Final Blog Post

I can truthfully say that I have learned more in this one semester than I have learned in any other class.......ever. I know I have discovered some great people that I will look up to from now on having known them as my EDM310 classmates, and how often does that happen in other classes? Not only have I learned to use so many new tools for my teaching, I have learned much about myself. I want to first say thank you to everyone who participated in this class and made this the great class it was.

I never thought that there would be a class that would leave such an impact on my life and ultimately my career. I was very overwhelmed the first day of class because I didn't know what I was doing! I had never created or read a blog before this class so I was not experienced. More that half of the tools and things we use in this class I had never heard about or even used. But, with all the great people working with Dr. Strange, I found that this class was awesome!

New Tools!

EDM310 helped me find one very important part of what was missing from my whole prospective as a teacher. I know that my students have to be technologically literate! If they aren't, then I will have truly failed at being a teacher for my students. Here are some cool new things that I have learned in EDM 310......this is just a sample by the way.

• I learned that I can use TimeToast to show my students when things happened in science.
• I learned that I can actually teach someone that I have NEVER SEEN BEFORE!
• I learned that a PLN can help anyone find teachers that are right for them to follow and continue their learning.
• I learned how Google Docs can help me stay organized and can also communicate with all of my students.
• Blogging is something new to me, but it will be something that I want to use in my classroom for my students to experience.

Our Class Participation

If there is one thing that I would say to those who will take this class next semester it would be this: Go to the lab hours! I found that so many people in this class were willing to go the extra mile and find new and exciting things. I sometimes didn't talk much in class because I was busy listening to others tell about what they had found and why it would be useful. I think each of us gave something to this class and it wasn't because it was required, it was because we wanted to learn. It is so awesome to me because so many people want to do what is best for children they will teach, and that is what our classrooms need. I want my classroom to be this way. I want my students to want to learn new things. Thank you to all my classmates for bringing out the social side of me and letting me know that there are many teachers out there that can and will make a difference.

Our Educational Guides

Dr. Strange said to me several times that he wanted to be more of an educational guide and not be known as a teacher. I know we will never get rid of the word teacher but I think he is so right, and I think he accomplished this in our class.

I want to say thank you to Dr. Strange for all the great things I have learned in this class and as I continue to learn, I will still thank him for his class because this is where it started.

Also, I want to say thank you to Jamie Lynn and Anthony for all of their great support and comments on my blog. They really have made a positive impression on me and I want to be as passionate and dedicated as they are about teaching.

What I've Learned About Myself

Where do I start? I guess I should start off by saying that EDM310 made me think about why I wanted to teach in the first place. Somehow that got lost in all of the classes I was taking and all the distractions we have as college students. I wanted to teach because many of my family members were teachers. I saw that those family members were highly respected and everyone loved them. I wanted that. I wanted to have a good relationship with everyone I affected as a teacher. Even now, being a teacher means so much more to me. Now I can make a difference in a student's life by helping them have more reasons to want to learn new things. I can change a students life by showing them the tools that I have learned to make them prosper in a changing world of technology. I think that I will show students my passion of learning and it will be passed to them. I learned that I want my students to teach me things too! I know I will probably never be as technologically literate as some people in this class, but I know that I will be willing to learn as much as I can so my students won't be left behind.

Now that I have completed EDM310 I will keep my sentence close by and maybe change it every now and then: "He helps someone feel more positive about themselves everyday."

Final Project!!!

Here is the link to our (Tyler and I) wall. EDM 310 Final Project!

Questions for Final Project

Teach Someone Project

Blog Post 13

These videos are really touching and really show how these kids are feeling about the current crisis of the oil spill. I really haven't thought about the families that have been truly devastated by this spill until I watched these videos. I think that everyone should try to put themselves in the shoes of these families that have been affected and see what they are going through. Here are the videos by Alba Middle School.


Comment on Mean Oil Spill
Hey there,
My name is Stephen Akins and I am also from the University of South Alabama. I am taking a class called EDM 310 and we are assigned to comment. I think your video speaks really true and I know that this oil spill is a "mean" one. I really liked this video and I was glad to hear that the oil has stopped leaking for now! I know that many people will see this video and know really how it has affected all of us on the gulf coast. You all did a great job on this video.


Comment on Just Pray
This is another great way to show others how people on the gulf coast feel and what it really means to them. Like the people shown in the video, many others have been hurt by this spill. This is really another great video by you guys. Keep on making videos and tell others about how this oil spill has affected our way of life.


Comments for Classmates 12
James Marshall's
Comment:
Hey James,
I think this is a great way to teach the guitar. I started playing the guitar once but never found the time to continue with it. I also like the time line on the different periods. I also thought about doing my time line on the different periods of the earth but I found so many conflicting times for all the periods. This post looks great.

Alissa Logan's
Comment:
Hey Alissa,
Your son is really getting good at sounding out words. It is so awesome to see how children start off and really surprise us and themselves when they learn something new! You did a great job in keeping him on track. This is a really good video.

Erin Knowles
Comment:
Erin,
I think you pretty much said it all. This is a great view of Pausch's video and how he thought life should be lived. I really think you said it most when you talked about how we shouldn't just look at just one student, we should try to help all our students. It wouldn't be fair to any of the other students in the class if we didn't want all of them to succeed.

Like you, I think we should also keep our child-like mentality when teaching. Not only to keep it fun but to remember what it was like to be a child sitting in the classroom.

Blog Post 12

What I've Learned This Year

There are many things that Mr. McClung show us in his two years as a teacher. In comparing these two years, we can defiantly tell that there was a big change with Mr. McClung's response to different things that happened. He is quick to admit that his year wasn't so great but he also says that he is learning from that experience. That is the title to his first post (Never Stop Learning). He is really getting to know that there are many challenges to teaching that he didn't see coming. These post are going to be extremely helpful to me as I become a teacher one day. There were a few things that stood out to me as I was reading the post that I wanted to talk about.

Change makes us better teachers.
Mr. McClung shows that he was on the verge of getting too comfortable in what he was doing and his students were not benefiting. I think change is very important for all teachers to embrace.

Class discussions are important.
I haven't really thought about a class discussion being used in my class before because I didn't think it would be useful in a science class. Then I started to think that I know if I was a student and I really didn't like science, then a class discussion would make things seem more relevant to me as a person, not just as a student. If I can somehow make class discussions work in my classroom, I think I can get my students wanting to come and learn something from each other.

Being the Salesmen
I know Mr. McClung talked about selling his way of teaching to his students and making them want to learn. I think this is important because we must have the desire to make our students want to learn. If my students don't want to learn anything then they probably won't. I really think that we need to get our students to buy in to what we are trying to teach them.

What is important?
Should we be more concerned about what another teacher thinks about us or should we be more concerned about what our students are learning from us? This is a question we must ask ourselves when we go into the school and start our teaching journey. I don't think a teacher can do what is best for his or her students if they don't put those students first.

Comment:
I really have enjoyed your two end of the year post. I think that this post shows how you have really changed and how you have had to change. I think your topics in this post will really help me to become a better teach because you show so much of what it is really like to be in the classroom. From comparing your two post and from you talking in this post, I can really tell that you have grown as a teacher. I think my favorite part of the post is " Don't Lose Sight of What's Important". I know that when I become a teacher there will be many things that will be challenging. Like you I want the students to be number one. We teach so that they might have a good future. Thanks for your post.

Stephen

Engineering In the Classroom!

These videos show me yet something else I had no idea about. I can really see the reason that this is such a hit in these schools because kids love it, and it is a new way to help them with math, science, and other problem solving skills. I think this is a really great idea to get engineering into the schools because it does more that just makes shapes. It helps students to use the math formulas and really makes them think about what they are doing. Most of all I think the engineering concept makes the students proud because they have accomplished something. What a great way to use something new and cool to help students use their knowledge.

M-Cubed: ISTE Presentation Video

The Classroom Fabrication Laboratory (FabLab)

The Principle of Least Change

The Children's Engineering Initiative

PLN Status

My Twitter account has exploded! Well not really, but I feel such a relief that there are some science teachers out there that use Twitter. I have made some new additions to my Twitter and I am now following: Sandra McCarron, Richard Byrne, Phillip Cook, and Jason K. Suter.
I let them know that I was getting my degree in education and I wanted to teach high school science and here are the Tweets I got back

From:rmbyrne

@akins14 for science you should follow @sanmccarron her blog is http://sanmccarron.blogspot.com/ she'll have good recs for you too

From: cookp

@akins14 thanks for following! What are you interested in? I can probably suggest some good sites.
Here are the blogs that are now part of my PLN.

Cool Cat Teacher Blog

Free Technology for Teachers

Teach Web

At the Teacher's Desk

Digital Natives in the Classroom

School 2.0 in SA

Science Education on the Edge

Science for All

Reflections of a Science Teacher

Comments for Kids 4

Night's Cool Animation of an Volcanic Eruption!

I was assigned to comment on Knight's Volcanic Eruption! I think this was a really great way to teach the students how to use their mind and thinking to really understand what a volcano is doing, what it looks like, and how it sounds. I just think this is really cool!
By the way, I think Knight is an awesome name.

Here is my comment:

Hey Knight,

Your animation for your volcano is really cool. It does sound really angry! I loved the sound effects. I liked that you showed the different layers of the volcano because that's exactly what a real volcano looks like. You did a great job.

Comments for Teachers 4,5,and 6

Nebraska Change Agent

My second teacher that I was assigned was Mrs. Beth Still. Just from the first few post on her blog you can see how involved she is outside of the classroom. She has a great deal on her blog that talks about PLNs and various things we are also learning about in EDM 310. If you have a chance read her biography on this blog. Here are my comments on her blog and the links to each blog post.

The Forgotten Ones

Hi Mrs. Still,

This is Stephen and I am a student at the University of South Alabama. I have been assigned to your blog by Dr. Strange and our class is called EDM 310. I really enjoyed this post because we have just started talking about PLN’s in this class and I have just started mine. I haven’t really been separated from anyone because of work of course, but college life really has gotten my girlfriend and I distant. So in that sense, I can relate to your situation.

I will be following your blog for a while so, if you would like to check out our class blog here is the link: EDM 310

It Really Isn’t That Simple

Hey Mrs. Still,

I really enjoy your post on the PLN because I really don’t know that much about it. I know that I want to teach so I need to really start working on my PLN. I would like to know your opinion on where should I look for good people to add to my PLN? I have a Skype account but I really haven’t used it yet. How helpful is it to you? I think you have really good knowledge about PLNs and I would love to add you to my PLN. Let me know what you think.

Stephen

Physical Geography Course

I think google earth would be a great idea. I know you have probably already researched, but there are some really good videos on Youtube that so different ideas on using google earth. Here is a link that you might want to check out. Google Earth

Summary for Questionnaire

Creating Summary Report

Hey everyone, This is a video we created to teach you how to create a summary report from our Google docs questionnaire. Here is a link to the instructions to accomplish this: Instructions for creating Summary Report

Blog Post 11

Ms. Cassidy's class is really a great example of how we can get our students involved in learning like it SHOULD be in the classroom. From listening to Ms. Cassidy's responses, I could tell that she thinks that her students really enjoy getting comments from others on their blogs. This is a cool way to encourage them to continue to learn and be involved with technology.

In the first video, the children talk about how their reading and writing improves every time they write on their blog. This is one way to get children to learn on their own and keep reading on their own.

The Wiki helps the children in Ms. Cassidy's class get a head start in researching and asking others about different things they want to know about. I think this is a great way to get the students really thinking about the subject that they want to learn. The students are learning about things from others and not necessarily by the teacher in the classroom. This is great because I would have loved to be able to ask someone else to review my work and to acctually add to my research. This opens up new ideas, new understanding, and different points of view. With these new things presented, then the children can really begin to learn about things from more that just their point of view and use new found knowledge.



I really think I will take Ms. Cassidy's advice about using blogs. Depending on which grade I teach, I think that my students should have a blog and explore other blogs to find information about different things pertaining to science. Mostly, I really like the idea of have a class blog to post class activity. I think this will be benifcal to the students and the students' parents. I really have enjoyed this blog and I hope to continue with one for all the classes I might teach.

Ms. Cassidy also talked about the importance of Twitter and Skype. I know that Twitter will be very important in my PLN and in finding teachers to add to my PLN, but right now, my Twitter account has really accomplished nothing. I know that Ms. Cassidy talked about how her Twitter wasn't doing much for her the first time she used it so I will keep an open mind about Twitter.
Skype has really great potential with me and my learning of the diverse ways in which we can communicate. I have used Skype very few times but I know that it can be useful in the classroom. It would be so great if I could use Skype to talk to teachers in a higher education to talk to my classes about sciences and different subjects that I choose. Also I think it would be awesome if I could communicate with other classes with my class and have a two class discussion on different topics. These are just a few ways in which I can use Skype to make my classroom seem to reach out and grab information from individuals or different groups of people.

Interview Project Post

Part One

Part Two

Smartboard Project

Comments for Kids 3

I was assigned the blog post on June 14 for Mr. McClung's blog. In this post he showed that his blog was feature on another website called Edublogs. Here he talks highly of those who run edublogs and he is grateful that his blog was featured on it.
Edublogs is a host for blogs specific for teachers and students. This type of blog lets the teacher easy control and manage their student's blogs. Here is a link to Edublogs

Comment: Mr. McClung,

I think that it is really cool that your class blog was featured on Edublogs.org. I’m sure that this is one of the better blogs I have visited so far. I am from Dr. Strange’s EDM 310 class and I was assigned to comment on your blog. I really have enjoyed reading some of you post over the last week.

Stephen

Blog Post 10

I think my PLN is starting shape up pretty good. I like the symbaloo that she used and I think I might look into converting my PLN information to the symbaloo page. I think it is really cool that she was speaking to a scientist about her information. I think it is amazing how we can get our information reviewed by someone who is an expert in what we are researching. I hope this will be useful in my classes so when my students want to have their project reviewed, they can contact someone near or far.

I think her PLE is really good and I hope I can get more contacts on my PLN. I really think it would be cool to get a biology teacher that has some experience in teaching and add that teacher to my PLN. I've been searching for several weeks for a good person to follow on twitter.

Two questions that can change your life from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

I really enjoyed this video because I think these two questions can help EVERYONE not just teachers. I really do think that a single sentence can describe someone and help motivate them through everyday life. From being the president of the United States to a teacher in a classroom, we all have a sentence.

The second question is the question we ask ourselves every night when we go to bed: Was I better today than I was yesterday? You know, I really don't ask myself this question and I think it can make all the difference.

I know that my sentence isn't as profound as the ones in the video but here's mine: "He helps someone feel more positive about themselves everyday."

Blog Post 9

An Open Letter To Educators

What a very interesting post. This post is something that we have all been talking about this semester and something that I think Dr. Strange has been wanting us to know. I know that most of us have had those teachers who just talk about the subject and make you memorize facts and that's it. Is this what we really NEED to be learning? If it isn't, then how do we change it?

I commented on this post and the main thing I talked about was the whole reason everyone goes to school......to make money. This is why we learn the facts that don't really help anybody and facts that really have nothing to do with anything we want to know. What would happen if we had the attitude: I want to get a job because I have a purpose in life to make a difference. Or maybe with the attitude that we want to accomplish something to improve ourselves. With this attitude, we go to school and we get these facts that we don't want and we wonder what in the world is this? How is this going to help me get a job? In a lot of cases, the facts pay off and we get the job. So now we have a job that took about 4 years to accomplish. Now what? We go through the motions of work and everything is the same everyday.

We can make education better by one way. We have to change. We have to change our attitude of work, our attitude of what it means to have a job, and our attitude about education. I was raised in a home life that really showed me how your attitude dictated everything you were told to do and everything you wanted to do. So the reason I say we should change our attitude of a job is because so many people in this world do not have jobs and would do anything to have one.

All this change starts with us, the educational guides. Like Dr. Strange says, teacher is not always the best word. Thinking back at all the videos we have watch, one thing keeps coming back to my mine. This is that we are teaching these students and preparing them for jobs that haven't even be invented yet! That is so amazing to me because I am responsible for getting these students ready for something that is years ahead of what they are learning. So how can I get this information in to their heads? Should I give them a load of facts and say "Memorize this for your test tommorrow"?

I know this is a very broad subject and isn't going to be easy. I know that it probably is as significant as I may see it, but think about what would happen if more "educational guides" used new tools and tried to make their job worth it. What would happen to those students? How much better off would they be?

Here is my comment:Hi there, I am from Dr. Strange’s EDM 310 class. I want to talk about why we go to get a degree in the first place. It’s because we want to get a job and make money. I really think that this is an important post to everyone considering a degree and what it really means to get a job. It all boils down to what you are good at, and what your interviewer thinks about your resume. So many people go through school thinking about getting the job and not thinking about if they are learning what they need to learn to get that job. I have been in that situation, and since a have started read post like this one I have found that everything that I have been taught may not be good enough. I may not be as successful as my interviewer thought I should be because my resume showed that I could do so much more with the education I have. So, many jobs are lost everyday that I don’t think we should take our learning for granted. When I apply for a job, many employers will be skeptical to who they hire. I can’t just go through the motions of learning anymore. We need to be more serious in what we want to accomplish.

ALEX-Alabama Learning Exchange

ALEX is a website for all teachers to explore and find things for their classroom. ALEX stands for Alabama learning Exchange. This is a place where teachers from Alabama can log in and create lessons and publish them in the lesson plan library. This is also a good place to search for new ways to teach your students and find new ideas.

The ALEX website includes several different options at the beginning. There are 8 different links on the home page: Course of Study, Web Links, Lesson Plans, Search, Personal Workspace, Professional Learning, Podcast Treasury, and ALEXville. The Course of Study link shows the Alabama courses of study for all grades and all subjects. The Web links are a place to find different websites that will help with the courses of study. Lesson Plans are great lesson plans for different grades and all subjects. The Search link lets you search within the ALEX database for lessons and resources. The personal workspace is where you log in your account with ALEX. The professional learning link is where you can use useful tools to get you started with ALEX. Podcast Treasury is a link where different podcasts are posted from schools about certain subjects. The ALEXville link is where the updates and different activities that are coming up associated with ALEX are located.

Podcast on Smartboards