Comments for Kids - Posts 1, 2, and 3

Comments for Kids #1
Georgia - 6th grade - Ms.Lurgin's Class




The blog that I was first assigned to was a student in Ms. Lurgin's class. The class is in 6th grade and they use kidblog.org for their class blog. My student's name was Georgia. Georgia wrote about her snowboarding trip to Asessippi.

Georgia wrote, "Snowboarding at Asessippi was exciting. It was exciting mostly because we had a few wipeouts. You never knew what the person was going to run the chairlift let me tell you some were terrible. They wouldn’t stop if you fell off. The little bumps were quite dangerous. Well besides these things I had a lot of fun. I would definatly go back anyday."

I replied by saying, "My name is Brandin Brosh. I am a student at the University of South Alabama in EDM 310.
I have never been snowboarding before. I went skiing one time in Lake Tahoe and it was a blast. When I went they told my snowboarding was very difficult and that if I hadn’t snowboarded before to stick with skiing. Needless to say, I took their advice. Skiing was still difficult though. You’re lucky that your parents take you on trips like that! Most kids do not get to have those type of experiences until they get a lot older. I really enjoyed reading your blog and hope to hear from you soon."

After getting my comment, Georgia wrote me back. She said, "I have to say it takes a long time to get the hang of snowboarding. This is my third year and I’m only good now. Well I guess they are right when they say practice makes perfect. Many people in my grade never went skiing before, when they did they loved it and wanted to go back again. I would definatly suggest this to anyone who never went before.
Write back soon!
Georgia."

Comments for Kids #2
Justin - 5th Grade - Mr. St.Pierre's Class



Justin asked, " If you had 1,000,000 dollar’s what would you do answer this question?"

I responded to Justin by saying this, "Justin this is a tough question. If I had one million dollars I believe that I would invest it. Before I invested it, I would buy a nice house and keep about $100,000 as spending money in a checking account. The rest of the money would be put in to a high interest savings account so that my money would make money while sitting in the bank! How awesome is that, Justin? Did you know that by putting your money in the bank and investing it you may have the ability to earn what is called interest! Interest is when the bank pays you money for letting them borrow against money that is in your account! My million dollars would eventually turn in to two million! Then I would have to decide how to spend that as well!

How would you spend your million dollars?."

Justin has not written me back yet to tell me his response.

Comments for Kids #3
Wyatt - 5th Grade - Ms.Squire's Class



Wyatt is a 5th grade student who lives in Auckland, New Zealand. In his blog post he wrote about his family meeting his teacher.

Wyatt's blog post said, "Greetings! It’s the 22nd of February 2011. It’s a very special day because my parents and whanau are going to meet my teacher. My teacher is Ms Squires. I’m very excited about all the neat things we’re going to do this year. It’s not secret at Pt England that my teacher comes up with very creative ways of sharing our learning. Watch this space! 2011 here we come!"

In response to Wyatt, I replied by saying, "Hi Wyatt. My name is Brandin. I am a student at the University of South Alabama in the United States. I am in a class called EDM 310 and we get to explore children's blogs and comment on them as an assignment.

What a great attitude you have towards learning, Wyatt! I hope your family meeting your teacher was a good experience. Creative learning is always the best learning because it keeps things interesting! Continue doing well in school. Make your family and whanau proud! By the way Wyatt, I have a blogger as well. My link is http://broshbrandinedm310.blogspot.com/ "

Blog Post 6

The Networked Student



This video is based on the gradually increasing idea of the 21st century student. The video talks about a student of connectivism. Connectivism is a theory of learning based on the premise that knowledge exists in the world rather than simply in the head of an individual. Its contribution to the field of education is however better understood when treated as a branch of the movement of open education that puts a special emphasis on social interaction. Connectivism is made reality when people utilize the technological tools given to them.

I believe there is always room for learning. Technology is a constant change and as a 21st century teacher it will be my job to keep up with the changes that occur. It is important that I do this because if I want my students to be able to have the best education I need to be able to provide the proper tools and be able to explain these tools to all of my students.

When the video asks, “Why does the networked student even need a teacher?” I believe the answer is this. Teachers of the 21st century and going to be different than the teachers I had when I was going through grade school. I believe that the purpose of a teacher in the 21st century will be to educate children on how to use the Internet and various other technologies to learn rather than pounding facts in to students heads all the time. Already, students are taking online classes without ever meeting teachers. Communication is key. If students can learn to communicate and navigate via the Internet nothing will be impossible anymore. Education has not limits and as long as social networking, E-mail, and podcasts are openly available to students, all the student needs is a guidance teacher. The 21st century teacher will no longer need to be in a classroom all day every day with their students.


A 7th Grader's Personal Learning Environment




The 7th grader’s Personal Learning Environment seemed quite similar to our Personal Learning Network. She used her PLE to include all of her links for school as well as things such as music she likes to listen to and links to her Facebook account. I like how she had it organized so that everything was included in one page. I think that is much easier than having to click and navigate to find various links on a PLN.



Critiques of Smartboards

The link that I found shows the benefits of Smartboards in the classroom. http://newdorpvoice.com/?p=705 is the link to the website that I found. I think Smartboards are a great tool for classroom use. Smartboards started becoming popular when I was in high school. I thought they were the neatest things but my school only kept them in a few of my classrooms. When I got in to college they became even more popular. One specific thing that I can remember is how advantageous it was in my algebra class. On the Smartboard you can keep a record of everything that you write on it. There are page forward and page back buttons and so anytime students would have questions he could go back to the previous problem without having to rework the entire problem.

One of the only disadvantages that I see to the Smartboard is that it is not wide like a typical white board. They only give you so much space to work with before you have to go to the next page or page down. Many times students cannot write as fast as teachers do and it is hard for them to keep up. The student may not have enough time to copy everything down before the teacher can move on.

I think that the as long as teachers are trained on how to use the IWB, they are capable of being a wonderful tool to have in the classroom. Smartboards have endless possibilities and if a teacher knows how to use them it can be a great way to engage students in the classroom.

Project 9B - Instructional Timeline of USA Presidents

Blog Post 5

100 Ways to use your iPod to Learn and Study Better



100 Ways to use your iPod to learn and study better is a website that is dedicated to all of the different features that your iPod has and how to use these features to your advantage. This website is geared toward sending the message that an iPod is more than just an MP3 player like it used to be. The latest technology for iPods is insane. There are countless things that you can do on such a small technology-geared educational tool. The 100 ways to use your iPod website has it broken down in to categories so you can go to exactly what you’re looking for. These categories are: study guides, podcasts, tutorials, applications, classroom help, iPod learning support, tools and sites, iTunesU, and a miscellaneous section. Each section is geared toward helping students in education. It gives links to things like Sparknotes Applications, podcasts on different subjects, and iTunesU. Most applications are free and inexpensive. Your iPod can make learning easier than it has ever been. It is more than just a music player, it is an educational tool and this website gives you ways to transform your device as such.

Eagles Nest Radio and Blog



Eagle’s Nest Radio is a 3rd grade class blog. The blog includes podcasts on the different subjects that the students are studying in school. The most recent post was entitled, “Roamin with the Ancient Romans.” This podcast was about Rome and its history. It contained information about Julius Caesar, great Roman architecture, Roman gladiators, Cleopatra and more. Another podcast was “Totally Terrific Time Travel with Explorers.” This podcast had one student playing the narrator who traveled back in time to meet great explorers. When he met the explorers they each gave a short biography of themselves and some of the great things they did.

The blog is separated by date and section. It amazes me that these third graders podcasts are so wonderful. They are so well put together. What a neat thing to do with a third grade class! I can imagine that if I were in third grade I would have loved this! It is a great way to engage students in learning. I never thought about podcasts being recorded by children at such a young age but these podcasts would even be great to use as a learning tool in my own classroom. How Neat!

The Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom



This is a video/blog about the benefits of podcasting in the classroom. It gives reasons why it is advantageous to the students as well as the teacher. Podcasting is an easy way to stay connected. In the video it shows a little girl who is running a fever and is forced to miss school. It was not as big of a deal that she had a big test coming up because she could access the lesson via podcasts on the Internet. I really liked how the teachers use enthusiastic voices to keep it interesting and grab the students’ attention. The video also includes students giving reasons why they like podcasts and how they help them in the classroom.

Under the video, Joe Dale, summarizes in bullet points the advantages of why he thinks podcasts are beneficial to use in the classroom. This is what he listed:

• an effective way of interacting with students outside of the classroom
• a form of learning students of today are familiar with and therefore makes it relevant to them
• it allows for differentiation and project based learning
• students can access the higher order thinking skills in Bloom's taxonomy
• it promotes creativity and innovation
• it can offer distance learning opportunities for absent students
• the process of creating and uploading audio files is easy
• students can record role plays in character making their learning more memorable
• parents can see and hear what their children are doing at school

I think that podcasting is great. I recently created my first podcast with a group of students in my EDM310 class. It was on the use of iPads in the classroom. You should check it out on my blog.

Project 8 - iPads in the Classroom

Timetoast Timeline - Project 9A

Blog Post 4

Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please?

Dr. Mcleod is a professor at Iowa State University. He has helped to establish a program for national technology called CASTLE. The program is for secondary and college education. He helped to create this program to be sure that students were meeting technological requirements that had been made.

I really enjoyed this blog post. I have heard countless times people pass comments about situations like this. They even have commercials on TV about it. The reality is that this situation is uncontrollable and it is bound to happen. Technology is a part of our generation and it is constantly changing. Children need to have experience with the Internet, and up and coming technology because if you fall behind in this constant changing technological world it will be extremely hard to catch up. Though there are things like porn, sexting, and R-rated material that no parent would want their child to see, there are more advantages than disadvantages of things such as cell phones and Internet service.

The iSchool Initiative

I feel that the iSchool Initiative would help provide a better budget for our school while also spending the money more wisely than not. School systems spend tons of money each year making paper copies for our students. We could use the money that we save to give our teachers bonuses for all of their hard work considering teachers do not make near what they deserve. If we did this teachers would have something to look forward to and something to work harder towards.

The iSchool Initiative would be an incredible step in education as far as saving money but I also feel that there would be set backs as well. Some people may not be able to navigate an iTouch as well as school books. Some students may not learn as well by means of technology. If there were a balance between the two I believe that it would sounds like a better deal. I think that there would be trouble with the iSchool also because if students were to break their iTouch who would replace it, or would they just be without their school books, not to mention completely out of touch with the whole school system, if they didn’t have the money to replace it? You can loose one book and have it replaced but if you loose or break your iTouch you have lost everything that has anything to do with your schooling. I do think it would be a great way to help involve parents in school work. Having everything right there in one handheld iTouch would be neat.

Within the next week I will be posting a podcast about iPads in the classroom. If you find this topic interesting follow my blog so you can listen when I post it!

The Lost Generation

I think this video is really neat! This video begins talking about our generation with only negative aspects of it. As the reader finishes the writing she says “it will become true unless we reverse it” and she then continues to read it backwards. When she reads the sentences from the bottom to the top it changes the entire perspective and the meaning of it. The way he went about creating this video was incredible and I think that it really has a way of grasping your attention. I imagine writing and creating something like this could be extremely time consuming but the finished product was well worth it.

I do feel that it is somewhat stereotypical to presume that our generation will be completely immoral if things do not change; however I do feel that positive change is needed in today’s generation. Children being born today are born in to a world based around technology. They will know nothing of having to go to the library to write reports and only having a house phone. It is important that we familiarize ourselves with technology as a whole so that we can have a chance to catch up with other countries that are already ahead of us.

Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir

This video was breathtaking. I know how so many things are possible thanks to the Internet but never did I imagine anything like this. The most wonderful part of this video is that this is only the beginning of a really long journey through the technological world. These people had never met before and performed amazingly together. They choreographed this all via the Internet. I think it is so awesome that the Internet allows people to come together like this. With the Internet, people from all over the world can come together and with this accomplish many feats.


Teaching in the 21st Century

Teaching in the 21st century is a message depicting why it is important that educators use classroom time to teach empowering and meaningful information. I believe that technology is a MUST in the classroom these days and this video is an example of why. Any student with Internet access is able to find out just about any information that they desire. You can find everything on the Internet. Things like encyclopedias, printed books, and newspapers are no more. Those days will soon be over. Instead of having teachers repetitively teach easily accessible information, it is more important for educators to teach students how to access information via Internet and use technology to their benefit.

My Sentence

Blog Post 3

A Vision of Students Today:

“A Vision of Students Today” was filmed in the spring of 2007 by an Anthropology class at Kansas State University. This video focuses on the current problems students have today. These problems are things like students who go to class but spend their time on Facebook and other Internet sites rather than learn the material being taught. Another problem is that students are spending tons of money to go to college and then they do not show up to class because it isn’t required. I believe that a point that this video is trying to make is that students do not make the most of their money and time that they spend in college. If you are paying for a good, not to mention expensive, education you should make the most of it and actually get the education you deserve instead of wasting your valuable time and money.
The second focus of this video was to make people aware of how technology really affects our everyday lives. A study was taken by 200 students to calculate how much time they spend doing specific activities each day. The students that completed the study spent on average almost 27 hours a day on technology. The fact that between the Internet, Facebook, listening to music, talking on the phone, texting, and other daily activities, students are spending 26 ½ hours per day just goes to show how technology is affecting our lives. Things that use to not exist have now been invented and unless you are a multi-tasker there just aren’t enough hours in the day to be able to fit in all of the activities of students’ everyday lives.
I do feel that this video is accurate. The estimates of how much time students spend on technology instead of inside of a book. I can say for myself that I spend hundreds of dollars on books each semester and still use the Internet to do my homework. I feel like get so caught up in their job they forget their real purpose sometimes. I believe that forming relationships with your students is extremely important and I am lucky to have small class sizes to where most of my teacher knows me by face and name. The one thing in this video that I couldn’t relate to was the fact that students had over 100 classmates in their class. At the University of South Alabama I believe our average class size is about 25-30.

“It’s Not About the Technology” by Kelli Hines

In Ms. Hines blog she states four important qualities the each teach must possess in order to be an effective teacher that portrays a positive impact on her students.
These four things are:
1. Teachers must also be active learners
2. Learning and Teaching are not the same thing
3. Without good teaching technology loses a lot of its purpose
4. If you can teach effectively without technology then you can teach effectively with it but that statement does not work both ways.
To have an effective education system we need good teachers. Good teachers must be good learners. Ms. Hines points out that if no learning is happening in the classroom it is simply because no teaching is going on. I believe that the point she was trying to make is that technology can be a useful tool in 21st century learning but it is not the only tool. More important than advanced technology is advanced teachers. Teachers who know the importance of education and learning and how to make learning happen instead of pounding facts in to a student’s head long enough for them to pass the test. She says it is not about having a Smart Board in the classroom but about how that teacher can use that Smart Board to intrigue her students.


“Is it Okay to be a Technologically Illiterate teacher” by Karl Fisch

In Karl Fisch’s blog he states multiple times “If a teacher today is not technologically literate - and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more - it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write.” This could be considered to be a harsh statement but I believe it is 100 percent true. If our teachers are not technologically literate how will they ever teach our students how to be tech-savvy so to speak? Within the next decade I believe that many schools will have resulted to classroom work online and all classrooms will have Smart Boards for example. If a teacher is not technologically literate how will he/she teach his/her students to survive in a world that is resulting to everything being technological? I think it would be an unfair disadvantage to students to have a teacher that was not technologically literate. As for the teachers who have been in the system for years and never felt the need to catch up with the latest technology they should be trained so that they can be persuasive in the classroom
I do agree that it is an embarrassment to brag about being technologically illiterate. Although I do feel that being technologically literate is important it is also almost impossible because technology changes every day. With the rate that technology is changing there is no way to tell what the world will be like within the next decade but what I do know is that technology is here to stay and is only becoming more advanced each and every day.

Gary Hayes Social Media Count


The picture above goes to show how fast technology is moving. It is one of those things where everything happens so fast that once you're behind it's going to hell trying to catch back up. Technology is a significant part of life in the 21st century and as educators we need to be up to par with being tech-savvy because if not, our students will fall behind and never catch up either.

C4T #1 - Ira Sokol

"Linking conceptual and historical research with real, on-the-ground, investigation and trial of best practices, allows me to create a unique way of looking at our educational systems, both formal and informal."

"I believe in engagement, in reaching out globally, in participating in all possible conversations. I believe that engagement strengthens my ability to assist both pre-service and in-service teachers in reaching their goals, so that they can enable all of their students."

-Ira Sokol

My C4T assignment was to Mr. Ira Sokol. Above are two quotes by him that are listed on his blog. I think both of these quotes are important and show that he knows was good education is.

The first blog that I commented on for this teacher was about a teacher that he had when he went to New York public schools His teacher had become ill and he was reminiscing on what a great educator he was and how much he had contributed to not only to his education, but education in general. He explains the importance of good educators and this is what I had to say:

My name is Brandin Brosh and I am a student in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama. I am an education major and I think that education is a gift and something that people should value. I like that part in your blog where you say, "Be the best educator you can be, and damn the rules, the common cores, and the mandates." Too often teachers get so caught up in what they are "required" to teach instead of teaching what should be taught and what is important. If every educator strived to be the best educator possible our education system wouldn't be the way it is today.

I hope Alan Shapiro gets well soon. We need all of the good educators that we can get.

I have been assigned to follow your blog for one month and after the month is up I will be writing a blog on what I have learned.
You can follow my blog at broshbrandinedm310.blogspot.com
Our class blog is
edm310@blogspot.com
Also I am new to Twitter and still trying to understand everything on there but my Twitter address is @brandinmb

In the second blog post that I commented on he spoke on universality. The point I think that he was trying to make is that no two students are alike. All students have different learning styles and what works for one student may not work for the next. He explains the importance of a diverse curriculum and this is what I responded with:

I agree that universality is very important. All students learn differently and therefore you should compensate for each student. You may not be able to compensate each lesson for each students but it is possible to have a diverse curriculum to support each child's different learning style. Technology is changing and our classrooms should change with it. However, technology is not the only way to learn and some students will still learn will pen and paper or the traditional note cards. No two students are exactly alike and it is important as educators to know that.

This is Me - Google Presentation