Sunday, December 11, 2011
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Project #10 Final Report on my PLN
My PLN, thinking back on it, did not start in this class. Before EDM310, I already had friends and relatives I could go to if I had questions about technology or education. I discovered Symbaloo in this class, but already had Facebook and Twitter. Thanks to EDM310, my PLN has grown tremendously. Since my last PLN report, I have added several educators, technology gurus and several educational and informative websites.
Twitter and Facebook are great sites for sharing links, articles and different teaching techniques. They are also great because you can throw a question out into the universe and people answer you quickly and enthusiastically! For me, Facebook is the most beneficial of the two. I had friends on Facebook that I didn’t even know were teachers and when I shared links, such as Jose Picardo’s Box of Tricks, they thanked me for them. They also started sharing things with me once they found out I was an education major.
Some of the people I have added were already on Facebook, such as Deanna Whitehead, Carla Hall, Joshua Andry, Jeanette Schill and Susan Avinger. Some are former EDM310 students, like Lisiana Emmett. She and other teacher friends of mine have helped me with projects for this class and were kind enough to offer me help any time in the future.
Just about all of the websites and blogs I reviewed because of this class have been added to my PLN. Dr. Strange has provided us with a plethora of information to help develop us professionally. I now regularly visit resourceful education sites such as Blog 4 Edu and The Edublogger. Some sites I have found on my own are Educause, Cybraryman, The Educator’s PLN and Homeschool.com.
My PLN can be compared to my journey as an educator ~ I will never stop learning and my PLN will never stop growing.
Twitter and Facebook are great sites for sharing links, articles and different teaching techniques. They are also great because you can throw a question out into the universe and people answer you quickly and enthusiastically! For me, Facebook is the most beneficial of the two. I had friends on Facebook that I didn’t even know were teachers and when I shared links, such as Jose Picardo’s Box of Tricks, they thanked me for them. They also started sharing things with me once they found out I was an education major.
Some of the people I have added were already on Facebook, such as Deanna Whitehead, Carla Hall, Joshua Andry, Jeanette Schill and Susan Avinger. Some are former EDM310 students, like Lisiana Emmett. She and other teacher friends of mine have helped me with projects for this class and were kind enough to offer me help any time in the future.
Just about all of the websites and blogs I reviewed because of this class have been added to my PLN. Dr. Strange has provided us with a plethora of information to help develop us professionally. I now regularly visit resourceful education sites such as Blog 4 Edu and The Edublogger. Some sites I have found on my own are Educause, Cybraryman, The Educator’s PLN and Homeschool.com.
My PLN can be compared to my journey as an educator ~ I will never stop learning and my PLN will never stop growing.
Project #7 C4K November
In this Age of Exploration post, a student named Lauren discusses her choice to take a project-based history course, thinking it would be more fun than a lecture course. She quickly finds out that doing research and projects is not easy. She questions her choice. But she soon appreciates her decision when she realizes the freedom in choosing her own topics and being able to do projects the way she wants to do them. I told her I would also find a project-based course appealing because it is not as rigid as the usual classes with lectures and “burp-back” assignments and tests. I really liked the Clay P. Bedford quote she shared: “You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.”
Next, I was assigned to read day 291 of Mrs. Yollis' 365 blog project. In September, Mrs. Yollis received the Teacher of the Year award in her Los Angeles school district. One reward she received was a MobiView, which is an interactive white board. In honor of this great achievement, Mrs. Yollis was asked to give a speech to the 1,100 school district employees. She said she was very nervous, but luckily she happened to be seated next to a guide dog. She was comforted by petting the dog. On her blog she asked if readers have ever seen a guide dog on duty and asks how a guide dog can help someone. I congratulated her on such a prestigious award and answered her by saying yes, I have seen a guard dog on duty and listed a couple of websites about the duties a guide dog can carry out.
In the last post, student Kashya at Pt. England School shows a drawing of a slug climbing a mountain and writes this: “Stupid King Kong knowingly embarrassed his friend. Knowingly embarrassing stupid King Kong, Mr Monkey pulled down his pants. King Kong was stupid to say, he knowingly embarrassed himself. Creepy slugs unfortunately attempted to eat my brother. Unfortunately attempting to kill the cat, the creepy slugs died. Attempting to unfortunately to climb the sky tower, the creepy slug fell and left a goey mess. Running down the mountain the creepy slugs unfortunately attempted to climb back up.”
I am still not sure what she was writing about! I searched online to find out who King Kong and Slug were but all I could find was a Wikipedia article about a television show from the 1960’s. I asked her, in my comments, who were King Kong and Slug. I also asked if she was the person who drew the picture. I wondered what King Kong did to embarrass the monkey. I also jokingly asked why the slug wants to eat her brother.
Next, I was assigned to read day 291 of Mrs. Yollis' 365 blog project. In September, Mrs. Yollis received the Teacher of the Year award in her Los Angeles school district. One reward she received was a MobiView, which is an interactive white board. In honor of this great achievement, Mrs. Yollis was asked to give a speech to the 1,100 school district employees. She said she was very nervous, but luckily she happened to be seated next to a guide dog. She was comforted by petting the dog. On her blog she asked if readers have ever seen a guide dog on duty and asks how a guide dog can help someone. I congratulated her on such a prestigious award and answered her by saying yes, I have seen a guard dog on duty and listed a couple of websites about the duties a guide dog can carry out.
In the last post, student Kashya at Pt. England School shows a drawing of a slug climbing a mountain and writes this: “Stupid King Kong knowingly embarrassed his friend. Knowingly embarrassing stupid King Kong, Mr Monkey pulled down his pants. King Kong was stupid to say, he knowingly embarrassed himself. Creepy slugs unfortunately attempted to eat my brother. Unfortunately attempting to kill the cat, the creepy slugs died. Attempting to unfortunately to climb the sky tower, the creepy slug fell and left a goey mess. Running down the mountain the creepy slugs unfortunately attempted to climb back up.”
I am still not sure what she was writing about! I searched online to find out who King Kong and Slug were but all I could find was a Wikipedia article about a television show from the 1960’s. I asked her, in my comments, who were King Kong and Slug. I also asked if she was the person who drew the picture. I wondered what King Kong did to embarrass the monkey. I also jokingly asked why the slug wants to eat her brother.
Project #3 C4T #4
For this C4T assignment, I was instructed to review educator Jabiz's blog, The Intrepid Teacher.
In the first post I read, Jabiz blogs about a “fire” spreading through his school. This “fire” is passion and excitement over his technology class, DC101. He is teaching teachers how to blog. He addresses many issues beginning bloggers experience, such as publishing blog posts with no typos, not receiving responses, what to write about, how often to write, and not having time to write. I responded that I have already experienced the benefits of blogging, seeing firsthand how teachers and students around the world are able to learn from one another and share ideas and suggestions. I said that I can see that some have a genuine issue with not having enough time to keep a current blog going. I agreed with another commenter that it is important to check for typos and try to publish a perfect blog post, with no grammatical, punctuation or spelling errors. For one, it is not good for your students to see errors like this coming from a teacher. Second, it discredits the content of your post because it is not accurately written. Mr. Jabiz has quite a few errors in both of the blog posts I have read. His topics are great and he has a writing style that is enjoyable and easy to follow, but the spelling and grammar errors hold me back from really being able to enjoy his posts. Maybe I am just shallow! But I think a teacher should be posting “perfect” comments and blog posts.
In the next post I read, Jabiz wrote about his new hairstyle - a mohawk. His wife told him, “You can’t go into work like that. It is not professional. That is not a teacher’s haircut.” Luckily, he received positive feedback about his haircut by students, other teachers and even the principal. He says he is expressing his freedom and ditching conformity in order to be a good role model for his students. The point of it was to be light and show others at school they should not take themselves so seriously. He says he had a great week at school with his new style and encourages other teachers to “shake things up a bit” in their schools. I responded by saying that expressing your individuality is a great way to teach children it is OK to be unique, especially when children are often bullied for being different. I understand that some schools look down on teachers not being the model of professionalism, so I think it’s great his principal embraced this new image, to show that you can be professional but have your own sense of style at the same time.
In the first post I read, Jabiz blogs about a “fire” spreading through his school. This “fire” is passion and excitement over his technology class, DC101. He is teaching teachers how to blog. He addresses many issues beginning bloggers experience, such as publishing blog posts with no typos, not receiving responses, what to write about, how often to write, and not having time to write. I responded that I have already experienced the benefits of blogging, seeing firsthand how teachers and students around the world are able to learn from one another and share ideas and suggestions. I said that I can see that some have a genuine issue with not having enough time to keep a current blog going. I agreed with another commenter that it is important to check for typos and try to publish a perfect blog post, with no grammatical, punctuation or spelling errors. For one, it is not good for your students to see errors like this coming from a teacher. Second, it discredits the content of your post because it is not accurately written. Mr. Jabiz has quite a few errors in both of the blog posts I have read. His topics are great and he has a writing style that is enjoyable and easy to follow, but the spelling and grammar errors hold me back from really being able to enjoy his posts. Maybe I am just shallow! But I think a teacher should be posting “perfect” comments and blog posts.
In the next post I read, Jabiz wrote about his new hairstyle - a mohawk. His wife told him, “You can’t go into work like that. It is not professional. That is not a teacher’s haircut.” Luckily, he received positive feedback about his haircut by students, other teachers and even the principal. He says he is expressing his freedom and ditching conformity in order to be a good role model for his students. The point of it was to be light and show others at school they should not take themselves so seriously. He says he had a great week at school with his new style and encourages other teachers to “shake things up a bit” in their schools. I responded by saying that expressing your individuality is a great way to teach children it is OK to be unique, especially when children are often bullied for being different. I understand that some schools look down on teachers not being the model of professionalism, so I think it’s great his principal embraced this new image, to show that you can be professional but have your own sense of style at the same time.
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