Final Project #16

SMARTboard Lesson Project #15

Progress Report on Final Project

Our group, named "Kids 'R Us", consist of myself, Taylor Davis, Victoria Kaplan, and Shannon Watson. When Dr. Strange first assigned us to be in a group together, I was actually quite worried. In past groups, I have always been placed in a group where the majority of the people did barely any work to contribute to whatever project that we were assigned to. I was actually surprised to see that everybody gave one hundred percent to contributing to each project that we had to do. After getting to know each person I grew to love them and would not trade them for anything.


We have communicated through e-mails, texts, and Google Docs. I would have thought that this would have been a challenge since some people do not check their e-mail that often but I was astounded that we were able to communicate through e-mail. For our final project we had decided to make a movie because of the ideas that we were coming up with. We had discussed it through Google Docs and made the script through that as well. I can not believe I am saying this but I will actually miss working with these great girls and I know that we will all become amazing educators.

Blog Post #12

While sitting in my driveway next to my fire pit this week thinking of what I could do as a blog assignment, Jeff Foxworthy's game "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" and Dr. Strange's saying "Some of you will not pass the 3rd grade." just kept on replaying in my mind. After some time thinking about the two, I finally found the assignment that I think Dr. Strange should have done: "Are You Smarter Than a 3rd Grader?". This game will be set up like the popular game show but with a slight twist; you have four to five third grade students as the panel, the contestant will be one of the student's parent, and the topics will solely be based on the criteria that the children were taught in school. Here is the catch, if the parent does not know what the answer to the question is, then they have two choices: take the (play) money and leave or pass and it will come back again later on. If the parent choses to take the money and leave, then they have to turn to the audience and say their name and say "I am not smarter than my 3rd grade child". Are you ready to play? Let us begin!
These are the criteria that is met in the third grade:
1. Mathematics
2. Social Studies
3. Science
4. Language Arts
5. Reading

Each topic will have two questions. Every other topic will be worth at least five hundred dollars or more as the contestant moves up and the other topics will be less than five hundred dollars. Starting to sound like fun does it not? So let us begin to play Are You Smarter Than a 3rd Grader! The way that I want the game to be shown is by using a comic preferably Pixton.

Blog Post #11

In Mrs. Cassidy's YouTube video, Little Kids...Big Potential, she had shown how she incorporates technology in her first grade classroom. She had them using the SMARTboard, writing blogs, wiki, and Skype. I would have thought that this would have been a challenge for the six year olds with using all of these advances in technology. But in actuality, they had made it seem like it was second nature to them.

When they were using the SMARTboard, Mrs. Cassidy had them do several activities to get use to using the SMARTboard. They got to write out the letters of the alphabet, practice writing numbers, and drawing shapes. When I was in elementary school all that we had in the late 1990s and early 2000s were overhead projectors and tracing paper. I would have loved to have had a SMARTboard to practice my letters, shapes, and numbers. In my group's SMARTboard video tutorial, we were each to show how to turn it on, calibrate it, type text, put pictures in, animation, and hide and reveal feature. Each of us had a hard time on making the keyboard work and using the animations. As I was working on mine, I kept thinking to myself how easy this must be for a first grader to accomplish yet it is taking us college students a day or two to figure how to operate it. I just thought that this was astounding to me to see how far they have come along since we were their age.

The children had said that they loved writing blogs everyday because it not only helped with their writing style but also their spelling. Before I had taken EDM310 this semester, I had never written a blog. The only thing that I have written were papers and essays, and that is all I ever have known to write. Since writing has become second nature to me, I thought that I would have no problem writing blogs once a week. Now if it were everyday like these first graders have been doing, I do not know what I would be writing about because there is so much going on that just writing it in one post would be a complete nightmare to me. Just kidding, but it would be a challenge with all of these other classes and state exams that I am having to take just so that I can graduate and hopefully have a job.

Another part of the video was that the students were using wiki. With using wiki, they were able to post questions about any topic that they were given, and have random people from around the world to post an answer. Although I have never used wiki before I would give it a try before letting my students post anything on the site. I think that this is a wonderful idea considering the fact that they will get to know what other people celebrate if the topic was Christmas or Thanksgiving.

The last part of the video was about Skype. These children seemed really excited to talk to a professional, another student from across the world, or another classroom. It is amazing to me to think that before Skype we had face time with the iPhone, then texting, pagers, cellphones, home phones, payphones, and lastly telegrams. Where would we be in the world if Alexander Graham Bell did not invent the telephone? Or Benjamin Franklin with inventing electricity? If these great inventors did not create these things, we would be in a world of darkness. I know that this may have been a little off topic for a minute but it really got me thinking of what the world would be like if we did not have these great technologies. I have used Skype a couple of years ago but I never really understood why you would want to see the person you were talking to unless you were talking to them in person and not via webcam. Later on in life when I have a class, I would love to use Skype because it will give my students a chance to see what other children their age are doing.

Summary Post C4T Teacher #3

In this past C4T (Comment for Teachers) I was assigned to Mr. Daniel Edwards. In the first blog that I had commented on he was talking about "What can you do with an iPad in the classroom?". In the second blog he was talking about how Twitter had helped him prepare for an upcoming job interview.

Mr. Edwards wrote about how iPads can be incorporated in a classroom. His reason for using the iPad were: "Assessment for Learning", "Collaboration", "Practical Use", and "Informing the Next Step". I had commented saying that I had a pro and a con for the usage of an iPad in a classroom. The pro: Students can share data instantly and/or be more portable than a laptop. The con: What if you were to have misbehaving students they would most likely use the iPad for non class related topics. After contemplating these two issues I came to the conclusion that I would use an iPad for the classroom but will want to have a tool that shows what the students are doing on the iPads.

In his second post he wrote about Twitter had helped him get ready for a job and get the job. He had explained how using Twitter as his PLN (Personal Learning Network) had gotten him organized for the interview. I had commented saying that I have had my Twitter account for about two years now and I love how much easier it is to interact with other people to get advice about certain topics. I hope that when I graduate from college in a couple of years that I will be able to use Twitter as my PLN to get ready for a job interview at an elementary or middle school.

C4K Summary for October

For this past month's C4K (Comment for Kids), I was assigned to comment on three posts: Christian, Dallas, and a teacher's trip to Ireland. Christian is a student learning English as a second language and in this particular blog post, he had made it into a guessing game. Dallas had recently read a book called The Outsiders, and he had used the question/answer format to discuss it. The teacher that went to Ireland had posted up pictures from the portraits hanging from the ceiling of the airport.

Christian had made his blog post into a guessing game. He had given a description about this specific person as in: the color of his hair and the appearances he had made on a couple of popular television shows. I decided to participate in his guessing game and said that he was probably describing Carlos Alcalde. Dallas had read a book titled The Outsiders. He had categorized each part that he wanted to talk about into questions and then underneath it had the answers for it. I thought that this was really interesting. I had commented saying that even though I have never read The Outsiders I enjoyed each part of topics that he had chosen to talk about. The teacher that had went on a trip to Ireland had posted pictures of the Face of Ireland. I had commented on saying that I thought that the Face of Ireland is a great way to show the portraits of the citizens of Ireland.

Special Blog Assignment

"A World Where No Grades Existed."
This article, written by USA Today, explains how teaching students should be more like playing video games. It also said how more and more teachers are "flipping" their classroom so that students are doing their homework at school and watching lecture videos at home. The last idea explained in the article, was that possibly in thirty years, there will be no more grades. As a future teacher, I would want my students to know what their grades were so that they know what to improve on.

In the first part of the article, USA Today mentioned that teaching students should be like playing video games. Now I do have to admit, playing video games are fun and challenging, but there is a time and a place for playing video games and it is not in a classroom. I would, however, play mind games with the students to get their brain working so that it is easier to memorize facts rather than "drilling it into their heads" per say. When I was in Elementary School and it came time to memorize the multiplication table, the teacher had us play a game to help us recall how to multiply four by seven and so on and so forth. Sure, Angry Birds is a fun game to play because it gets you thinking about how to knock down the forts to crush the pigs, but I personally do not think that students will get the benefit of how to use that knowledge in real life.

The second part of the article mentioned how teachers are now "flipping" their classrooms. The whole concept of this idea is that there will be less time lecturing about how to work certain problems and more time actually working out the problems. I do have a pro and con about the whole idea about "flipping" the classroom. The pro: less time lecturing during class time so that the teacher can help students who do not understand how to work out a certain problem. The con: having to watch the video lecture at home on the computer. I thought that the whole concept of "homework" was so that it was meant to be worked on at home and not school, hence the name homework. What happens if the student does not have a computer at home? Then they would go to school early the following day to watch the video. Well what if the school does not have computers or iPads because of funding issues made by the school system? Then that student is probably going to fail because of not being able to watch the lectures. I do not think that that is fair because how will the student succeed in life if everything is converted to watching videos? Simple solution. Have tutoring sessions so that the children will succeed and not fall behind.

The last point made by USA Today was that in about thirty years from now, there will be no such thing as grades. I will admit that grading papers and assignments are time consuming but in the end it will all be worth it. The reasoning? Students will know what they need to work on so that they can improve their scores. I am for grading because I want my students to know what the certain areas are that they need to work on so that their scores will become better.


In conclusion, I believe that teaching should not be like playing video games but more like logical games so that it will benefit them later on in life. I also think that "flipping" the classroom is one's own choice. If you want to record the lessons and make your students watch the videos then by all means go right ahead. But I personally do not think that recording lessons will help the students in working on their homework. Lastly, grades are essential in schools because it allows the student know if they are behind in a certain area and where they need to work to improve their score.

Blog Post #10

I'm a Papermate. I'm a Ticonderoga.
In this cartoon, the artist is showing how the "papermate" is cheap and useless; as for the "ticonderoga", is expensive and what all children and adults use. The artist, however, made the popular pencil's names into human forms. I thought that this was a very clever way of showing the differences between the two.

Why Were Your Kids Playing Games?
In Mr. Spencer's blog post, the principal has an issue with a teacher playing games with the students instead of teaching them. The principal wants the students to have a "burp back" education, as Dr. Strange puts it, and the teacher is just not going to have it. He believes that students will be able to memorize better by playing games to learn rather than having to memorize text after text. Victoria Kaplan posted a comment saying how she knows first hand what it is like trying to memorize straight facts. I agree with both of them in how we need to be creative in teaching students how to remember facts better instead of drilling it to them, having them test on it, and then forget about it later on as they continue their education.

Don’t teach your kids this stuff. Please?
In Mr. McLeod's blog post, he showed a little bit of sarcasm of how teachers are afraid of new technology and thinking that their students are going to use it the wrong way. He had stated that he uses the technology with his students to show them the right way of using it. I agree with Mr. McLeod in how teachers should not be afraid of teaching technology to their students because how else are they going to learn how to use it? I for one will be using technology in my future classroom because I want my students to be able to interact with the way technology is improving around them.

SMARTboard Project #14

Green Screen Project #11