Blog Assignment #13

Back to the Future

In the video, Back to the Future, Brian Crosby shows us exactly what his classroom is about. He has the same students from the 4th grade all the way up until the 6th grade. (You may have to give and take a few, but generally the same students.) He introduces us to this unconventional way of teaching and learning.

In his classroom, he provides computers for every child, along with many video cameras to be shared throughout the class and a Smart Board as well. He said that the majority of his students are considered as ESL and in poverty. So the computers are something they are very excited about working with. He does several projects a year with his students. They blog about their progress and how they feel about these projects as they complete them.

During this video, Brian shows us one of his projects: The Hot Air Balloon. The project's objective is to teach the students about the different layers of Earth's atmosphere. So in this project, they construct a hot air balloon and they put everyone's "high hopes" in the balloon. When they release the balloon, they are able to watch it through a satellite and see how high it goes until it bursts and sends their "high hopes" into highest layers of Earth's atmosphere. The kids also blog about this project, but in a different way: They are to pretend that they are the balloon and describe what it was like. So, their creative juices got a chance to flow. How creative?!

I loved what Brian has done with this classroom. I especially like that he has his students for 3 years. It gives him a chance to really get to know his students and teach them in a way that is best for them. He is so creative with his projects and does a great job of incorporating all aspects of technology and still targeting exactly what he suppose to be teaching (according to the state). My favorite part is that they started collaborating with students all around the world and got the opportunity to send their "high hopes" too. The students, as well as Brian, learned about many things that were going on in the world outside of the US throughout this project. Overall, I am so impressed with the amount of technology that he used and the different ways that he chose to incorporate them in his classroom. This pushes his students and makes them strive for something they are excited about and engaged in.

A Vision of Students Today

This video, A Vision of Students Today, shows you the everyday life of a college student. It provides a clear explanation of the struggles and difficulties that college students encounter on a day-to-day basis. Many of those things are brought to the surface; those being: the majority of teachers don't know their names, they are learning things that are irrelevant to their lives, they are bored in the classrooms, so many students will be overwhelmed with debt by the time they complete their degree, students are paying so much money and not receiving an education to match, and many more struggles are mentioned throughout the video.

It is very hard to look at this video in the perspective of a teacher trying to fix these problems, (considering I am a student experiencing just about every single one of the problems mentioned throughout the video)but I will do my best. After watching this video and trying to put myself in the educator's shoes, I have come to the conclusion of what I perceive to be the message of this video: incorporating more technology in the classroom and providing more opportunities for online education. Students in this video made several complaints about being bored and not coming to class. Maybe those students need to switch to online classes? Or, even better: Maybe the instructors need to switch to new methods of teaching, perhaps MORE TECHNOLOGY?! I think so. Technology is a universal tool that engages all ages, no matter if it's elementary or college-leveled students. Students will be more interested if more resources are provided for them, which is exactly what technology does.

Final Report on PLN

Since I first got my PLN with Symbaloo, my computer life has completely transformed! I LOVE IT. It has made everything so much easier and convenient. It took me a little while to understand how to work it, but once I got the hang of things, it made web-browsing easier and faster. I no longer have to type in every single address of the places that I visit most frequently. I have made my PLN with Symbaloo my homepage and all of my most common resources are just a click away! These are the different webpages that I have added to my PLN:

www.gmail.com
www.blogger.com
www.facebook.com
www.edm310.blogspot.com
www.twitter.com
Sakai account at South Alabama
Paws account at South Alabama
www.ebay.com
www.etsy.com
www.pandora.com
www.youtube.com
I have many, many more, too!

Here is a picture of my current PLN:

Final Project #16

Progress Report on Project #16

My group, The Raging Fireflies, and myself met on November 19th to discuss and plan out the details of our final project. Our project is going to be a short film describing the changes that a student underwent as they took on Dr. Strange's course, EDM 310. The student starts out being a "Negative Nancy" and progresses throughout the semester into seeing how this class really does a great job of preparing and helping teachers with their future in the classroom. We will be continuing to make changes between now and the day we plan on videoing our project. We plan on contacting each other via email, Google Docs, FaceTime, and several other means of communication. We are all very excited to see how this project turns out! We're having so much fun making it!

Blog Assignment #12

My major is secondary special education, so as discussed in a previous post, Dr. Strange has informed us that Apple offers many different types of applications for your iPhone or iPad. After visiting the Alabama Regional School for the Deaf and Blind, right here in Mobile, I found out that apple products already come with many types of adaptive technology for those who are disabled. I toured the school this past week for my EDU 400 class (Study of Exceptional Youth & Children). On this tour, they took us into their computer lab and briefly told us about some of the accessibility services that Apple provides for the visually and hearing impaired/disabled. I became so interested in what they had to say, I checked it out for myself. This is the web link that I first came across: http://www.apple.com/accessibility/, which led me to: http://www.apple.com/education/special-education/#vision. When I came across these pages, I was amazed at what they have to offer to this community of individuals.

After checking out these 2 pages and a few others, this is the blog assignment that I came up with:

Students are to go to this page and find 5 types of adaptive services that Apple offers (I do not want you to pick any type of app that you would use for an iPad or iPhone. Dr. Strange has already given you an assignment in that area). You must mention five different types of accessibility technologies in your post. From the 5 that you chose, you must pick your favorite one. Whichever one of the 5 you choose, I want you to:
1. Describe what it is and how it helps
2. Find a video about it and add it to this post
3. Write about which type of disability this service targets (a detailed description)
4. Write about how you could possibly use this in your classroom

The purpose of this assignment is to get you involved in the disabled community. I want you to learn more about the types of disabilities that you will encounter as a teacher. It is so important to become familiar and comfortable with disabled students because you will come across many of them. This population will never go away and you need to learn how to incorporate them in your curriculum. I hope you enjoy doing this assignment as much as I have.


If I were to do this assignment myself, this is how I would respond:

I visited the Apple page, http://www.apple.com/accessibility/, and found it to be very useful and, eventually, resourceful. I was very unaware of how much Apple provides for the disabled community until coming across this page. I was assigned to find 5 different types of adaptive technology services that Apple offers for those who are disabled. The five that really stood out to me are:

1. VoiceOver
2. Refreshable Braille Display Support
3. GarageBand
4. Inkwell
5. Closed Captioning

Each one of these assistive technologies are miraculous and life-changing for someone who is disabled. Simple things that we take for granted each and everyday, may be a struggle for someone else with a disability. I'm so glad that Apple has come up with all of these things for the disabled community.

The one that stood out the most to me is Garageband. Garageband comes with all Macs. It is something that everyone can use. Garageband allows you to learn to play an instrument, record your very own music, write music, share your work and many other cool things. Not only, does it allow you to encounter musical adventures, but it also offers something for the deaf and hard of hearing community.

If a student is diagnosed as "deaf" or "hard of hearing", it can be very challenging for them to learn to adapt to their new way of living. Deaf is when someone has total loss of hearing. Hard of hearing is when the student has partial loss of hearing. When someone is hard of hearing they may only be able to hear certain sounds and frequencies within a specific volume range. These disabilities may result from a situation which caused their hearing to be lost, or it may be something the individual has had since birth. Either way, it is something that is difficult to withstand in an educational, or even an everyday setting.

Although it is difficult for the student with the hearing trouble to learn, it may also be difficult for the teacher to adapt to a new way of teaching. This is why I think Garageband is a wonderful tool. Not only can you do all sorts of cool things musically, but it also works educationally. Teachers in the past have used Garageband to record podcasts of themselves delivering lessons to the deaf and hard of hearing population who are transitioning into learning to use their cochlear implants. (As a side note, a cochlear implant is a surgically implanted hearing device for those who are deaf or hard of hearing to assist in producing different types of sound to help them to decipher between.) Students learn inflection and how to differentiate between different pitches, voices, and frequencies. With help from the cochlear implants and Garageband overtime, the student can eventually evolve into better hearing. HOW FANTASTIC?!

Since I am planning on getting my degree in special education, I can use this everyday! I am so excited. Although I do not have a Mac now, I am planning on getting one in the near future. The Mac is equipped with so much adaptive technology. I cannot wait to get my kiddies started in on using it and seeing how much they progress throughout the year. I will use Garageband to make podcasts and do all sorts of other fun things with my students!

Unfortunately, I was unable to find any podcasts with teachers communicating with their deaf or hard of hearing students, but I did manage to find something else:



This video was created by some of the deaf students at Anacortes High School in Anacortes, Washington. The background music was also created by a deaf student in Garageband. How neat?!

Project #13

These collaborative tools were so helpful in communicating with my group! We used all sorts of different ways to collaborate with each other. We first started out with using Google Docs in preparation to outline our lesson plan for Project #15. We shared our ideas, thoughts, and learning objectives through this. We also used the video chat feature on Skype. Through this, we shared videos of what current web pages we were looking at and shared resources as well. Face Time was also a helpful tool in collaborating together! Maria and I used this feature when we needed to show something to each other on a short notice. Thank God for my iPhone, because we were texting nonstop, too! While we were texting, I sent several screen shots of interesting things that I found. I don't know what I would do without my iPhone. All of these tools were so very useful in communicating with my group. It has made our group collaboration so much easier versus other groups that I have been with in the past. Thank you, Dr. Strange, for introducing some of these tools to us!

Project 15: Smartboard

C4T #4

Post #1: Old Favourites

The teacher to whom I am assigned for in C4T #5 is Henrietta Miller and her blog, Classroom Chronicles. In this post, Henrietta started off discussing how it is now time for her to retire her favorite shirt: a pink, waffle-threaded sweater that she bought years ago. She talks about how she is comfortable in it and wears it with many outfits. It is her go-to accessory. She then, compared it to teachers today. Mrs. Miller came across this concept when she went to grab it out of her closet and prepared herself to patch it up once more. She says that teachers are this way when it comes to learning new ways of teaching students. They get caught up in their same 'ole, same 'ole ways and just try to patch it up temporarily to work for what's in store today.

As I was reading this post, I was confused as to why I was assigned to this blog. I thought to myself, "Did Dr. Strange accidentally assign me to a fashion blog? That couldn't possibly be true..."; and it wasn't. As I kept reading I came across her comparison of today's teachers. I thought this was brilliant! I love that she was doing something so simple and typical, and found a way to bring it in to education's revolution. This is so true and so over-looked. Teachers assume that what has worked in the past will continue to work for them in the future. That is not the case. Education and technology are now merging together so we, as teachers, must combine these two things and merge them into our curriculum for the betterment of our student's education. Mrs. Miller closed her post with this quote, "If we teach today the way we were taught yesterday we aren't preparing students for today or tomorrow.".

Post #2: It's All About Relationships

In this post, Mrs. Miller is discussing where she got inspiration to to write a graduation speech for her students. She says that she was chatting with some other teachers and discussing where these "teacher gurus" get there knowledge from. While doing this, she realizes that she is her own "teacher guru" and after teaching for several years has come up with her own theories, realizations, and advice on teaching and for her students. If you want to read the speech she has written, go to her post here.

I commented on Mrs. Millers blog with the following statement: "Hello!
As mentioned before, I am a student in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama. I really love where you got the inspiration to write the speech from: yourself! It came from your heart and your many years of experience as a teacher. You know your girls better than anyone else does, so you know exactly what to tell them and prepare them for in this next milestone of their lives. You seem to be a wonderful and caring teacher! I look up to you as I am in the process of becoming one myself. You are very wise and I will save your blog to my bookmarks so I can check in and see what other words of wisdom you have to offer! Keep up the great work :)
Lauren"

C4T #3

About A Teacher

For C4T #3 I was assigned to Greta Sander's blog, About a Teacher. The post that I read was titled, Finding My Voice. She talks about how, even as a child, she loved to write. Her uncle was a poet and wrote her a poem about how she would become a poet one day, herself. He seemed to be a big inspiration to her and as to why she loved to write. He made it exciting for her. She discusses that, as she got older, she came down with a bad case of writers block. It took several years for her to come out of that rut. Greta says that blogging has helped her. Since she was given an audience and someone to write for, it has provided her with more reason to discuss things of deeper and more emotional meaning. An instance that she described as the defining moment that pulled her out of the writers block stage she had been trapped in for years, was when a friend asked her to write an "Ah Ha" moment for her blog page. She says that the post was still one of her best. She left a link to it on this post. It is titled, Love Them Before You know Them.

I first introduced myself to Mrs. Sander. I complimented her on this post and told her how wonderful it was. I agreed with her when she mentioned that blogging helps to get her creative juices flowing. (I know it has mine!) After discussing how much I enjoyed this post, I went on to tell her how much more I enjoyed reading the post she titled as, Love Them Before You know Them. I told her how beautiful and inspirational it was. She talks about how there was a problem child throughout the school and all of the teachers had something bad to say about him. She soon finds out that he was sexually abused and his actions are mostly likely resulted from this. Her effort then, was to strive to make a difference in this child's life. I'm not going to tell you too much more about it, because I want you to read it for yourself. It will be well-worth your time; I know it was mine!

Kids Motivating Other Kids

In this post, Mrs. Sandler talks about a day when she let her previous class come in and talk about blogging with her current class. She said that she was surprised to get the reaction from her previous class that she did. The kids were so excited and completely motivated to keep blogging. She said that it got her new students motivated and ready to begin their own blogging adventure.

When I commented on her post, I first introduced myself. I told her that this post was very inspiring and motivating! I said that I can relate to her students entirely. I told her how I have showed family and friends all of the things that I have done in this class and how proud of my work I am. It has pushed and motivated me to do better with my work because it is published publicly for the whole world to see. I had a lot of the same reactions that her students did when it came to the excitement and thrill of achieving a great a blog post. I told her that she is doing a great job with her class and to keep up the great work and great blogging! I urge each of you to go and check out this post to see the reactions from her students (it is very relatable!) http://gret.wordpress.com/2011/09/05/kidsmotivatingotherkidstoblog/#comment-1089

C4K for November

C4K #7 SPECIAL EDITION

The C4K this week was very special! Dr. Vutulli and Dr. Santoli are on a trip in Ireland attending a the Ireland International Conference on Education. This is a great opportunity for them. I am assigned to comment specifically on the post, A Bit About Ireland. In this post, they discuss how they looked up information about the place before they left; that way they are informed about the culture around them. They talk about the religion, language and many interesting statistics, too!

I first, introduced myself to them. I told them I was very jealous of their trip! It would be an awesome place to visit. I said that I thought it was interesting that 90% of the religion for the residents in Ireland is Catholic. I stated that the information they gave was very informative and it was a smart decision to look up things about their culture before they left.

C4K #8

The title of my C4K #8 was Alberta is Awesome. The student that I was assigned to created something similar to a collage, but of videos, posters and images. It was really neat and I have never seen anything like this! On this post, the student was talking about the rocky mountain region of Alberta. They posted pictures of lions, goats, and bears; OH MY! (Sorry, I just couldn't resist.)The video included information on a national park and all of the animals and other interesting things you can find there. She was very informative about natural resources, jobs and other interesting things about Alberta.

In my comment, I started off introducing myself to her. I told her my name and where I was from. I complimented her on the design of her blog and said that she did a good job. I told her that I found it interesting how she laid out all of the information in this post and that I was going to have to figure out how to do it myself. I told her that Alberta seemed like a beautiful place to live and that the pictures she chose for this post were very good. I told her to keep up the good work and good blogging!

C4K #9

The student to whom I was assigned to for C4K #9 is Brandon L. His last post is titled, Minecraft Steve’s Vengence part3 The Assassin. It sounded like he was describing a book that he is reading. In this post he talks about how the main character is attacked by some sort of familiar venom. He says that it is to be continued!

I first, introduced myself to Brandon. I told him that I was a student in Dr. Strange's course at the University of South Alabama. I told him that he made this story sound very interesting and I would like to check it out myself! He did a great job on his blogging and I was sure to tell him that, also. I told him to keep up the great work!

C4K #10

The student to who I am assigned to is Tiara and she is from Baldwin County High School and her blog is http://rostchildtiara-english.blogspot.com/. Tiara's blog listed 10 things that have to do with high school. Those were:
1.We will have a good day
2.BCHS Football team is great !
3.We will help you
4.The food is fantastic
5.We Will not have a test
6.You can put your head down.
7.You are my fav student
8.High school is better than the middle school.
9.I Love all my students.
10.The test is simple!

I responded and told Tiara that she is very positive about her school and to keep up the great work! She held a really positive viewpoint with all of her sentences. I also told her that I used to go to Faulkner State Community College right beside her high school, so I know exactly where that is!

Blog Assignment #11

Little Kids, BIG Potential

In the video, First Graders in Mrs. Cassidy's Class, Mrs. Cassidy and her students take us on a virtual tour of her classroom and introduce us to all of the interactive technology used every day in her room. They use a variety of different technologies ranging from Nintendo DS, Skype, Wiki, blogging and many more. Her students are only in the 1st grade and know more about blogging than I do and most people that I know do, too.

Some of the students in her class were giving tips on how to blog properly. They told us to never say anything mean about anyone or to anyone, because it could hurt their feelings. That is such a great statement. I love the idea of this coming from a 1st grader. Not only do her students know how to blog at age 6, but they are also learning life lessons throughout this. Her students are at the perfect age to learn about social media, too. This is the age before they embark on Facebook, Twitter, and who knows what other websites will be out by the time they are old enough to use and understand them. It is great that they have grasped an understanding on how to respond to people and what they post BEFORE they enter this other area of social networking. I think that is a huge problem with my generation today. We were never properly taught how to respond to others' ideas, and Facebook is a direct correlation of that. These children are going to grow up with an understanding of how to positively speak to others, even when their ideas may not be the same. I am very excited to see how this generation transforms.

Skyping With Mrs. Cassidy

Dr. Strange set up a Skype interview with Mrs. Cassidy to discuss some of her views on technology inside and outside of the classroom. He asked several questions and then gave the floor to some of his students.

During the interview with Mrs. Cassidy, Dr. Strange asked the question, "How do you see blogs?" Mrs. Cassidy answered with a statement similar to, "The world could go on without blogs and they would find some other sort of tool to communicate through, but it wouldn't make it as interesting." She mentioned that without blogs, the kids would be writing for their teacher, not the world. Now, when they are given an assignment, the students understand that their papers and assignments are out there for the world to see and that they have an unlimited audience. This gives them the pressure to write to the best of their abilities and gives them higher standards for themselves.

Dr. Strange also asked the question, "Where do you think is a good place to start with technology in a classroom?". Mrs. Cassidy responded with, "Start with what you are interested in the most." I think this is an important concept, especially when embarking in on a new or unfamiliar area such as blogging, audios, podcasting, wikis and many others. If you start with what you are most interested in at the beginning of your journey, you will be more motivated to keep it up.

A student in one of Dr. Strange's classes asked the question, "With blogging becoming a more common thing, do you think that cheating is becoming more prominent?". In Mrs. Cassdiy's response she made the comment that there is a difference between collaborating and cheating. Collaborating is when we feed off of others' work and cheating is when we actually steal it. I, personally, feel that is one of the primary purposes of blogging, podcasting, audios, videos and so on; so we can share our work and give information to the world. I loved her answer!!

This interview was very useful. I got a lot of questions answered from this. I want my students to be able to communicate with other students. I think that is wonderful. Children require interaction, and it would be beneficial, engaging, and fun for them to be able to communicate with other students across the world and see what they are engaging themselves in too! Also, I enjoyed seeing her backyard. I am so envious of all of the snow!

Special Blog Assignment

A World Where Grades Will Be Left Behind

USA Today was celebrating its 30th anniversary, and in doing so they interviewed some of the visionaries of USA to get their perspectives on the future. In this specific article, USA interviewed professor Sebastian Thrun, Google VP and owner of Udacity. Udacity is an education company in California that is in attempt to transform education as we know it today. For more information on Udacity, visit the website at www.udacity.com.

In this article, A World Where Grades Will Be Left Behind, Sebastian discusses how this future way of learning is going to be completely free and available for everyone to have access to it. He brings up the ideas of "flipping" the classroom and online classes with more than 160,000 students per class.

As a side note, Flipping the Classroom is a situation in which teachers, in nontraditional style classrooms, literally flip their classrooms. The students are suppose to watch videos at home that teach the lessons to them. They come to class the next day with any questions they may have concerning what they watched and learned. The homework is done at school, so they can get assistance as needed. It is a brilliant idea and I would love to incorporate this into my future classroom. For any questions, statistics or more information on the subject visit the Flipped Learning Network website. I found it to be very useful for myself.

The ideas of this situation sounds all dreamy and Utopian, but just doesn't seem completely possible without the idea of "flipping" the world, not just the classroom. America would have to do a complete 180 to get this accomplished. There are many people to whom would be excited to get this concept on the map, I just don't think there are enough of those kinds of people willing to put forth the effort, energy, time and vitality towards an endeavor of this sort.

The concept that stands out most to me is the fact that it is "supposedly" free. With technology, comes innovation; with innovation, comes expenses. If people are willing to invest their time and money, they are going to expect some sort of payment in return. Which circles me back to the same question, "Where is the money going to come from?". I hate to be the pessimist that brings money into a great situation, but I just don't see that many good Samaritans to whom would be willing to volunteer their time and efforts into this project and expect nothing in return. Money has to come from somewhere; especially when you add all of the software, video cameras, editing programs, computers, maintenance on things that get broken and need updates, and all types of other high-tech equipment that cost a pretty good sum of money.

Another idea of this educational revolution that seems far-fetched to me is the thought that the entire United States can keep up with it. Technology is easily frowned upon in certain parts of the country; take the South, for example. They, or more-so, we, just cannot keep up with the Jones'. We all know that. We lag behind everyone else in their advances. People here are old-fashioned and it would take an act of congress to get something of this sort accomplished. Most people down here see innovation as something negative until years later, when they reap the benefits of it. It may be able to take place, but it is going to have to be much further in the future if they plan on spreading this nation-wide.

I think that this program has a lot of great efforts; I just do not see it progressing unless some major changes take place. Kudos to Sebastian Thrun and his coworkers at Udactiy. They are on the right road to educational innovations; I just, personally, think that it needs some revision to deem this whole concept possible.

C4K for October

C4K #3

The blog to whom I was assigned for on C4K #3 is http://kidblog.org/pwa9b/author/758dc990-451a-480e-8a64-655bb6a6586e/. His name is Zach. It is his first year in high school at PWA. He said that he liked his new school much better than his old one for many reasons. He mentioned that the kids here aren't "psycho paranoid fools", which I found pretty humorous.

I complimented him on his new locker that he mentioned in his post. He said that it is a full sized one and he was excited about it. He also mentioned that he was glad his younger siblings did not go to his new school. I told him that I knew how he felt, because I have a younger sibling, also.

C4K #4

The blog to whom I was assigned for on C4K #4 is http://ageofex.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/partnering-to-make-a-difference/#comment-1183. Her name is Shannon. The title of this post is Partnering to Make a Difference. Shannon briefly discusses a project on which she is partnered with a teacher. She says that she did very well on it, but she hopes that on her next project she can make it more enjoyable for others to watch.

On my comment, I first, introduced myself to her. I told her that she had a very interesting post and that I would love to learn more about the partnership. I also complimented her on setting goals for herself. I said that it is very important to do this, because it makes you push yourself and you end up accomplishing more than you ever knew you could do.

C4K #5

The blog to whom I was assigned for on C4K #5 is http://jazzypants.weebly.com/1/post/2012/09/about-me.html?. He refers to himself as "Jazzy". This was his first blog post. He was informing all of his readers about himself. He said that he played hockey and soccer and that his favorite subject is math.

When I commented on Jazzy's blog, I first, introduced myself. After that, I told him that I was jealous at the fact that they have hockey teams in Canada. I said that we do not have hockey teams in Mobile. I also told him to keep up the good work!

C4K #6

The blog to whom I was assigned for C4K #6 is a girl named Katie in Mrs. Peterson's 7th grade class. Here is a link to Katie's blog:http://kidblog.org/English7Blog/author/ebb47115-de0d-4de9-bd3a-facf3274e030/ . In Katie's post, "Hello World", she briefly introduces herself by talking about some of her favorite things to do, to read, to listen to and more. At the end of this post she says that she wants to be an astronomer when she grows up. Katie's blog is very creative.

In my response to Katie's post I started off by introducing myself to her. I told her that we have a lot in common. Her favorite book was The Hunger Games Trilogy. I said that I have read the books myself and that they are very enjoyable, as well as the movie! I complimented her on aspiring to be an astronomer. I told her that I enjoyed looking at the stars and learning about the planets too. I complimented her on her blog. I told her that it was very creative and she picked out a pretty background.

Blog Assignment #10

ADVENTURES IN PENCIL INTEGRATION


"I'm a Papermate. I'm a Ticonderoga."

I had to sit here and think about this cartoon for a few minutes before anything clicked in my head. Finally, something came to me: I thought this was an illustration of a Mac and a PC. After checking out John T. Spencer's blog, Adventures in Pencil Integration , I realized that was his intention. So, kudos to me, I guess? I thought this cartoon was pretty good. It made you think, but it also gave a good illustration of the situation. Macs are, clearly, top of the line when it comes to computers, versus a PC, which does break frequently (I know from personal experience). PCs are inexpensive, for the most part, and they manage to get what you need done. Macs are built to last and improve what you need to get done.

Why Were Your Kids Playing Games?

This is another post by Mr. Spencer. He describes a scenario where a principal approaches a teacher with an issue. The principal took notice that the teacher was playing games with their students, and became very unhappy with that. The teacher defended himself and his students by saying the games were educational and the students were engaged. The principal's response was, "If we want students to pass the rote memorization test, we need to focus on rote memorization skills." The teacher was in awe at the fact that the principal just wanted the kids to memorize, not learn.

It was shocking for me to hear those words come out so honestly and blunt. Unfortunately, that is the way most schools attempt at teaching things: memorization. There are so many things that I have studied, or more-so, memorized, during my schooling years just to get the information in my head, not to learn. I, personally, feel that a major cause of this memorization tactic is due to how often the teachers instill it in their students' minds. It's been instilled in the teachers's minds, also; which is why they typically do not see a problem with it. It's like a never-ending cycle that NEEDS to be broken.

Capturing Reality

As I was plundering through Mr. Spencer's blog, I came across this post. He called it Capturing Reality. He starts out by setting up a conversation between his daughter and himself. She makes the comment,"Why do you have to capture it? Can't this moment run free?", after she questions her dad about capturing a picture. My attention had been caught after reading that statement. He then, transitions on to a conversation with another person about his perspective on looking through a lens. The individual says that he never takes a picture, because in the end it is just a picture of himself, not the others he was taking a picture of. This is how he worded it, "But the picture was of me. It was me, detached, looking through a lens, hiding behind a cloud of smoke." Spencer expresses that what may beneficial or pleasing to someone else, may not be for another, whether it's with technology or anything else.

First, I would like to add that I appreciate his writing style. It really helps portray the overall picture that he is trying to get across by setting up a play-by-play scenario through his dialect. Secondly, I enjoyed reading this post in particular, because of the way he expresses what may be good for someone else, may be bad for another person. In the classroom, it is easy to get in the habit of just assuming what is good for one child, is good for the rest, but in all reality it may result negatively with another. We need to get in the routine of asking, "What is best for that child?" and accommodate that into the curriculum.

Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff, Please?

Scott Mcleod's blog, Dangerously Irrelevant, is a masterpiece! He is a well-known blogger and professor in the industry of education. He has LOADS of useful information for educators out there. We were directed to read this one post in particular by Scott, Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff, Please?. In this post, he uses a sarcastic tone to address technological things that people (parents and educators) are frowning upon. This post may have come across as exaggerated, but there are ACTUALLY people in the world that believe these things! That blows my mine in itself! He basically tells them that you can do as you please, but my students will learn about these things and they will become more advanced than yours because of it.