Thursday, March 31, 2011

Blog Post 10

An Open Letter to Educators
Schooling Versus Education

Morgan Bayda found a video by Dan Brown titles “An Open Letter to Educators” on her Delicious account as a shared link. In Dan Brown’s video, he discusses how “schooling” has affected his education. He attended the University of Nebraska with class sizes that ranged from as little as 40-50 people to as large as 200 people! He complained about how his professors will regurgitate facts that he reads off of a power point and then he tests you on the information. Dan Brown believes that schools are not exercising technology to its full potential. Dan Brown dropped out of school because he didn’t believe he was receiving the education that he deserved.

I can relate to Dan Brown in multiple ways. I too, have had teachers who like to sit and lecture for the entire class period. Sometimes I feel like I am being taught things that my professors wouldn’t even know if it were not for the power point sitting in front of their faces. As Dr. Strange explains in the beginning of the semester, I feel like teachers pour facts in to students’ heads just long enough to remember it for the test. If a student had to retake that same test one month later, would their score be the same? I know from experience that many of my classes that were taught like this, I would not be able to reflect on much of anything that I learned from them. I feel the same way about online classes. Online classes are supposed to be “self-taught” for the most part but how much do you really have to learn when you have you book right in front of you for every test?

I learn best when I teach my self. I know that now because I am in EDM310. I feel like I have never had to take in so much information in one semester before. The best part about EDM 310 is not only that I have learned SO much but it’s that I remember all of it because I had to do it by myself. I do not have a teacher sitting next to me every step of the way saying, “do this, now do this, this is the answer.” Hands on learning, in my opinion, is the best way to learn. When I become a teacher I will do my best not to deny children the right to actually learn instead of just memorizing.

Don’t Let Tem Take The Pencils Home

Mr. Johnson shares how an administrator at his school did not want the students to take home pencils. He believed that it would affect the test taking skills. The most important detail of this was the facts that it shows teachers do not focus on the problem but instead focus on how to solve the problem. It is important that as future educators we learn early at how important problem solving can be. Sometimes we focus too much on the problem itself rather than what we can do to create a solution.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Blog Post 9

"Mr. McClung's What I Have Learned This Year"


Stay Positive


Mr. Mcclung talks about some very interesting points on what he has learned since he began teaching. He wrote this blog post in 2009, after he completed his first full year of teaching. It is basically like a list of “I wish someone would have told me these things before I started teaching.”

I feel like I can relate to this list because soon this will be me. The only difference is that I have this list to keep and remember. He had to learn all of this through experience.

Mr. McClung brought up a few major point about what he wish he had known, throughout his blog.

1.How to Read the Crowd

This is about keeping in touch with his audience, the students. He said try not to get caught up in trying to please people such as supervisors, but instead worry about the delivery of your lessons to your students. Student comprehension is the most important things. Your audience has to drive your instruction.

2. Be Flexible

When you are teaching a lesson do not expect it to go exactly as planned. Different situations come up and you kind of just have to go with it. Try to make “Teaching Moments” out of the situations that do not go as planned. You can’t be in control of every situation. Smile and just move on. ☺

“NO LESSON IS EVER PERFECT. THE LESSON YOU TEACH AND THE ONE YOU PLAN ARE ALWAYS DIFFERENT.”

3. Communicate

“Communication, as Mr. McClung states, is the best medicine.” In order to avoid workplace drama it is important to communicate. It helps resolve issues that are unneeded at your place of business. “Communication is the pathway to building that much desired rapport with fellow teachers.” Communication is something your must work on. It is also one of the hardest, yet most important skills to master.

4. Be Reasonable

Hold high expectations for your students but do not be discouraged if they do not meet those expectations every single time. No one is perfect and we must remember that that includes our students. When they don’t meet your expectations tell them it’s okay and encourage them to do better next time.

5. Don’t be Afraid of Technology

Students today are born in to a technological world. Technology is our friend and it is vital that teachers stay technologically literate.

6. Listen to Your Students

Form relationships with your students. It will help them excel in the classroom. By listening to your students it lets them know that you care.


7. LASTLY … Never Stop Learning

It is never too late for change. The world is constantly changing and as teachers we need to go with it. Don’t be afraid to branch out and try new things. Just because we are teachers doesn’t mean we know everything. We are pounding into our students’ heads how important it is to learn while we, as teachers, continue to sell ourselves short.

I really enjoyed this article and would recommend it to any teacher, not just a first year teacher.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Comments for Kids #s 4,5,and 6

C4K #4
RM2011 - 4th Grade - Mr. Wolfe

Rubber Duck



I was assigned to RM2011's blog. She wrote about her passion for running. I really liked it because I used to run a lot back in high school and could relate to her.
She said, "I absolutely love running! Running is something good to do when you are feeling down. It helps you get a good source of vitamin D. It also helps you to get outside and run as much as you want instead of staying inside and staying inside and munching on vanilla wafers. So always stay healthy and QUIT munching on Vanilla wafers. I love running. Running is awesome. I don’t like being fat!!! Stay healthy!! Forever.!.!.!"

I replied by saying,"Hi. My name is Brandin Brosh. I am a student at the University of South Alabama in EDM310. I also love to run. In fact, I ran cross country when I was in high school. I love to run because it makes you feel so good afterwards. It also helps me to relieve stress! I like your attitude! Keep with it! It a wonderful hobby and habit to have!"

C4K #5
Shaniah - 8th Grade - Mrs. Nua

No gum chewing allowed TITLE=


Shaniah is an 8th grade student who lives in Auckland, New Zealand. The title of her Blog post was "Gum is Dumb." She made a video expressing how she thinks that gum is dumb and you shouldn't have it at school. You can watch the video on her blog here.


C4k#6
Grace - 5th grade - Mrs. Engelhard
Rubber Ducky


In Grace's blog she wrote about a story she is reading called "Darling Duckling." She gives a brief overview of the characters. Here they are:

Hello, I’m Darling and I’m going to tell you about all the characters in the story! Pay close attention, because some of the characters are going to be unfamiliar and will be in the parts of the story to come.

Darling Duckling is the cutest duckling imaginable. She gets into tons of trouble though, when she is captured by the Hand.

Ebbie Duckling is the mother of Darling and tries everything in her power to protect her young.

The Hand is a wealthy businessman who wants the best for his spoiled daughter.

Suzie is the spoiled daughter of the Hand and becomes Darling’s human pet.

Sister Susan is Suzie’s baby-sitter with a sweet heart and is very kind to animals.

Libby is Suzie’s wiener dog and is surprisingly very sneaky.

Ellie is Darling’s closest friend, because Ellie was captured by the Hand too and is very much like Darling.

Hope you enjoyed the cast of characters that I put together, with help.

This is what I commented back. "Hi Grace! My name is Brandin Brosh and I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I have a blog as well if you would like the follow. It is href http://www.broshbrandinedm310.blogspot.com I really enjoyed this. You did a really good job describing all of the characters. Keep up the good work. I hope to hear from you soon!"

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Blog Post 8

This is a perfect picture to sum up my blog post for this week! Education can change with technology


Richard Miller – This is How We Dream


In Richard Miller’s “This is How We Dream” he talks about how communication has changed over the years. He talks about how communication has evolved and we now have the capability of communicating with or from anywhere in the world, instantly.

He goes in to great detail about the writing process and how it is now possible to complete research papers without ever stepping foot in to an actual library. He gives the example of how he was asked to write a paper for the one-year anniversary after the shooting at Virginia Tech. He uses a screen recorder to show how he can use things such as Google Docs and online libraries to create his entire research paper. Everything can be researched on the World Wide Web and once published it stays on the Internet forever. He goes in to detail about how it easy to collaborate on papers and other things via sharing documents through Google Docs. This is much easier than creating a document to send through e-mail and creating more copies of the same document multiple times.

Richard Miller believes that this is the method that students will use when writing. Technology and society is changing constantly, and I cannot stress that enough in each and every blog that I write. The 21st century student is evolving and it’s important that they know all of these skills. Becoming the 21st century teacher or the 21st century student is going to be a process but that process has already begun. Soon students will access all of their work all over the Internet and use applications via iPads and e-mail to access their books. Virtually, everything is going to end up being done online. Richard Miller’s dream is obviously achievable and his dream has already started to become true.

My favorite part of this video was when Miller stated, “The largest restrictions are the ones that we put upon ourselves.” That statement couldn’t hold any more true.

EDM310 is Different


After watching the Chipper Series and EDM310 for Dummies at the beginning of the semester I was kind of worried that EDM310 was going to be a hard class. I have come to the conclusion that EDM310 isn’t necessarily “hard” because of the assignments that are given but because you have to be self-driven. The assignments are time consuming and make you think but if you take out the nine hours per week that was asked of you before you even entered the class then it’s not as difficult as you would expect. The Chipper Series reiterates this message. She tries to just get by all of the time and it never works out for her. You cannot just “get by” in EDM310. It’s sort of an all or nothing type deal. You can either A) Choose to do the work that is assigned to you and complete it in a timely manner while doing so OR B) You can slack off fall behind and make it extremely difficult to catch up.

The Chipper Series is a video that is about cheating yourself. If you don’t do the work you’re given and you don’t set goals for yourself how will you ever become a responsible teacher? If you cannot complete assignments on time how will you expect your students to do so? I think that this class is not only wonderful because you learn so much about teaching in the 21st century but it also teaches you about responsibility. It would be quite hard to hold a job in the educational field if you were irresponsible and unorganized like Chipper was in this video.

EDM310 for Dummies was funny as well. Sometimes I feel like there really should be a book for this class because it can be so confusing. The great part about it is Dr. Strange’s favorite quote, “I don’t know. Let’s find out.” If there is something you don’t know how to do and you can’t figure it out on your own there is ALWAYS someone on the EDM staff available to help you.

Learn to Change, Change to Learn


I was in awe as soon as this video began. How is it possible that education was ranked the lowest, even below coal mining? People would not even know how to coal mine without someone teaching them to do so! Education is so important and our classrooms today are not engaging students enough. They need to be able to be creative and to express themselves in school. They should enjoy school with their friends just as much as they enjoy being with their friends while they are not in school. Technology is a major factor in today’s schools. The world’s technology and how we learn is constantly changing, but the classroom is staying the same. Why is this? This video reminded me of Mr. Winkle Wakes, where everything changes over 100 years, with the exception of education. These students are growing up in the 21st century! We, as educators, need to educate them like we are in the 21st century as well.

RSAnimate – The Secret Powers of Time


This video was very interesting. It talked about how people live three different times. These three times are the past, the present, and the future. The people who live in the past are the ones who are always pondering on what has happened to them. They think of all of the good time and the bad times as well. The people who choose to live in the present choose to live for the moment. They don’t like to plan, but they just sort of go with the flow because they belive their life is lead by fate. There are two types of people who live in the future. The first are those who have learned to work hard instead of playing. The second types are those who believe eternal life begins after their physical death.

The narrator draws pictures to represent everything he talks about in the video. He talks about how different cultures each have their own place of life. I couldn’t agree with this more. He wants to take kids who are “past oriented” and show them how to be “future oriented.” I thought the question about having an eighth day of the week was interesting. If I had an extra day in my week I would probably choose to spend it with family. I never get enough time with them because I am an hour away from home. I am always busy on weekends working and finishing schoolwork. I would definitely make my extra day a day designated to relax with the most important people in my life. Speaking of family, I couldn’t believe only about twenty percent of families have dinner together. I have done that with my family my whole life. It didn’t matter where I was my mom always made me be home for dinner.

This overall was a good video. It was hard to follow during some parts because it moved so fast but I definitely enjoyed it.

RSAnimate – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


Hence the title, this video was about motivation and what motivates us. He opened the video with the quote, “We are not as endlessly manipulated and predictable as you would think.” People like to be self- motivated. We naturally want to be better at things. For instance, someone who has a love for sports is going to continue to work harder and harder to get better and better. They have the motivation to win that keeps them wanting to achieve more. He talks about rewarding people for their accomplishments and how it is better than punishing someone for their mistakes. Don’t rag on someone for doing the wrong thing but instead praise him or her for doing the right thing. When he spoke about how higher incentives lead to worse performance I was dumbfounded. I would definitely expect the total opposite. After listening to him speaks about it I had a better understand. From listening to him, my understanding of what he said was that people like a challenge. Challenge motivates people to do well, however, people want to feel like they are making a contribution as well. When people feel like they have contributed to something positive they feel more successful.

I think this goes back to the idea of becoming an educator. Being an educator will always be a constant challenge. The challenge of educating children and helping them become successful. I feel that becoming an educator will be worth the challenge because the contribution I will be making is a far greater feeling of accomplishment than anything else I can imagine.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Blog Post 7





On September 18, 2007, Randy Pausch stepped in front of a crowd of about 400 people to give a lecture on “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” This lecture later became known as “Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture.” He tells the audience about the cancer that is eating him alive and will claim his life within the next few months.
If you had to choose what your last lecture would be on before you died, what would it be? Randy Pausch makes many valid points that make you realize how much we take life for granted. He want’s people to see the value in their life and try to make them appreciate what they have.

At the beginning of the video Randy tells us he was given three to six months to live because he has ten tumors in his liver. His favorite saying was, “You can’t change the cards that are dealt, we just have to play the hand that we’re given.” He begins to reflect back on to how happy his childhood was. He said that every memory and picture that he has of his childhood was when he was happy. No matter what is thrown at him, he has a way of never giving up. He then starts speaking about how he has dreams of becoming a player in the NFL, being in a zero gravity, meeting Captain Kirk, working for Disney, and winning tons of stuffed animals.

After reflecting on all of these dreams he then goes in to detail about each one and gave a reason for them. He says that not making it to the NFL worked out better for him. He talks about how not fulfilling his dream was better because he got more out of life that way than he would have, otherwise. On the first day of his football practice, Coach Graham didn’t bring any footballs to practice. He said that by his coach doing this, it helped him to realize the fundamentals of football. He then goes on to say that he realizes fundamentals are one of the most important things in life. He quotes, “Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.” This statement couldn’t hold any truer. I think I have reached the age where I am wise enough to know that you can’t always get what you want. As I have gotten older I have realized how grateful I am for what I do have. I have a family that would give me the world and friends that support me now matter what. I think that it is the important things in life that matter most.


Later in the video he talks about how he has dreams of meeting Captain Kirk. He acknowledges that Captain Kirk may not have been the wisest person on the ship,, but he was what you would call a leader. He said that by watching Captain Kirk he realized what leadership was and how important it could be in life. He says being smart is not always everything. He became a leader in his own life and fulfilled his dream of becoming his own “Captain Kirk.” He also became a day-a-week consultant for Disney as an imaginer. This lasted for about ten years of his life. He said that his memories of his childhood were great but he wanted to enable others to have the same great memories as well. Being a professor was a fantastic way to enable childhood dreams. He talks about one of his students who dreamed his whole life of working on Star Wars Films. This particular student that he talks about goes on to work on all three of the Start Wars films. Randy also created a course called “Building Virtual Worlds.” He created this course by drawing fifty students from different departments all over the university. He chooses teams randomly with four people per team. They worked on projects of all different types and eventually the course became a big hit. It made everyone want to become more involved. He said that audience reactions were such a big impact on the students’ drive to do well. He also did this for ten years.

Lessons Learned was the last discussion of the video. He says that there has to be a reason that people achieve their dreams. Parents and mentors can have a huge impact on a child’s own fulfillment of his/her dreams. That is a reason that I have chosen education as a major. I want to be able to impact children the way he impacted me through this video. “Never Give Up!!” This was one of the most important quotes in the entire video. He never gave up and he wants people to know if they choose the path of never giving up they can enjoy the same success and happiness that he did.

Randy Pausch’s video has become a phenomenon. There is now a book out based on all of the ideas in this lecture. Randy lost his battle to pancreatic cancer on July 25th, 2008. His legacy will continue to live on through his “last lecture” as well as all of the people he has impacted throughout his lifetime.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Project #10 - First PLN Progress Report

This is a picture of my Personal Learning Network, so far!

Personal Learning Network





My PLN has been coming along really well, in my opinion. I have chosen symbaloo to keep track of all of the websites and links that I haven picked to include in my PLN. Symbaloo is difficult to use but I think I am getting the hand of it. Not all of my blocks are filled in, but I will get there eventually. I have included links to sites such as my personal blog, EDM310 class blog, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and some of the teachers that I have followed. I like having a PLN because it is easy access to whatever website that you want to use at the time. I think it makes keeping up with school easier because you can have everything all on one page instead of having to flip from one website to another. I think PLNs can be useful for teachers as well. They have lesson plans sites such as Teachertube that could be quite useful for a teaching career. I will continue using my PLN and adding to it regularly. I believe that even when EDM is over I will continue expanding my personal learning network.

C4T #2 - Jabiz Raisdana

The teacher that I was assigned to was Jabiz Raisdana. He has a B.A. in creative writing and graduated from San Fancisco State University. He continued his education with a masters degree in TESOL. He has eight years experience over seas and taught for two years in high needs schools in New York city. He is currently teaching a seventh grade English as a second oral language course at the Sinarmas World Academy.


Jabiz Raisdana says,"I love teaching and cannot think of any other job that I would rather have. I far more enjoying spending time with young adults than grown ones, and I feel sorry for people who do not have the time to spend with kids."


My teachers first blog was about a gadget that he found and thought was neat. It was a 3D rotating image cube. He asked for suggestions on how you could use this is you classroom. This is what I replied with. "Hi. My name is Brandin Brosh and I am a student at the University of South Alabama in EDM 310. It is a technology bases course and everything is done online. I will be following your blog for the next month and creating a blog to summarize your posts at the end.
I love this picture cube and I think it is a wonderful idea. I think a good idea for use of this in the classroom is to make a bio about yourself and use each side of the cube to tell a little about yourself. It could be used sort of like a powerpoint but more unique. If there was not a way to type text on to each side of the cube you could make a power point and screen shot each slide and make it in to a picture. I love this idea and will imbed this in to my blog and share it with my fellow classmates in edm310."

I decided to make one of my own 3D cubes with the suggestion that I made. Here it is:




If you would like to make your own 3D cube or think that it would be a great idea for you classroom here is the link. http://swfspot.com/swfspot/samples/flash8/3d_Rotating_Image_Cube


The second blog that my teacher wrote about was the idea of engaging students in their blogs by letting them individualize their blogs and make them their own. He talks about letting students make their own blog headers.

Photobucket
This is his personal header for his blog



I replied by saying, "I think being able to customize your blog is a great idea! At that age, kids are always trying to express their individuality and trying to find out who they are as a person. Allowing them to customize their blogs to make it more like “home” is a great way to engage them in their blogs and help them enjoy it a little more.
I just recently created my first blog this past January. I post in it weekly for school but have not yet found the time to write personal blogs with my busy schedule. Each week I also comment on other teachers and kids blog as part of the class that I am in. I think it is always interesting to see what you can find out about people just by using the internet.
I was reading someone of the comments about kidsblog.org. Some of the “Comments for Kids” assignments that I do have classes that use this blog. I agree that it is extremely plain and would be difficult to try to express yourself on a site such as this."