Blog assignment # 10

What Can We Learn About Teaching And Learning From Randy Pausch?

There were so many amazing things in the video Randy Pausch's Last Lecture that it is hard to find a place to start. Randy Pausch had cancer and was given 3 to 6 months to live. Most people would focus their last lecture around family or faith but he did not He focused his lecture on childhood dreams and enabling the dreams of others. When Randy talked about his childhood dreams, he said he wanted to play in the NFL. Although he never made it he said that that he learned lessons that were more valuable than the dream itself. This is a great message because it tells people that just because one did not succeed in what he or she wanted to accomplish does not mean that pursuing their dream was a waste of their time. This message tells people there are always opportunities to learn and improve no matter how old someone is. Randy goes on to say that "most of what we learn we learn indirectly". He gives an example of the first little league football team he played on. Although he was learning the fundamentals of the game of football, what he was really learning was how to work hard, show sportsmanship, and work with team to accomplish a goal. This same concept can be applied to project- based learning. In project-based learning, students are not just working to get the assignment finished, they are learning how to work with others, how to communicate, and how to express ideas. He then quoted his mentor John Snoddy who said "wait long enough and people will surprise and impress you". I think this is a very important lesson for teachers to learn from this lecture because it is saying never give up on someone,even a student who does not show much potential because you never know what they are capable of.

Randy Pausch goes on to talk about enabling the dreams of others. Enabling the dreams of others is the reason many people become teachers. I became a softball coach to help girls get college scholarships by playing a game that they love. I believe throughout this whole lecture the main point he wanted to audience to understand was that learning is a lifelong process; it’s never over, and people should take every opportunity they get to learn something new. I believe he also wants the audience to know that they should never give up on their dreams no matter how far away they seem. My favorite quote he used in this lecture was "brick walls are not there to keep us out but to show how badly we want something". This is something I will teach to my students, even though there are challenges don’t give up on something you really want because they are capable of breaking down those walls.

project # 9 podcast

Project # 12

Project # 10 green screen

Blog Assignment #9

Blog Assignment # 8 (Collaborative)

Back To The Future

Back to the Future is a video by Brian Corsby who is a teacher at Agnes Risley Elementary school. Mr. Corsby teaches fourth graders who are second language learners. The first day of class he gives his 24 students a quiz. One question asked the students what city they lived in. Only 9 got the answer correct. Another question the quiz asked the students what country they live in. Only 3 got the answer correct. This video goes on to show the many projects and style of teaching Mr. Corsby uses in his class. My favorite project they did was sending a high altitude balloon up into the atmosphere with a camera. When the photos and video came back, the students wrote stories from the point of view of the balloon and took their story and the photos taken from the balloon to make an illustrated book. Mr. Corsby does not have tests in his class. Students post videos of themselves doing projects to their blog. Each student not only has a blog but also a laptop computer to use in class. Students also use their blog to post about what they learned and did in class that day. Mr. Crorsby used technology to help fourth grade students get excited about learning and connect with students all around the world. I thought this video was amazing and Mr. Corsby showed more passion for teaching and learning than any teacher I have ever seen. Keeping students engaged in learning and excited about going to school is the most important thing any teacher can do because if a student is excited about learning than the sky is the limit.

Maggie Adkisson


Through the video Making Thinking Visible, we see Mark Church a sixth grade teacher in Amsterdam, use visible thinking in his classroom. The video starts with a topic they learned about the day before, early human beginnings and the origins of human society. He has his students create and write down a headline to summarize what the meaning of the search for human origins is all about. The students then start discussing in their groups how to summarize what they have learned into a small statement. Once they have decided on their headline and written it down, they share it aloud and tell why they chose that headline. Later on once they have completed the lesson they will go back and answer the same question, and then see how their answers changed over time. This is an example of visible thinking. The goal of visible thinking is to develop student thinkings patterns while expanding their understanding of a given topic. To do this visible thinking uses questions to get students talking and thinking about the possible answers, and documented answers to be able to go back and reflect to see how their understanding and thoughts have changed on a given subject.

Kaylee Diegan

Paul Andersen, a science teacher in Montana, is incredibly smart and has great ideas to incorporate in his Blended Learning teaching style. He has been teaching science for nineteen years and just recently began teaching science online. His main idea is Blended Learning in the classroom. Blended Learning consists of online, classroom and mobile tools that incorporate engaging, exploring, explaining, expanding and evaluating (the five E's).

Andersen has six steps to his students' learning process. The first is the question. This starts the tone and is the "hook" of what they are learning. I realized that it is important for the question to be something interesting to the students so they are willing and encouraged to learn. The next step is investigation/inquiry. This is where the students should experiment and try various things with the proposed idea. Next is the video. This is more for the teacher. Andersen makes podcasts giving his students detailed instructions so he doesn't waste any class time. Instead, he has this time to review with his students. The fourth step is elaborating. This is where the students can read on the subject, or do some research. Also, this is where graphs and tables come in to play. Review comes next. Andersen meets individually with his students to evaluate them and see how well they know the material. He says in his video that if a student really knows material, then they should be able to explain it. He sits with his students and asks them questions. This is where he can tell if they know the material or not. Lastly is the summary quiz. If he doesn't feel like the students know the information, they will start over wit this learning process. If they do know the information, he will give them a timed, paper/pencil test.

I learned quite a few things from Paul Andersen. First of all, I was very impressed with his blog and the way he presented himself in his video. He sounds very intelligent, put together and like he really cares about his students. I have already learned from EDM310 that my classroom doesn't have to be the same, boring classroom atmosphere I had in grade school, but Andersen really reinforces this. He gave great examples in his step-by-step learning process on ways to ask questions, use time management and make sure your students really understand what they have been learning. I am excited to incorporate things such as group activities, podcasts and student-centered learning in my classroom!

C4T # 2

Blogging and Social Media For #physEd

In this blog www.iphys-ed.com great information is given about starting a blog. One of the tools this blog talks about using to create a blog was Weebly. Weebly is a tool that makes creating a blog simple and easy. This blog also talks about how important it is to use social media such as Twitter and Facebook to connect physical education teachers all over the world. Using social media to connect teachers is a great idea because it allows ideas to be shared. I commented on this blog and said that I was happy that the blog pointed out different tools that could be used in creating a blog. I also said that the tool Weebly was my favorite because it is easy and user friendly.

Google Apps For #physEd-forms For Record Keeping

I enjoyed this blog becasue it talked about how you can use google app forms for record keeping and organizing. This blog talked about how a PE teacher used it to keep up with 300 students and put them into categories based on the student's ability. This is a great blog because informs PE teachers and coaches about this app that can be very useful, and the blog also has a video that shows how to use the app. I commented on this blog that the blog was great and as a coach I would be using it for tryouts and camps.

Blog Assignment # 7 (collaborative)

What Assistive Technologies Are Available To You As A Teacher ?

Teaching Math To The Blind

Before watching this video, I never gave much thought to how a blind student learns math. I had always assumed blind students learned math with braille. However, blind students are unable to learn math using braille because braille is only linear and cannot show two diminutions in math problems. Professor Art Karshmer at the University of San Francisco, designed a solution to this problem. Professor Karshmer put braille on small blocks that look like scrabble pieces and then designed a board that was made into a grid. The blind students scan a block and then put it on the board. The computer then tells them in what row and grid they placed the block in. This design makes it possible for blind students to work problems out in two diminutions, which helps give blind students a foundation of math. This design is one of the most important tools available to blind students and the teachers responsible for teaching them math. Without a foundation of math, the number of jobs for a blind person becomes more limited.



Ipad Usage For The Blind

This video was amazing! Wesley Majerus is blind, yet in this video he demonstrates how new software that is put into an iPad makes it possible for a blind person to use an iPad. The software has voice-over which allows the user to drag their finger over the screen while the iPad tells them which app their finger is on. Another great feature this iPad offers is a main stream e-reader. By having e-readers available, a blind person can buy a book they would like to read but which is too expensive or else not offered in braille. The e-reader on the iPad reads the books out loud and describes images in the book. The only problem with the e-reader that I noticed during the video was that the reading voice was fast and hard to understand at times. The best thing about this iPad is that it comes this way out of the box and already set up. This makes it more user friendly to its blind owner. With this new software, a blind person is now able to use the same type of technology that seeing people can.

New And Useful Technology For The Blind

I was amazed at all the different technology for the blind. I found two different ones on the website www.ehow.com click here ; that I thought would be very helpful. The first technology is called the smart cane. The smart cane is a new and better version of the walking stick. The smart cane can detect objects around the user up to a few meters away. This would be a great thing for a blind student to be able to have for crowed hallways or field trips. The most impressive technology for a blind person on this website was the Knfbreader mobile. The knfbreader mobile is a phone for a blind person; however it also has a camera that lets the owner take pictures of a text. The knfbreader mobile will then read that text back to them. This would be an amazing tool for a blind person in any situation in which braille text is not available. However, I was unhappy to find that I would not be able to use these tools in my classroom because they are hard to obtain and very expensive.

Maggie Adkison
What assistive technologies are available to you as a teacher? In Teaching Mom What Her Deaf/Blind Child Is Learning On the iPad, I was able to watch as a parent was given instructions to use an iPad, that her child uses in class. It was simply amazing to watch. Although, it was just an iPad that so many people use day to day, I have never seen it used in such a way, nor did I realize what an incredible tool it really is to have. The parent was able to slide her finger across the top of the screen while the iPad read aloud to her the apps available to select. When she found the app she was instructed to find, she was able to double click anywhere on the screen to bring it up. Even more amazing she was able to type any letter by using this speaking iPad to help select the proper letters.

After watching this video I wondered who was this Denise Robinson? I google searched "Denise Robinson special ed teacher" and the seventh listing was the article, A New Model of Education for Blind and Low Vision Students. As it turns out she has an amazing story of her own. It is not just Denise Robinson, but Dr. Denise Robinson. A woman who puts every waking minute into working with blind children. Her inspiration? She lost her vision due to diabetes when she was twenty-four. Fortunately, she gained her sight back years later due to several surgeries. Through her experience of being blind, she understood the improvements needed to help others be able to function and live a normal life. Her story is inspirational and reminds me of my math class last semester where I encountered a boy that was blind. I had never been around someone who was blind and for me it was fascinating. He was so smart and I could not understand how he was able to survive in college. I remember talking to my mom about him. Saying that, even though I did not know him very well I was so proud of him because if it was me, I don't think I would be able to go and do what he is accomplishing. Likewise in the article, she tells that there is a 74 percent unemployment rate among blind individuals because they are not being taught effectively. With her methods and use of technology she is working miracles in lives of so many students. She is someone that I inspire to be like. This video and research is useful to me because it made me realize how much I would enjoy making a difference like Dr. Robinson has working with blind children. After this assignment I will definitely be looking into specializing my education to help the blind.

The article, 50 Must-See Blogs For Special Education by Jeff Dunn, is a great resource for teachers. It has different blogs that cover anything and everything. From special education tips and strategies all the way to blogs for specific disorders. One particular blog that caught my attention was, ADDitude Blogs, a blog made to help those dealing with attention deficit. It is a brilliant website. Not only is it available to help those coping with the disorders, but the writings are all from those suffering from ADD, parents whose children have been diagnosed, as well as ADHD experts. For a teacher, this is a great because the writings are not giving a glossed over, dictionary version of a disorder. It is giving you personal accounts, findings, methods all from people who understand. When you have a child in your class that has a disorder such as ADD or ADHD, what would you rather read to be able to help them to the best of your ability, a research paper or a personal account?

Kaylee Diegan
With today's technology, there are so many available tools to help enhance teachers' classrooms. I watched the video Assistive Technologies for Vision and Hearing Impaired Children. In this video many tools are shown that can help increase the learning experience for impaired children. A few of these are sensory aids, flip cameras, text telephones and text to speech devices. Sensory aids, such as hearing aids, can allow students with hearing impairments to hear better in the classroom, thus automatically increasing the things they can learn. Flip cameras allow access to videos immediately. Text telephones are used for those who have speech impairments. The main tool that struck my attention most was the text to speech devices. These are frequently used for students who have ALS. There are apps you can download on the iPad such as EZSpeech Pro, Fat Cat Chat Repair and Verbally Premium. EZSpeech Pro is for literate users who have lost their speaking ability to ALS. Users can receive phrases from others and store them in their device. The Fat Cat Chat Repair is more "small talk" based. The student can push a symbol, then they are prompted to choose from fifteen different words choices that best fit the symbol. Verbally Premium seems like it would be extremely helpful for those who are speech impaired. With this app, students can save their favorite phrases or most commonly used phrases. The voice can be personalized. Students often use this for common places such as a doctor's office or the classroom. These apps, along with many others, can be found on a Special Apps, Special Kids blog.

The other video I watched was the Mountbatten video. The Mountbatten is a braille writing machine. You can connect it to a computer and save, transfer, and receive files. It helps recognize braille characters, allows play for young children who are not physically able to use traditional braille writers, provides basic level concepts of using braille and displays the children's work. This is a great way for impaired children to be included in classroom activities such as peer group projects.

It's hard to say which of these I will use in my classroom, but I think all are potential tools that could help me with any impaired students I may have. Hopefully I will have an iPad in my classroom, in which case I could download any of these apps to use in my classroom. I think it is so important that project based learning is including impaired children. All children deserve the opportunity to explore and learn at their full potential. They can't do this without teachers who are willing to let it happen!

Project # 8 Book Trailer

my passion

my sentence

Blog Assignment # 6

What Do We Need To Know About Asking Questions To Be An Effective Teacher ?

Before this blog assignment, I never knew that the types question a teacher asked matter. I always thought that as long as a teacher asked questions then students would be engaged. I now realize that not all questions are created equal. I found many useful tips for asking questions in "Asking Questions To Improve Learning". One helpful tip I learned was to wait for responses. Waiting 5-10 seconds after asking a question can help give students more time to think about the question and volunteer to answer. I think this is a great tip, because when I was in school the teacher would ask a question and call on the first student to put their hand up. Another great tip is to not interrupt the students answer. Although I am not a teacher but a coach, I am still guilty of interrupting my players before they can fully answer.

Asking Questions To Improve Learning Video
In this video I learned to avoid closed-ended questions. Closed-ended questions allows students to answer in one word, without giving the question much thought. The video says that it is better to ask open-ended questions. Open-ended questions call for more critical thinking and for students to give more information. This video does a great job showing how asking questions does not help if the teacher is not asking the right type of questions.

Blog Assignment # 5

Longwitche Listening and Comprehens

I thought this was a great blog about podcasts. I was shocked to learn that they use podcast in first and second grade. That is amazing ! Students should be taught at an early age how to use technology because they will be using it for the rest of their life. The students were not just learning how to do podcasts but learning language by using podcasts. Podcasts are a great way for the students to learn because it keeps students engaged and excited about learning.

The Benefits of Podcasting In The Classroom
I thought this video was great. I never realized that people born after 1980 have always had so much technology available to them. This video makes many great points about why podcasting is useful. One point the video makes is that if a student is out sick, they can still get what was taught in class that day. Another reason podcasts are great for classrooms is because parents can keep up with what is going on in the classroom, as well as help their child with homework.

Langwitches Blog Flat Stanley Podcast

I thought Flat Stanley was a great idea. Having the class make a podcast where the students were able to create their own story was an amazing way for the students to learn. This activity allowed students to let their mind and creativity roam free. More schools should be teaching this way. The most important thing teachers can teach students is the use of technology and how to use their creativity.

Project # 3 Presentation

C4T # 1

Innovative ICT In Education Web 2.0

I did my C4T #1 on Mr. Wickens PE. The first blog post I commented on had a video posted called Innovative ICT In Education. This video does a great job in telling what Web 2.0 is, which is a way of sharing information, and keeping it all together. The video also gives great tools to use in the classroom. For example educrations, which is student friendly, and I believe when using these tools being student friendly is very important. Educraction allows teachers and students to write, and draw in tablets, this is a great tool to use to diagram a sports play. Another tool suggested in this vedio was ibuild app. This tool lets a person create their own app for a smartphone or a tablet. This is a great tool not only for teachers who could use it for things, such as posting homework, but also for anyone who would like to create and app for personal use.


Google Chrome In Education

The second blog post I commented on was a video about the different uses of Google Chrome. Some of the benefits of Google Chrome is you can have different user accounts to personalise and privatise your browser. I think it is great that with Google Chrome you are able to keep your job and your privet life separate, becasue that is sometimes hard to do as a teacher, but very important. I also liked this blog becasue after the video he posted directions on how to create Google accounts. Although I found both blog posts to be very informative,as a coach I would have liked to have had examples on how these tools tied into sports and PE.

Blog Assignment # 4

21st Century Learning And Communication Tool

When I graduate I will be teaching High School history, with that in minde I believe the most important learning and communication tool I will be using in my classroom will be e-books. There is new technology being brought into classrooms every day, however I think the most important, and overlooked technology is e-books. One reason I think e-books will be the best learning tool for my classroom is, because they are small, weigh a lot less than a traditional textbook, but can store all the students needed information for all of their classes. Not having to have many different textbooks is not just good for the students, but also great for the enviornment because e-books do not use any paper. E-books are not only good for the students but also great for the shcool as well, because books would be much cheaper downloaded on e-books. On the web site www.dbreaders.com it says that 1,500 books on an e-book will cost about $15,000, however to buy 1,500 hard copy books would cost about $39,000. By simply using e-books schools could save a lot of money that they could put towards other improvements in the school.

The third, and most important reason that e-books would be the best learning tool in my classroom is they offer many options that pen, paper, and text books do not. The website www.dbreaders.com says "e-readers offer online dictionary, unlimited notes, saved highlights, simple and convenient search, and the ability to share quotes on popular social resources like twitter and facebook". With these types of options right at my students finger tips the sky would be the limit to their learning. With so many benefits it is hard to understand why schools have not already gone to using e-books. E-books range in price from around fifty dollars to hundreds of dollars, and are available at most electronic stores and even online. I believe it is only a matter of time before schools start doing away with textbooks, and replace them with e-books. My question is, with all the benefits e-books offer to classrooms, why wait to make the swich ?


Maggie Adkisson

Sunday, June 9, 2013 Once I start teaching elementary education, more specifically second grade, I want to use tools that keep learning fun. That is why in my class room I would like to use SMART Response interactive response system to go along with my SMART board. The SMART Response interactive response system connects a small hand held devices directly to my SMART board. This allows me to post math problems, reading questions, and potentially many other daily questions such as attendance at the front of the room. All they have to do to respond to a question is simply click a button on their assigned device. The potential this tool has in a classroom is limitless. As a teacher, this benefits me in many ways, but most importantly it allows me to evaluate my entire class almost instantly. If I was to give the same problems on paper it would likely take me at least 30 minutes to go through all the papers and get back to my class to address frequent issues or see that they have comprehended the material. Not only does it speed up the time it takes to evaluate my students understanding, but it is a very helpful tool to eliminate unnecessary paper waste. Making my classroom more environmentally friendly.


Kaylee Diegan

There are so many technological tools to be used in the school systems. Many of those are used in my EDM 310 class such as a blog, twitter, google docs, skype, etc. However, I think there are certain technological tools that should be used with different age groups. For instance, Remind101. This is a tool that could be used for the age group I want to teach, which is sixth grade. Remind101 was created by two brothers who can see the obvious struggle of communication between parents, students and teachers. How It Works As a teacher, you create a login and are given a unique code for your class. Your students and their parents can also sign up, using your class code. The teacher can then send messages to those who are signed up. The best thing about it though, is that there are no cell phone numbers shown. The only thing that you can see when sending/receiving messages is the other's name, not phone number. This keeps a safe barrier with the communication, ensuring that the cell phone numbers of teachers, students and parents are being misused. Examples A teacher can send a reminder saying, "Science test tomorrow." A teacher can send a message saying, "Homework due on 06/11/13. American History, page 220, questions 1-6." With this tool, students are reminded of their work, and parents are either reminded, or told for the first time. Many times, students are lazy and don't turn in their homework. This is an easy way to stay on top of them and make sure they are performing their very best.

Blog Assignment # 3

How can you provide meaningful feedback to your peers


What is peer editing ?

What is peer editing is a video on sentence structure, focusing on subject, verb, and predicates. Although I am in college I thought this video was very helpful, becasue sometimes I get so focused on relaying the idea that I pay no attention to sentence structure. The video is also helpful to a student just learning subject and predicates, becasue it gives very simple explanations. Another reason this is a good video for a student just learning subject and predicates is becasue it askes questions and keeps the students interactive. By asking questions this video does a great job at keeping students engaged and focused on the subject. I wish I had this video available to me when I first began learning about sentence structure.

Peer Edit With Perfection Tutorial

In the slideshow Peer Edit With Perfection Tutorial it goes over 3 steps to peer editing. The first step in peer editing is compiments. I believe that this is the most important step, because if you do not stay possitive with your peers then they will become defensive and not take any of your suggestions. The second step in this slideshow is make suggestions. The slideshow gives you examples of what kind of suggestions to make. Some of those suggestions include, word choice, using details, organization, sentence structure, and topic. The last and final step is corrections. The corrections this slideshow suggest in makeing are in spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, missing punctuation, and incomplete or run-on sentences. I found this slideshow to be very helpful, because when I do a peer review I am never sure where to start, or what to look for. I am sure I will be using these steps and suggestions in my peer reviews from now on.

Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes

I thought the video Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes was a entertaining video. This video also gave some good advice on what not to do during peer review. Although the video gives 10 Mistakes I am going to focuse on the four that I have personally experienced. One of the mistakes I have experienced is "picky patty" and in the video picky patty looks for anything to correct, even if it is not relevant to the paper. The example the video uses is hand writing style. Another mistake I have come across in peer review is "whatever william". The video shows whatever william as being a peer who does not care about the assignment, much less makeing the suggested changes. The third type of peer mistake is "social sammy". Social sammy is the one I have come across most often in peer review. The video describes this mistake as someone who constantly wants to talk to other members of other groups. I think this is a mistake effects the person who is being reviewed and also distracts the people in the other groups. The last peer review mistake is "off-task oliver". This is also a peer that I have came across often, and it is always distracting to everyone in the group. I think this video does a great job at covering all the differnt kinds of mistakes students make during peer review, and by pointing out these mistakes it will help people avoid makine these mistakes.

While doing a peer review for every member of my group, I was sure to use the skills covered in the video and slideshow. My group members did a great job on their blogs. Both members stuck to the topic, but also made their blog interesting by backing up their thoughts and ideas with personal experiences. There was clarity in the blogs, I think this was because they covered the main points and topics very well. I also considerd the blogs to be written well, because I was not able to find any grammatical or spelling errors. When I offer suggestions I will do so both publicly, and also privately, depending on the suggestions I offer. For example, if I was to point out a spelling or grammatical error I would do so privately by e-mail. I would make this suggestion privately, becasuse I do not see the need to post it publicly when no one else would be helped by the suggestion. If I was making a suggestion on word use, or ideas on how to make their post better then I would post it publicly, because other people could see it, and maybe find the suggestion helpful as well.

Blog assignment # 2 (collaborative)

Mr. Dancealot

The video Mr. Dancealot demonstrates many faults with education. In the video students in a dance class are expected to learn to dance from lectures and notes. Lectures and notes is the way almost all education is taught today. For example when students take a math class the teacher gives the students a few notes, then works example problems, and students are excpeted to be able to work problems like the examples on the test. This video does a great job at showing why notes and examples are not enough. It seems ridiculous for a dance class to be taught by only lecture and notes, so why do we think its fine for other subjects to be taught the same way? This video shows that the problems students are having with learning might not be all the students fault, its the way education is being taught that could be to blame.


Harness your students Digital Smarts

In the vedeo Harness Your Students Digital Smarts Vicki Davis teaches students how to use the most important resource that they have avalibale to them, which is technology. By showing her students how to use technology Vicki Davis is able to break down walls, and help connect her students to students all around the world. In the video one of her main goals a a teacher is to get her students comfortable with useing technology. Getting students comfortable with technology is very important for students, becasue the world is changing, and technology is no longer a luxury to have its a requirement. It is easy to see from this video how the use of technology lets the students open their minds and create and learn in ways never thought possible before.



Kaylee Diegan


1. The Mr. Dancealot video was a great example of how not to teach. His teaching style, or lack thereof, was almost impossible for the students to learn anything. How are students supposed to learn by listening to a teacher read straight from a power point? It’s not so obvious in many other classes, such as history, english or psychology as it is in this specific dance class; but it still pertains to all subjects. For as long as I can remember, my teachers have read from a power point or a book, I re-read the information, and forgot the information right after the test. The open style learning that is being used in Dr. Strange’s class is moving us as far away from Burp-Back Education as possible. All students may not be kinesthetic learners, having to have hands on experiences in order to remember information. However, with the open style learning, all types of learners are at an advantage. Mr. Dancealot held his students back from learning in his class, all because he didn’t let them learn. He put his students at a disadvantage like many of my previous professors have done, but I am just now realizing it.

2. Roberts makes it very obvious that teaching in the 21st century is very different from what we are used to. When I think of my K-12 education, the memories consist of chalkboards, memorization, copying from a friend and cramming for tests at the last minute. My entire college career consists of those same characteristics. With the change we have witnessed in technology over the past ten years, I think it is obvious to say that in the future, teaching and learning will both be dramatically different. As Dr. Strange said today in class, electronics (the things that are enhancing our education now), were not allowed in school. We were sent to the office if we brought cell phones to school. We were forbidden to use the computers in the library unless we were being closely supervised. I completely agree with the ideas shown in the video. The amazing technology, that is becoming more advanced every year, should be used as a helpful tool for our education, not a punishment. The “Educational Exchange” says that as teachers we are expected to give students all of the information possible in order to enhance their education. Why wouldn’t we let them share ideas through blogs, tweets and facebook? Why shouldn’t they be able to post a video on “how to make a paper airplane?” By taking this new route of teaching, we are helping students, not hurting them! By the time I am an educator myself, I will have ipads and/or computers in my classroom. I will be writing on a smart board, instead of a chalkboard or dry erase board. Hopefully, my students will sharing their ideas and teaching each other things. I also hope that I can be the “filter” in the student-learning relationship, rather than just the teacher.



Maggie Adkisson


The video Mr. Dancealot is a perfect example of our current education system. It takes the sit down, shut up, and listen approach to teaching. This approach does not work. The students in the video were bored out of their minds sitting there, and likewise the class attendance declined throughout the video. It bothers me that we can expect students to want to learn when they cannot and are not even encouraged to be involved in their education.

The video The Networked Student describes a modern day student that is encouraged to use technology. Instead of the standard textbook and class lectures, this modern student has both classes and personal online learning. Through his online learning connections, who are possible other students, teachers, and college professors, he is able to read and understand a given topic more in depth than your average textbook allows. With the extended amount of knowledge he is able to gain using the internet, the teachers primary job is to reinforce the information.

I love the fact that this 21st century student was in control of his learning. Through technology and this idea of connectivism he is able to create and control what he learns. By using blogs, scholarly articles, Itunes U, and other resources he is able to read and listen to some of the most educated people that specialize on his given topic. Not only is he able to read and listen to others knowledge, but he can exchange ideas with numerous individuals to further his understanding and knowledge. This a great modern day idea that is not being used by a majority of students. It baffles me why it is not the most popular way of teaching in our schools. Every answer a student could want is right here, on the internet, but instead we are relying on sometimes outdated textbooks that may only partially cover an issue.