C4K March

The first student that I had for the Month of March was a girl named Clair. In her blog she talked about having a sleepover. She invited four of her friends over. She had gotten 20 gifts and she was excited about all of them. Later that night at her sleepover, her and one of her friends were playing the kinect and the lights went out. I commented and told her that I never had the pleasure of having a sleepover and I wish that I could have. I also mentioned that whenever her power went out that, that it did not stop the party.

The second student that I had the pleasure of following was Jadein. In Jadein's recent blog post, he made a book trailer about a book called SilverWing. SilverWing was a book about a bat named Shade who has to battle his way back to his family. I enjoyed his blog, because the previous week before he was assigned to me, I had the chance to work with making a book trailer. Jadein did a good job with making his trailer.&nb

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C4T #3

Thurmann Resources
I had the pleasure of following and commenting on Lisa Thurmann's blog. She was a very busy teacher, the first week I commented on her blog, was when she was going to speak at the first ever West Essex Tech Symposium on March 17, 2012. It was a free event that was accessible to everyone who would be in the New Jersey area. The event was designed for K-12 teachers, media specialists, administrators, school boards and interested community members on the innovative use of technology. The second week I had to go back to a previous blog post because she had not updated since the first post that I commented on. The second post was about how busy New Jersey would be in the Month of March. There were plenty conferences going on in the Month of March, such as Digital Content in the Classrooms, Maximizing the Possiblities of a Connected World, First ever Technology Symposium, and the first NY/NJ Google Apps Summit.

Blog Post #9

What I've Learned This Year

First, I would like to say Thank You Dr. Strange for assigning the students of EDM31O and myself to read such amazing selections. The first thing that instantly caught my eyes was the fact that Mr. McChung stated that he made an important decision for the year and it was to "Stay Positive". I feel that as an educator, one must always portray a positive outlook for the students sake. Most students look up to their teacher for support, because some are not given that love and support at home. What I'm trying to say is that educators cannot pose a negative sense towards the students, even if there are a million things going on around them that they are not comfortable with. Communication is another factor that he wrote about. Communication is important in any situation especially for an educator. You must be in touch with fellow peers, parents, and most importantly students. With the rapid expansion of technology, like Mr. McChung talked about, we should not be afraid of it, in fact we should keep up with it. Listening is essential to students also, it makes them feel that they are able to trust their educator and they are able to go to them for advice or just to talk. As a future educator, I always think to myself "How am I going to act as a Teacher?" From reading Mr. McChung writings, I know that I will be lenient, I will listen to my students, I will make my classroom environment fun and full of learning possibilities, and I understand that I will have to make a "fool" out of myself at times in order to make the lessons have some meaning. Mr. McChung did a great job with all of his writings and I am grateful to have had the chance to read them.

Project #14 SmartBoard Instruction Part 1

Project 12- Book Trailer

Project 11

Blog Post 8

This Is How We Dream

In these videos Richard Miller talks about the effective use of technology and creativity in the classrooms. Teachers and future educators, myself being one of them, need to know that technology will change. It will not just be based on books and the use of pens and pencils. I feel that technology will eventually eliminate the use of books in the classrooms and everything will be accessible on the Internet. Richard Miller mentioned that "We as educators must be in the business of sharing ideas freely", I agree with him, because if you have knowledge about something, why not share it? Someone may be wondering the same thing and with the valuable information you are attaining, you could quite possibly help them out.
Richard Miller uses the Mac computer as an example of our work space. The desktops or laptops are becoming more accessible to individuals, because basically everything is online and it is right at the click of a button. Mr. Miller says that "Our Future Is Now" and we need to adapt to the changes, in order to be accurate whenever we are trying to teach our students the correct way of using multimedia. With the use of multimedia everything will be up-to-date and students will not have to look further for information.
I cannot honestly say that I am prepared to write with multimedia, because like with all other things in life, you have to practice in order to perfect the project. In the future, I think that upon my knowledge of multimedia, I will be able to teach my students, and they will be able to obtain the knowledge and be prepared to write with multimedia.


Blog Post #12 Carly Pugh
I enjoyed reading Carly's Blog assignment and I loved her teaching philosophy. Carly's post was well put together and I was thinking, this girl must have had a lot of time on her hands. I know that once she got started she was on a roll. It was very informative, because not only should we just watch videos, we should be saving them to our favorites for purposes like Carly has used. Carly's assignment would be very interesting for future classes because it will give students a sense of multimedia use. My favorite link in her blog post was the video about "Disability means possibility". We as individuals cannot and should not judge others on them being different or as we would like to say "not normal". Having a class write about 


The Chipper Series and  EDM for Dummies
First of all, I would like to say that the Chipper video was hilarious! The future/present scene was the funniest. Chipper tried her very best to explain to Dr. Strange about her definition of procrastination and why she felt like she was right. Dr. Strange allowed her to talk, but he also implied on the fact that the same points would not be given for late work, which is unacceptable. No way was Chipper going to change the definition of procrastination  in Wikipedia, LO! I am not proud to say this, but I thought about dropping the course. Then, I had a reality check and it made me realize that dropping the class only meant failure and that I would have to eventually take it again. The good thing about Chipper's video was the fact that after that she has been through, she was able to make up her mind and go back to school. I would like to participate in the "Ed for Dummies" video, because I would like to act out that you have to dedicate at least 9 hours to class every week or else, you would be falling behind! I would imply imply imply on the deadlines, and the fact that the lab is accessible to all students and that there are lab assistants who are willing to help.

Learn to Change, Change to Learn
I think that this video should be watched by all educators who do not believe that we should incorporate technology within our classrooms. This video informs us on how educators feel about the use of Social Sites and internet changes within the classrooms. Allowing students to use and apply the internet with their learning would be a great idea, because it gives them a sense of independence. There is a way to block sites that are not appropriate for students and we may just have to do that, but I fell that blocking their use of the internet would only put them behind from learning what is important. Most kids go to school to learn more than what they are learning at home, and if the teacher is willing to provide students with knowledge about certain things, rather than bore them, then their work would be appreciated.

Scavenger Hunt 2.0
Before actually beginning the Scavenger Hunt, I watched the video Discovery Education Web 2.0 visited Discovery Education website, Web 20.11, then actually I started the Hunt on Web 2.0 Tools. The tool that I located, that was similar to Twitter and/or Facebook was Edmodo. "Creating a Professional Learning Network (PLN) is a valuable way to ensure your growth and satisfaction as an educator – and now you can use Edmodo to build your PLN!  Use the “Search Teachers” function on the right side of the screen to find colleagues and educators you’ve met at conferences and professional development events. Connecting with them allows you to send direct messages and share content to each others libraries. Edmodo Communities provide a valuable forum to gather professional feedback, exchange ideas, and share content and lessons that you can integrate immediately into your classroom curriculum." Prezi was the video tool that I found. You are able to make your own videos and import/export YouTube videos. You are able to customize your Prezi and work together as a group anywhere.  Poll Everywhere was found in Mobile Tools. 

Replace audience response hardware with Poll Everywhere

Blog Post 7

The Networked Student Upon completion of watching this video, I am aware that teachers will still exist. I understand that technology is growing and will continuously do so, but teachers are still needed to teach students the positive and negatives of internet use. Not every site has reliable information and with a teacher by a student's side this will be good. By doing so, the student's will know which sites has resourceful information that they are able to use. As a future educator, I am aware that technology will be a big part of my teaching career, and I am willing to do anything possible to keep up with it, so that I am able to answer any questions that a student may have.
The idea of having a PLN is great. It allows for one to be more advanced with searching for information to use. You are able to interact with classmates, peers, your teacher, and other people from around the world. If you may have a question regarding facts, you can ask your teacher, or any one that you are networking with. The PLN allows for students to take control of learning with others to strengthen their learning process. They are able to find worthy websites and also share the sites.So, "Why does the networked student even need a teacher?" The networked student needs a teacher because she is the one who teaches him how to build this network, and take advantage of opportunities. She offers guidance when the student gets stuck. She teaches the student how to communicate properly and ask respectfully for help from experts, differentiate between good information and propaganda. She shows the student how to vet a resource, how to turn a web search into a scavenger hunt, and get excited when the student finds that pearl of content. The teacher helps organize those mountains of information. In her heart, she hopes that the student will maintain his network for his future, even after leaving her class.
A Seventh Grader's Personal Learning Environment(PLE)
My PLN is similar to the Seventh grade student, because I admired the fact that she had her tiles arranged with personal and school being on the bottom. I feel as if you should start from the bottom(being the hardest) and working your way towards the top. My tiles along the top are for recreation purposes such as health, fitness, sports, horoscope, shopping, and iPhone apps. These are less important and I feel that if I complete the bottom ones first, then I may have time to play around with the top ones.

Project 10 PLN

Timetoast Timeline Project 9b

Blog Post #5

Don't Teach Your Kids this Stuff.Please?
Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff.Please? was a sarcastic post, in a good way to me! Dr. McLeod used plenty of irony when writing this post. He mentioned that there is cyber bullying, cheating, and predators online. He encourages them to continue the use of pen and paper, and not to rely on internet use. Basically, he is saying that everything that is going on in the internet world is not good. At the end of the post, it is like a slap in the face, because he says that he is letting his children do everything that he told the parents, teachers, and mentors not to let their kids do! His kids will be more advanced with the use of technology, while other kids will be behind.

The iSchool Initiative Seventeen year old Travis Allen is responsible for making a power point presentation on YouTube for the approach of what he calls the iSchool. in this approach, Travis Allen is convincing everyone to "Go Green", meaning that less paper will be used, classes would be smaller, less money will be spent, and the iSchool is accessible to students, teachers, and parents. Grades, lunch menus, and formulas for Math and Science are just a few of the things that are available on the iSchool. Students, teachers, and parents using the iSchool will be more technology literate. the fact that you can find almost anything on the iSchool is very important. More importantly, there is limited access to websites that are not beneficial to the use of schools, such as social networking. I think that this is a great approach and would like to see it used in schools effectively.

Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir Wow!! Is all that I can say after watching this video. It is amazing that one man can bring 185 people together to sing and perform 243 tracks, which one happens to be "Lux Aurumque". The people are from 12 different countries. Their voices are amazing and for them to have never seen one another in person is a bit shocking. This goes to show that internet use along with technology in general is rapidly expanding. ANYTHING is possible with the use of the internet and I think what Eric Whitacre put together was amazing. A big thank you to Jennifer Chambers for this video, I have never seen anything like this before.

Teaching in the 21st Century  by Kevin Roberts was an eye opener. In this video he talks about how any questions can be answered anytime, anywhere by kids within a second from the use of the internet. As teachers, we need to understand that technology is not going anywhere and keeping up with it is a must! I know that students think this is the best approach, but we as educators need to realize that if we answer a question, and the students think that it is wrong, they will go to their main source, the internet. Internet use is not always reliable, and teaching kids how to search correctly and be able to support their findings will be a great help also.

Reading Rockets While viewing the website I came across an important fact that I did not have any idea of, which was "Did you know that learning to read is a challenge for almost 40 percent of kids? The good news is that with early help, most reading problems can be prevented. The bad news is that 44 percent of parents who notice their child having trouble wait a year or more before getting help.Unfortunately, the older a child is, the more difficult it is to teach him or her to read. The window of opportunity closes early for most kids. If a child can't read well by the end of third grade, odds are that he or she will never catch up. And the effects of falling behind and feeling like a failure can be devastating." I think this was important, because we as educators and even parents, have to notice a child's struggle, before it begins. There are tutors who could help, and engaging children in reading programs throughout the week would be beneficial.
 I can remember growing up in a single-parent household, and my mom made sure that we were on track with our reading, as well as our other work. Before, we could go outside and play after school, or even watch TV, we were supposed to read a book, or make sure our homework was completed. In today's society, you do not see a lot of that going on. I feel that if we can go back to the old days and incorporate some of the things that we have learned or ways we were disciplined, the kids of today would be so much better than what they are.

Blog Post #6

Randy Pausch Last Lecture I would like to say that I am honored to have watched  Randy Pausch's Last Lecture video. For a man who was battling an illness and was told he only had three to six months left to live was so full of energy. It is amazing that he knew he was going to die within a certain time span, yet he did not let that interfere with his everyday life. He was not moping around or concentrated on it throughout his speech. Randy Pausch mentioned that you have to play the cards that you are dealt, and I love this saying, because so many things in life we often wish we could change. We as people have to understand that God is in control, and he does everything for a reason!
Randy Pausch mentioned that he had several childhood dreams which consisted of Being in Zero Gravity, Playing in the NFL, meeting Captain Kirk, winning stuffed animals, being a Disney Imagineer, authorizing an article in the World Book Imagineer. While listening to his childhood dreams, he mentioned that one of his assistant football coach said to him that "When you are screwing up and nobody says anything anymore, that means that they gave up, your critics are your one's telling you that they love you." I took this statement as a way to accept criticism from anyone, anywhere, at any given moment. There are some people who want to see you doing better and they will push you in order to make sure that you go further in life.
I learned from this video that you cannot go into life without accepting the help of others or being a part of a team sometimes. I know it is hard to ask for help or look for handouts, because some people have a tendency to "throw it back" in your face what they have done for you. The Building Virtual Worlds course seems to have been exciting for the students, and I know that with Randy Pausch as an instructor they had an awesome experience. The students bonded and involved other faculty members, and families within their experience.
In the final minutes of the video Randy Pausch mentioned that in order to get people to help you, you have to tell the truth, be earnest, apologize when you screw up, focus on others, not yourself! You cannot get there alone. He also mentioned that "When you do the right things, good things happen", and I believe in this saying, because you have to be loyal to everyone around you, even if they are not the same towards you. Being the bigger person means that you will always come out on top.  Overall,  this video was very informative and I took notes on how to get to where you want to be in life. DON'T COMPLAIN, JUST WORK HARDER!!

Podcast Project 8