Friday, December 10, 2010

Final Project with Amelia Platt

We taught Amelia's mother, who is a P.E. Teacher at McDavid Jones Elementary how to create a blog and explained how different features would be a good attribute to her class.


Sunday, December 5, 2010

Project 15



This wasn't my original plan for Project 15 but this is how it turned out. I had intended on doing a book trailer and I was using Windows Movie Maker and my train of thought shifted. So, I wound up doing a multimedia project.

PLN

stick people connected by a heart with bubbles above them. One bubble has a light bulb and one has a question mark. The border is different websites used in a PLN such as Delicious. TITLE=
As I mentioned in my previous post about my PLN, before this class I did not know what a PLN was. But now, I have connected with many teachers through our C4T assignments and I still visit many of their blogs regularly. I currently do not spend a lot of time on Twitter but I am following Dr. Strange as well as many of the people he has recommended. I have also used Delicious a couple of times. I am also using Facebook. It has allowed me to share different things I have learned in this class with my friends, family, and co-workers. I have family members who are teachers so Facebook and email have served as ways to communicate with them about things I have learned in this class as well as tips and advice on projects. My PLN is still a work in progress but it is definitely much larger than it was at the beginning of this semester.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

C4T for teacher #4

cartoon teacher with message that says great teachers inspire
I was assigned to read the blog of Angela Rand. In the first post I read, Angela discussed the difference between expert and novice. She also told her story of how she became an expert in technology tools. She talked a lot about self learning. In my comment to her I told her my own experience with this class. I told her how nervous I was at the beginning of the semester as well as at the beginning of each new project but after every project was I over I came out on top knowing a lot more than I did when I started.

When I re-visited Angela's blog she had not posted anything since the post I had already commented on so I went to her previous post and commented on it. In this post Angela talked about reflective writing and how she thought she understood it before. She said that she needs to write about what she is learning. In my comment to Angela I told her that I am working on my first blog for my EDM310 class and that writing about what I have learned has shown me how much I have truly learned this semester. http://www.mymindgap.com/

C4K November and Dec. 5th

assorted fall veggies
I was assigned to a student in Mr. Chamberlain's eighth grade class. Unfortunately their site was down so I chose a student in Mrs. Cassidy's first grade class. His name was Daulton and he had drawn a picture of his Halloween costume. He was a skeleton and he drew a skeleton with bright green and white bones on a blue background. In my comment to him I told him that I loved the colors and his super scary skeleton.


For C4K #9 I was assigned to a class blog for fourth graders in Texas. In the particular post I was assigned to I the teacher had shown the students a photo of a girl wearing a bathing suit and running on a beach. They were to  1. Observe – Tell what you see , 2. Infer – Tell what you think happened before, and 3. Predict - what do you think will happen next. The students did an excellent job with the project. In my comment to their class I told them that I think this was a neat project and they did a great job. I also encouraged them to keep up the good work.

C4K #10 - I was assigned to Mrs. Conlin's Flat Stanley Project. Their class had read “Flat Stanley” by Jeff Brown and is sending their own Flat Stanleys out into the world, which I think is neat. I was assigned to read the blog post titled Flat Devin. In this post Flat Devin was headed to Vermont. In my comment I said that Vermont is a place that I have always wanted to visit and that I would like to explore activities like skiing being as we don't get much snow where I live. I also said that I would be checking in to see how Flat Stanley's trip to Vermont goes. I enjoyed this blog, it's a great kids blog and I think many of you would enjoy reading it so here is the link http://abbotflatstanley.edublogs.org/2010/11/12/flat-devin-leaves-home/comment-page-1/#comment-531

C4K #11 - I was assigned to Frank's blog in Mrs. Haugen's sixth grade class. He wrote a poem called Cherries Red. The poem was about a man who committed suicide after remembering the people he had killed. It was a dark somewhat violent poem but had a deep meaning. In my comment to Frank I told him he did a fantastic job on the poem and that is was interesting.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Additional Assignment #5

                                                                                        

plant made of yellow and blue pencils
                                                                                 Tom Johnson's Adventures in Pencil Integration

I must say that I don't believe I have ever seen as many metaphors in one single blog post as I have in the posts I have read by Tom Johnson. I like metaphors, they make us use our imaginations and truly think about what we are reading to understand it. I like that Tom Johnson uses metaphors even in math. Math was always a difficult subject for me but, I think if maybe I had a teacher like Tom I would have understood it better. I love that he takes the time to get to know his students and that he gains their trust by not shaming him. From reading his posts I believe that Tom is an excellent teacher and someone that I look up to and respect.