Final Project #16

Additional Assignment 1

Reading Tom Johnson's article I did understand that he was using a metaphor but did not clearly state it in my blog post. I did think what if he replace the word "pencil" with "computer" but, I guess wasn't 100% sure so did not post it. I think others myself and other are just to serious and took it literally. I should have took more time on reading it to be certain what he meant and went with my first instinct. I believe we use metaphors to get a point across. I really like using metaphors they can be funny and add excitement to a story. I really like it when others use metaphors also, it makes me laugh. I will defiantly be on the look out for metaphors now. Some of the most common metaphors I can think of I use regularly are:
Music to my ears
Jumping for joy
It's raining cats and dogs
Free as a bird
Easy as pie
Piece of cake
Slow as Christmas
I really could go on, these are just a few.

Blog Post# 13

My Teacher is an App
I chose to read this article because I actually know 2 high school students that are attending Florida Virtual School this year to finish up their high school. At first when I heard about this I thought this is a joke school. But, come to find out this is actually a public school offered through the state of Florida that offers a valid high school diploma. I was amazed, this is not fair. We did not have this in when I was in high school. But, that is OK because I really enjoyed going into the "brick- and- mortar" school. I personally think that this should not be allowed unless unusually circumstances. It does children good to get out and socialize with others their own age. If they don't go to school they probably stay inside all day with not physical activity. Also, who is to say they are not cheating on their test and other work. Unless the child is very self-motivated they may choose not to do their work or have someone else do it for them. This could be a very bad thing if not properly monitored.

One the hand, the two high school students I know would have dropped out of school if not for this program. They are very beautiful children and not sure what happened to them in their high school years but, their older sister has already dropped out. They would be following right along her but not that Florida has the virtual school they are at least going to get their high school diplomas. One even wants to go to Univeristy of Alabama. This for them turned out to be a good thing but it hindering them from interacting with other peers.

Smart Board Presentation Part 2

Final Project Progress

I am getting a little excited about the final project. Not just because it is the final one it is a big one. My group and myself have been discussing ideas through email. We are currently brainstorming ideas to each other. As of right now we are going for doing a imovie of our experiences throughout EDM310. We will be talking about how we felt through out the course. Also, we will have clip in it our past projects we have done. As of right now that is about it. We plan on meeting this week in the lab to start on the interviewing of each other.

Blog Post #12

For this assignment I would like you to find and contact a former EDM310 student using the Student Link on the right hand side of the blog page. Try to contact them through email, Facebook, or twitter and set up a time where you could interview them. The interview can be done Skype, over the phone, or in person. I would like you to ask them about their experiences in EDM310, what is the most important thing they took from the class and have they used any of the ideas they learned in EDM310 in their Education journey. I would like the interview to be 5-7 min long. I also want you thoughts at the end. It is very important you interact with other students, they can be your best sources for new information. Each one of us may see things in a different light and it is important to help each other. I am sure the former students would not mind at all helping out.

Skype Interview Project 14

Ms. Yollis' 3rd grade class blog

Ms. Yolli's Blog

Ms. Yollis' is on her twenty fifth year of teaching. Ms. Yollis has taught a variety of classes over her years of teaching but, is currently teaching third grade. Ms. Yollis has just recently finished her master's degree in Integrating Technology. The more I read about her the more I admired her. She is a very intelligent woman who seems determined to be the best educator she can be. She has done some amazing things in life. She has even taught in another country. She also loves to travel and has recently traveled to many places throughout the country. Ms. Yollis' blog is awesome and she defiantly goes above and beyond to find new ideas for her students.

Ms. Yollis is very big on proofreading. She has a video that stresses how important to proofread your work is. She has turned away comments due to errors. The children are also learning how important to proofread is. Ms. Yollis has a visitor counter on her blog similar to the one Dr. Strange has on his blog. I was amazed that over 50,000 visitors has viewed her blog from U.S. That is amazing and must make the kids feel very proud.

What I really loved was Ms. Yollis' website. This is a wonderful tool for students, parents,and grandparents. Her web page has blogging tips, homework, spelling, and etc. on it. It is a really great tool to keep up with what your child is doing. Her web page also has a view counter and already has over 5,000 viewers to visit her web page. She is amazing and I hope to be just as dedicated as she is.

Blog Post# 11

Little Kids...Big Potential
I was very impressed at the different technology they used in their classroom. The kids seemed to be excited about coming to school and learning new things. This is a wonderful way to keep the children engaged in activities. They really made it look like they were having fun while learning. They each really enjoyed writing in their blogs, and looking at their webpage. This video showed many different web pages they used. For example, they used wiki to figure out what thing were when they were not sure. They also made videos and put up on their blogs. I know the kids really enjoyed doing this. I was really amazed that they are using Skype at such a young age. I have never used skype (yet) in all my 29 years. I will be next week though. I thought that is was neat that they used the Nintendo DS for problem solving and also used it to learn to share. It was really cool to hear them speak of people from Alabama. That made me feel good.

Ms. Cassidy Skype Conversation"

I really enjoyed listening to Ms. Cassidy's Skype interview. She had many great and interesting points. That would have really been neat to be there during the interview. She explains how 10 years ago she was given 5 computes for her classroom and really had no choice but to find out new ideas for 1st graders. This began her journey on becoming technology literate. She began a blog page for her students to blog on. I think I will defiantly be using a blog page. If I can't arrange it so each child will have their own. I will have one for me to post assignments, and changes, and other information for students and parents. I feel that is important for parents to have a way of getting in contact with the teacher on matters. If possible I would like for each child to have their own to post on at least once a week. I know with elementary school aged kids their blog post won't be long but, that is going to be fine. Ms. Cassidy also talks about how the children light up when they see the number of people that has actually viewed their blog. This will keep the children interested and want to do a good job. Even though Ms. Cassidy did not ever have a principal that was totally opposed to her blogging, some did not really help either. I hope to get a principal that supports the use of technology and allows me to have a blog. Technology is not going away so to be the best teachers we can be we must become computer literate. If for any reason but to collaborate with other teachers and educational professionals. We can learn so much from them. Blogs also have an audience and allow feedback with ideas and comments. That is a great way to keep on learning new things.

C4K Summary for October

My first Kid for October was a 7 year old boy from Pt. England School named Liam. Liam is a wonderful kid who is very smart. He has a twin brother named Patrick. I told him that is very cool and he is luck to have a twin brother. Liam and Patrick are in the same class at school. They each have their own cat, Liam's cat is named Mikey and Patrick's cat is named Mily. He spends most of his free time on the PlayStation 3 and computer but, not all his time. He really likes sports and his favorite sport is soccer. He has several more he enjoys as well like football and cricket. Liam is very talented when it comes to playing music. He has learned how to play the guitar and flute. If and when Liam wants to relax he listens to music.

My Second Kids was Maia. Her class had a very cool wiki page. Her class was room 3 in Kids with a view. I was to tell Maia about something cool about the United State. I chose to tell her about our fairs we have. I really used the fair in Minnesota to tell her about. Even though I have never been there I read about it on the Internet and it seemed unbelievable. It lasted 12 days and over 1.6 million people attended. I went on to explain to her that this is a log of people. I just really can't get over how cool her classes page was.

My third kids was Bryce. Bryce's blog was awesome. Maybe that's why the name of his page is Bryce's awesome blog. I read Bryce's post on his favorite game which is Roblox. Roblox is a virtual playground and workshop designed for children ages 7 and older. Bryce goes on in his blog on how the game Roblox works. Roblox users can create the places they have always dreamed of!Users have a choice of thousands of games to play, varying in design from what the game developers wanted to create. Types of places vary by the feature where the creator of the game can choose a genre.Players in Roblox have the ability to construct up to 100 places (depending on membership type), using an unlimited supply of virtual building blocks. Players can add as many bricks as they want. They can insert their own scripts to add functionality, or can use other player’s scripts, if that player has allowed it onto the public market. I commented on how neat I though this was. It is very interesting to know that a 7 year old can do something like this.

My fourth kid was Sydnie. Syndie was my randomly chosen kid by the machine that pick them for us. I was so glad that I was chose to read her blog because it was about why did we have to go to school on Columbus day. I have wondered this before, if all the banks, state, and federal offices are closed. Sydine seemed to clear this up for me. She goes on in her blog to talk about that Christopher Columbus did not really discover America. The Asiatic people who became Native Americans later on were defiantly the first to find North America. But we really don't know, it may have been found by St. Brendan, Basque fishermen, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Africans, and even Carthaginians. Many of these could be true but we really don't know. Many schools think if Christopher Columbus didn't discover America, then why should we have a holiday about how he “discovered” America? Sydnie states that the school systems believe that America was not really founded by Columbus so chooses not to make that a holiday. But, she does say it would be nice to have the day off, I agree.

Another Kid I was assigned to was Hailey. Her blog post was story she wrote on her Let's Write a Story assignment. It was about her playing in a soccer game and she described it so great I felt like I was there. She explained how it was a cool night with the air blowing on her knees making them shake. I was really impressed on her writing. The thing is though in the story she explains how it is her against the goalie and she never tells the end of the story. I commented to her that I wanna know if she made it or not. But, I felt like she did.

My last Kid to comment on was Michael L. Michael actually commented me back and that was so nice to me. Michael, a student in room 10 at Pt. England school. He has several post that are labeled his animations that are really neat. It is so interesting reading/watching all his post. It is amazing how smart the kids are. I have really enjoyed reading all the post. Michael's post were called animations. They were pictures he has drawn and wanted you to guess what they were or looked like. He seems to be a very smart child. I really enjoyed his blog.