Blog Post # 9

"What I've Learned This Year" was a wonderful post. Mr. McClung gave some very useful information for future teachers in this post. He shared how he learned so many things his first year of elementary school. Wow! Did he learn a lot of good things? While he was in college and doing his internship, he focused so much on how the audience was going to respond to the lessons that he taught. He saw that so many teachers focus more on teaching the lesson rather than making sure that their students understand it. I see so much of this today, and I think that doing it does not make them a successful teacher. Students need to not just learn the material that they are being taught. They also need to know how to apply it. He stresses that teachers can not plan a perfect lesson. This is very true! When it comes to planning a lesson, there are so many things that teachers have to consider. The way a teacher plans to teach a lesson may change completely. Teachers must be able to communicate and reason with their students. I liked it when he said, "Our job as teachers is to simply pick them up after they fall, dust them off, and encourage them to try again." Teachers should treat their students with care and compassion and want the best for them. He also stresses that adults should not be afraid of technology. Technology is something that everyone should be familiar with. Technology is forever changing, and everyone is struggling to keep up with the changes. Before taking EDM 310, I was a little afraid of technology because I am not very familiar with it. Taking this course has eased my fear of technology, and it is helping me to become more technologically literate. He advices teachers to listen to what their students have to to say. I do agree! Sometimes students share some of the most interesting and unbelievable things. I loved it when he stated, "Never Stop Learning." It is never too late for anyone to learn something new. I love to learn, and I will continue to learn! By reading this post, I learned so many things that I need to do in order to be a successful 21st Century teacher. Anyone who wants to be a future teacher should definitely read this post. I Enjoyed Every Bit Of It!!!

C4K # 2

A student from PT. England School named Zion talked about her exciting camping trip. Her and her team packed their items in tents, went cooking kayaking, to Sqaush and Skateland. They made trifles out of spongecake, jam and peaches. This sounds good! I would love to have some! She said that he favorite part of the trip was when they went to Squash. Mr Barnes explained to the rules for Squash which include: serve the ball over the red line and allow your partner try to wack the ball after you wack it. She said the skateland was awesome. It sounds like this was a lot of fun!

A student named Tule from PT England School posted a graph of Room 22's favorite foods. Their favorite foods included: pizza, butter chicken, burger, curry and ku, taro and chopsury, fry bread, macho, sandwiches, jelly and nacho. Out of all of the foods, nacho was number one. Next in line were taro and chopsury and fry bread. I would have voted for nacho too simply because it is my favorite of all of the selected foods!

On last Friday, Melville Intermediate School hosted a Red and Black Mufti Day in order to raise money for victims of the Canterbury Earthquake. There were a lot of students that gave a donation of a dollar for this event. They raised a total of $1,176 and Chartwell Westfield gave the same amount of $1,176. They donated a grand total $2,352 to the Red Cross.

Project # 12

SmartBoard

Blog Post # 8

This is How We Dream Parts 1 and 2 were very amazing videos.  They both gave some very good information about incremental and fundamental change and the importance of multimedia.  I was in agreement with the speaker when he said,"As we work in this digital environment we see material changing in front of us.  It amazes me how technology is constantly changing day by day.  We as future educators must stay abreast with these changes.  I think that I am prepared to write multimedia. Taking this class has surely taught me a lot about the technology used in the education system.  My students will definitely know how to do this.

I really enjoyed watching EDM 310 for Dummies. This video was good but very amusing.  I thought that Jamie Lynn and Jennifer Chambers did an excellent job producing this video.  It was very funny, but they gave some very useful information about being a successful EDM 310 student."  By watching this video, I plan on creating a video for my students about my life journey and how to be successful in my class.  I loved everything about this video!

Learn to Change, Change to Learn was a pretty good video.  The people in this video gave some very useful comments.   I liked it when the lady said, "It is about producing a quality teacher.  This is the truth! In order for students to succeed in their education, they have to have a quality teacher.  The criteria for a quality teacher includes:  being patient, empathetic and caring.  I also liked it when it was said that "It is not about memorizing facts but being able to apply it.  This is what makes a good 21st Century teacher.

The Secret Powers of Time was a very interesting video.  The author explained the 6 time zones. Past positive relates to pleasure.  Past Negative relates to regret.  He described the south as being more past oriented and the north being more future oriented.  He also stresses the importance of making past oriented students more future oriented.  He states that children hate learning the traditional way because they want to be in control of something.  I have seen this so many times.  Children do not like to do things unless they are in charge.  I was in total agreement with him when he said, "Alcohol, drugs and sex are affecting future oriented students.  This is true.  In the world that we live in today there are so many children that are drinking under age, having children during their teenage years and high school students selling drugs. I think that this is a shame! I also agreed with him when he stated that "Children today are very different from us."  I see that children today act nothing like I did when I was in school.  So many of them do not care about doing any work. I think that there should be less of this.  I enjoyed watching this video!

The Surprising Truth About What Motivates You was interesting as well.   The author gave some very useful advice for teachers.   He stated, "If you reward something, you get more of the behavior that you want" and "If you punish something, you get less of the behavior that you want."  Very Much So!!  Children today are more apt to doing behaviors that result in rewards than those that result in punishment.  He discussed a study conducted at MLT of students that were given challenges.   Rewards were used as the incentive.   For this study, the larger the reward the worser the performance.  I thought that this was very Strange! He also discussed and gave a good illustration of  the 3 factors that lead to better performance and personal satisfaction which include autonomy, mastery and purpose.  I liked it when he said, "If we treat people like people, get past ideology, it would make the world a better place."  I very much so agree! If teacher treat students like they should be treated, they will will respect their teacher and others.

PLN

So far my PLN has been great.  My PLN gives me easy access to my google, twitter and facebook acount.   I think that my PLN is going to be a very useful tool!

Blog Post # 7

I really enjoyed watching Randy Raush's lecture on acheiving your childhood dreams.  Randy Raush gave some very good information in this video.  It touched my heart when he said that he was diagnosed with cancer.  It is so amazing to a man who had cancer to be so funny and have so much joy.

I liked the technique that the used.  He added fun to the lecture by being funny and showing pictures and videos relating to what he was lecturing on.   I really liked it when he talked about brick walls.  I totally agreed with him when he said, "Brick walls are there for a reason:  they let us prove how had we want things.  This is very true.  When a person tries to live way above their means, they have to run into a brick wall in order to see if this is what they want.

He had some very unusual but interesting dreams.  I classify his dreams of being Captain Kirk and winning stuffed animals as very strange.   His dream of being a Disney Imagineer was very interesting. I thought to myself who would have these childhood dreams.  Watching this video has made me realize that everyone has their own dream, and it is important for them to have fun while trying to acheive their dream. 

I thought that it was so nice of him to make sure that his wife had a nice birthday.  I was very moved when  he got the audience to sing "HAPPY BIRTDAY" to his wife and got her a cake.  This was a very touching part of this video.  I loved everything about this video!

C4T Summary # 2

On December 19, 2010, Joe Dale posted a very interesting blog post that had ICT links into languages.  I think that this is a wonderful tool for teachers to have.  These ICT links tool for enhancing language learning.  He was encouraging people to attend The MFL Show and Tell event. This event sounded very interesting.  I wish that I could have been a part of it.

On February 2, 2011, Joe Dale showed interesting videos of the ICT links into languages conference.  This event was a tremendous success.  Joe did such a good job at setting a positive mood for the conference.  He annouced at the end of the post that the MFL Flashmeeting Special on ILILC was going to be on March 28, 2011.  This event sounds like it is going to be a lot of fun! I wish that I could attend this event.

Project # 11