize and share them on our individual profiles so that the whole class has the opportunity to see what others have found. For instance, if I were to implement a science project, I will tell the students to look up and research their topic and post their URLs of the sites to PearlTrees. That way, if any student is interested in what the other is doing their project on, they can see what they looked up and maybe find a new interest!

           After PearlTrees, I found Certificate Street. Now, this is a perfect site to use when you notice outstanding conduct or great citizenship in kids. It is a site where you can create your own certificate for them to print out and give to them. It will motivate the students to continue to do good in their studies and behavioral conduct. I would like to create certificates for highest projects grades and such so that it will keep the kids on their toes and encourage them to do the best in everything they do.

        Last but definitely not least, I found Study Shack. This is probably the most valuable thing that I will use in my future classroom. It is a site that provides online flashcards for just about any subject. You just type into the search engine what you want to study and Study Shack will pull the appropriate flashcards up for you. In my days in school, flashcards helped me a great deal, and I believe that my students will definitely benefit them in their studies. Using repetition like that helps them memorize the material that they are learning more easily, and it is probably the most effective way to study. So Study Stack will run rampant in my classroom!

            I'm so glad that I took the time to research these very fun, interactive sites! My students will definitely love them, and hopefully I can make a difference in their school career with them.

                

C4T #2 February Summary

In this wonderful month of February, I was given two teachers to evaluate!

 

 

 

              The first comment post was to a lovely lady named Mary Worrell, and she currently lives in The Netherlands! What she posted about was multigenre projects. She doesn't really go into depth about what multigenre projects are, but she explained that she implements them into her classes and they enjoy it. I have had experience with a multigenre project before, and it is basically a project based on research, experience, and imagination. It makes its own point by using different mediums.
              My comment to Mary was: "Hello Mrs. Mary! I am Kaitlyn Wyman, and I go to the University of South Alabama, studying, of course, to be a teacher. In my days in high school, I remember having to complete a multigenre project, and I absolutely enjoyed it! Maybe in my future classrooms, I can implement the same project! Thanks for sharing!"

         
                        Then, for my second post, I chose to comment on Mrs. Deb Frazier's blog. She is a first grade teacher from Ohio, and she wrote a post about her seventeen year old daughter, who is at the stage where she gets easily embarrassed and doesn't want to be around her parents as much. One night, however, she bends down to give her a high goodnight, and her daughter says "I love you mommy. I know I don't always act like it and sometimes you wonder, but I do, I love you and I appreciate all you do for me." It touched her heart so much, and well, it touched mine too. So I commented that I know how she feels because I have a little brother who acts like he's too cool to love on his sister, but deep down he really loves and appreciates me and he shows it every once in a while. Every time he shows it, it makes my heart excited!

Project #13

                    For our lesson plan for 9th grade World History students, we wanted to introduce the students to the wonders of Renaissance art and art history! This will help them to identify main differences between modern art and other eras to Renaissance art, and hopefully help them gain an appreciation for the art themselves. Students will first be divided into at least five groups of four and will be assigned to a Renaissance artist, in which they will make and present a Power Point presentation and explain the artist's life and accomplishment.
                  In the second part of the project, they will start the "Michaelangelo Project". This is a fun activity to do at the end that will simulate what Michelangelo did when he painted the Sistine Chapel. The students will tape paper under their desks, lay on mats, and recreate one of his famous works of art in the Sistine Chapel. Since this is not an art class, and it serves as the fun aspect of the project, the students won't be graded on their art skills, but rather on their participation and effort.  


Here is our Google Site: The Renaissance Art Project