Friday, February 28, 2014

C4K summary

Jack wrote a blog about his day with Conner. The boys played a video game called Black Ops 2. Jack and Conner also watched Despicable Me 2. They were sad when Conner had to go home. I told Jack that my son loves that game. I told him how good i thought Despicable Me 2 was. I told Jack it seemed that he had a fun weekend.

Alexis had a survey on her blog. The survey was titled "All About Me". The survey had several questions on it. I told Alexis she did a wonderful job on her survey.

Liam wrote about having a match coming up in his blog. He had no idea who he was playing against. He hoped he was playing against a team he had already played against. I told Liam he was doing a great job on his blog. I also told him how much my children enjoy playing sports. I also told him that I was sure he would do well in his up coming match.

Carolina wrote a short story on her blog. Her blog was about an evil mother in law. She did a fantastic job with her story. I left her a comment telling her how much I enjoyed it.
Image of a child sitting at a desk
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Sunday, February 23, 2014

Blog Post #6

Personal learning networks are different people who you interact with online. I have a lot of friends and family online that I interact with online on a daily basis. I also have educators on my Facebook, twitter accounts as well. This can be useful to teachers because they can share with other educators ideas for lessons. Teachers can share fun ideas to do with their class rooms. Teachers can share projects with each other. PLN also helps educators by obtaining resources for the class room. Here is a video that discusses creating a PLN on twitter.


My first additions to my PLN would be educators. I always love others opinions and discussing different things with others.

Image of books
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My Book Trailer

Sunday, February 16, 2014

My Sentence is



Blog Post #5

For this blog we watched videos of Mr.Capps. He is a third grade teacher at Gulfshores Elementary school. He was discussing with Dr.Strange the direction that Baldwin County public schools are going in with teaching. He talked about the different tools the students were learning use for research and to help them better when they have projects. One of these tools was called Icurio. Icurio is a safe,and easier way for students to search the web. Icurio filters out the bad sites that students should not get on. I am a parent to a 4th grade student who attends a public school in Baldwin county. I liked watching the videos of Mr.Capps. I know my son will be bringing home a Mac Book this week. I loved hearing all the new things our school systems are coming up with to make sure our kids are getting the best education possible. The icurio is one of the best ideas I have heard. In my opinion, icurio sounds like a safe search tool for students. Mr.Capps also discussed a tool called Discover Ed. This is where the students can upload educational videos to help them with projects as well. I liked the projects he discussed as well. Mr.Capps seems to be leading his classroom in the right direction. I do think children learn better when they are more hands on. Mr.Capps also gave some good advice to future teachers like "Never limit your students". Mr.Capps also says "Let your work become a fun experience". I agree with that statement. Kids now are so different than they used to be. My son can work my ipad,computer,smartphone better than I. I am amazed with the way technology is going. I am also amazed at how much my child is learning in school using technology. I think PBL is leading these students to have very bright futures.
picture of a chalk board that says education equals future This image came from here

Sunday, February 9, 2014

What do we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher?

Ben Johnson is the author of The Right Way to Ask A Question. He writes in this article about asking questions. Johnson says,"We present ourselves to be the ones with all the answers". When in fact teachers do not know everything. They will go through a lesson and then in turn ask the students questions about what they have just talked about. Why do teachers do this? They use this method as a learning strategy to make sure their students are comprehending, and listening to what they are teaching them. Everyone might not be learning what the teacher is teaching by this method. Johnson says,"Does Everybody Understand"? I have been in this situation. Some students feel embarrassed for some reason to ask a teacher questions if they need help for any reason. Johnson suggest to call on the students randomly to answer the questions. Using this technique will have all the students brains focusing.

In the article,Three Ways to Ask Better Questions In the Classroom, by Maryellen Weimer, There are Three ways to ask better questions. "Prepare the questions" the author explains that it is a lot better to prepare for class when you write down your questions before giving a lesson."Play with questions",says Weimer. After asking a question if some students do not understand move on to something else to get their brains jogging, and to help them better answer the question. The author also suggest saving good questions for other times. If a student has a really good question or even a teacher write it down and save it for when you may need it for another class. We need to understand as aspiring teachers that questions are the key ingredients to project based learning. We need to make our students understand how important it is to ask questions so they will be better prepared for their future as well.
picture of a chalk board that says questions
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Project Based Learning Presentation

Summary for C4T

Mr. Brian Crosby wrote a blog about a science activity he did with students ranging from Pre-k to middle school. The students and their families did this project together. First, They took washers and paint stirring sticks and put them on a desk. Next, the students placed the washers one-by one, horizontally on the stirring stick until it was full. Finally, the students observed how many washers they could place on a stirring stick before it toppled off the edge. I found this to be a good science activity. The fact that family and friends were involved in this was awesome. In my opinion, group activities are more fun and the students seem to progress at an equal rate.

Mr. Crosby posted a blog called "Unleashing the Learning Power of Blogs By Actually Using Them Constantly". His blog gives his audience insight on how easy blogging actually is. All you need is time. He explains how you can use your blog to connect with friends and family as well as the outside world. His blog was very interesting to read considering I'm a first-time blogger. After getting used to blogging, it becomes easier.

 Image of an apple on books
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Sunday, February 2, 2014

Blog Post #3

When editing your peers, being positive is a very important factor. I learned in the clip, What Is Peer Editing?, It is imperative to be polite when commenting about your peers papers because there is no need to hurt someone’s feelings during the process. I learned from Peer Edit With Perfection Tutorial,by Adriana Zardini, you need to compliment your peer’s paper. Personally, I am not one to hurt another person’s feelings. I do not feel comfortable giving someone negative criticism. If anything, I prefer to be constructive.

There are several things to look over while editing your peers paper such as grammar, punctuation, spelling. In my opinion, peer editing is a very good activity for students aspiring to be teachers. I like for someone to read my papers before I turn them in to an instructor. They can find errors that I have missed. In return, I can turn in a better product. It is important to add positive feedback when editing which I saw in the clip Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes. This will improve the writers confidence and will help them through the writing process.

Image of graduate on books I found this image here