EDM 310 Final Reflection

Blog Post # 14

I like metaphors, but I totally missed the metaphor in Tom Johnson's post. I missed this metaphor, for the simple reason that I did not know that he was referring to technology when he was talking about pencils. I thought that it was strange for him to tell the students parents not to let them take pencils home. I do agree with Dr. Strange that if I would have replaced pencils with technology, I would have understood that this was a metaphor. I also missed this metaphor because I took it too literally. I put more thought into this post than I really should have.

Metaphors are a figure of speech that people use to convey a message. I very rarely even think about metaphors, but I see a lot of people using them when they communicate. My first example that I thought about was when I went to grade school, My teacher told me "you better work your socks off." Another example is when my friend told me, "your words pierced my heart."

Teachers can teach their students how to use metaphors by showing them real situations where metaphors are used. This should not just be in done in their reading and language learning but also in other subject areas even examples used in the Bible. By showing them how metaphors are used in the real world, they will not only know how to use them, but they will also know how to recognize them when they see them.

From my point of view, people use metaphors to add expression and meaning to what they are trying to say. For example, when the Bible speaks of a highway it is referring to the Lord's temple. Metaphors help people to grab a hold to what another person is trying to say.

C4T # 4

For Comments For Teachers number 4, I was assigned Mr. C

For the first comment, I commented on a post that involved me watching a video and determing if it was SNL relevnt. The video was very funny and interesting. But, I could not determine if it was SNL relevant because I am not very familar with SNL.

For the second comment, I commented on a post that he descrbed his first week of teaching at a junior high school. The information that Mr.C gave about his experience with teaching was very good. He said that the first few weeks of school were hard, but the last week was even harder. In this post, he describes a few things that he needs to improve. These things include: planning, hurrying up and waiting, team teaching, developing relationships with students, and having a group of students that he has known for some time. Every teacher has areas in their teaching that they need to work on. He also explained his experience of teaching math for the first time in eight years. His first lesson was on angles; however, he wanted to find real world situations that involve using angles. By being a substitute teacher for 4 differnt district, I see how difficult teaching can be sometimes. Teachers carry a very heavy load. I am going to take Mr.C's advice into consideration.

PLN Final Report

I have discovered that my PLN is a very useful tool for EDM 310. It gives me easy access to applications that I use like Google, Facebook and Twitter. By having easy access to these applications, it has helped me to become more organized which will save me a lot of time. When it comes to teaching, being organized and having good time managment skills are essential skills that teachers must have in order to be a great teacher. However, I do need to to continue to build-up my PLN, and I plan on doing just that! A PLN is a wonderful tool for teachers to have.