Blog Post #7

Randy Pausch 

After watching Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture, I was really inspired to follow more of my dreams, no matter how weird I think they are. He was able to follow and accomplish all of his childhood dreams one way or another. Randy gave so many inspiring life tips. Randy seemed so upbeat and motivated even thought he was suffering from a terminal illness. One thing that he said that stood out to me, "we can not change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." I think that is a perfect saying to live by not only in everyday life but also as a future educator.

Randy started off by talking about the dreams he had when he was a child, how he went about to achieve them and what lesson he learned from his experience. The first one he talked about was being in zero gravity. He got a chance to be in zero gravity when he was teaching. NASA had a program called "vomit comet" which would take selected students into a machine that is used to train the astronauts. This machine does parabolic arcs and at the top of each arc there, would be about 25 seconds of zero gravity. Randy got a group of his students together and entered the contest and won. Along the way he hit a "brick wall." Randy says, "brick walls are there for a reason: they just let us prove how badly we want things." This really hit home for  me because when I hit a brick wall I get discouraged. Being a future educator I think it is important to teach your students, when you hit a brick wall, try harder and to not give up. After every dream he accomplished, he explained what he learned. I  think that is very important to take away. Randy teaches us that the journey is more important that the actual outcome, even if the journey is hard and painful.

Randy loved teaching and inspiring his students to worked harder. He taught me that to believe in my students and push them so they can be the best they can be. One thing he found helpful when teaching, was teaching his students one lesson and without them knowing, having them learn a harder lesson. He calls this "the head fake," allowing students to think they are learning one thing, when they are actually learning another. This video inspired and motivated me to be the best I can be in life and also as a future educator.

C4K Summary for February

C4K #1:

This week for my C4K I was assigned to Adam. Adam was so excited because his class got to Skype with Sharky Gillian. Sharky Gillian told the class about really cool facts about sharks. Adams says that sharks are harmless to us. He says them just get confused when they see a surfboard and they mistake it for a human. They think the surfboard is a seal, their favorite food. He also mentions that humans kill shark for useless reason like to make soup. Adam said this soup, fin soup, does not taste good and could also be toxic.

My Reply:

Hey Adam, I am Kelly and I am in EDM310 class student at the University of South Alabama. I loved reading your post. I think it is so cool that your class got to Skype Sharky Gillian and you got to learn so many cool facts and sharks. It breaks my heart that people kill sharks for useless reasons. I had no idea that on average sharks five humans, yearly. I look forward to reading more of your posts, keep up the great work. 

C4K #2:

This week I was assigned to Kayla. She was asked the question, "what do you think you will be like and what do you think you will doing 15 years from now?" She hopes to be a vet or a librarian. She also just wants to be happy. Kayla will be out of school by then and she says she will probably still live with her family to help out around the house.

My Reply:

Hello Kayla, I am Kelly and I am in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama. I think it is so cool that you already know that you want to be a vet or a librarian when you get older. I had no clue what I wanted to do until I was in like 12th grade. I think you will be happy 15 years from now, if you are doing something you love. I loved reading your post and I look forward to reading more.

C4K #3:

This week I was assigned to Craig. Craig gives some tips about bullying. She starts by giving tips on what to do if you are being bullied. She says the best thing to do is tell an adult, report them and ignore them. She also say just to stay away from the person that is bullying you. The next thing Craig talks about is, how to help someone if they are being bullied. Craig says do not let someone who is being bullied feel left out. She says try and play with and become friends.

My Reply:

Hey Craig, I am Kelly and I am in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama. Your advise on bullying is perfect. It would be great if more people took your advise. Remember if you see someone getting bullied tell someone and try and be friends with that person that was getting bullied. I look forward to reading more of your post. Keep up the great work.

C4K #4:

This week I was assigned to Guy Behind Waffle House. He write a post about a book he read and he also saw the movie to go along with it. Although, he never says what movies or book, he says that he enjoyed the movie over the book.

My Reply:

Hey, I am Kelly and I am in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama. Books can be very interesting and knowledgeable. I also like movies because it is a motion picture along with a storyline. I am not sure what book and movie you and talking about but I am sure it was a good one. Keep up the great work and I look forward to reading more of your posts. 

Project #8 Book Trailer

Blog Post #6

What are PLNs?

A PLN or Personal Learning Network is an online source that can help you in your teaching career. It is an entire collection of people that you can exchange information with or ask questions with. Forming your PLN is simple, start off with your basic social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. These are great sites to help you grow your PLN and learn as an educator. Believe it or not Pinterest is a 

fabulous PLN. Think about it, people form all over the world get together to share ideas about anything

and everything. With that being said, I think most people today have some form of PLN, whether they realize it or not. When I started this assignment, I had no idea what a PLN was and did not think I had one. Once I learned what it was, I realized between my twitter, facebook, blogger, instagram and various others, I realized I had started my PLN a long time ago. So, I think a PLN is important in the classroom, especially for the teacher, because it allows them to ask questions and learn from others who may know more about a topic than they do.

Blog Post #5

What did you learn from these conversations with 

Anthony Capps?

This weeks blog we were asked to tell what we learned when watching a few videos that Anthony Capps made. In the videos, Project Based Learning Part 1 and Project Based Learning Part 2 Anthony talks with Dr. Strange about Project Based Learning (PBL) and how he uses it in the classes room. The goal of PBL is to not only show that the students have achieved something but to also get them to learn something. I learned that PBL really motivates the students to learn because they have to go out and

find the information they need. When the students find the information on their own they get excited because they did it on their own without any help. One of the projects that Anthony did with his students that I thought was interesting was, he has his students write letters to their congressmen about women serving in open combat. His students had to provide examples from history to back up their thesis. Then the class peer edited each others papers and as a class they choose eight papers to send and they get a couple replays. I think that is pretty cool, that the student were able to learn by getting involved in the community.

The next video is iCurio, which is basically a search engine. I had never heard of this until Anthony talked about it. He said it is an online tool that allows students to safely surf the web for web sites that have been picked for educational purposes. It also helps students stay organized and it automatically saves their work. 

I found Discovery Ed very interesting. People say a picture is worth a thousand words but a video... Discovery Ed takes learning information and puts it into a video. This way the student is able to not only hear but also see what they are learning from an expert. 

In Anthony and Dr. Strange's Tips for Teaching Part 1 they give about five tips to help teacher succeed. 

1. Be Interested in Learning Yourself - If you are not interested in learning your students will not want to learn. You as the teacher are their role model and you have to set a good example for them. 

2. Hard Work - It will be hard work but let it be fun for you and your students. 

3. Be Flexible - Always be ready and prepared for the unexpected. 

4. Get Kids Engaged - You want the students engaged in learning, if not they will not learn. 

5. Reflection - Always try and revise your work to make it better because you can always better yourself.

Our next video that we were assigned Dont Teach Tech - Use It, pretty much explains it all. Teachers can not teach students how to use technology because lets face it they probably know more than us. We  can provide them with the technology and slowly introduce them new things like, iCurio and Discovery Ed. Anthony says the best way to do this is to start with introducing on tool at a time and slowly introducing more. 

In the last video Additional Thoughts About Lessons , Anthony talks about how there are four components to making a lesson plan. The first one he says is your year plan, which is the daily lessons that are needed to fit into a a years time. Then it gets broken down into units that are usually six to eight weeks long. The goal of the unit is to start teaching one thing and end the unit with something else but by the end of the unit students should be able to master what they learned. Next it gets broken down into weeks then to daily. These have equal importance because you as the teacher have to know what you need to accomplish in a weeks time but deliver your lesson in a way that hooks your students and they want to learn. 

My Sentence Videos

My Sentence Is...




My Passion Is...

Project #3 Presentation

Blog Post 4

Asking Questions: What questions do we ask? How do we ask?

This weeks topic was really strange to me at first. When I read the heading "Asking Questions: What questions do we ask? How do we ask them?" I thought to myself, what do mean, I ask questions all the time. But after reading the links that were posted, it all became clear. The Right Way to Ask Questions in the Classroom in the Classroom by Ben Johnson, really hit home for me. Johnson's opening question "have you ever thought how silly we teachers can be?" Honestly, no I have never thought of it. He says, we stand in front of the students teaching them material acting like we know everything then, turn around and ask a question like we do not know what we just talked about. Teachers always ask the same question many times throughout the day, "does everybody understand?" Most of the time students do not respond to this question. Some are daydreaming and others are so confused they do not know how to ask a question. What is sad to me is by fourth grade, students figure out whether they are the

smart kid, the kid who has to study or the kid who does not care and this "label" usually sticks with them. So, when the teacher asks a question about what was taught to the whole class, it is likely, that the smart kid will have his/her hand up first. A simple way to fix this issue is to ask the question, wait about three seconds then call on a student. In those three seconds everyone will be trying to think of the answer. This post opened my eyes so much. It made me think about the teacher I want to be someday.

In the post Asking Questions to Improve Learning  Questioning Styles and Strategies and Three Ways to Ask Better Questions in the Classroom, all stress that it is important to plan your questions before you ask them. Asking a question that you pulled from thin air could lead to a leading question. A leading question is a question that suggests its own answer and it is asked in a way that does not allow students to think on their own. Make sure your questions are direct, clear and specific in class and on quizzes and exams.

In Joanne Chesley's YouTube video, Asking better questions in the classroom, she talks about open-ended and close-ended questions. Chesley says, a close-ended question structures the answer for the responder and can be answered by one word like, yes and no. For example, "will you please do me a favor?" But an open-ended question leaves the answer up to the responder and leads to more thinking. For example, "what is your favorite memory from your childhood?" Using an open-ended question allows the student to think and to learn more in the process.

Project 4, C4T #1

On Student Achievement

This week's C4T, I was assigned to On Student Achievement by Brian Bennett. Brian now works at TechSmith after teaching science for 4 years. In his post he talks about a pedagory, which is the art or style of teaching. He says, "Student growth requires four actions: quality experiences, difficult yet specific goals, meaningful feedback, and the awareness of a teacher." He says that technology can have an  impact with feedback but also teacher awareness because this eliminates time and communication barriers. This occurs when a teacher understands how to teach and the technology is a tool to assist in that process. So, technology is important but it has to use in a meaningful way. 

My reply:

Hello! My name is Kelly Campbell and I am a student at the University of South Alabama in EDM310. It is a required course for all education majors here at South Alabama and it teaches us the new technology that is already in schools or will be in the schools. So, this course is helping us, future educators, learn the communication barriers and have meaningful feed back for our students. You stated, “Technology can impact the learning process in many ways, and I would like to argue that the Teacher and Approaches (Pedagogy) have the highest potential to be powerfully affected.” I completely agree with what you are saying, technology can either help the learning process or it can hurt it. For example, if you walk into a classroom and students are playing an educational game on the computer, I do not think that is hurting them because they are having fun but also learning. But, I also think, technology can be harmful because in younger classrooms, like preschool, the students are playing with ipads and watching “educational” TV. I do not agree with younger students using technology because at that age they need human contact. “Cuban (1986) defines technology as “any device available to teachers for use in instructing students in a more efficient and stimulating manner.” With preschool and kindergarten age classrooms we should listen to Cuban. I enjoyed reading your post; it opened my eyes and helped me see technology in new ways. I would love for you to come and read my blog: http://campbellkellyedm310.blogspot.com or if you are interested in reading the other EDM blogs, please feel free to check out our class blog: http://edm310.blogspot.com also, I will be summarizing your post and the comment I leave the week of February 4 on my blog if you want to read it. 

Flip Flop and a GIMP Bump Life

This week in Brian Bennett’s blog Educator, Learner, I read a post, called Flip Flop and a GIMP Bump Life He says he was doing a debate with Nate Langel at a NovaNOW conference. He explains how he was working on the graphic that he used as a promo for the conference. His topic is called Flipped Learning and he will be discussing the pros and cons of our viewpoints. He starts off by finding an image of a pair of flip flops on the internet. Then he wanted to add words on the flip flops. He did this through GIMP. He was also able to change the font, add texture, and color to the words. 

My Reply:

This is very insightful. I have never been to computer savvy but I know the basics. I have never heard of the program GIMP. Being a future educator I probably need to learn more about this program so I can make graphics to help my students learn.  Obviously, I do not have any tips on how to use this program for you right now but I do think your graphic looks great. But like you said, just some more fading around the edges to match the texture and I think you will have an outstanding graphic.