Personal Learning Networks Part 2

In September, I posted about my Personal Learning Network (PLN). As I previously thought, my PLN has grown just within the last couple of months in this class. I've continued to make friends in my classes that I can turn to whenever I need help or advice. I also met several teachers during my time tutoring in an elementary school. I think they will absolutely be there for me if I ever need any questions answered. I've learned how easy it is to find teachers or other experts through the internet whether it be personal websites, blogs, or social media pages. I'm looking forward to watching my PLN continue to grow, because in turn, my knowledge and understanding of teaching concepts can grow too!

C4T Summary #4

This month, we were allowed to choose our own teacher blog to comment on. I chose Primary Perspective by Deb Frazier based on the facts that 1. she teaches first grade which is one of the grades I would like to teach, and 2. it appeared she was very up-to-date. Unfortunately, however, my first comment has yet to be approved and she hasn't posted anything in over a month. Anyway, I did still find her posts very interesting.

In "Shelfari~ Another Tool in Building Wild Readers", Ms. Frazier writes about a website that allows people to create virtual bookshelves. She registers her students and they create their own shelves of books they have read or wish to read. This is really exciting for her class because they can share the books with their classmates and even tweet them out for a larger audience to see.
In my comment, I told Ms. Frazier that I had never heard of Shelfari. I think it sounds like a great resource, though, especially considering how excited the students get about it. I'm really glad I came to her blog and found this post, because Shelfari is definitely something I want to keep in mind for my own classroom.

"The Best Part of Teaching~ Learning Alongside the Kids" focuses on what Ms. Frazier has learned from her students recently. She mentions that during the day they form a circle to share their work, but one day they shared books instead because that is what she overheard the kids already talking about. This worked so well that she began doing the same with their writing as well. She even says that she may have them sharing digitally to ensure that every student is being heard.
My comment is as follows:
It really is amazing what you can learn from students! I've only spent a limited amount of time in classrooms so far in my schooling, but I've still probably learned more from the children than they've learned from me. Your post is a great reminder to listen on in their conversations and see what they are interested in. It's great to take that and run with it to turn it into a great learning experience as well as a simple conversation.

Blog Post #14

"Teaching Our Children Can Be a Profession" is an article by Joel Klein in USA Today. In this article, Klein explains different things he would change in schools to make them better. He lists several thoughts, such as having more school choices, using technology, and starting an education before a child is five years old, but he focuses on the main problem being that teaching needs to be professionalized. The different points he makes are as follows:

- Better teachers should be hired based on their academic training and success.

- Seniority should be abolished because it makes it almost impossible to remove a bad teacher from his or her job and because all teachers are paid the same regardless of how well they do their jobs.

- Teachers should establish their own standards for teaching and removing teachers that aren't up to par. They would also be able to move up a career ladder based on merits and testing. Teachers would support the abandonment of mandatory public school assignments.


I fully agree with Klein's first argument that teachers should be hired based on academic training and success. He mentions that schools in 23 states do not have math or reading education programs. He goes on to say later that teachers should be hired from the top 1/3 of graduates. I think this is not a bad idea because teaching is so important. If it weren't for teachers, students who are graduating as the nations top lawyers and doctors wouldn't be where they are today. It only makes sense for well-educated and intelligent people to be hired to share their knowledge with children.

Next, I also support that seniority should not dictate who is allowed to keep their job in the event that layoffs are required. Knowing that I'll be the newest teacher in school, but also knowing I will strive to be one of the best teachers there, it doesn't seem fair to me that I could be doing a great job but get laid off because an older but less competent teacher has been there longer. Besides that, as I was saying earlier, teaching is important and we should be striving for greatness. I don't know that this would actually happen, but hypothetically, what if a teacher were to slack off once she reached a good spot in her seniority? Her students would no longer be receiving the education they deserve and that would reflect back on the school and everyone else on the staff.

Lastly, I am not sure how I feel about everything Klein mentioned in his last paragraph. In my opinion, teachers creating their own board to police the teachers and terminate incompetent ones would create an unnecessary amount of friction in schools. Teachers are supposed to be working together and getting along with one another, so I don't think leaving it up to them to judge each other would be the best solution. However, I do agree that teachers should be able to move up the ladder and be promoted. Once again, this promotes good teaching habits. I also think it could be beneficial for students if their parents were able to choose which school they wanted them to attend based on the academics rather than being placed somewhere. Private schools operate this way and it works out well, so I don't see why it couldn't be something that the public school system could try to implicate.

Overall, Joel Klein has some very good ideas about ways to improve teaching by making it into a profession. This career should be well-respected. We students go through a lot of stress, testing, and schoolwork to graduate into this field and should all strive to be the best teachers there are. These ideas would help to encourage teachers to do well and promote the rest of the population to view us as well-rounded, intelligent people.

C4K November Summary

For the first week of November, I was assigned Ekisha. She lives in Canada and wrote a post titled "Start Thinking About Others". She discussed that being from Canada, she has a lot of rights, but many people around the world do not even have basic rights such as food, water, or schooling. She proposed that we work together to help the people who are not as fortunate as us. In my comment, I told her her I think it’s really awesome that she's learning about her rights and other people’s rights, and that it's great she realizes that some children don’t have it as well off as we do in free countries! I included that she may one day be able to work with an organization that helps needy children.


My next assignment, Lauren's blog on Printmaking was written about how to create prints using a linoleum block. Lauren wrote about the steps she took, and about how difficult hers was because she had to do everything backwards in order for it to print the right way. I told Lauren that printmaking was actually exactly what we had done in my college art class that week. I went on to say that she took on a huge challenge by recreating a logo and that it had turned out great - it really did look good!

My last C4K assignment for the semester was to Madeline. It appears her assignment was to create a post using her vocabulary words. It is titled "1st Quarter Reflection". She wrote about how she had improved in reading and writing this quarter because at the beginning they were not her "forte," but now she is beginning to enjoy doing them both. In my comment, I said that when I was her age I was not very interested in writing either, but that if she continues to work on it she will enjoy it even more.

Blog Post #13

This assignment was to come up with an idea for a blog post in my area of interest (which is elementary education) that hadn't been touched on yet already by Dr. Strange. After thinking for a very long time, I decided that it would be important to talk about how to set up and manage a classroom in this technologically advanced world we're living in. Although technology is a great thing, there are certainly some rules and guidelines that should be put in place to ensure myself and my students are using it only for the best reasons.

Instructions

Write a blog post on how you would arrange and manage your future classroom with the use of technology in mind. What are some rules you would include for your students to follow? How would the classroom be set up? Search for blogs, articles, videos, and other resources that could give you some ideas and provide some of your own.
These sites are a good place to start:
iTeach2nd
Technology Up to Speed
10 Classroom Technology Policies That Work




My Response

Although I do believe my idea of the perfect classroom arrangement will change a thousand times before and after I become a teacher, from my experience thus far I have a pretty good idea of how to do things! To begin with, the front part of my classroom will include nothing besides the whiteboard/SmartBoard, the desks, and an area to turn in work. This is to be sure that my students will be focused on me whenever I need them to be with no other distractions. In the back of the classroom, however, there will be different activities, games, and technology for the students to use depending on what grade I'm teaching. I think it's important to have the technology center close to the teacher desk so that I can monitor what is happening in that area if I'm sitting there. As mentioned in #7 of this article, a teacher bought a shoe rack to hold her students' personal devices. This idea made me think it would be necessary to buy or make something to house the iPads that will most likely be provided for my classroom. This too would be in the technology center near my desk. There will also be a reading center with a full bookshelf and chairs to read in.

Back to the devices that will be in my room, though. With expensive pieces of equipment and the power of the internet, comes great responsibility! For that reason, there will be several rules in place for the use of laptops, iPads, and the SmartBoard. Of course everyone probably knows the basics - no food or drink around them, keep the areas clean, only print when necessary, etc. Besides those, there are other guidelines that should be put into place - some specifically for the students, some as reminders to ourselves as teachers. Some examples I've thought of are as follows:

1. Students may only use technology with permission.
2. Carry one iPad at a time. No running with them. Hold it tightly with both hands.
3. Students will use only the safe-search engines that they have been provided with.
4. There will be no games unless told otherwise.
5. Do not download any apps without permission (or for the teacher: without reviewing them first).
6. Give the students a lecture and a list of ideas for kind words to be used online. Cyber bullying is a very real thing that I definitely don't want my students to be involved in!

Seeing as this is only a very short list, I know there are some things I have left out.
My point is just that it's really crucial to know what students are doing online, keep them guarded and out of trouble, and also keep our precious devices safe! Just something to keep thinking about over time.

Project #12

This is a video lesson from my group's continents lesson plan that we created earlier in the semester. We used the SmartBoard to carry out this lesson. My group members include myself, Ronni Nall, and Hunter Tallent.

Blog Post #12

These are three short presentations by members of Group #1 about assistive technologies and ways to help hearing and visually impaired students in the classroom.

Assistive Technologies for Hearing Impaired Children by Laura Andrews
Teaching Math to the Blind by Ronni Nall
The Mountbatten Brailer by Hunter Tallent

C4T Summary #3

Mary Worrell is an American Secondary English and Literature teacher that is living abroad. Her blog post "Hints of Budding Multigenre Success" focuses on how she has attempted to do multigenre projects in her 9th and 10th grade classrooms. She doesn't try to sugarcoat it, and it really good about pointing out her own mistakes and challenges. She also lists her requirements for projects and provides us with links to other websites about multigenre projects. I told Mary that I had never been involved in, or even heard of, a multigenre project. After reading her post, however, I do think it's something I would like to look into!

Unfortunately, Mary Worrell is no longer very active on her blog - I'd imagine she stays very busy! So for this week's assignment, I read through some older posts and chose to comment on Embracing the Grey Area. She talks about dealing with not having a set curriculum at her school in the Netherlands and how she created her own lessons to follow. She struggled with the idea of ordering textbooks, but decided to go through with it. Worrell seems to be glad with her decision because she was enjoying reading through the book and thinking of new things to teach the students. My comment said: "I totally agree with you on ordering the textbooks. They’re just good to have and add a little more to the lesson. Having a new book to look through is just a lot of fun. You’re also still using your own sources and ideas which I think is great and something to keep in mind when I’m a teacher too."

Project #14

Click the image above to view our lesson plan!