Final Reflection Blog #15 :EDM 310

I have learned so much this semester. Although this class was daunting for me from the start, I have overcome my fear. The key is taking time and exploring what you find! This is my final blog post, a personal reflection. These are the things I take with me from this class and experience!! Thanks to Dr. Strange and the lab assistants at University of South Alabama! Good luck to my fellow students!

Blog Post #14 : Jose Picardo : EDM 310 Class Blog

Box of Tricks

Mr. Picardo has compiled a very useful list of tools and their links for teachers. His top ten list is what teachers should live by; each can be easily incorporated into curriculum and classroom activities and offer advantages in keeping students participating. Streaming video, music, teleconferencing, interactive exercises, better use of IWBs, and podcasts are a few of his suggestions. Used to deepen the educational experience and pique the interest of your students, social networks, blogs, internet tools, and the maximum benefit of their OWN devices can make your direction and guidance in the classroom more effective. I copied his sources into my PLN for later evaluation and organization, and especially appreciated his huge list of tools and how they worked.

Triptico is great for gameshow formatted IWB app for games, quizzes, and text analysis tools. He discusses the iPad's usefulness in "bringing the subject to life in front of your very eyes", which would hold students' attention well.

Quizzin also lets you embed a quiz into a blog post, so it could be used as an informal assessment, or a way to make sure students visit and maintain their blogs regularly. These tools are a teacher's best friend when it comes to teaching technology. All learning types in our students benefit from a daily exposure to these and others. Sharing his research results to help other teachers, Mr. Picardo reminds us to keep our minds open and our students will learn from us and through us. I look forward to visiting each site and exploring the usefulness of each tool, and establishing their places and values in my PLN.

Project #7: C4K November Comments: EDM 310 Class Blog

My first comment was to Mr. McClung's World Class Blog post in which they were learning about writing professional letters to the community's leaders and businessmen requesting their help with some projects. I pointed out that this skill was particularly valuable in that it is a lot like grant writing, or what some non-profit organizations consider a requirement to foster community and public relations. Some organizations rely heavily on the donations, grants and provisions of the local citizens, and the classroom is the suitable place to hone those skills.

I wished them luck in their endeavor and that I would love to hear about their progress and project updates.

Secondly, I commented on Htawara's Class Blog when I watched her animated videos and listened to her describe her family members' names and what she liked to do at school and home. She went to her father's shop after school, and liked to swim a lot. She had pictures of her swimming on her blog. I complimented her talent for animating short videos and asked her a couple of questions about the yearly temperature in her country, Burma. I commented that I love to swim also and grew up swimming in an Olympic-sized pool when I was little. I encouraged her to make and publish more videos to tell us more about herself.

Final Report on PLN : EDM 310

 

Each month I receive bills in the mail, so I pay them, and mark them "paid". Then they go into a holding drawer, until I have time to sort and put them in proper folders. Until my PLN is organized EXACTLY the way I decide it will be to best suit me, I will continue to simply collect and sort its sources! Under general labels, I house many websites and ideas for my classroom. As time allows, I will explore these sites, make decisions, and put them in more specifically organized folders and web mixes. Symbaloo is my choice to compose an ever-changing and growing network. I look forward to perusing my Twitter daily to pull new possible resources from my Tweets to my Symbaloo tiles. There is so much creative freedom in these applications, and the fact that they are free makes them even more enticing! Teachers can easily use these tools to make teaching tech a lot easier and more accessible. Blogs are great sources as well; I have many teachers' blogs in my web resource folders.

Diigo is a great bookmarking app that allows one to add quickly a possible lookover when there is more time.  The library sidebar makes it easy to revisit and filter possible classroom sources; I am constantly adding, editing, deleting and changing tiles. If I take a small amount of time to practice maintaining my PLN, it will provide me and my students with an ongoing source of modern learning material pertinent to students' futures.

Project #14: Skype Interview : EDM 310

Using Skype, I interviewed Gene Embry, author of my book trailer , Sammy Snail's Tennessee Adventures . He is a local playwright and children's author in my town. He writes the stately adventures of Sammy Snail, a curious snail whose vision is to visit each state and tell his readers about them. A grandfather and former mortician and florist, Embry draws on his real-life experiences to bring to life his plays, which range from parody to Southern Gothic. I was thrilled to speak with him and inquire as to Sammy's future. We look forward to the books, and I cannot wait to begin working as his new illustrator!

Project #16 : The New Teacher's Quest : EDM 310

 

Our group, Gretchen McPherson, Raven Castleberry and Dominique Spence, made this video to give its viewers a quick synapsis of how technology can benefit students in the classroom. We learned a lot making it, and actually enjoyed ourselves. Each new teacher will face these challenges when given his/her own classroom. We should make our decisions based on how we can best serve our students' needs, not our own. We hope you enjoy and consider this video a starting point of why we became teachers!