Blog Post #15

Final Post on PLN

I am continuing to build my PLN. I am still following some of the educator blogs that I have been assigned in C4T. Most recently, I have started following Jerrid Kruse. I really enjoy his comments on teaching and education in general. I have a Twitter account, but I am not using it as much as I would like. It is still a very foreign concept to me - although everyone else seems to really enjoy it and learn a lot from it. I continue to use my gmail and yahoo accounts. Additionally, I have added the ALEX website to my PLN. This website has a lot of information that is useful to new teachers.

Blog Post #13

ALEX
The Alabama Learning Exchange provides educators, parents, and students with interactive educational information. ALEX is sponsored by the Alabama Department of Education, and the information is approved by the National Board of Certified Teachers. When you go to the website, www.alex.state.al.us, you can click on Courses of Study on the left side. Once in this section, you can select the material that you are interested in, you can open up sample lesson plans and interactive activities. There are graphs and other information for each lesson that you can download as well.
The ALEX site is very beneficial to new teachers. As a new teacher, this would be a good website to review to get ideas for lesson plans and classroom activities. This is also a good resource for parents who want to plan educational activities for their children.

ACCESS
ACCESS is a distance learning program for Alabama high school students. There are over 100 educators who participate in the ACCESS program. Students can take AP classes, remediation classes, and summer school classes. I had no idea that this program existed, and I think it provides a good opportunity for Alabama high school students to get ahead, get caught up, or simply explore additional educational opportunities.

Project #15 - 2

Project 15 #1

C4K Summary 8 - 11

C4K #8: I commented on a first grade blog from Ms. Cassidy’s class. The students have been using Vocaroo. Vocaroo is software that allows the students to record themselves reading a story and upload it to their blog. This is a great way to get students exciting about reading and sharing.
C4K #9: This classroom is in Ms. Gaudet’s sixth grade class in Ontario, Canada. My assigned student had no blog posts, so I commented on Brian’s instead. Brian had posted some information on a science project. It was a very good post. I asked him if he enjoyed blogging, and his reply was “not really”. However, his post was well-written for a sixth grader.
C4K #10: Ms. Melito’s class blog was one of the most interesting C4K’s that I have done. This is a math class, so I was curious what the students were actually going to blog on. Ms. Melito has done a great job incorporating blogging into the math class. The post that I read was about a mathematician, and it was very good work.
C4K #11: I commented on a student’s blog from Mrs. Huebner’s class. The student blog post was about Christmas. I left the student a comment, but I was more interested in Mrs. Huebner’s blog. Her blog addressed questions specifically to parents such as “What was school like when you were growing up?”. This is a great way to get parents involved.

Final Project

My group and I created a blog about helpful hints for EDM 310:

Things to Know About EDM 310

C4T#4 Summary

For my fourth Comments for Teachers, I followed Andrea Hernandez. She is a technology coordinator for K-8 in Jacksonville, Florida. Her first post was about formal education - especially in master's degrees. This was a very interesting post as she pointed out her opinion. Her second post was about using Shelfari in the classroom. In this post, she discussed the use of reading logs and the potential negative impact they can have on students and their enjoyment of reading. Shelfari is a social networking site for readers. Mrs. Hernandez feels that by promoting the social aspects of reading through sites such as Shelfari, students can really learn to enjoy reading and sharing with others. This blog was very interesting as Mrs. Hernandez shares thoughts for using technology in the classroom as well as her own thoughts regarding education in general.