Seven Stupid Mistakes & 7 Brilliant Things Teachers Do With Technology

I started off with the positive article. The seven brilliant things teachers can do. The first thing he mentions is empower kids with technology. He describes how each student can become better than what they were previously. Each student can be intelligently enhanced by the use of technology. Also, that teachers can be touched by the correct effective use of technology. The second thing he talks about is creatively find and use resources. He basically describes teachers using multiple tools of technology to expand their students learning environments. The third topic is make conferencing real-time. This talks about staying involved with the parents frequently not just during scheduled meetings. The teachers should stay in touch with parents through the use of technology: emails, blogs, phone, and ect. A good teacher should strive to keep the parents involved and let them know how to stay involved without stepping foot into the school. The fourth one is putting kids in touch with the world. He just basically talks about showing the students the world around them. A good example of this would be when we skyped room 10. Those children said hello America and even I got chills. I have never experienced anything like it. I can only imagine the thoughts that would go through a younger students head for a great learning experience. The fifth topic is accept the role of co-leaner. He explains that there will be moments when the teacher is in question. Teachers are also still humans and this world is always changing and there should always be more to learn. This is where we could use our personal learning network to network with other teachers for better ideas or better learning options. The sixth topic is use the kids' own devices to teach them. He explains that the use of what the students are interested in will be the quickest and most interesting way to help those students learn. Use cell phones, iPods, games,and ect. to teach the lessons. The seventh topic is delight in the discovery,the newness,and the fun technology holds. This just explains how using the technology can bring life and fun into learning for the students and even the teacher! Now, on to the seven stupid mistakes! First things first he mentions BACK UP YOUR DATA. I actually learned this the hard way a couple of times in high schools, and I have not forgotten the misery since! Always have an extra copy of your work , there is no telling when something will go wrong. Second mistake, don't use the schools property computer as your own. I think having your own computer to do you personal work on would be the most intellectual route to take anyway. Work computers are always monitored , and as a teacher when you are working it is for the students not for personal benefits (I hope). Third , teachers leaving students unattended while using the computers. Young students are so tech-literate it is amazing. There will be so many ways for them to get around firewalls. Always monitor students will be on the top of my to do list while letting them explore the world around them. Fourth stupid mistake, not being professional with your own technology as a teacher. I will make sure to be very careful after know from him that everything is monitored and will sit on a server somewhere for a very long time. Nothing is ever gone from the clouds! Fifth, don't get set in one way of teaching style. The world is always changing so there for there are opportunities for new learning everyday for the teacher and student. Sixth, a teacher who will not use technology to interest the students as they learn , or use technology as a main learning tool for the students is crazy. I will lean on technology to help me and my students learn daily. Seventh, teachers thinking technology will go away. This will not happen , face it technology is here to stay learn and love it!!!

CLICK HERE
CLICK HERE

PLN

In my Personal Learning Network I am following a lot of names off of your handout. I am following @kellyhines, @jkmcclung, @shutterfly, @karlfisch, and a few more. All have tweets almost all the time . I think Hines will be the most beneficial she is always asking questions for more information and many ideas. I think that twitter will help me to follow lots more people the more I learn about it all. I have not ever used twitter before or looked at it as use for learning. Now that I have been introduced to the idea I know I will have more come from this. I plan to use this in the future for help with school work ideas, and when I become a teacher just like Ms.Hines tweet questions for replies back from anyone with better ideas. I know there will be more and more interesting tweets that will spark ideas for learning to come in the future. I think this is a great tool to dip into or dive into and go with the flow. Thanks for this tool for learning it will be very beneficial now and in the future.

Project 11

This is Sammy and Case and they read Where Do Balloons Go for me to video and present to the class!!!

Comments 4 Kids Summary

In participating in the Comments4kids activity I will be brutally honest. I don't think I finished the last few. All of the ones that I did comment on were very short small sentences or even video or podcasts. I got behind and I will now turn my summary into "How my influence could have made a difference in at least one of those students life." I could never imagine being in grade school and getting comments from the "big kids." I now at the end of the semester have learned that commenting on these young students work or blogs so to say could be a great influence for them, and help them understand how easy and helpful it could be to interact around the world. The children seemed to be interested in doing these activities online. The ones I listened to were great and the few short sentences I read were cute. I am not sure how it helped the kids because I was not in the classroom, and it is very hard to read a sentence that the teacher more than likely gave them to post and be able to understand their understanding. I remember one podcast with the children being very enthusiastic which made me very excited for them because I knew they were learning through interesting interactions. The beginning of this semester I thought to myself that this would be so crazy and frustrating and a joke. WOW was I wrong. To know that there are teachers all over the world that are changing the learning styles and opportunities for the students amazes me. I hope to one day be able to give my students the fun learning opportunities that these students are getting now. Maybe even increase the use of technology. I think that these children that we were able to comment on their work were probably amazed that it really works. I would have been. I can only imagine what kind of boost towards learning through technology it gave the children. I also remember a few that posted pictures as a project. I loved this. I know those children were so excited to be able to put their hard work onto a blog , and then see people all over the world comment on their work. I hope this is a good conclusion on my thoughts for comments4kids. Hopefully one day Dr.Strange I can have my classroom set up and you and your students can show my students the world around them. :) Thank you for sharing your knowledge and ideas for students with us, and also giving us the opportunity to boost other small students learning experience without even stepping foot in the classroom with them!!!

Michael Wesch

I would love to be the teacher that tells her students we will do whatever it takes to get things done. I think that media does shape the world around us. The new generation learns from media. The number of youtube visits and uploads daily is amazing. Although, I love watching youtube. You can access youtube and find almost anything you need. Instructions to a good laugh. The styles of the way people dress are persuaded by media and what the people on TV wear. I think everything is shaped by the things done around us. His talk was very funny. I love the video where Charlie bit his finger ! While I was listening to his talk my dad was sitting near by and he had watched the video of Charlie biting the finger and he said to me "you are watching this for school" and I replied with "yes sir, school is nothing like it was when you were there, technology is school now."

CLICK HERE

At The Teachers Desk

The first post about the fundred. I think is an amazing idea to grasps what your students think about putting on a 100 hundred dollar bill. Very expressive activity for students. How to get more visitors to a blog. I think it is funny that on the reply he got it said thanks for trying to help us get no homework. Adding stuff to your blog and getting your ideas out on other blog posts seems like the best way to get your blog visited more often. Also, when he replied you have to give them a reason to keep looking so add blogs at least once a day. Also, the post that he added needing help with probability. Networking works in amazing ways. I think all teachers should have their own network to join. Information grows so fast through networking. People will respond with no hesitation through networking. I love using my updates to get more ideas or information from all of the friends I have in my network. I do agree with putting ourselves out there to show our students and with the comment of "how do we expect students to do it if we aren't." That is very true we have to show our students the helpful ways and show them how harmful and fun it can be to make them understand the importance of using technology. I like change I so agree with the aggrevation of "we have always done things this way." I do believe if you never change routine, then where would we be now? I love that. Wow, 1,346 followers on Twitter. This blog is very popular. So many hits on the map , but he did say it has been the same for three years. All of these blog post are very helpful hints for teachers and future teachers about using technology and how to use it in progressive ways.

CLICK HERE

Importance of Posting Student Blogs

This video was amazing. I got chills. The children have beautiful voices , and if they got to sing at the opening of a Fleetwood Mac concert WHAT AN HONOR. With just a post from a teacher these children got to experience something many would never get to do. This is so important. When we had a skype call with room ten the excitement in those childrens eyes to be "talking to America" was very memorable. I think it is amazing that technology can take you around the world in seconds. Kaia's story posted by her father looks as if a growing story shared by many teachers and web viewers all over the world. I am sure she has learned so much by the interactions from her dad with technology. Also, the classrooms that we have left comments on with the students that even only posted one sentence. I think that is amazing that they are learning all of these different things through the classroom setting now. I never even knew how to blog before this class. It is amazing that the children are learning to connect world wide with their education.

CLICK HERE

ACCESS

The ACCESS website has a lot more information on each page with not as many useful links as the ALEX website. I think that ACCESS could be very helpful for extending the classroom. There were a lot of ideas that had coming soon under them. So that tells me that the website is growing, as is everything else in technology. I also read where it said this was available for all public high schools, so I am not sure if the website access once you are logged in is only available for only those students and educators. There are a lot of great links under the resources section for different types of learning, a few of those are : Alabama Virtual Library, ALEX, ChemLab, and MathType. There is also a section on the website "technical support" that gives access to many different learning ideas about technology. This website would be helpful for a teacher that needed other information of secondary ideas for students.

CLICK HERE

ALEX

ALEX webpage has many different options on the homepage to view and explore. The choices are: course of study, web links, lesson plans, search, personal workspace, personal learning, podcast treasury, and help. Once I started looking through these options I found many helpful things that help teachers and parents and students to stay on task. I first looked under course of study. This includes K-12 course of study (objectives) in all subjects. The web links option had educational links that are there for students, administration, and teachers. The lessons plan option is just to help access different lessons plans, you can do your own or get a model from ALEX. Search is just to be able to search the ALEX database for helpful information. Then under personal workspace is where you can log into the website to be able to submit lesson plans and access more information through ALEX. Professional learning is where you can access many different websites for enhancing lessons and many other great tools for teaching. The podcast treasury is a place to access many educational podcast I assume to learn from or maybe even share with your classrooms. The ALEX website seems to be very helpful with organizing and continue learning throughout your teaching career! CLICK HERE