C4K November

The first student blog I commented on was Sisilias. Her post was a very descriptive story of her first day of school. Here was my response :
Hey Sisilia. My name is Lauren and I am a student at The University of South Alabama. I loved your post. Seems like you had a day full of excitement. I'm always nervous on the first day of school because you never know what to expect. I also liked ho descriptive you were. Keep up the good work and have a great school year.
The second blog I commented on was Riley's blog in Ms. Cassidy's class. Her post was of a painting she created. Here was my response:
Hey Riley. My name is Laurrn and i am a student at The University of South Alabama. I enjoyed your post. You definitely used happy colors in your picture. Keep up the good work !

Final C4T

Scott McLeod, an Education Leadership professional is the author of his blog dangerously ! Irrelevant. The first post I commented on was a photo of two grading scales and he posed the question of which scale is the fairest and which is the best. I personally felt that the curved scale is the best but it is not the fairest and it does not allow a parent, teacher, or student to really see what they're capable of doing. The second post I commented on focused on taking students voices. McLeod posted 2 excerpts about adults changing what students say and how that is taking their voice. I definitely agree because while a students verbiage may not be the same, their opinion and thoughts matter.

PLN Update

In the beginning I started using my symbaloo and I refer to it occasionally because it is an excellent tool to keep myself organized. I found it a little more useful for myself to create shortcuts on my iPad to my favorite educators and their blogs. I keep up with William Ferriters blog very often. I also follow a few individuals I found through Sir Ken Robinson. I definitely plan to use my symbaloo more but my twitter and the shortcuts to new blogs have been easier for me. 

Project #12

Blog Post #13

What can we learn from these TED talks?

Authors: Hilliary Sanders, Lauren Patterson, Claire Williams
In last weeks blog, we had the opportunity to watch several videos of Sir Ken Robinson from the prestigious TED Conferences. The speakers who are invited to the TED Conference are considered to be the leaders in their field and are well respected by their peers. We have each chosen a video to discuss. Here are our thoughts…

The video I chose to watch was Shane Koyczan: To This Day ... for the bullied and beautiful. His humorous and realistic approach to hopes and dreams was so captivating and moving. Even as a young adult, I can easily remember thing that classmates would say about me but thankfully, I was strong enough to know that no one else can determine my destiny but me. Koyczan’s spoken word poem addresses the reality of what children deal with on a daily basis. We often ask children what do they want to be what do they like, and what do they think but criticize and push our opinions on them. How can we tell student ‘you can be whatever you want to be’ but at the same time tell them, “that’s not what you want to do”, or “you can’t do that”. Especially as future educators we must always uplift and encourage students.

As a future educator, it just reminds me that children deal with bullying and tormenting in a different manner than adults do. The cruel and mean comments stick with children. For some, it may help motivate them and for others it could cause them to shut down and not try to achieve their goals and dreams. To hear positive encouraging words make a world of a difference. You must be mindful of the words you say to students and to help build their self-esteem.

I would encourage all of my colleagues to watch this video. While it doesn’t introduce new ways of teaching, it is an awesome reminder that bullying still exists, verbally and physically.

Author: Lauren Patterson

Salman Khan: Let's use video to reinvent education

Founded by Salman Khan, the Khan Academy is a fantastic tool that can be used in the classroom to boost students learning and allows them to go at their own pace. Khan spoke about the creation of the Khan Academy at the 2011 TED Conference in Long Beach, California. What started out to be a way for one cousin to help the other, turned into a multi-media, educational powerhouse used by millions of users each month.

So what exactly is the Khan Academy? Basically the Khan Academy is a resource tool with thousands of videos covering hundreds of topics. Teachers can create "subject" folders and invite students to participate in this unique learning experience. The site is integrated with a "gaming" type software that engages the interest of students and provides positive yet constructive feedback on their progress. Teachers are able to go in and see each students progress and address any issues the students are having on an individual basis. This advanced monitoring system also allows the teacher more time to address those problems areas instead of spending time on lessons that the students are grasping more quickly.

One of the many great points that Khan pointed out in his video what his thought that often so many students are taught a lesson, then tested and receive a passing grade of 85%, and swiftly moved on to the next lesson. What about the 15% they didn't comprehend enough to answer correctly on the test? In response to this the developers at the Khan Academy decided to integrate the before mentioned "gaming" software. The "gaming" or "testing" area is used to gauge students comprehension. The students are given a series of 10 questions and when the students are able to correctly answer all 10 correct in a row, they are given "badges". This fun, rewarding system keeps the students excited about learning and entices them to do better in order to move forward and receive a specific badge. The students in essence are mastering a lesson while having fun!

How can this be applied in my classroom? I really like to idea Khan mentioned where teachers are assigning the video lessons as homework and the students are actively participating on lessons in the classroom. The "flip" allows the teacher more time to interact with the students and gets the classroom collaborating and helping one another. Something else I think would be a neat idea is to after each lesson, divide the students in groups and allow them to create their own lesson video and present it to the class. This could be a unique way to grade students on a variety of subjects and provides more valuable time learning more about the various "tech" tools they will be using.

When used as a tool in the classroom, the Khan Academy can be extremely useful and is certainly a site that I anticipate utilizing in my classroom and would encourage all educators to check it out and see if it would be a good fit for your classroom as well.

Author: Hilliary Sanders

The video I chose was Teaching one child at a time by:Shukla Bose. Educating the poor is more than just a numbers game, says Shukla Bose. She tells the story of her groundbreaking Parikrma Humanity Foundation, which brings hope to India's slums by looking past the daunting statistics and focusing on treating each child as an individual.

We as united states citizens, live in a country where education is a right, not a privilege. Every child in the USA has an education, no matter if it is public or private. If you stop to think about it, some small percentage of the country might not get the education that we do. We constantly see that you must have a college degree or higher to even be competitive in the adult job world. Shukla Bose, is trying to provide this for the children of India and in the process, giving them and their families hope for the future.
Shukla Bode, made an excellent point, by saying that not all children get the proper upbringing or chance to foresee their future. Building these schools in the poor part of India will deeply increase the results for learning and a better future for these children. Ms. Bose created this idea and giving these children hope. They are going to be challenged and have the opportunity like every other child to go to college and become successful. Some of the mothers were interviewed and gave insight on the change the school had brought to their children. Most children thought they did not have a future and felt basically hopeless. Now the children believe in themselves, and know that they will have a future just like everyone else. Ms. Bose has given the parents opportunities to be involved with their children. Eighty percent of the parents are actively involved in the schools and want their children to learn and be successful. It really touched my heart, that these kids are able to go to school and gain so much knowledge and when they get home everyday teach their parents.

It is truly amazing that Ms.Bose has come such a long way with these kids in just a few years. Her ultimate challenge is to make her kids strong and competitive in the economy and give them some kind of backbone in the real world. She not only teaches her kids english but teaches them to shoot for the stars and reach for their dreams. By these children achieving their goal, maybe this will end poverty and ignorance that holds people in a state of hopelessness.

Author: Claire Williams

In this project, students will observe the different cloud types daily and journal their findings. After completing a smart board presentation, the students, in groups of 2, will create their on clouds using materials provided by their teacher. Lauren Patterson Google Site

Blog Post #12

Sir Ken Robinson, PhD is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources in education and in business. He is also one of the world’s leading speakers on these topics, with a profound impact on audiences everywhere. The videos of his famous 2006 and 2010 talks to the prestigious TED Conference have been viewed more than 25 million times and seen by an estimated 250 million people in over 150 countries. His 2006 talk is the most viewed in TED’s history. In 2011 he was listed as “one of the world’s elite thinkers on creativity and innovation” by Fast Company magazine, and was ranked among the Thinkers50 list of the world’s top business thought leaders.

How to Escape Education's Death Valley

I couldn’t help but laugh as I started watching Sir Ken Robinson's video, "How to Escape Educations Death Valley". Sir Robinson made the most valid points about today's educational system in a light, humorous, and very informative manner. Sir Robinson believes that there are 3 principles that the human mind flourish from.

The 3 Principles are:

1. Human beings are naturally different and diverse: Sir Robinson stated that NCLB is focused on conformity instead of diversity. While math and science are necessities, a good and sufficient education gives equal attention to each and every content area. Students will forever be different and it is important to celebrate each child's talents and allow them to excel.

2. Curiosity: Once a teacher sparks the curiosity in a student, they will learn without any further assistance. Sir Robinson believes that a great teacher passes on information but also provoke, stimulate, evoke, and mentor students. If there is no active learning happening in the classroom, there is no education. Teachers must peak students interest and really show them how to learn as opposed to focusing on testing.

3. Human life is inherently creative: Sir Robinson believes that one of educations roles is to awaken and develop students power of creativity. With all of the standardized testing being used, it is safe to say that education has been geared towards testing instead of using standardized tests to help students.

Moreover, Sir Robinson believes that leaders, namely teachers, should create a climate of possibility. It all starts with a great teacher that motivates, and encourages true learning and understanding to take place. For now, education appears to be in its own death valley but, education just needs a revolution.

Author: Lauren Patterson

The Importance of Creativity

Is our educational system diminishing the individuality and creativity of its students? Sir Ken Robinson seems to think so! He believes we are providing an education for a future that we cannot grasps and feels that creativity should be as importance as literacy. Students should be praised for being different and thinking on their own, rather than being judged and grouped together based on standardized testing. I feel that I have a good understanding of the purpose of standardized testing, I also feel Sir Robinson has a point that creativity should be allowed to flourish, not be suppressed.

In his video, “The Importance of Creativity”, Sir Robinson shares a story about a woman who when she was a child in the 30’s, the educational system wrote a letter to her mother and suggested she had a learning disability because she could not concentrate and was extremely fidgety. Her mother took her to a specialist only to find out that she did not have a learning disability but rather was a brilliant mind that liked to dance and had to be moving to think. She became a very successful dancer who made a large fortune because of her creative ability to dance. More so today, doctors and specialist are quick to medicate children that are perceived to have a learning disability. Sadly enough, often times it is the parents who are requesting the medications because they do not understand nor have taken the time to get to know their children well enough and therefore become frustrated and no longer want to deal with a “hyper” child. I understand that there are some children who truly need to be on medications, but I tend to believe that there are alternatives to medications, such as specialized diets that limit the sugar and food coloring intake by children. There is no telling how many other brilliant minds doctors have suppressed for one reason or another. Ultimately it is the responsibility of the parents to make these types of decisions, but as an educator we should see each child’s individual potential and educate their “whole” being.

Another point that Sir Robinson mentions is how students are taught that making mistakes is the absolute worst possible thing. Now, I realize there are many different levels of “mistakes” and I’m certain he is referring to the low level, non-criminal sort of mistakes. We have to be cautious to not demean our students, but rather turn a mistake into a learning lesson. If students stay in constant fear of making a mistake, and therefore never make mistakes, how will they deal with the real world where it is inevitable that mistakes will be made? Students should feel comfortable and confident enough to know that when they do make a mistake that the right thing to do is to take responsibility for it, reflect on the issue, apologize if necessary and move forward. To simply state it, "If you are not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original” – Sir Ken Robinson

In my opinion, creativity plays a huge role in our students and who they will become. Each student is different and has different potential. It is our job as future educators to help find that potential and to see to it that each and every student grows and develops into someone who is smart, well-rounded, confident and eager to grow themselves.

Author: Hilliary Sanders

Changing Education Paradigms

In his video, "Changing Education Paradigms", Sir Ken Robinson asks the question, “How do we educate our children to take their place in the economies of the 21st century? Given that we cannot anticipate what the economy will look like next week”.

I enjoyed this video very much. It opened up my eyes to how public education became what it is today. It is truly amazing at how much has changed over the years. They were trying to alienate the past and move on quickly to the future. The problem with this, is that it is alienating the students, and making them not want to even be in school. If you look at a few years back, people were to be educated from kindergarten to senior year, go to college, and get a career. This is the routine that has always happened, and now our kids do not believe this. The current system was designed and conceived for a different age.It was conceived in the intellectual culture of the enlightenment and in economic circumstance of the industrial revolution. These students are defined by academic and non academic categories. They believe that if they do not make good grades then they are not smart. So they are prescribed medications to calm them down. We are giving our students drugs to get them focused, and this is not the answer. We should be waking them up to what they have inside of themselves. Ringing bells, divided subjects, age group, etc it is the same routine in every school but Sir Robinson asks why? Why put them together based on age?

Divergent Thinking is not Creativity, it is not a synonym; its the ability to see a lot of possibilities to a question. To be able to see multiple answers not just one. Divergent thinking is a great idea, it really involves the child creative wise, not just memorization. Sir Robinson tells a story about 1500 kindergarten children , who were given a test to measure divergent thinking. 98 percent of the children were put in the genus level. They continued giving this test to children as they got older, and the more students failed it. It really shows that as we get older our imagination and creativity with learning slowly fades. It really shows how students are learning and retaining information in the classroom daily. It really opens your eyes up to how it is going to be when i become a teacher.

Author: Claire Williams

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BP Twelve - Collaborative Assignment

October C4K

In response to his teachers questions about the novel they had been reading, Ben made a post and observed that service dogs are helpful to people that need extra help. In reference to a character in the story, he said that having a new sibling in the house would be an adjustment and I couldn’t have agreed more.
The next students blog I commented on was Calvin who is a student in Mr.Somerville’s 6th grade class. His blog entry was a story of a robbery and it was a cute mystery story and I encouraged him to keep up the good work. I love to see kids imaginations at work!
The last blog I commented on was Ryann’s. Ryann gave his closing thoughts on the story “Out of Your Mind” they had been reading. I was happy to see that he understood that we should treat everyone equally. It was a very very well written post. Additionally, I hope that he will apply these lessons to real life situation