Blog Post #16

Part One

At the beginning of the semester I imagined my elementary classroom as having a SMARTboard, iPads, and computers. I also imagined it to be colorful, creative, collaborative and fun. For the first two or three weeks, I didn’t’ really know how to incorporate technology in the classroom and I wasn’t very technologically literate. Throughout the semester in EDM310, Dr. Strange assigned us to use and discuss many tools for the classroom and when learning. In my future classroom, I want to use technology as much as possible. Technology changes constantly, which means we must change. I have learned that as a future educator, I must always be a lifelong learner.

After using the many tools encountered in EDM310, I know which tools I will continue using every day and in my future classroom. Technology is beneficial in the classroom for students and teachers. SMARTboards are a major tool in the classroom for teaching lessons, watching educational videos, etc. iPads apps are also a major tool. Students are able to learn and do activities on the iPads that are educational. There are also special needs apps to help accommodate special needs students. Another tool I will use in my classroom is Blogger. Blogging enables children to enhance their literacy skills and share their activities, pictures, and ideas all over the world. Parents, family members, other students and educators are able to comment on the student’s various activities they post on their blogs.

I also plan on using tools and resources such as Skype, iCurio, Discovery Ed., podcasts, Google Docs, Padlet and iMovie. I will use Skype so that my students can ask questions to other educators. I will use iCurio so that my students have the opportunity to use a safe search engine to search the web. Discovery Ed. Is also a useful tool to that gives text a visual aspect and brings the text to life. Podcasts, Padlet and Google Docs are also resources that I will use in my classroom. Another tool I will use is iMovie so that my students have the opportunity to make movies in collaborative projects, such as a green screen movie.

Technology plays an important role in the classrooms today. To be a successful teacher, you must be interested in learning. Therefore, you must be willing to be technologically literate because the technology is always changing. I have learned so much this semester that I will take with me throughout my education and future teaching career.

Part Two

Blog Post #15

Anthony Capps is a former EDM 310 student and lab professional who excelled in Dr. Strange’s class. He has also become a great friend of Dr. Strange. Anthony Capps is a third grade teacher in Baldwin County and Dr. Strange sits down with him in these video calls discussing various different technology topics.

Lauren Macon

iCurio-
In the conversation with Dr. Strange, Anthony Capps describes his viewpoint of iCurio as a safe search engine that allows students to search websites that fit the Alabama State Standards. Not only does it allow you to search websites, it allows you to search images, videos, etc. that are pulled and filtered for educational uses. It also has two other components other than being a safe search engine for students. One component is a storage capacity for students and teachers. This is a great tool for teaching students organization so they can organize valuable content in files and folders. This is an advantage. If students have to leave iCurio to go to lunch, P.E., etc. they are able to save the website they were visiting so they can remember where they were. Another component is Timelines and Historical Features. Anthony talked about using Timelines in his classroom next year. You can search by criteria when using Historical Features. If a child is doing a project but they do not know much about it, they can simply search something like female, minority, astronaut. This is like a directory for historical figures which is important because students do not have background knowledge to know the names of all historical figures. iCurio also has an accessibility feature called Read Aloud. I thought it was interesting that Anthony said iCurio would be useful for any grade level that the teacher feels comfortable letting students search the web. In my future elementary classroom, I plan to use iCurio. It is not only a safe search engine, but it allows the students to search the web for websites and other media tools that fit the Alabama State Standards. I cannot wait to use this tool with my future students!

Discovery Ed-
Discovery Ed is a useful tool for project based learning that gives text a visual aspect. In the conversation, Dr. Strange talks to Anthony Capps about how he uses Discovery Ed in his classroom. Anthony says, “A picture is worth a thousand words, but a video must be worth a million.” Discovery Ed is worth that according to Anthony. He says that if a child has a visual text, they will retain a lot more. It is a great tool for social studies and science. For example, if they are doing a lesson on plants, the student can search “beautiful flowers” and it will give them a video to learn instead of just a picture. Discovery Ed gives the opportunity to bring experts into the classroom via video, which is crucial. Discovery Ed is beneficial for student searches so that they are able to enrich their research experience. It is also beneficial because it brings different texts to life and gives the opportunity of comparing and contrasting reading. Discovery Ed is a tool that I will use in my classroom. As Anthony said, the students will retain more when they are viewing something rather than just reading text.

The Anthony- Strange list of Tips for Teachers Part 1-
In the conversation between Dr. Strange and Anthony Capps, they discuss five things that every new teacher should think about and prepare for. This is a great list that I will keep in mind as I pursue my teaching career. The first five tips for teachers are:
1. BE A LEARNER- To be a successful educator, you must be interested in learning. Then, you must model it for others. This reminds me of what Dr. Strange says, “I don’t know, let’s find out.”
2. HARD WORK- Teaching is hard work, but there is no separation between playing and teaching. Teachers are still learning the craft of teaching in their free time. Teaching can be fun and fascinating if you let it be and in the end will be very rewarding.
3. FLEXIBILITY- When you are teaching, things will not always happen as planned, therefore you cannot be committed to one way of doing something. Teachers must be able to respond to unexpected events. For example, in Anthony Capps class, the servers were not working, so he had his students on the floor painting. Surprises like this always happen so we must be flexible.
“Start with the end in mind.” Start out with the end goal in mind, if it doesn’t look like what you intended, be flexible.
4. GET KIDS ENGAGED- Anthony Capps says you must have 100% engagement in your classroom. Teachers should not leave any child behind. To engage students, choose a content they are interested in, make it a process they want to use, let them discover something and get excited about it, and make it shareable so they have an audience to share their work with. There are many ways to get motivated. Each day, always think how you can get every one of your students involved in the learning process.
5. REFLECT- Self evaluation is important in the process of learning. Use audiences as a purpose to reflect and use critiques from the audience. Reflection needs to be the goal and an audience leads to reflection.

I learned five great tips that every teacher, including myself, should always remember when teaching. One fascinating thing Anthony Capps said was that, competition, pride, collaboration and purpose lead to more students reflecting and sharing their work as if it were gold. I enjoyed the conversations between Dr. Strange and Anthony Capps, especially the Strange list of Tips for Teachers-Part 1. I look forward to Part 2. Thank you Dr. Strange and Anthony Capps for sharing your knowledge and tips!

Caitlin Lankford

iCurio Baldwin County has started using iCurio in the schools. In the interview video of Dr. Strange and guest Anthony Capps, Capps describes what iCurio is and the many ways he uses the program in the classroom. Capps said that iCurio pulls safe websites for students to do research on for educational purposes. iCurio is also an easy way to store and organize virtual files and folders. Capps uses iCurio so that his students can get an early start on practicing organizational skills. Another way Capps uses iCurio in the classroom, is to make virtual timelines. For instance, if his classroom is studying historical figures, the students can look up the focus figure and find out what historical events were happening during their time. iCurio even allows read-alouds for students with reading disabilities. For my future classroom, I would love to use the timeline feature on iCurio so that my students can grasp a better understanding of what major historical facts happened.

Discovery Ed In another interview of Anthony Capps and Dr. Strange, Dr. Stange asks Capps to explain how he uses Discovery Ed in his classroom. Capps starts off by saying, “if a picture is worth a thousand words then a video must be worth a million and Discovery Ed is worth every bit of the million!” I love Capps’ quote!! Capps says that Discovery Ed is a great visual aid resource because students can use videos to enrich their research experience. The reason why is because, students using Discovery Ed don’t look up pictures relating to what they are learning, they look of videos to gain information. “Discovery Ed really brings text to life” says Capps, and that is so true!! Students won’t just read their text, but they will use visual aids to gain knowledge about their learning content. Capps’ students reacted to Discovery Ed in a positive way. They enjoy using Discovery Ed just as much as they love reading the actual text. They associate reading with visual aid learning. I would love to use Discovery Ed in my future classroom, so that my students will be able to expand their research experience!

An Additional Thought About Lessons- The last part of Anthony Capps’ and Dr. Stange’s interview video, Capps adding his thoughts on lesson plans. Capps said lesson plans are four layers thick with each layer meaning something different, but all of the same importance! the first layer is the year layer. In the year layer, where you question how the lesson plan fits into the year, and are you going to cover all of the content standards? The second layer is the unit and in the unit, the question that should be asked is are the unit projects devised in a way that is meaningful? The educator can not do all of the required activities and projects in one day, they should be spread over a time so that the student can understand and comprehend the learning content over a unit time which is usually six to eight weeks. For the third layer, the question that should be asked is how are you devising the projects so that they can be done weekly? The final layer is the daily lesson plan. For the daily lesson plan layer, the educator should think about how to deliver the material to the students so that they are hooked and engaged. The four components come together to make a lesson plan. I have never thought about seeing lesson plans as to having layers. After listening to Capps talk about the four components, I think I have a better understanding on lesson plans.

Melissa Canterbury

iCurio- iCurio ,according to Anthony Capps in his video call with Dr. Strange, is an online tool that allows students to not only search websites safely, but also other forms of media that has been filtered for educational purposes that adhere to the ACCRS and other State Standards. iCurio has two other major components as well as being a safe search engine for students. One great aspect of iCurio is that it has a storage capacity that not only allows teachers to store items, students can store content that they find valuable. iCurio allows students to start getting practice with virtual organization through the folders and files. Other great tools components of iCurio are features such as Timelines and Historical Figures. Anthony talks about how he plans to use Timelines more next year but that he has used a lot of the Historical Figures feature. iCurio has a directory feature with Historical Figures where what students do is type in keywords about a certain topic. For instance, if the students are doing a civil rights projects, they would type in “1960 African male”. This kind of directory is important because students do not have the background knowledge to know the names of historical features, that is what they are researching. What I found useful about what Anthony says about iCurio is that it can be used in any grade level! I will be teaching in the elementary classroom and plan to use it in my classroom because not only does it have safe text that has been filtered, there are a lot of other media that will engage the students! Great tool and I can’t wait to use it more and incorporate it into my classroom.

Discovery Education- One of the tools that Baldwin County has made accessible to educators now is Discovery Ed. Dr. Strange sits down with Anthony Capps in this YouTube video, to get Anthony’s thoughts on Discovery Ed in the classroom and why he thinks it’s a useful tool for Project Based Learning. “A picture’s worth a thousand words, and a video must be worth a million.” Discovery Ed is a great tool to backup a text with visual which helps the students retain more through visuals. Anthony talks about how he uses it with his students in their classroom. For instance, if they are doing a lesson on plants, Discovery Ed takes the students way farther than just a picture. Discovery Ed provides them with videos and brings in experts on topics via video. Anthony uses Discovery Ed in his classroom for student searches and he uses it to bring different texts to life. One fascinating fact that they talked about was that students retain more information when they are viewing something rather than just reading a text. The same goes as if students are engaged. I think Discovery Ed is a great tool to engage students in the lesson and a tool I can see myself incorporating in my future elementary classroom.

Don’t Teach Technology-Use It! - In Dr. Strange and Anthony Capps’ video, Use Tech, Don’t Teach It, Anthony talks about technology in his classroom. Our culture is so technologically based that there is no way to escape it. Whether adults are interested in technology or not, it just comes natural to children. An important way to incorporate technology into the classroom is to scaffold your tools and use different ones. Start with doing a small reflection on iMovie one week and then the next have them create a movie. Use technology to get your students excited about lessons, use it to let them share what they have created, and as a teacher, use different tools meaningfully. DON’T EXPECT PERFECTION! If you use a new tool, allow students time to reflect on what they have used and what they made mistakes on. I like how Dr. Strange’s class allows us to learn on our own, we actually learn it better and remember what we have done to master the skills. It will be the same way with elementary students, use technology with your students, don’t just teach it to them. I really enjoyed the talks with Anthony Capps, I like that he is a former EDM student and how far he has come in his career! Thank you Anthony for everything you have shared with us!

Blog Post #14- Marvelous Me!

Do you want to know about your classmates? Do you want to know about your teacher? I do! Dr. Strange asked us to create a blog post assignment titled "What Did I Leave Out?" At the beginning of the semester, our first practice blog post was to tell about ourselves. I was glad because then I could learn about my classmates and group members. But, I wanted a more creative and more visual aspect to it. When we were assigned this assignment, I thought of a great way to bring writing to life! If you were an elementary student, wouldn't you want that too? One of my teachers last semester, Mrs. Freeman, created a slideshow about her and showed it on our first day of class. I thought, I want to do this with my future students! I started thinking about a tool I discussed in one of my previous posts called PhotoPeach. PhotoPeach is an easy, engaging tool for creating slideshows.

Instructions:

1. Find images on Google or you can use images you already have that you would use to tell about yourself.
2. Save them for later use on PhotoPeach.
3. Create an account for PhotoPeach (FREE!)
4. Click Create New Slideshow: Upload Photos
5. You may upload as many photos as you would like by simply choosing them from a file.
6. Click Next.
7. Give your slideshow a title and a description.
8. Choose background music by scrolling through the music listed. If you don't like what they have, click on the Search YouTube tab and search music.
9. Click Finish.
10. Click the Edit tab to edit caption and photos, edit music and title, add photos, manage comments, delete show, or download the show.
11. Put your mouse over the right side of your slideshow and click the Embed in Blog button.
12. Copy and paste into your blog.
13. Be Creative! Have Fun! Tell about yourself!

Here is my slideshow!

Marvelous Me on PhotoPeach

C4T #4

In the post, "Transition Years" on Dorothy Burt's blog Manaiakalani, talks about the Manaiakalani Schools being in their fourth year of ensuring all year 5 to 13 students own their own digital device. I wish Mobile County was like this! This enables them to participate in a digital learning environment. The leaders of the junior class brainstormed ways they would like to experiment with such as starting individual blogging younger (great idea!), use desktops and tablets, have an older buddy class, having a Chromebook pod available, etc. Two schools reported back on the positive difference the Chromebooks were having in class. The children were confident in logging onto their Google apps. What an awesome opportunity these kids are getting! My comment was, "My name is Lauren Macon and I am a student in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama. Dr. Strange has assigned us to visit educator's blogs and to leave comments. The leaders of the junior class have brainstormed a list of great ideas! Blogging is something I want to do in my future elementary classroom. Having the older students help out the younger students is a great idea. I think it is exciting that young children are able to interact and use technology at such a young age. Children having confidence in technology is AWESOME! My first time blogging was this summer in EDM310. I never knew there was so much technology that could be used in a classroom. I enjoyed reading your blog and look forward to reading more!"

In the second post I commented on, "Next Step: ChromeBooks" Dorothy Burt talks about the positive user experience Manaiakalani Schools are getting from the use of ChromeBooks. Manaiakalani Schools ordered 700 of these spread across 11 schools and bought by children ages eight to eighteen years old. Wouldn't it be great if Mobile County had this opportunity? The students were included on the decision of switching to Chromebooks. They chose the Samsung 500 (WiFi only) model. She said the experience the children and teachers experience was delightful. She says, "That 8 minute boot, the ‘switch it on and it connects with the wifi and logs you into your account’, no fuss and start learning was such a pleasure to be part of." Six months later, she says the experience is still positive. I love this quote that she quoted by Adam Naor, "The Internet is the platform for learning." This is a great quote for EDM310. She also post some links to experience other teachers and students have shared. I commented, "I have never heard of a ChromeBook until your post! Interesting! Hopefully I will have the opportunity to use ChromeBooks in my future classroom. So exciting that there is such positive user experience."

Project #9 PLN Final Report

My Personal Learning Network (PLN), Symbaloo, has been exceedingly useful throughout the semester. I have all of my education websites in one place in the color red. The rest of my tiles are color coordinated as well. I have frequently used websites in pink, etc. This is helpful for me because I like to be organized. When I first created my Symbaloo, I didn't think I would use it that much. Now, I use it daily! (Thank you EDM310.) When I first created it, I added the Teaching Channel and TeacherTube. Now, I have Edutopia, Langwitches, Teaching With Soul, our EDM310 blog, Edudemic, and MattBGomez's blog. I will definitely continue adding more websites throughout my schooling and teaching!

Project #12 Part B

Project #15

Blog Post #13

What can we learn from these TED talks? -Dr. Strange

Throughout the semester, Dr. Strange has assigned our class different videos from TED talks for us to watch and summarize. What is TED talks though? Why are these videos important to us? TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) is a nonprofit organization that began in 1984 as a conference that brought people together from all around the technology, entertainment, and design worlds. TED holds two annual conferences that bring together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes or less. With more than 1400 talks and FREE, the mission of TED is to spread ideas. As young educators who are still learning, TED talks are important to us because they share thoughts and ideas from such brilliant people who have experienced situations we can learn from.

This week we were giving a list of 10 of these talks that Sir Ken Robinson picked as his favorite, and were assigned to choose three to summarize and evaluate.

Mae Jemison on teaching arts and sciences together - Lauren Macon

“The difference between science and the arts is not that they are different sides of the same coin even, or even different parts of the same continuum, but rather, they are manifestations of the same thing. The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity.” - Mae Jemison

Mae Jemison is an astronaut, a doctor, an art collector, and a dancer who tells stories from her own education and from her time in space. In 1992, she was the first African American woman to go into space. She has a new vision of learning that combines science and art, intuition and logic.

Mae Jemison begins with three quotes:

“When God made the color purple, God was just showing off.” - Alice Walker

“Research is a formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.” - Zora Neale Hurston

“If you don’t much care where you want to get to, then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.” - Lewis Carrol

Often when we think about the near future, we have an attitude of “whatever happens, happens.” Mae Jemison expresses that we should not have this attitude, that it does matter which way we go and what road we take. As a future educator and as a person in general, this is important to remember. She says that the most important issues for the future that we need to revitalize are the arts and sciences. What we do today, is important for the future because the world is going to be built on the ideas and creativity we came up with today. What are we contributing to that legacy? Mae Jemison says we are in a sense of failing in this. She quotes Frantz Fannon, “Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill or betray it.”

Mae Jemison’s mission is to reconcile science and the arts. What is your mission? Many people think that science and art should be separated. I agree with Mae Jemison and think that they should be combined. Others think that scientist are not creative and that artist are not analytical. How can someone think this? Who wants to be uncreative? Who wants to be illogical? Not me!

Next, she talks about her childhood in the sixties. She wanted to be a hippie and resented the fact that she was too young to be a hippie. What she took away from the sixties was that there was hope for the future. There were ideas and creativity percolating. Things that are “cool” today, are ideas from back then. She then talks about how she always wanted to go into space. She loved fashion design, dance, and art. Mae Jemison was trying to figure out if she should go to medical school or New York to become a professional dancer. What a talented woman! But, she went into space instead.

In the rest of the video, she talks about the differences between art and science. The difference is the manifestation of the same thing. They are avatars from the human creativity. Science is a manifestation of our attempt to express or share our understanding. It is experienced by everyone. Art is a desire or attempt to influence others through experiences that are curious to us as individuals. They are all part of us. Our understanding, our resources, and our will become our outcome.

Mae Jemison is so passionate about integrating arts and sciences. Ideas are like potential energy, nothing will happen until we risk putting them into action. We must take responsibility for our future. In my future classroom, I will take the responsibility for integrating science and art. Often people think that art is not important in education. I think completely opposite! Creativity is needed everyday. It is what our future relies on and if we fail at that, then our future fails. I will encourage my future students to be creative, have new ideas, and put risks into action. Before watching this video, I would have never thought about combining art and science. It opened my eyes to realize that these two need to be integrated. One thing I learned from Mae Jemison, is “Science provides an understanding of a universal experience. Arts provide a universal understanding of a personal experience.”



Teaching One Child at a Time- Caitlin Lankford

Shukla Bose is the founder of Parikrma Humanity Foundation in India. For twenty six years, Bose worked in the corporate world and has never been trained to be an educator. However, one day she wanted to make a change in the education world and decided to educate children that live in the slums of India. There are 800 slums in India, and of the 800 slums, there are two million people living in those slums. Bose and her co-workers decided to walk through some of the slums to find out how many houses had children that did not go to school. They put their numbers together and found out that 200 million children, ages four to fourteen, should be going to school, but do not. There were 100 million children that went to school, but could not read, and 125 million children could not do basic math. However, Bose and her team did not want to play the number game anymore, and made an effort to make a change! They started their school during the month of June, in the slums, on a rooftop of a two-story building. When the school started in June, there were 165 children and Bose described it to be an amazing bonding experience, due to the excessive amounts of rain that month. Soon after the first school began, more schools started. There are now 1,100 children, four schools, and one junior college. Bose speaks about three myths that are believed in India. The first myth is that no one in the slums can speak English. She quickly responded by saying, that the myth is not true. Bose showed a video to the audience at the TED conference of two children speaking english. The girl that was in the video, talked about a few books that she enjoys reading and that she cannot put some books down once she begins reading them. The boy in the video, explained his desire to have a bike. Bose told the audience that he has not seen a bike in person, but has done plenty of research on Google to know interesting things about bikes. The dream of Parikrma Humanity Foundation is to educate children, but most importantly to calm the children and prepare them for the real world of chaos. People that are first introduced to the foundation, think that the curriculum being taught is too hard for the students, but Bose is quick to defend her students, because she says that they excel in school, and do very well with the high leveled curriculum. Another myth about the Indian slums, is that parents do not like their children going to school. Wrong!! Bose said that the parents are very supportive and want to give their kids something that they don’t have and what they didn’t get as a child. At teacher parent meetings, 80% of the parents are present. Although, on more occasions 100% of the parents are present. At first, when parents registered at conferences or school meetings, they would sign in using their fingerprints, but now, the parents sign in with their signature because the students helped the parents learn how to write and sign their name. Soon, parents wanted to start learning how to read and write. So Bose began an afternoon program for parents, mostly mothers. Unfortunately, 98% of the fathers are alcoholics, so the foundation sent the fathers to addiction labs, and when they were released, the foundation helped the fathers find jobs, and taught them how to cook so the children and their families would live healthier lifestyles and go to school energized. Another myth Bose discussed was that children that lived in the slums, did not integrate with “main street” (children that do not live in slums) children. Once again, the myth is incorrect. Bose presented a video of a girl that was given an opportunity to go to a camp with other students that didn’t live in slums. The girl was so excited to have been given the opportunity, and she couldn’t wait to go to the camp. She explained that she made new friends and the “main street” children treated her the same way they treated everyone else. They did not bully her or treat her with different attitudes. The “main street” students were her friends. At the end of the video, the little girl began to cry because she did not want to leave the camp and her new friends!! The little girl was a maid before she started school, but now she wants to be a neurologist. Sports is also a major deal at the schools. Every year, Bose’s first built school is invited to a “Best School Competition” where there are five thousand children, one-hundred and forty schools, and Bose’s school has won “Best School” three years in a row. Bose ended her presentation by saying, what is in the building is not important. The color of the walls, the toilets, and what the library looks like, is not important, all that matters is what the children are learning. I loved watching Bose speak at the TED conference. She kept the audience engaged by using humor, heart touching stories, and mind-blowing statistics. It was so heartwarming to hear about all that she has done to change the way children are being educated in the slums of India. One thing I learned from Bose, is NEVER, EVER, give up on children, no matter where they come from or what their background is. Everyone deserves a chance in this chaotic world, so we as teachers need to be patient, loving, and have a desire to change lives!!



Shane Koyczan: "To This Day" ... for the bullied and beautiful - Melissa Canterbury

"If you have time to watch only one video today, it should probably be this one. After being posted to YouTube, animated spoken-word poem 'To This Day,' by Canadian poet Shane Koyczan, has spread like wildfire online ... Slate called the video 'beautiful,' Yahoo! News dubbed it 'powerful' and Mashable promised that it will 'reshape your views on name calling, harassment and pain.'" The Huffington Post

Shane Koyczan is an author, poet and musician who has published three books and who also performed at the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. He turns spoken-words into music and poetry. Koyczan’s poem , “To This Day”, is a powerful story about bullying, survival and what it’s like to be young and...... different. This spoken-word poem captivated millions and is illustrated from animators all around the world.

Through humor Shane Koyczan gives a poem of what it’s like to be bullied. He begins by saying how at such young age, children are expected to find themselves and that if they didn’t others would do it for them. For example, calling other names like “geek”, “fatty”, “slut”, “fag” etc. At the same time that children are being told these names are what they are, they are asked what do they want to be. What do you want to be when you get older? Koyczan goes on to say that when he was a kid he wanted to be a marine biologist (until he saw the movie Jaws), that he wanted to be an adult, and he wanted to shave (now he has a full beard). He says that age 10 he was told his parents left because they didn’t want him, age 11 he wanted to be left alone, age 12 he wanted to die and at age 13 he wanted to kill a kid. Koyczan was then asked to choose a career path, and he said he wanted to be a writer. He was told he should choose something more “realistic”. So, he chose a professional wrestler! He was told not to be stupid. How can we ask children what they want to be or what their dreams are and then shoot them down? Not only was Koyczan called names, he dreams were called names as well.

Koyczan recalls when his dream came back to him after being criticized and ridiculed about it. He remembers his first line of poetry was in response to a world that demanded he hate himself. From a time in life, age 15-18, he hated himself and the world he lived in. He says that standing up for yourself doesn’t have to lead to violence, he would trade in homework assignments for friendship. It’s so sad but this is the world we live in. Now, with technology it is so easy to sit behind a computer and for children to cyber bully other children. I know I am not going to fix the bully situation, but I won’t allow for it to take place in my classroom.

Next, Koyczan describes how when he was a kid, he thought pork chops and karate chops were the same thing. His grandmother thought it was cute so she never corrected him. One day while playing where he shouldn’t have been, he fell from a tree. The gym teacher saw the bruises on his ride side and turned him into the principle. His response to the questions about his home life was “When I’m sad, my grandma gives me karate chops!” If only he knew this would lead into a full investigation and would be removed from his home for three days. News got around the school and he got deemed the nickname, “porkchop”.

The rest of the video is of a glorious poem with illustrations and a violin in the backdrop about bullying. Let me just say that Shane Koyczan is incredible! The emotion in his work is so inspiring and I plan to watch more of his work.

Bullying is a horrible thing. It happens in schools, there is no way to completely get rid of it, unfortunately. This video has opened my eyes to pay attention to students. Not only will I be an educator, it goes much further than teaching a lesson on multiplication. I need to be aware of the relationships in my classroom and show students that bullying is a real action and how to handle that situation.

Blog Post #12

“What can we learn from Sir Ken Robinson?” -Dr. Strange

Sir Ken Robinson is an English author, speaker, and international advisor on education in the arts to government, education, and arts bodies. He was Director of The Arts in Schools Project, in 1985–1989, a Professor of Arts Education at the University of Warwick from 1989 to 2001, and was knighted in 2003 for his services to education. Robinson’s specializes in education, creativity, and innovation and frequently speaks at conferences about those topics.

Changing Education Paradigms- Lauren Macon
In the video, Changing Education Paradigms Ken Robinson says that, “Every country on earth, at the moment, is reforming public education.” The first reason is economic, people trying to work out the question, how do we educate our children to take their place in the economies of the 21st century, given that we can’t anticipate what the economy will look like at the end of next week. The second reason is cultural, trying to educate our children so they have a sense of cultural identity. He challenges the way we’re educating our children. He speaks about the way he would change education. I agree with him! The current system of education was designed for a different age. He then talks about ADHD, he says it is not an epidemic. They are being distracted from “boring stuff.” They are taking drugs to get them focused. We should be waking the students up to what the have inside of themselves. But, we are doing the exact opposite and medicating them. I could not agree more. Changing education means no more standardized test. This reminds me of the burp back education. We should do away with standardized test because that was designed for a different age. Children do not think the same way they did years ago. Everything else has changed, but not education. New school systems should cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple intelligences.

The Importance of Creativity- Caitlin Lankford

In the video The Importance of Creativity, filmed in 2006, Sir Ken Robinson speaks at a conference about why creativity is important. Robinson made some strong and effective points about creativity. He started his speech by saying that children starting Kindergarten, would be retiring in 2065. Robinson then asks a stunning question: what will the world look like? He said we do not know what the world will look like in 2065. Better yet, we don’t know what five years from now looks like, yet we are supposed to be teaching and preparing students for the future. Robinson said, if you are not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original, and most kids loose that “creativity” when they grow up, because they are afraid of being wrong. We live in a world where our national education systems are saying that mistakes are the worst things we can make; as a result, teachers are educating people out of their creativity! Robinson goes on to say that every education system around the world has the same hierarchy of subjects: math and language arts, humanities, and then arts. Under the arts subject, there is another hierarchy where music and art come first, then drama and dance. There is NO grade school that teaches dance the way they teach math, because mathematics and language arts are used for workforce. There are so many things we can learn from Robinson, but three main things he covered in his speech were using creativity wisely, see the capacity of creativity for what it is, and seeing children for the hope that they are. We cannot take creativity out of the learning process, because we will lose our creativity and start being afraid of being wrong. “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” -Pablo Picasso

How to Escape Education’s Death Valley- Melissa Canterbury

Sir Ken Robinson begins his speech, How to Escape Educaion’s Death Valley, with an important statement about the drop out crisis and the studetns it includes. One major crisis in the education system is the dropout rate. In American society there is a 60% rate and in the Native American society, an 80% drop out rate. However, the dropout crisis does not include all the students who are in school but are disengaged in learning, don’t enjoy it and who are not getting any real benefit from it. The problem with this is not that Americans aren’t spending enough money or making initiatives to improve education. We spend more money on education than any other country. The problem is that education is going in the wrong direction. Sir Ken Robinson maps out the 3 principles that are crucial for the human mind to flourish but are contradicted by the current culture of education.
The first is that human beings are naturally diverse. “Education under No Child Left Behind, is not based on diversity but conformity.” -Sir Ken Robinson. Students are being evaluated on what they can do across a very narrow spectrum. One issue with No Child Left Behind, is that educators are forced to focus on the standards such as Science and Math. According to Sir Ken Robinson, these standards are necessary, but they are not sufficient. Education should be equally weighed throughout Arts, Physical Education, and Humanities as well. Robinson is quite humorous throughout his videos and especially when he mentions ADHD and that children are not suffering from a physiological condition, they are suffering from childhood. You can not assign a student worksheets and “busy work” and expect them not to get fidgety and bored. Students prosper by a broad curriculum that encourages their various talents and engages them in the learning process.
The second principle is curiosity. Students will learn better on their own if the teachers spark this principle. Children are natural learners. I LOVE what Sir Ken Robinson says about teachers and their role in the school. He says that teaching is not a “delivery system”. Teachers are not here to simply deliver information to students so as Dr. Strange would say, “burp it back”. “Teachers are the lifeblood of the success of schools” -Sir Ken Robinson. Yes, great teachers deliver received information. They also engage, mentor, stimulate and provoke students. He also makes a very good point about testing. Testing is important, standardized tests have a purpose. However, tests should not be the dominant culture of learning. Tests should be diagnostic and used to help evaluate students but not the only form of evaluation.
The third principle is creativity. “Human life is inherently creative.” -Sir Ken Robinson. One role in education is to awaken the imagination and creativity in students. Our culture in education is standardized however, but it doesn’t have to be. According to Sir Ken Robinson, Finland regularly comes out on top in subjects such as Math, Reading, and Science but they have a broader curriculum and focus on Humanities and Arts as well. Finland’s education system doesn’t focus on standardized test either. Robinson also mentions that Finland doesn’t have a drop rate. At a conference recently. a representative from Finland asked why drop out? They immediately help students with their issues and support them.
“What can we learn from Sir Ken Robinson?” -Dr. Strange. Education will be successful once the education system adopts individualized teaching and learning, recognizes that it is the student who is learning, and engages the students curiosity, individuality, and creativity. This is how we will get our students to learn.

Project #14

Blog Post #11

Ms. Cassidy, a first grade teacher from Canada, uses technology in her classroom everyday with her students. In the video, Little Kids...Big Potential, Ms. Cassidy's first graders explain their use of technology in the classroom. I loved that these first graders were blogging! My first blog was this year in EDM310 and these first graders do it everyday in their classroom. I want to incorporate blogging in my future classroom. People from all over the world are reading these students blogs. Amazing! If they were writing on pencil and paper, that couldn't happen. The students said that writing on their blog makes them a better writer. They are able to see their mistakes and correct them. Another tool Ms. Cassidy's class uses is Skype. They use this to communicate with other educators and other students around the world. I will use Skype in my future classroom as well. Skype would be a great tool to use to let the children ask questions, interview, etc. to other people. It is amazing that a first grader can use technology so well.

In the interview, Ms. Cassidy, Dr. Strange and his class discuss questions about how she uses technology in her classroom. This interview was very helpful. I agree with her that every teacher needs to be technologically advanced. Without EDM310, I don't think I would be. Ms. Cassidy says, "technology is not going away." Technology is not going away because it is constantly changing and progressing. Ms. Cassidy says that she has great support from her school, technology coordinator, and district area. Having support to help you with technology in your classroom is important when blogging, making video productions, etc. A quote from Ms. Cassidy that stood out to me was, "we have to change because the world is changing."

C4T #3

Dean Shareski is a Digital Learning Consultant with in Canada. He specializes in the use of technology in the classroom. This blog, Ideas and Thoughts, was interesting and I learned so much just by reading two blog posts. Dean Shareski is the Community Manager for Discovery Education. He believes that teachers and students should use technology to connect ideas and learners. I can connect to this because this is what we are learning in EDM310. In 2010, he was awarded the ISTE Award for Outstanding Leadership in Technology and Education.

The first post I commented on was titled "Professional Development is Not That Complicated." It discussed that often teachers are treated like students and professional developers want to control what and how they learn. Professional Learning only requires two things: learning something and share something. Professional Learning is not having teachers filling out forms that fit into a spreadsheet. My comment I left, told Dean Shareski who I was and that as a future teacher, it was a great post to read. Teachers need to be trusted to do good work, learn and share.

The second post I commented on, "Whatever Happened to Joy?," was about his speech he gave at a TEDx event.





In my comment, I discussed the video on his lecture. I think everyone should watch! I really enjoyed reading this blog and listening to his speech.

Project #13