Blog #3

How Can You Provide Meaningful Feedback To Your Peers?

After reading one of Dr. Strange's previous students blogs', Paige Ellis, I was reminded to think like a teacher when commenting on someone's blog. We all want to be teachers here, and are wanting to learn from our mistakes and grow. If we held our true reactions back and did not share with our classmates what we truly thought after reading their blogs then we are only hurting them. Now with that being said, this needs to be done in a positive way. Negative feedback only hurts peoples feelings, and they might become self conscious in the process. If we give them suggestions or share things with a positive outlook and response, then the student is more likely to get something more out of it.

Switching gears, and moving to the Peer Editing video, it has the same message. In the video the girl talks a lot about being positive, and how giving compliments will really help them to improve. Giving suggestions to the bloggers is also great to show them you care enough to give them feedback that they can work with, and that could potentially make their future blogs better. In the next part of the video, a rubric layout it discussed, and the most important aspects the blog needs in order to be the best. The three more important things to keep in mind while reading and or commenting on a peers blog are: 1. Compliments 2. Suggestions and 3. Corrections.

I absolutely loved watching the video of the elementary schools children acting out different "not-to-do's" while peer editing papers. The creative names they came up with, and how they acted everything out seemed very fun and was humorous! This would be a great way for the kids to learn about each of these different ways not to edit their friends papers, and also have fun in the process. Sometimes is takes being silly and doing something in a unique way for students, or even anyone to remember certain messages. All of these ways made sense very much, and I will definitely put them into consideration while reading through and commenting on blogs!

Blog Post #2

1. After watching the movie Mr. Dancealot I will start by saying that this is a perfect example of a teacher who does not know what they are doing! He did so many things wrong in this video, and I am glad I have never had a teacher like this. I believe the central message for this video is that especially in a dance class, students need to be able to get up and practice in class. Because practice is the only way to get better at something. Also, I imagine it would have made it a lot easier on the students if they could actually see what he was doing with his feet, rather than him standing behind the barrier! This is made obvious by the reactions from the students in the video. It was time for the exam, which was for them to dance together as pairs for the first, and they had no idea what to do! I agree with this message, and it was very entertaining and humorous to watch.

2. After watching the video Teaching in the 21st Century by Kevin Roberts(John Strange version), Roberts feels that to teach in the 21st century one needs to be aware of the technology, and be able to incorporate that technology in activities to keep the students involved and interested. A lot of ideas were shared throughout this video, but being involved and having creativity/uniqueness were a few characteristics that stood out to me. I agree with this 100%. If students are able to put their own characteristics in something, and put part of their views and likes, they would be more likely to enjoy whatever the assignment is they are doing. I also liked the format of this video very much, it was very easy on the eyes. Since there is so much going on in the video and so many things are changing, it keeps the viewers engaged. I will remember this for when I become a teacher, and will try to incorporate something like this for my potential students.

3. After I watched the video The Networked Student by Wendy Drexler my first reaction was that it was very artsy and had a lot of great information. This student that was being described in the video was doing things much similar to our EDM310 class, he is making blogs for others all around the world to comment on his intellectual opinions. I did not know that through iTunes U one can find videos of lectures and different things of teachers from different universities. This seems like a wonderful tool that would be very helpful for many students! Also, when he presents the question why would one need a professor? He states that professors are definitely necessary and help to show the students how to use the sites they are using, answer questions when they are stuck, show them how to do things on the internet, and give them the resources and guidance to contact more professor to obtain even more knowledge!

4. I believe the thesis to the video Harness Your Students'Digital Smarts is the fact that having students learn things on their own, and broadening their thinking process is a wonderful thing. When their teacher said that most teachers have the mind set that they need to know everything about everything before they come a teacher, and that is not the right mind set they should have. She shared that she learns new things from her students almost everyday, she believes that she should not have to define all the terms to her students and tell them what they need to do. She said the best way for them to figure things out is to look them up, and figure it out for themselves so they can use that knowledge to share it with the rest of the class.

5. My first reaction to the video Flipping the Classroom was that it is great that they are trying to make changes and better their programs with the students best interests involved. With that being said, I think realistically most students will find excuses for not watching the videos outside of class, and they will see this as something extra like homework they need to do. For young children they might think why would I do this while I could be playing/ or watching T.V. Also this is something that has to be done on a computer, not every household has computers for their children to use. She did address this with saying the students without computer access could watch these videos at school on the computers. When more and more students do not watch these videos it will eat into the set classroom time because they will all be watching the instructional videos, which was what the teacher was trying to pull from in the first place. I think this was a great idea, and I hope this works for the school! I personally would not use this system for the above reasons, but it will work for some people and that is great!

Blog Post 1

1. The only things I have heard about this course is the fact that it is very hard. Also, that it is a lot of work. At the same time, the people I have talked to have assured me that they have learned what they expected from the course, and took a lot from it.

2. I fear that I will be busy with other things, and forget to do a post or something required for this class. Also, technology has its ups and downs and times where it tends to not work. It would be very frustrating for me, or any other student really, to have typed up everything for an assignment/blog and the something happens to the computer and it loses the work. It has happened before, and is very irritating!

3. This early on in the course, it is very difficult to compare this class with one I have previously taken. I have been in computer classes in the past, learning about Microsoft Office, etc., and also about improving typing skills. I take it that this class is very different, and is about how to use the technology that I would be potentially using in the classroom of my own one day, which is very useful and important to learn about.

4. The most difficult thing for me in this course will be to remember to constantly go online and update blogs, view blogs, and keep up with everything going on in this class. There are no excuses for it, and I will not make any. With that being said, that doesn't mean it will not be difficult. It will also be hard for me to keep a positive attitude about things, and not get overwhelmed with the workload and necessary things for the course. It is important for me to do well and to succeed, and this is what I plan to do!

5. To address this issue, I need to develop better time management skills and make sure to stay on top of things for classes. Also, I need to stay online for this class, and make sure I know what is going on. It is also important for me to use my resources wisely, and be aware of the help that is available for me if needed.

6. At this point in time I do not have questions about the course, and if I did they would be very general questions that would most likely be answered with a couple more classes. I am coming into these class sessions with an open mind, and willing to do work! I will make sure to keep the syllabus for this class handy to look over in case any questions do come about, also I have my professor's email whom I am very confident will answer any questions I might have as well.

Practice Post

2. I am Jordan Pritchett, and am from Birmingham Alabama. I went to Hoover High School, in the city of Hoover; which most people reference the show "Two A Days" from (do not ask me if I was on the show, I was in middle school when the show was aired). Since i was in the fourth grade I have wanted to be a teacher. This was a fun year for me, and I really enjoyed my teacher, this was the main reason I came up with for wanting to be a teacher. I wanted to influence the lives of other children, how my teacher at the time had influenced mine.

I am a huge Alabama football fan, Roll Tide, and my entire life I always assumed I would go to the University of Alabama for college. Well, my Junior year in high school my best friend and I went to the college fair offered at out school. Many different schools would pick representatives to go to these types of things and talk to students about the universities and answer any potential questions they might have. Well, my friend saw the booth for the University of South Alabama and decided we should go and check out what they had to offer. Upon looking at the brochures and hearing what the very nice lady had to say, it was safe to say we were very interested in this school. Long story short, I toured the campus, fell in love with it, and here I am today. Although I now say Go Jags! I will always be a Roll Tide girl at heart.

3. At Hoover High School, I got the opportunity to work with our special needs children in our school. This was a very new experience for me, because I did not really know much about how their minds worked, or even how they would act around me. This took a lot getting use to, and was a big adjustment, but it's safe to say that it was one of the best decisions I have made in my entire life. Working with these children can really change your world. They are the most caring and loving people ever, and they do not have a worry in the world. Ninety percent of the time I would say they are happy people, and are loving life, and honestly are "living life to the fullest". I gained the best friends in these children my senior year in high school, and will be forever grateful. With that being said, I am wanting to pursue being a special needs teacher for the elementary level and cannot wait to start my journey.

4. I really enjoy scrapbooking, it is a great way to make memories last forever. This has been a passion of mine for a long time, and it is a fun way to keep great memories.

5. I also am very active, and really enjoy going to our rec center.

Second Test Blog

This is a test, does it work?

My Test Post

This is my First Post. I clicked the HTML button which I should always do in EDM310. I am now a Blogger!