Blog Post Assignment #13

Alabama Learning Exchange, also known as ALEX is a program that is used by teachers in the state of Alabama, so it is important that aspiring teachers become acquainted with it so that we have an idea of what it is before we begin to teach. Before completing this assignment, I had done a little bit of research on this program for some of my other classes at USA, but I am now definitely more informed about this program and the many ways that it can be used as a benefit to the teachers in Alabama. After completing this assignment, I decided that I would add the ALEX website that I found most useful from Google to my PLN on Symbaloo.

To explain in a brief description what ALEX is to a teacher who has never heard of it, I would first tell them that it is something that they will find very useful. In reviewing ALEX, you would find various course of studies for many different subjects. On the sites that you can find ALEX, there are many web links that teachers are likely to see as beneficial. One of the greatest benefits, in my opinion, of visiting a site like this is that you are able to view lesson plans that have been made up for different subjects. Another very useful thing is that any teacher can also create their own lesson plans that can later be viewed by different teachers. There are many great things that go along with ALEX, and one of my favorite things about it is that it is not difficult to use even if you are just being introduced to it for the first time.

Project #15

Blog Post Assignment #12

For this blog post assignment, I explored the internet in search of sites that were dedicated to teachers and technology. I found that the sites that interested me the most were the ones that showed examples of ways for teachers to integrate technology into the classroom and those that made me think of ways that I might be able to use all of these fun ways of teaching in my classroom when I begin to teach. If I were to have to make up a blog assignment for future teachers, I would send them to the site Technology Tips for Classroom Teachers. I felt that this site was fun and interesting to explore, so I would assign the students to do just that. After exploring this helpful site, I would tell them to write a summary about the thing that they found most helpful from this site.

The thing that I liked the most about the site was the area labeled Fun PowerPoints. I had so much fun looking at these power points and they gave me so many ideas of things that I will be able to do in the classroom. These presentations were all made to be fun and exciting for the students who would be learning from them, and this is one of the things that appealed to me the most. I believe that classroom instruction has to be interesting enough to keep a student's attention, otherwise the teacher is not as likely to get his or her point across. Looking at these presentations has given me many ideas that i cannot wait to try out when I become a teacher! These power points will also be exciting and neat to use with the SmartBoard, which makes them even better to me and other future teachers!

Progress Report on Final Project

As of now, I have only just begun to work on my plans for the final project since I am still working on completing project #15. It is interesting the way that this project is set up because we have not been given many guidelines, which will make us think a lot harder about what we are going to do. I know that it is good for us as future teachers to be required to come up with things like this on our own, but it will definitely call for more time and work. I am meeting with my group to finish our project #15 on Monday, and plan to brainstorm with them about the topics that will be focused on for our final project. Once I have completed the project that I am working on with my group now, I will spend all of my extra time working on this final project.

Summary and Analysis for Project #6

For my questionnaire, I created questions that were related to the parking at the University of South Alabama. I have heard many complaints about the parking since I started attending this school, and I was interested to see how some people might react when they were presented with questions about the parking situation at our school.

The first question that I asked was simply to see if the person filling out the survey was currently a student at the University of South Alabama. Seventeen people answered my survey, and all of those people said that they are currently students at USA. My next question was asked to see what time of day these people were at the university the most. The most popular answer to this question was that they were at the school mostly in the morning time. Some people also reported being at school in the afternoon and evening times, but none said that they were here most commonly at night.

My third question on the survey was to see how common it was for these students to have troubles finding a place to park. The responses to this question varied fairly widely, ranging from very common to not common at all. After this, I asked how many times these people had received citations from University of South Alabama because of parking infractions. Eight people answered that they had never received this type of citation, two people said that they had gotten them once, four people said that they had received them twice, and three people reported that they had gotten tickets for parking incorrectly more than twice. When asked if their citations had been paid or not, nine people answered yes and five people answered no.

Six of the seventeen respondents to my survey claim that their vehicle has received damage while in one of the parking lots at the University of South Alabama, while eleven said that they have not been damaged. Twelve of the seventeen people who responded to this questionnaire said that they have known of parking problems at USA for more than a year, and eight of these people say that they have never heard of plans to improve the parking situations.

In conclusion, the responses that I received from the people who answered my questionnaire were fairly varied. Because of all of the complaints that I have personally heard being made about the parking here at South, I expected the responses to be a little bit heavier on one side of the scale. Doing this survey helped me to see that not everyone is having a terrible time with the parking situations at the University of South Alabama. I am glad that I conducted this survey so that now I know how some of my fellow classmates feel about this particular subject.

Summary Post C4K

All of the posts that I have had to comment on for these kids were very nice, given the grade levels that these children are performing at. I wish that I would have had a blog when I was in elementary or middle school, because I know that the benefits of this kind of thing for young people are great. One of the posts that I commented on was about a boy having to say goodbye to his father for a little while because he was having to go to Australia to do something for his job. This post just showed me that a blog is a great place for children to express their emotions about personal issues as well as things that are going on in their school lives.

Another post that i had to comment on was more related to school. In this post, a girl named Jessica talked about what happens at her school during parent- teacher night. In the same post, this girl talked about the awards and accomplishments that she has experienced throughout the year. Opposite from the personal post, this proved that a blog is a great way for young people discuss what is going on with them in school.

The posts about school and personal life can also merge in some ways, as it did in a post that I commented on that was about red ribbon week. In this post, the student acknowledged that his school was celebrating red ribbon week and that he had vowed to be drug and alcohol free. The boy then went on to list the goals that he had for his future and the reasons why he would not be using drugs or alcohol. He also told what might happen to him if he were trying to fulfill his dreams and he did start to use these things. This was a very neat post to read, just as all of the other ones were.

As a future teacher, I hope to allow my students to post things to their blog that are not only important to me, but are important to them as well. For one thing, I feel that this will encourage the students to want to work on their blog more and I also think that this is a great way for them to express themselves. While incorporating the many new ways if technology into my classroom, I will almost certainly use blogs as a way to enhance my student's learning. Reading these posts just makes me want to use them in my classroom more, because they reinforce my beliefs about them being both educational and fun for young people.

Blog Post Assignment #11

This was yet another enjoyable and informative video to see and think about. I really appreciate what Mrs. Cassidy is doing with her students simply because they are still so young in my opinion. I think that introducing technology and its benefits to children in the first grade is a wonderful idea because they will certainly benefit from getting an early start with it. Doing simple things such as teaching these youngsters how to get on the internet is a great start to getting them comfortable with technology. I never would have thought that students at this age would be using technology, but this is once again a change that has come about with all of the new technological advances that we are seeing in today's world.

I hope that I will be able to introduce technology to my students from the very beginning like Mrs. Cassidy did, because this is really what all teachers should be working towards these days. Although some teachers do not feel like these types of things are necessary, I feel that it will be very beneficial to the students in the long run. No matter what grade we are teaching, we have to remember that our students  will have to be comfortable and familiar with technology in their future in order to advance through the world that they will be growing up in.

Summary Post C4T- Teacher #3

I was assigned to comment on <a href="http://keepingkidsfirst.wordpress.com/"> Mrs. Hine's blog </a> for these two assignments. The first post of hers that I commented on was a post summarizing a lecture that she had recently heard. She had some great points in this post that I really agreed with. The first thing that really caught my attention was that Mrs. Hines mentioned differentiation and its benefits in the classroom. I agree with her that differentiation creates self confidence among students, therefore it is a very important factor in the classroom. The second thing that I really enjoyed from this post was Mrs. Hines' summarization from the lecture about how teachers must make sure that their students always learn as much as possible. This is incredibly important so that we always make sure that we teach our students to the very best of our ability. In order to be sure that our students are learning as much as possible from us, we must make sure that they completely understand the content of what we are teaching.

The second post that I commented on was one in which Mrs. Hines discussed how important her PLN is to her. She stated that she had to leave her PLN for a few days, and this is what made her realize how important it is to her. In this post, we see how necessary it is for teachers to have collaboration with a group of people. Mrs. Hines shows us how important it is to have a PLN and have access to using it regularly. The main part of this post was the realization of the sum of the parts. It is seen in this post that having connections with an entire group of people is far more beneficial than communicating with those people one on one.

In conclusion, these two posts were incredibly beneficial for me to read. Before this class, I had never even heard of a PLN and now I am really seeing just how important it is for me to have one. As a teacher,  feel like this will be one of my greatest benefits. Mrs. Hines' post simply reassured this assumption for me. I also know that I will be responsible for bringing differentiation into my classroom in order to build self confidence among my students. This, along with all of the other points made in these two posts, boosted my confidence in what I am planning to do with my students when I finally become a teacher.

Teach Someone Project #14