Project #15 Project Based Learning #3

My Lesson Plan

My lesson plan is called All about plants. It is made for a a third grade classroom and the students will be working in two to three groups. At the end the students will know how to identify and describe parts of a flowering plant, how to differentiate between types of plants, how to describe the needs of plants, and how to define the term photosynthesis. It is to be done for one hour for three to four days.

Blog Post #10

What can we learn from Sir Ken Ribinson?

I really enjoyed Sir Robinson’s lecture, Bring On the Learning Revolution! . I found this video very inspiring. He brought up many important points that really stood out to me. Mr. Robinson believes that there are two types of people in this world and they are those who do not enjoy doing what they do and those who love what they do. I found this also to be true. Education dilates people form their natural talents and human resources. Natural resources are berried deep and have to look for them and he says you have to create the circumstances. He also says that education is being reformed but is not good enough anymore and that a revolution in education needs to be transformed into something else.

The most important point that Mr. Robinson bring up in his lecture is about human talent. Human talent is about passion and what excited our spirit and energy. He says if you are doing something that you love that time take a different course. Which is true because if you are doing something that you are passionate about time is not an issue and one hour feels like five minutes. Because education does not feed our sprit, energy, or passion people are opting out. The system has to recognize that human flourishing is not a mechanical process but it is an organic process. The answer for the future is customizing the system to your circumstances and personalizing education to the people you are actually teaching and people create their own solutions with external support based on personalize curriculum.

C4K Summary for March

I was assigned to comment on Mamarel’s Blog Post . She is in 2nd grade and is from New Zealand. I could not find anything that Mamarel had posted on her blog yet but I found an interesting video of the students in her class. The video consisted of showing clips of the students doing an activity and then after one student would tell what they learned from that activity.
On my comment to Mamarel I started off introducing myself and telling her about myself. I told her that I have always been interested in visiting New Zealand. I told her I really enjoyed watching the video of her and her classmates. I liked how the video showed the different activities and then telling what they learn from it.

I was also assigned to comment on Moses blog post. This blog post is called My Bio Poem. He is also from New Zealand. This post he writes a poem about his self. He mentions a lot of things about his self like he likes to go to the movies and loves to go swimming. He loves cars and always dreams about them.
On my comment to Moses I started off introducing myself to him. I was surprised to see that he has been blogging for four years now. I told him that we were a lot alike. I am also scared of dogs and always have been. Also, that my favorite color is black too. Moses has many interesting blog post.

Project #12 Part A

Blog Assignment #9

Ms. Cassidy is a 2nd grade teacher and strongly believes in using technology in class rooms. In the first video and second video Ms. Cassidy teaches us many useful aspects of using technology in your classroom. She said that the principles never directly supported the use of technology so she pretty much did it on her own. In her classroom she uses blogger as her tool. All of her students have blogs and are required to comment on other students blog that they call blogging buddies. It is a writing, video, and audio lesson all in one. Ms. Cassidy brought up why would you want to write on paper when the students can write on blogs for people to see and comment on. It allows you to have an audience and makes writing more interesting. She mentions something called a cluster map which shows the people from around the world who looks or comments on their blogs. I found that very interesting. The students love using technology. Technology is part of the world now and they feel like they do not have to power down when they go to school. The parents also support the use of technology. They can look and see the progress of their students at any time. Ms. Cassidy believes that every teacher should be illiterate. Technology has changed so we have to too and it is not going away. You should use technology with what you are interested in. She believes that if you do not keep up with technology that you are handicapping your students and yourself and I agree with her.

In the third video is some of EDM310 students asking Ms. Cassidy some questions. She was asked how often she uses blog in her classroom. She says that it really depends on the year. Now in her classroom she has other adults to help her so she does not need a center for blogging. The students usually blog about once a week but the students are allowed to blog from home. Also, if the students get their work done they are allowed to then too. Ms. Cassidy was also asked since blogs are so accessible by the internet, do you fear the more cheating going on. She answered with no. She explains that the internet allows you to look at other peoples work and allows other people to look at your work and take that information and add to it. It is called collaborating. She also mentions that teachers should get more creative in the way they ask to present information so it is not possible to copy someone work. Another question she was asked was how does she protect the students from seeing or being exposed to things that shouldn’t from the internet. She teaches the students the places that they should and should not go to. Ms. Cassidy has a classroom web page of links to blogs and games for the students that they should go to. The students are not allowed to use their last names or post pictures. She encourages the students to stay positive. I really enjoyed watching theses three videos of Ms. Cassidy and her thoughts about using technology in the classroom.

Project #14

My Lesson Plan For this project, we had to create a lesson plan. This lesson plan is on the solar system and is for a 3rd grade level. This assignment is to be done in partners. In this lesson plan the students will be able to identify the planets in order, compose and type a descriptive paragraph on each planet, and insert pictures from the internet or scanner. This assignment allows you to get creative and work with partners.

Blog Post #8

The first learning and communication tool I found was The Teaching Channel . The teaching channel is an online resource for teachers that have endless resources. It offers lesson plans, common core resources, and videos for teachers. The site is very organized and easy to search. The browser is set up by subjects, grades, and topics. There is also a very useful tool that you can ask questions to other teachers or colleagues. The Teaching Channel will be a very useful tool for teachers to use in their classrooms.

Another learning and communication tool I found was Edmodo . Edmodo is similar to a social networking site. It reminded me a lot of Facebook. Edmodo is used for teachers, students, and parents and allows them to find resources, information, or to connect with people from around the world. For teachers in the classroom it allows them to post grades, assignments, test, discussion questions, and quizzes. It gives the teachers to track the progress or their students. It also allows the teacher and student to communicate easily. Edmodo seems more social to the students than school work so the students are excided about using this tool. I will definitely use Edmodo in my classroom.

C4T #2 Assignment

On my first comment I was assigned to comment on Lisa Thumann’s bog, Let’s Talk About Attrition Rates at Unconferences . Her blog is about her running many different useful conferences and has been helping since 2009. They believe that having only 50 percent of the registrants on a free event is a good turnout when they have many things to plan for like; enough space and food, free give-aways, and sponsors. There are always left over food that she hates to go to waste when they could have fed hungry families or donated equipments or supply to a local classroom. Lisa wants to have a plan to know how many people will actually show up.
On my comment to Ms. Thumann, I started off introducing myself. I gave her a suggestion that maybe she should start charging a fee so it would make more people to commit to coming. I also suggested making a facebook invite for the convention so you could have an idea of who is for sure attending.

My second blog post of Lisa Thumann’s that I was assigned to is Common Core Communities of Practice . Ms. Thumann starts off saying that their team has decided to form Common Core Communities of Practice and that we view learning and teaching as a process of collaboration, creativity, and sharing. The conferences will focus on improvement of practice and provide a collaboration onsite/virtual workspace for teachers. It will allow teachers to connect instructional practices and inspire creativity, gain in dept knowledge and take action steps to enhance teaching and learning.
On my comment to Ms. Thrumann’s blog, I started off introducing myself again. I really enjoyed reading about the Comment Communities of Practice. I told her that she is really inspiring how much she helps teachers. I also told her that now days technology is very useful in classrooms and to keep up the good work.

Project #9

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Project #13

Lesson Plan Created by group San Francisco for Project #13

For this project my group, San Francisco, created a lesson plan on the Solar System. This lesson plan was created for a 2nd grade classroom and will last for two hours a day for a week. It also covers the Alabama State Standards that are Science, Visual Arts, Technology, and Dance. By the end the students will understand how planets orbit around the sun, identify the colors and sizes of each planet and will have created a 3D model of their assigned planet with their group.