Sunday, October 9, 2011

C4T Summary #2

Earth surrounded by a hands holding hands


Teaching Favorites
The first post was about a forum that the group was creating to be a worldwide resource channel among teachers. They were currently asking for their "favorites" as teachers to help promote other classroom learning environments. Anything from teaching tools, exercises, games, books, etc. They were going to gather all the information submitted and publish it for the teachers who frequented the site to pick and choose from any of he items that caught their eye. I thought this was pretty neat and effective as well because it takes the teachers outside of their own box. An American teacher can take an idea from an Australian classroom and apply it affectively and also introduces other cultures to the students other than their own. It allows a new way to learn and a new way to teach if you take the time to research it.

How Can 10,000 Youngsters Solve The Problems of The World?
This was an interesting concept that was thought up and I am curious as to how the results come out when they finish gathering the data. The concept was to see if the children of the world would be able to come up with solutions to serious problems in the world today. The basis of this is that adults think one way and children think another. I'm wondering if it's because children have a simpilar way of processing a solution and do not over think certain variables that may or may not effect a certain problem? There is an ITU event that is apart of the United Nations that will meet from the 24-27 of this month. Research collected from young people from ages 8-18 concerning world problems will be presented as a third party voice to bring a different entity to the room and clear some of the stale air with the breath of a fresh one. Should be interesting as to how their research will be perceived on a world stage.

Project # 10 My PLN

website logos configured in boxes

I really need to get over my pesamistic attitude when it comes to learning new things in the technological realm of the world. I'm usually up for a challenge of something new but learning how to do things on the computer has never been my strong suit. After I realized what a PLN is and dabbled in it for a little bit and I wanted to know how haven't ever had one before. This is awesome how everything that I use on a daily basis is all right here in a centralized location. I can now see the benefits of how useful this can be in my personal life so I can only imagine benefits of this tool in the classroom setting as well. I will be making this apart of my everyday life without question.

Project 9b Timeline

Project # 11

Blog Post # 7

Randy Pausch getting jersey signed by pro football player

When I first read the description of the assignment I thought "Crap, this is way too long". During the video "Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams", I sat there with my notepad watching this I found myself glued to what Dr. Pausch had to say. I had set my notepad down and listened to what he was saying instead of jotting down notes so I could get started with this particular assignment. He had three points to what he had to talk about in his lecture: having dreams, helping others realize their own dreams, and lessons learned. He elaborated on each of these in detail and you really got to learn a lot about his life. He talked about head fakes and asked at the end of the lecture if anyone had figured them out. The first head fake Dr. Pausch said was "It's not how to achieve your dreams but how to lead your life". If you look back on what he was saying on his dreams growing up and realizing them as an adult he was really giving an outline of some of the events in his life and how he got there. No matter what profession someone has, if you go through life always striving toward what you want things will work out for you. The second head fake Pausch said was "This talk was not for you, it was for my kids". The end of the video you could sense how emotional it was becoming. When Dr. Pausch said what the second head fake was it really made sense. If you look back it was like a biography of his own life and his accomplishments for them to refer back to and be able to see what he did and who he was. They will always have that and have something to remember him by.

Having your own dreams is an important aspect no matter what stage in your life because it gives us a reason to live and things to strive for. The one point that he made that I think was the most important to his first point of the lecture was when he talked about fundamentals. If you can't perform the basic components of something then how can you achieve the more complex parts. A lesson that he learned in high school that he carried with him his entire life was in football from one of his assistant coaches. He said "When you're screwing up and nobody is saying anything to you anymore, that means that they gave up on you". If you are doing something incorrectly you won't be able to see that unless someone is there to help you correct it. That's getting the fundamentals down and making them second nature so that higher level tasks can be concentrated on without distraction.

Helping others achieve their goals and dreams in life is a great idea and concept that gives people a warm and fuzzy feeling similar to what people experience during Christmas or similar type of holiday seasons. Thinking about it and actually making it happen are two very different things. The program ETC that Dr. Pausch spear headed helped students learn without  actually realizing that they were learning. Pausch explained "Make them think they are learning something else...they are learning to program but they think they are making movies and video games."I think that's the best way to learn. It's like birth because everyone wants the baby just without the labor pains. So if you can help large amounts of people get an education painlessly then they are going to be that much more pumped about who and where they are and will in turn pay it forward to the next group of people.

Reflection is a word that comes to mind when Dr. Pausch brought up his third part of his lecture of lessons learned. What have you accomplished at the end of the day and what can you take away from it? One of Dr. Pausch's examples of looking at something and making it better through experience. He talked about a lesson he learned from one of his students Dr. Keller that introduced computer software to middle school students. She looked at the program "Alice" and wanted to take it from a collegiate level and incorporate it into a more fundamental level. Dr. Pausch said how learned from a lot of his boss's as well and gave a lot of praise to them for their advice. You can get a life lesson from many forms of people. The thing about it is that you can keep looking back and be like "wow, thats what they meant"and the next day get another reaction similar to that from the same source about something else. It almost seems mysterious because you can get a lesson learned at any given time. They come from the people in your life whether it be a teacher, parent, child, or friend which is are the best sources a person can learn from because they are familiar to you and allows you to be more open minded.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Blog Post # 6

blue light with computer wires

Networked Student


After watching the video by Wendy Drexler I realized that being a teacher isn't just telling someone knowledge and going on to the next subject. It's so much more than cramming something that your students didn't know before. By giving the young people in your class the direction to help themselves learn and let them expand in their own learning style is much more effective and rewarding than empressing a certain style that isn't as fluent as their own may be. It also gives the students as individuals the ability to explore other students and professionals work to add to their learning from outside of the classroom.

There are many different learning styles that people have. Some individuals can read through a chapter one time and have everything they need to know about the topic, whereas some may have to go back and reread it multiple times to have an understanding. It can be difficult to identify which students are which and to tailor a single classroom's environment to all of them. Letting the students take the technology that is out there today and learn the same information that the rest of the class is but in their own way is in my opinion more effective. So why have a teacher? To provide guidance and answers for questions that still may not be clear to an unexperienced individual. As a teacher we are the expert of the subject matter and we are the ones molding future experts of whichever craft they so choose.

The perfect example of why a classroom that learns through networks yet still needs a teacher is our class that we are in now, EDM310. We all have questions as we explore on further into the world of technology and familiarize ourselves with the various programs, websites, etc. We have a teacher who provides us with a vessel and we are the drivers. We are all traveling at our own speeds and at our own route, like a road trip. Some of us may go straight through on a direct line from point "A" to point "B" and some of us may get distracted and take a detour. When we get lost on our trip (learning experience) we look at a map, GPS, or call On Star (Dr. Strange). We put in the effort to get the reward and as a teacher we give them something much more gratifying then a grade. They have the schematics of problem solving and can now  navigate for themselves on how to get from where they were to where they are now. I'm not prepared to teach a networked class right now but I am starting to gain the tools to be able to effectively do so one day.

Welcome To My PLE


I have to say this before I begin the relevant part of what I'm going to comment on about "A 7th Grader's Personal Learning Environment (or PLN)". I'm jealous of how much more experience kids now get in their education then I did growing up. I would have loved going to school if I would have had the learning curriculum that this particular 7th grader had. With that being said I feel that I do have this type of learning environment in EDM310. There are two comparisons that I would like make in order to convey my complete point. The first comparison is between a class like EDM310 and the rest of the courses I'm in this semester. We are given a syllabus on the first day to let us know what is expected of us. We show up to class listen to a lecture, study some before an exam, and hope for the best. We are just going from station to station and going through the motions. EDM310 is like a living syllabus where we are given what we need to do but actually have to actually elaborate on what we are doing a discover further.

The 7th grader in the video has a similar environment to ours in EDM310 but that is for her to enjoy the entire learning year. I have a fraction of that for one semester then go back to the traditional learning environment. She is years ahead of me as far as gaining learning concepts that will help her significantly when she arrives at the academic level that I am now. My only hope is that as she progresses into a collegiate education environment that the university that she attends will also progress and transform it's way that education is provided to their students.