Our group, Kids "R" Us, consisted of myself, Taylor Davis, Victoria Kaplan, Shannon Watson. For projects 15 and 16, we were required to use a rather lengthy list of options to communicate with our group members by not seeing each other face to face. This particular list includes the following: Skype, screen recording to record video sessions, Google Docs, Google chat, hangout in Google +, and emailing via Gmail accounts. We had to choose two of these to use to communicate with and we chose to use Google Docs for Project 15 and used both emailing and Google Docs for Project 16. We had found that using these two tools for communicating had made it easier than the other forms of communication.
With using Google Docs, we were able to see who was typing and what they were typing. We had made a script to use for Project 15 and used Google Docs so that each member could see what the other was writing and write the parts of the script. For Project 16, we decided to use both Google Docs and Gmail as a form of communicating with each other. We had used Gmail to set up the time and date on when we will be meeting for recording the project and used Google Docs to write the script as we had done for Project 15. Everybody did their part in participating in both projects.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Sunday, December 2, 2012
C4K Summary for November
For this past month's C4K (Comment for Kids), I was assigned to comment on three posts: Hunter, Isabella, and John. Hunter is a student from Canada and his blog post was about Alberta, Canada. Isabella is a student from California and her blog post was about two chapters that she had read in James and the Giant Peach. Lastly, John is a high school student from Robertsdale High and he wrote about YouTube and the French Revolution.
Hunter wrote his blog post about the wonderful things about Alberta, Canada. I had commented stating that After watching the videos, I now want to visit Canada to personally see the beauty of nature there. In Isabella's blog post, she wrote about chapters one and three of the book James and the Giant Peach. She wrote about how the aunts that were having to raise James were completely rude and seemed like they did not care about him. I had commented saying that I thought that his aunts were being quite rude to him since James did not have any other family members to turn to. John wrote in his post about how if YouTube had been around when the French Revolution occurred. I commented stating that I would have never thought of using YouTube as a way of communicating.
Last C4T
In this past C4T (Comment for Teachers) I was assigned to Mrs. Denise Krebs. In her first blog post that I had commented on she was talking about a conversation that she and a student had had about the usage of the word "their", "there", and "they're". In the second blog she was talking about how she had just recently lost her older brother.
Mrs. Krebs wrote about how one day she and her student named "J" had a conversation about the correct usage of the word "there", "their", and "they're" and how it had left an impact on him. I had commented saying that if he was not taught the different ways of using the word "their" then how would he ever know the difference? Along with that, I hoped that one day I will leave an impact on one of my students like she has had. In her second post she had wrote about how she had just recently lost her older brother and how she will miss the relationship that they once had. I had commented saying that I am truly sorry about her losing a family member that she has been close to and I know the feeling because about five years ago I had lost two of my aunts within a six week period. It was very heart breaking to me.
Blog Post #13
In Brian Crosby's video, Back To The Future, he had a class of forth graders that had been enrolled with him for three years (grades four through six), and about ninety percent of his class are learning English as a second language and are at risk students for poverty. On the second day of school, Mr. Crosby had them fill out a survey which consisted of the following:
1. What city do you live in?
2. What state do you live in?
3. What country do you live in?
4. What is your address?
5. What is your home phone number?
Here are the scores to the survey:
1. 9 correct
2. 12 correct
3. 3 correct
4. 7 correct
5. 4 correct, 7 no land line, 13 did not know
Almost the entire class did not know what city, state, or country that they lived in, their address and home phone number. This was truly shocking to me. The reason I say that is because back when I was in Elementary School, I had already memorized all of that information by the age of five or six. Mr. Crosby had asked the question "Why is there such a disconnect for these students?" And the answer to his question was stated as "You don't want to have a narrowed curriculum for students and you want the students to have the schema to build the world." On a side note, he had mentioned that as of a couple years ago, his sixth grade students had one to one laptops with webcams and blogs to think outside of the box.
Mr. Crosby had his students do an experiment called "The "High Hopes" High Altitude Balloon Project" and in this experiment, they had used a coke can and watched it compress as the air mass was changing. The students were allowed to video the experiment and embed the code onto their blog individually and write about it; as in why did the aluminum can compress? Once they had done that then they went into the history of ballooning and saw that the maker Zeppelin wanted to use hydrogen to fill the balloon up instead of using helium. After learning this useful information about ballooning, they each made their own wiki page about the specific topic. They were to also write their own story about being the balloon, where they went and talk about what happened. And on their blogs, they had to write about their high hopes for their school, community and world.
He let them make their own trade cards and called them "strato cards" because they were going into the stratosphere and putting their high hopes and picture on it. The students made their own "High Hopes" webpage wanting people from around the world to comment about what their high hopes were. When the students got done with making their cards, they made a carrying case to put them in and tied it the balloon to have it sent up. The students were able to watch the balloon on the computer screen because of the video camera attached to the balloon. They were able to see how far up it went, to when it exploded, then to when the parachute deployed. Also, these students were able to track the balloon by using Google Earth. I wish that we had done that when I was in Elementary School what with making your own card, sending it off in a balloon, and watching it float towards the stratosphere before it could not take the pressure anymore and explode thus deploying the parachute.
After making this experiment/activity, the students had gained the following:
1. Read/write to learn content
2. Writing to clarify and share
3. Write to tell a story thus using creativity
4. Feedback from the teacher and peers globally
5. Articulate orally
6. Connect globally/aware globally
7. Authentic audience
Along with this, the students were also able to gain the possibilities of empowerment, activity, motivation, being included, connecting, and collaborating. I think that this activity was an excellent way for the students to learn about all the subjects and have fun by doing it. It would be interesting to see his students were more connected to their surroundings after having taken this class at the end of the school year.
In Michael Wesch's video, A Vision of Students Today, he had started the video with a quote from Marshall McLuhan "Today's child is bewildered when he enters the 19th century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns subjects, and schedules." I think that this quote still holds true because it is talking about how college classrooms are auditoriums, filled to maximum capacity, and the professor only uses the blackboard. With the world the way that it is now, the modern teacher can not just simply teach a lesson on the chalkboard. They have to be able to use pictures, animations, videos, and websites to illustrate the information. He had used the quotes " If the walls could talk what would they say?" and "If students learn what they do...what are they learning sitting here?". Well, if this were a world of talking walls and seats then they would probably say that the new students would not learn anything from the old style of learning. But obviously that is not the world we live in because only that is found in cartoons, if that.
He had a document using Google Docs with the title "A vision of students today" and of the two hundred students in the classroom, three hundred and sixty seven edits were made to the document. They had also surveyed themselves to bring us a message, some have suggested that technology can save us...some have suggested that technology alone can save us...on the benefits of the chalkboard. He had needed the video with another quote but this time from Josiah F. Bumstead "The inventor of the system deserves to be ranked among the best contributors to learning and science, if not the greatest benefactors of mankind." I think that that was a great way to end a discussion because inventors do in fact need to recognized for the inventions that benefited in this society. Also, it lead you wanting to know more and discuss more because of all the possibilities.
Final Report on PLN
In this final PLN (Personal Learning Network) report, I have found to absolutely love using Symbaloo as my gateway to find the blogs and websites that I had found interesting. This website makes it easy to add the pages that are my favorite, places it in my Webmix, and add a tile of the website so that I can always find it. The pages I have found consist of anything from my jobs, to where I like to shop, to the schools I graduated from, to the church organization that I belong to. Having a PLN has definitely made my life simpler by having it all together instead of having to click the favorite button or bookmark button and having to search for my favorite page. With having Symbaloo, it makes it easy to go to the website by clicking on the tile; whereas before, I would have to go to Google to find what I was looking for.
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