Skype Interview #2

I had trouble uploading my first Skype interview to YouTube. This is the one that works.

Additional Assignment #5

Tom Johnson's Adventure in Pencil Integration

Tom Johnson's blog is full of stories with metaphors in each. They all bring a great point and the metaphors help the reader to stretch their imagination and truly think about the message that the writer is trying to convey. He has a great attitude towards his students where he creates an awesome learning environment. From his stories, I can really tell that that he takes the time to get to know his students and values their thoughts for what they're worth.

Blog Post #13

Review of Alabama Learning Exchange

The Alabma Learning Exchange, or ALEX, is a very useful site with tools for all educators. Not only does it provides lesson plan ideas for all subjects and any grade, K-12; but it also has a place for teachers to strengthen their own professional learning skills. Under the professional learning link, an educator is able to review presentations about training opportunities and even learn about grants available to teachers to use in the classroom.

The training opportunities include information on Leadership and Evalution, English Language Learners, Distance Learning and much more! The great thing about the ALEX site is that it all about the use of technology. Teachers have their own account on the site so that they can fully utilize all that it has to offer. The site even offers information on technology tools including Google tools, Multimedia Applications and Internet/Email Applications just to name a few.

Being that the site is so technologically inclined, there is even a place for teachers to review educational podcast. Here, an educator may find a podcast for any subject ranging from art to mathematics. A podcast is a new innovation that I believe is changing the way children learn. Students are now able to hear first hand information from the professionals who are gathering the information to share with others.

When I begin to teach, I will keep this site in mind. It is a wonderful tool that can only help make the teacher's job easier.  The best part of this site is that it is free. It does not cost the educator anything to get the information in order to better their classroom experience. I can only think to describe this site as classroom innovation at it's finest!

Project #15 Short Movie Trailer

This is a short movie trailer of four books created and produced by myself and Kiara Blackmon.

Please enjoy a preview of:

The Golden Goose
The Three Little Pigs
The Clown Arounds Go On Vacation
Mole Hole Holiday

Final Project Progress Report

My partner and I have been meeting on Skype. We are planning on doing a project with Evernote. This is something that we were not able to cover in our class but we still thought it was a very interesting and useful tool. We want to create a video on how to use it and reep it's best benefits. This is also a tool that we can share with our students beyond college.

Survey Summary

My Topic:
As an active member of the Greek community on our campus, I decided to create a survey about other's students involvement and relations to Greek students. I wanted to see, of the people I was assigned to survey, who else is also members of Greek organizations or have been involved with Greek events.

The Results:
Of the seventeen people to respond, only two are active members in an organization and three people (not including the two actives) had ever considered joining a sorority or fraternity. Eight out of the seventeen had friends that were involved with Greek life and  the other nine did not. Ten of the people felt that there was certain stereotype of students in Greek organizations.  When asked on a scale of 1-5 (one being poor and five being great) what the Greek's over all contribution of morale on our campus was, the average was 2.7. When asked what events Greeks are most often seen attending, the most common answers were class and campus sporting events. They were then asked what Greek sponsored events that they had attended and the majority had never attended a Greek event. However, the two active members had atteded all the events listed.

My Response:
These replys to my survey were not very surprising. I had expected that not many  of those who I had surveyed would be involded in Greek life because less than 10% of all students enrolled on campus are Greek. I also had expected that most students would be freinds with or had know someone who is Greek, which I was correct because almost half replied that they did. The general about Greek's on our campus was a 2.7. Not great but at least half feel that we are doing something good for the school. Not many students had ever been apart of a Greek philanthropy event either. I feel that is something that the Greek community could work on. Perhaps advertising more to the independent organization to become involved so that there is better student involvement campus-wide.

Blog Post #12

Watch the following video entititled "Education Today and Tomorrow." Write your response to the video in your own blog. Address whether you think if the 21st century learners of today's school system will be ready for the steadily increasing technology of today's society. Use examples from the video to back up your reasoning where they apply.






My Response


This video begins with a picture of a classroom from the mid-20th century. It now just the dawn of the 21st century and I found it interesting how the our classroom's today still look very similar. While we do have "computer labs" in schools I just do not think that having one room full of technology is enough for a school of children to learn. I believe that every classroom today should mimic that of our so called, "computer labs." Technology is truly changing not only the way we process information and communicate but also along with that, how we learn. In order for our students to be successful we need to cater to their needs. More local school funding should be placed on the tools to make this a success. After alll, children are the future to not only our country but to the entire world. Like the video showed, we are no longer preparing them for factory labor but instead how to utilize today's technology to the best benefit.

C4T Summary Post #3

In the past few weeks I have been reading and commenting on blogs by Paige Baggett. She is an assistant professor at the University of South Alabama. Much of her post were about art and the use of education. For example, in one of the first that I commented on she wrote about mistakes. She said that mistakes can't be erased and like a piece of artwork, you just have to work with them. I thought that this was a great philosophy to instill in young children that I will be teaching someday. It is okay that mistakes happen sometimes, after all, that is usually where we learn our best lessons.

In her next post she also talked about art, but this time she highlighted a piece of installation artwork; which is where the viewer (or person experiencing it) is actually apart of the art. This piece was actually comparing a historical event to today's society. She created a video of pictures that she took and placed them with post so that the reader could better understand what she was describing. It was a very informative way to use her blog to tell other people about what she had seen.

Blog Assignment #11

Ms. Cassidy's Technological Approaches to Learning

In Ms. Cassidy's video, she shared ideas that uses to implement technology into learning with her first graders. Some examples included a class webpage with links for the children to use while learning at home. Like our class, she also has the children set up on blogs where they can improve their writing skills and receive comments from friends and other people. In addition she also has them set up on Skype so that they can talk to and share ideas with people who are not close by. For example, the video showed that they had an interview with a geologist who lived in a different state. But, the most creative use of technology, in my opinion, was the Nintendo DS.  The children had an opportunity to use if to better their problem solving skills. This was the first time in this course that I had ever seen or thought of using a game system for learning. I would love to have DS systems in my classroom someday. I believe that it is not only an interactive but also fun way for the children to learn. This is just the type of technology to get kids excited. However, the only problem that I see with using the DS is that they are expensive to purchase. With poor school funding from the state, each classroom would probably not be able to furnish one for each child. So, an approach to that would be to also teach the children the value of sharing. Each day, I could rotate the children in groups so that  each child is able to use the game system at least once or twice a week. Technology is a great thing to be excited about in education. I believe that no child should be left out and there always solutions to little glitches.

Additional Assignment #3

Changing Paradigms by Sir Ken Robison

One of the most important things that I believe that he had to say was one of the first, which he based all of his other arguments off of. That is, we are still using the same educational system from over 100 years ago. The times have completely changed in ways that now EVERY person is entitled to an education and the economies for which we are preparing students has also changed. When the educational system first developed, students were prepared for an industrious economy. They were also prepared in a way that guaranteed that some students would be more successful than other, which also has not changed. Robison went onto mention students with ADD and ADHD. These perhaps were the students back then they may not have succeeded but in today's society where we want everyone to succeed, these children are being medically treated. ADD students are being "calmed down" with powerful drugs that do not allow them to creatively express themselves.

As you can tell, his lecture really made me think about education today and I do not believe that there was anything that I had to disagree with what Sir Robison said. Since I have only recently changed my major into the College of Education at South Alabama, I am not sure where there is agreement and disagreement within our own program. However, I do know that today's teachers, as a whole, are not being prepared for very much change within the system (aside from EDM 310, of course). Personally, I believe that students are entitled to the same opportunity as any other child. Some children do learn in different ways are different paces than others so I believe that classes such as PACE in elementary education are great. Although, I believe that it is just not enough.

I believe that every educator can do something to address the positions that he raises. It may not be much individually,  but as a whole I  think it could do a ssplendor of good. Teacher today could be more conscious to what they are really preparing their students for. Again, it is not the same industrial economy. Today, it is a fast-paced society where information and lines of communication only takes split-seconds. Having more classes based around the ideas of ours (EDM 310) could allow for students to learn how to not only communicate effectively but also learn at their own pace.

In a project like this, I feel that I could attribute by gathering information as an author. I love to find out new information and then interpret it for what it's really worth.