Comment 4 kids Week 12

This week I went back to Room 8 at Pt England School in Auckland, New Zealand. I commended on Maysun and little boy who made an imovie about what goal he has set for himself and to get better by the end of the school year. Maysun has chosen writing as his goal.

where was week 11

Our week 11 was known as spring break. So no week 11.

Dear Kaia (week 12)

Kaia’s story was started when her father had read a book called “The Last Child in the Woods.” He told his daughter go outside and explore and play. Kaia took a camera and snapped her adventure. Her father took those pictures and pictures of his family and posted them to Kaia’s blog so he can share Kaia’s life. What I was surprised about is the video that Kaia and her father made about the pictures she took outside. That shows that a child as young as Kaia can work and learn about technology and me and others older than me never even knew how to post a blog when coming into this class.

I watched the voice thread in Kaia’s father’s class blog. It was interesting seeing how voice thread works and how a whole class can communicate with this little girl without being face to face. There are people that think that Kaia’s father was wrong to but his daughter on a blog at an early age, but they do not see how children today are changing with technology. We have to let good overcome the bad.

Schooling or Education (week 10 )

This week I watched a video by Dan Brown that a future teacher named Morgan Bayda found and posted on her blog. Mr. Brown talked about how he dropped out of school because if was affecting his education. Like Mr. Brown said, “Education is an essential.” He said that in most of his college classes, his teachers had too many students that they didn’t know names or details about their students. The professors will have him spend thousands of dollars on textbooks but never use them. Teachers will only teach the facts on subjects then to educate on how or why. We can always go onto the internet to get facts within seconds, we need training.

As a future teacher, I have to be ready to be an educator and not just a fact giver. During my freshman and sophomore level classes in Georgia, I found that I drowned in the sea of other students. Most of the teachers I had never even knew I was there. In the five years of schooling that I had done to get my first bachelors degree, I have spent thousands on textbooks and over half never got out of the package. If it wasn’t for needing a certification to teach, I would have sought my education elsewhere.

Comment 4 Kids (week 10)

This week I had a student in Mrs. Jordon’s class named Hannah. Her project was to read a book called, “The Pot of Gold” then to create a beginning, middle, and end project about that book. Hannah shared that her favorite part of the project was when she drew the pictures to accommodate her story.

Teaching Presentation (Project 8)

I did my teaching presentation over how to make a movie using photos and music from you computer. This program is on windows 7 and is called Live Movie Maker. For an example movie, I used my daughter Kaitlyn's pictures.

Google Earth (Project 12)

I did my Google Earth project over Disney world.

VoiceThread (project 7)

For my
voicethread project, I read a child's book called "Snugg and the Shoe-Fly Flu" by Stephen Cosgrove.

Comment 4 Kids Week 9

This weeks comment 4 kids was a website called English with Rosa. The post that I was assigned was “And the Oscar Went To…UP!” This was a recap from the 2010 Oscars from March 7th. They had 12 votes from the class that the Disney Pixar animated film Up will when this years Best Animated Feature Film of 2010. The votes were in and the majority of the class won their poll.

The following is a clip of the Oscars that was placed with the post.

Help in Alabama Education (week 9)

ACCESS

What is ACCESS? Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators, and Students Statewide (ACCESS) a program that allows low income students in high school and living in the state of Alabama expand their education through online based courses or by using Interactive Videoconferencing (IVC). Alabama created ACCESS to provide a better opportunity for these students to use and get familiar with technology that is coming out in the 21st century. ACCESS was started in November of 2004, but is increasing the number of students each year and hopes to keep increasing for the next several years.

I do think that ACCESS is a great resource for certain students when they are older like high school grades, but I do not think that I would be using the ACCESS program in my classroom because I will be teaching in an Elementary School environment. If for any reason I am placed in a High school environment I would use this program and reprehend the program to others. Even though I would not be using this program it’s a good idea for all teachers to have the information. I haven’t lived in Alabama long, but the other states that I did reside in did not have anything close to what Alabama has with ACCESS.


ALEX

The Alabama Learning Exchanges (ALEX) is a resource of teachers, students and parents that are in the educational field needing assistance in academic lessons. The ALEX web site gives a list of courses offered with the program, a personal workspace for the student, search engines to use for research, lesson plans, web pages and person learning tools. You can also find podcast over different topics to give students a visual learning tool. Teachers will find this program useful because they can be taught and get a strong knowledge of how to use ALEX for their students. The best part of ALEX is that it is free.

I think that ALEX is a great source for Alabama teachers and students. Being a special education major, ALEX also gives resources and curriculum ideas for different disabilities. This program will in the future benefit me in my classroom. I would use all the resources available in this website. The web links are useful as well as the lesson plans.

Comment 4 Teachers (weeks 7,8,9)

JF Hadley is a teacher of an all girls school in Philadelphia. She is a teacher of English and History. Ms. Hadley started a blog called Middle School Matrix- Exploring the changing world of Middle School teaching and technology. I read some of her blog posts and choose these three to post about, global fun and laughter, inanimate objects=dinosaurs, and when the tech tool fails.

The first post is called, "Global Fun and Laughter". This is about JF Hadley’s Personal Learning Network (PLN) and how it affected her classroom. As one of her networks that she uses for her PLN, she twittered to a teacher that was in Japan. This communication with text allowed them to share resources and information about the other county. To increase her student’s interest, the teacher from Japan sent samples of Japanese food for each of her students in the class. To continue to view other networks for her PLN, the Japan teacher sent her Skype address and got her connected. Now Ms. Hadley is able to put a face and voice to her teacher friends in other countries.

Since I am learning about my own PLN, it is nice to see how different teachers are able to have an outcome of experiencing food from Japan. I think that it would be a good idea to have teacher friends that are in other countries like that to send things like food and to also bring the United States to them. This is positive outcome for PLNs to have Twitter, and Skype as a network.

There was a post that Ms. Hahley posted titled, “Inanimate Objects=Dinosaurs”. This post is about how her granddaughter was using her iPhone with an app called Bubbles. When she showed and instructed her granddaughter how to play the game and the little girl tried without success left the phone upset. She later came back with determination and took the phone and succeeded in playing the game. This made Ms. Hardley think about how children in the world today look towards devices like iPhones and computers that have touch and sound interactions.

This reminds me of how my daughter learned how to use my DVD player and iPod. She wound watch me use my fingers to activate the devices and when I turned away, she would play and work the devices herself. Now at two years of age, my daughter can change out and play DVDs in the player, turn on and off computers and televisions, and switch songs and turn up and down the volume on my iPod nano. She knows that by doing this, it will give her the outcome that she wanted, to watch Curious George.

The last post that I read was called, “When the Tech Tool Fails”. Ms. Hahley did this post as a response to Jason Bedell’s help for his book. He was looking for teachers that had stories about technology tools that were used in the classrooms but failed to work. Ms. Hahley told him how she was going to use video camera to tape her students reenacting four events that lead up to the Revolutionary War. The movies would be with props and costumes. Both her and her students took more time in getting changed and trading props that it took too long to film. In the end, they stopped short and had to move on not finishing the project.

Ms. Hahley has said that this did not discourage her to continue to use movie making in her classroom, but taught herself that she should only use less events. I think that this project was a fun creative way for the students to learn. They have a way to be a part of the war like a reenactment. I would use her ideas as a fun activity to use team work while learning an important part of history.

Timetoast Timeline (project 10)

For my timetoast timeline project I did it over American Presidents.

Click here to view timetoast timeline

What is Skype? Why is it a great tool to use? (project 6)

Before attending my EDM 310 class, I had already activated and was using Skype. Skype is a free way to communicate person to person, even if the person is across the World. For example, my best friend Marcy was transferred for work in Mexico. After giving each other our account names, we are able to talk to one another like we would on our land line phones or our mobile phones. This allows us to talk as long as we want and not worry about a high phone bill. Another way that I use Skype is to instant message my high school friend who lives and teaches in China. Sometimes we do an audio feed to her students while their in class. This saves texting fees on our mobile phones.

Skype is more than just audio and texting. It is also about video messaging and sharing folders. My husband’s family lives in New York and they do not get to see our daughter often, so once a week we use the web cameras and start a video conference between the two homes. I also share my picture folder of my daughter with them so they can see every detail of her life. Skype is a great way to stay close to the ones you love. But it can also be a helpful resource to use for businesses. Skype can do both video and audio conferences. Businesses also can share their folders, saving money on postage.

Skype me at haludwig84.

Google Forms- Winter Olympics (project 5)

For my Google Form project I did a survey of the Winter Olympics. There were twenty-one questions in the forms of text, multiply choice, check the box, and selecting one of the following, and rating. I had a total of thirty-four responses returned.

The responses showed that seventy–four percent (74%) said that they have watched the Winter Olympics at least once. Seventy-nine percent (79%) have watched the summer Olympics. Forty-one percent (41%) are watching the 2010 Winter Olympics. Thirty-five percent (35%) last watched the winter Olympics in 2006. nine percent (9%) last watched in 2002. Eighteen percent (18%) last watched in 1997. Three percent (3%) last watched in 1989. The last three percent (3%) last watched in 1981. Fifty percent (50%) of the responses said that Figure Skating is their favorite sport followed by snowboarding at twenty-four percent (24%). Curling and Ice Hockey tided as the least favorite sporting event at twenty-six percent (26%) each. Fifty-three percent (53%) rated figure skating at the highest. Thirty-two percent (32%) rated Ice Hockey in the middle. Seventy-six percent (76%) of the responders support other countries other than the United States of America. Sixty-eight percent (68%) don’t keep track of the medal counts of each country. The majority of the responses did not have a favorite athlete. They also wanted to see the United States and Canada compete for medals against each other. Eighty-five percent (85%) of the responders said that the Olympics are dangerous. When asked where they would like to see the next Olympics being held, they said the United States. The sporting events that got the middle rate were Loge, Bobsleigh, Mogul and Snowboarding. For the opening ceremony this year, sixty-five percent (65%) enjoyed it were thirty-five (35%) did not. Eighty-eight percent (88%) want the United States to get the most medals this year.

Comment 4 Kids Week 8

This week I’m posting off of a post by a teacher. My teacher's name is JK McClung for the blog Mr. McClung’s World. The post I did was a presentation called Properties of Waves. Mr. McClung gives definitions of Amplitude, Wavelength, frequency, and speed. It also has a mini lab that is at the end to help the students have a fun educational time to learn about waves. I like the way that this teacher posted a small lesson by a presentation that the students can get on at all times of day and look back to do their work.

Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture (week 8)

“Achieving your Childhood Dreams” by Randy Pausch takes about his childhood dreams. He then said that he did achieve his dream and explained what he did to get there. Dr. Pausch gives several examples of what he dreamed of doing as a child. Dr. Pausch then went on to talk about how we can help to achieve the dreams of our students. This can be achieved just as being their teachers. Teachers are a big factor in children’s future. What we tell them and teach them now will always be with them in the future. Dr. Pausch gave a couple of examples of students he helped to achieve their dream.

Dr. Pausch ended his lecture talking about with a list of five points. The First point is to remember that brick walls let us show our dedication. You should stand strong to what you want to accomplish. The second point was to not bail. Do not start a goal and not finish it through when it starts to get tough. Another point is to get feedback and learn from them. Take the good comments as well as the bad and use them for future references and keep learning for them. Fourth point is to show gratitude. When you get help, let them know that you happy they could help. You never know when you would need that help again. The last point is do not complain just work harder. When it gets tough, just keep pushing. In the long run it will be worth it.

The most memorable thing that Dr. Pausch said was, “It is not about achieving your dreams…it is about how to live your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself and the dream will come to you.” I found his lecture to be inspirational and creative. Dr. Pausch lectures inspired me to become a better future teacher, mother, daughter and wife. He reminds me of things that my teachers in high school and my family have told me in the past. I would like to see that being a teacher can change even one child’s life. So when I’m gone from the world, my life would have been worth something positive and good.

In my high school yearbook, my parents placed a message that I have always held close when deciding what I wanted to do in my life. They wrote, “Never loose hope in your dreams. There will always be hard times in the road ahead, but never get discouraged. Always reach for the highest dream and complete it. This will make you great.” I hope to one day tell my students this same thing. Like Dr. Pausch said in his lecture, “chase your dreams, help others, and give good advice.”