Blog Post #6

How to Ask a Question
As teachers, we need to be able to ask effective questions to our students. Many times I have been in a class where the teacher asks, "Does anyone have any questions?" My answer was always no, even if I didn't quite understand what was taught. This primarily is for math classes. And I'm not the only student that does that. So how do we avoid being that teacher? The answer is simple. Ask students open-ended questions that provoke their thoughts. Dr. Chelsey gives a great example of the difference in closed and opened-ended questions in her short video. If we ask students questions that have already been set up for a question, we have to expect a short answer. Now if we ask them a question that leaves it open for them to elaborate, they will go into detail about their thoughts on the subject.

Ben Johnson made a great point in his blog when he said that we ask students questions like we don't know the material ourselves. I can understand why we ask those questions though. We ask them to see if the students truly understand what we have just taught them. The downfall is that some students may not know that they don't know. In his blog, he mentioned question strategies researched by Mary Budd Rowe. Her theory is to ask a question, wait three seconds, and randomly choose a student to answer it. She believes this works because the students are all thinking of the answer because they do not know who will be called on!

This past week, I worked with a third grader on his reading assignment. A question was posed to find a word in the text (the word was preen) and tell how he knew what it meant. When I looked at his answer, he had put that preen meant to cuddle. It clearly stated in the same sentence preen was used in that it meant to clean. He was set that it meant to cuddle. I asked him why he thought it meant that, and he responded that he learned that in class. I think now that had I asked him in a different way, he may have understood that his answer was wrong. I do think that teachers sometimes ask the wrong questions to their students. We can overcome that by just changing the wording in our question. I am learning in my field experience the differences in my questioning. Next time I am tutoring, I will be sure to ask an open-ended question.

Project #8 Book Trailer

The Dot by Peter Reynolds

Blog Post #5

iCurio and Discovery Education

My Sentence Movies

My Sentence is...

My Passion is...

Project #3 Presentation

Blog Post #4

Podcasting with First Graders
This post was about a first grade teacher that started making podcasts with their students. Not many people would think to let a first grade class make podcasts. Before I continue, let me tell you what a podcast is! For those that do not know, a podcast is a digital file made and uploaded to the internet for downloading. This particular teacher let students record themselves acting out, on audio only, books from the Magic Tree House series. They were so involved in the whole process. Not only did they act it all out, they also helped edit the podcast for the final product! The students get to see just how many people have heard them when people comment on this blog with their location. I think this is a great way to help students understand technology and have fun while learning different skills.

Benefits of Podcasting
In the blog, Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom, they are giving specific reasons why podcasting is useful in school. Podcasting in the classroom can be used to record daily lectures for students who may have missed school that day, be useful for curious parents, and other teachers to use. Students can do podcast projects where they are the ones acting it out. This video makes the valid point that by using a podcast, we are making learning more relevant to this generation. This generation of students have always had technology at their fingertips. Why not make learning the same way as every day life for them? I agree that this can promote student creativity. They can use their imagination when creating a podcast. One thing I learned from this is that podcasting can help students access higher levels in Bloom's Taxonomy.

Listening-Comprehension-Podcasting
After reading this, I learned that podcasting is not only useful in the ways mentioned above, but it is also helpful for language learners. They created a podcast of just the sounds and words they needed and created a whole lesson on it. They incorporated different technologies along with the podcast. Podcasts can help students hear different sounds they have to learn for a language. I thought this was a great way to use this technology. After reading and watching everything about podcasting, I think this is a great way to keep students connected in class. In another class of mine, I was asked how would I keep parents involved in the students school life. I said podcasting. I definitely stick to my answer after reading/watching these. It is very helpful to have audio about what the students are learning for not only the student but also the parent and teacher.

Blog Post #3

Peer Editing
Peer editing is a great way to receive useful feedback about your work. If it's done properly, that is. A peer, as we all should know, is someone your own age, most likely in your class. Editing means to help by making suggestions, changes, and giving proper compliments on someone else's work. According to Peer Editing, you want to give someone suggestions, compliments, and corrections for their work when you peer edit. But don't be too mean or pushy! You wouldn't want to be like the peers in the Writing Peer Review video. After watching that video, I can see the many different ways my peers may respond to my writings. I can also see the ways that I should NOT respond. After reading and watching these, I know to be very careful with my words when commenting on one of my peers' blog.

When I was looking at my group members blogs, I silently read them and thought about what I would say if I were to leave them a comment. They both have great ideas and insights on what has been posted thus far. It's the same for the rest of my peers in this class. Everyone, well almost everyone, has their own opinions and ideas that they took away from the readings/watchings. I would definitely not be a Mean Margaret or a Picky Patty with any of them. After watching and reading about peer editing, I feel like I know how to better go about my comments. Compliment, suggestion, and correction(if needed).

Comments for Teachers 1 & 2

Classroom Chronicles by Henrietta Miller; C4T#1 Comment 1
Henrietta Miller's blog, Classroom Chronicles, is interesting and educational. She is a Year 6 teacher at a girls school in Sydney, Australia. Her post, Photo Imaging- A Crash Course for the Classroom, was about an Adobe course that she takes with 180 students from Australia called Photo Imaging. This is a course to learn how to use different imaging software that is available. She uses what she learns in her evening class for her classroom students. She uses Adobe Education Exchange to give lessons to other teachers and her students on how to use the different software Adobe provides.
I left Mrs. Miller this comment:
"My name is Michelle Detar. I am an Elementary Education major at the University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, USA. I was assigned to read your blog for my EDM310 class! First of all, I was thrilled to read someones blog that was on a completely different continent than me. It’s amazing how blogging can allow you to learn from others that way! The class you are taking sounds very interesting. I love photography and that would definitely be something fun to learn. I look forward to reading your future posts and how you integrate what you’re learning into your classroom."
Comment #2
This week, Henrietta posted about the Young ICT Explorer's Competition. She was a judge along with a few others for this. In her post she describes some of the presentations that were given. They absolutely blew my mind. Two of the students had created fully functional apps, one created a 3D maze game created with Adobe After Effects, and a rubbish bin made to show a message when it is filled with rubbish. These were created by fourteen year olds. I can only imagine what the young, brilliant minds will create in the future.
I left this comment this week:
"Hi! I’m Michelle from the University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, USA. I commented last week and said that I was assigned your blog in my Microcomputing Systems class, or EDM310 as we call it. So for this week I read your latest blog post. While reading about the presentations the students you judged created, I was blown away. I couldn’t imagine creating such mind simulating technology. It really does raise the question of what are their teachers doing in the classroom to keep them interested."

Blog Post #2

Professor Dancealot

Professor Dancealot is an entertaining short movie about a professor that teaches but doesn't let the students interact in the classroom. This movie shows how a lot of professors work now days. This very much confused me because when teaching any class you should allow your students to put into action what was explained. We think it is impossible for a student to learn anything without actually attempting it on their own. How can someone learn something if they only hear how to do it? This is the kind of teaching that we as educators need to avoid. This teaching method, as we can see, is completely ineffective. When teaching your class, you should allow them to think for themselves and try things out so they can actually get a good grasp on it. This was a funny but sadly true movie on the downfalls of certain ways of teaching. -Michelle Detar, Mariah Grantham, and Demetrius Hamner

Teaching in the 21st Century by Michelle Detar
In this Prezi turned video, Teaching in the 21st Century, some questions are aroused to make us think about what it means to teach in this day and age. Right now, we have so much technology available to us and very few know how to actually use it. Students have endless amounts of resources at their fingertips. Without us, the teachers, how can they know what is useful or not? Teaching in the 21st century means having to be current with our knowledge on different ways to use technology as a teaching tool. It is up to us to teach them that sites like Wikipedia is unreliable when it comes to research, to show them how to properly utilize Google and all its functions, to teach them that Twitter and Facebook are not only their for entertainment, but can also be used for engaging educational purposes, and so much more. To teach in the 21st century, one must be technologically literate. Because of technology, future educators will have to know how to incorporate all forms of technology into their classroom. As technology changes and time progresses, so will teaching.

The Networked Student by Demetrius Hamner
In the video, The Networked Student by Wendy Drexler, a lot of information is given on this particular “networked” student. This video, going into great detail on just how well connected this student is, amazes me on how well he uses all of his resources. Even though he doesn't have class as often. or a book, he utilizes the internet very well when completing his assignments. Connectivism, a theory that presumes that learning occurs as part of a social of many diverse connections and ties, is what his teacher goes by. Before watching this video I had never heard of this term, but in a way it put me in the mind of EDM310 since we are basically being taught in the same manner.
In my opinion, every student needs a teacher/professor at some point. Guidance is always needed, because, as a student, we are still learning. There is no way that we as students could completely do it ourselves. If we could learn everything on our own then what would be the point of us being in school? Exactly, there would be no point. The networked student’s teacher is there to be many things to her student: a learning architect, modeler, learning concierge, connected learning incubator, network Sherpa, synthesizer, and change agent. All of which are very important.
Without the teacher/professor being there for the student, there would be no way that he could do it alone. Her guidance was the key to all of the success he had as a networked student. Being able to build his own trail with reliable information isn't something he learned to do overnight, it took time. This was a very informative video, and it gave good insight on the many ways this student stayed connected. Over time he would be able to build his successful, making his teacher very proud.

Harness Your Students Digital Smarts by Mariah Grantham
The video, Harness Your Students’ Digital Smarts, found on Edutopia, is yet another video that has seemed to amaze me. So many teachers, and just people in general, underestimate how smart these students really are. Vicky Davis is a very inspiring teacher that allows the students to brainstorm and find the answers themselves. She unexpectedly throws out new terms to her class and expects them to find the definition themselves, which they successfully do. Three days into their internet project, her class was teaching her how to do things that she did not not how to do. The students really enjoyed the project, and they felt empowered when they used their own minds to find the answers. This inspired them to get involved with digiteen, which was an internet site where students all over the world would post blogs and videos and share them amongst each other. This is another example of how important technology is in a classroom. Like Mrs. Davis said, not every child can learn with a pencil and paper.