Final Reflection Video

This is my Final Reflection Video. I'm sad to say goodbye to EDM310, but I'm looking forward to the road ahead. This was such a great class and I'll never forget the lessons I learned from it.

Final Project

Here it is!! This is our final project. Brandon, Brittni, and I worked so hard on our documentary. I'm so pleased with how it turned out and I was so privileged to work with these two wonderful people for our projects. Thanks guys for a great semester!

Now Showing:

The USA Show Choir - A Documentary

Final Project Trailer

Unfortunately, we are having some technical difficulties with our footage. My group created this movie trailer to hold you offer until we work out the kinks in our footage. I hope you enjoy!

C4T#4 Summary Post

For C4T #4, I was assigned to Tyler Rice. He is a science teacher at a high school on a major Indian Reservation in Washington. The two posts that I read were about PBL, Project Based Learning. Project Based Learning is an instructional approach that increases student motivation and interest. Tyler is very ardent about Project Based Learning. He is trying to use it to better his school, but his posts are serving to inspire others to learn about the concepts included in Project Based Learning. I am one of the people he has inspired. I admire him for continuing to learn. His willingness to learn, even when he is a teacher, will improve his school. Also, he has inspired me to make sure I use Project Based Learning in my classroom.


Blog Post #1: PBL Challenge-Balancing Content vs. Project
In Mr. Rice's first post, he talks about his school's struggle to balance content and the project. The method they currently use, causes the instructors to be involved so much that they are more of the conductors of the project than the students are. The end result may not fully represent what the student or students have learned. Adopting the PBL method will motivate students and allow the balance between content and project to exist. The assignment has to be challenging, engaging, and relevant to the student. This method also allows for a lot of review. The students' peers or teacher could review what they have. With PBL, students will be doing thorough research and creating quality projects.

In my response, I told Mr. Rice that I enjoyed his post. I agreed that PBL sounds like a great method for the classroom. In his post, he had given an example project that his students did. I told him that the project sounded so interesting and I wish I could have done one like that in my class.

Blog Post #2: What We're Learning About Project Based Learning
In this post, Mr. Rice tells readers that his school has had much success with PBL. He tells readers that when teachers assign projects they must incorporate one out of three criteria he lists. They are:

• a significant and relevant (to students) problem for students to investigate and create a solution for;
• a clear role for students to play in a situation or simulation that causes them to think like an expert;
• significant student choice about how to attack a project

He also talks about the importance of having an audience for the project presentation. Students tend to be more motivated when they have an audience. One of the most important things to include in a project is feedback. Having review sessions with peers, teachers, or themselves will help students create quality work. He asked his audience for their thoughts.

In my response, I offered my thoughts on his post as a student. Obviously, I couldn't respond as a teacher. Maybe my insight could help in the future. I agreed that the list of criteria is important to a project. If the project follows that criteria and has an audience, students tend to make work they are very proud of. They are more motivated to make a project that is the best it can possibly be. I told Mr. Rice about a group project I had had in middle school that reminded me of the projects his school strives for. We had to build a city with any materials we chose. We could create the buildings and services provided in the city. When the project was turned in, we would present it to the class. I feel that this project could be classified as PBL because we had to research cities and services, be creative, and present the finished product to the class.

Project 10: PLN

So here is my PLN in all it's glory. It took a long time to create this, but I couldn't be more pleased. Since I didn't write a progress report earlier in the semester, this post will serve as the story of my journey. When I started, I felt confused. I wasn't sure how I would finish or be able to fill the whole screen. Boy, was I wrong. It wasn't that hard getting into the project once I figured out what I was doing. I had more resources to put on my PLN then I thought. I even color-coded them after arranging each application a certain way.

All of the websites or applications that had to do with my college education had a red background and were put into the top left corner. The last of these was my EDM310 blog. This served as a transition into the blogs I discovered through this class. I put them in the top center of the screen. Three of them are colored green because I see myself checking them in my future career. The three blogs are Justin Tarte's Life of an Educator, Mr. McClung's World, and the EDM310 Alumni Blog. These were not the only blogs present on my PLN. I put Mr. McClung's post, What I Learned This Year, in brown. It is in brown because it was an extremely important post to me. I see myself looking at it now and in the future.

All of the items in blue are either social networking sites that can be used as tools, the websites I use for my email, or video sites that I can use personally or professionally. On the right side of my PLN, I have all tools or websites I can use for my classroom. Here are a few examples: Discovery Kids, National Geographic, BrainPop, FunBrain, and schooltube. All of the applications are either pink, green, or orange. Some of them are white, but that is because I couldn't change the colors. Pink applications are websites that I can pull stuff from to use in my classroom, whether it be videos or articles. Orange applications can be used by both myself and the children. Green applications are ways to connect with other teachers and share things to use in our classrooms. Three of the applications on the right side are game websites. Coincidentally, they were all white, even though I wanted them to be orange. These applications will be used by the kids whether in school or at home. They have fun educational games that foster an interest in learning.

On the left side of the screen, I have tools that I will use. I have things such as Wordle, Picasa, Glogster, Blogger, and Google Search. I can use these for my future classroom, my current education, or personal reasons.

Overall, I'm very pleased with my PLN. When I was done, I searched for other educational Webmixes. Having a PLN with Symbaloo is very helpful because not only do I have my own PLN, but I can look at other educator's PLNs.

Special Metaphor Assignment (Blog Post #14)

1. When I read Tom Johnson's post, I realized there was more than what appeared on the surface. It couldn't really be about pencils. Besides seeing the pencils as computers or technology, I saw other hidden meanings. I kind of even created a metaphor in my blog post by saying teachers need to give students a little bit of the reigns when it comes to their education. I think I was able to see past the surface because of the excellent schooling I have had in the past. I have had some really amazing English teachers that strived to make their students the best they can be. Students learned that metaphors were important to writing. We also learned that you may have to look closer into what you're reading to see a metaphor. That is why I think some people in class didn't see the metaphor. A lot of students just want to read something straight forward and only see the literal meaning on the surface. It's not ignorance, it's just they don't realize. I've been looking at other people's post about missing the metaphor and they all seem to say it wasn't taught well in their school. I can see their point. When I started taking my math class for elementary teachers, I saw how flawed the education system can be. Students weren't getting a good foundation in math, so that when they got to the much harder levels they felt it was almost impossible to perform well. I think this can be said for all other subjects. The students that missed this metaphor probably weren't taught to look deeper into what they read or they were taught so quickly that everything was forgotten. Another explanation could be: burp back teaching. Oh no! They might have had to learn about them so quickly and then only had a few questions on their next test. By the time it was all over they had forgotten it all and moved on to the next topic in class.

2. I have encountered a lot of metaphors that I appear on the image I chose for this post. I have heard people referred to as chickens, guardian angels, and class clowns. I have even heard life and a friend's emotions being compared to a roller coaster. I hope that people who may miss metaphors are starting to realize how much they're used everyday.

3. We need to teach students how important metaphors are. To help them grasp the concept better, we have to provide fun activities. Depending on their age, we can read fun colorful books that have metaphors in them. We can assign a class project, where even the teacher participates. Each person participating gets a medium sized piece of poster board. We would split the poster board in half by drawing a line in the middle with a marker. Then on one half, write the word metaphor and the definition. On the other half, write an example of a metaphor and illustrate it. This could be a fun activity for them. I'm sure if you searched in the right places you could find plenty of lessons or activities that involve metaphors. We can even do what Dr. Strange asked of us. Tell students to keep a log of metaphors they hear. Then, they can tell their class the favorite one they heard. This could lead to a great class discussion.

4. I believe we use metaphors because it adds color to our dialogue. They also broaden our way of thinking. We don't just see something one anymore. Also, we can clearly picture what we're thinking or reading about. I found an example of a metaphor online. It was "time is a river". Like I first said, this phrase would add color to our dialogue. Instead of saying time is really long, we compare it to a long winding river. Second, this metaphor broadens our way of thinking. We don't just see time as time and the river as the river. We don't see time as just being really long, either. We see the river of time with people swimming in it. Some let the river take them slowly to their destination, the end. Some people may be swimming quicker to end and others may be fighting against the currents to go their past. Do you see how that one little statement caused all of that thought and vision? Last, the metaphor gave us a way to view something that may have otherwise been difficult to see. When you think about time, what do you see? You may have just said a river or some other metaphor in your mind. Slow down, you're a few steps ahead! Pretend there isn't any metaphors. You can't measure or view time. Yeah, you can see a clock, but time is more a concept then a thing. Now introduce metaphors, you now have a way to clearly see that concept that you couldn't see before.