Sunday, January 26, 2014

Bog Post #2

1. The central message of this video is that nothing beats hands on learning and that you can't expect students to learn anything if you don't allow them to apply what you're teaching with hands on activities. The author makes his case by showing how clueless the students were on their final exam day. No one knew how to apply his lessons in real life. And yes, I 100% agree with his conclusion because most people are visual learners and just listening to someone talk for hours gets boring which makes learning uninteresting.

My reaction to "The Network Student" was that learning was nowhere near like that when I was growing up. We learned about computers of course but most of the learning was done in the classroom. I am definitely the type of person who would ask, "Why does the student need a teacher?" And although I agree with the reasons listed, I still think your teacher would end up being more of a Mentor. Someone who you would only need to see when you had questions. I definitely think this approach works better on college students than grade school students.

I believe the thesis of "Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts" is that we are in the age of technology and we should teach like it. Students are responding more to hands on learning and the effectiveness of teaching is increased when you allow students to think for themselves. My reaction to this argument is that she is right to a certain extent. The class should be half and half. It seemed to me that she didn't do many lectures, only technological assignments. Again, I think this approach works more for college students.

Flipping a classroom is new to me. I believe I've seen it done before but never knew there was a name for it and never knew there was a method behind it. But yes, I think this approach will be very helpful to me as far as the classroom arrangements go. I plan to teach elementary so I'm not sure how many parents would be willing to sit and watch me lecture after getting home from work and having to cook and clean. As a parent, I would think that is exactly what you're getting paid to do so I shouldn't have to. But the placement of the desks is genius in my opinion.
Image of the Blog

Sunday, January 19, 2014

What About EDM 310?

What do it think about EDM310?
Honestly, the first email I received kind of overwhelmed me. It gave me the impression that this class would be very time consuming and a very difficult class for a procrastinator like myself, although I am trying to get better about that. But my goal this semester is to make all A's, so I am more than willing to put in the effort. I know I have a lot of work to do when it comes to my time management skills though. Also, I am looking foward to learning more about technology in the classroom.

Compared to other classes I've taken, EDM310 seems like it may be one of my more difficult classes and also other than my computer programming class it is the only class I've taken in college that dealt with technology. That is my favorite part of the class because everything is becoming more and technologically advanced and I want to be able to keep up with the trend.

My biggest fear about this class is falling behind because of my procrastination and managing my time to be able to study 9 hours a week with all the other things I have going on in my life. But I have set up some things so that I will have more free time to devote to all of my classes such as putting my kids in daycare and buying a planner.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Practice Blog Post

My name is Melanie Lee. I am originally from Dallas, Texas, but I have lived in a total of five states: Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Washington State, and Virginia. I spent the majority of my life in Dallas, Texas (birth until 15 years) though, so that is where I consider my home to be. My favorite things to do are spending time with my family and traveling. I haven't had a chance to travel outside of the country yet but i plan to as soon as i am financially able to.
I am attending The University of South Alabama because my husband, Brandon, is originally from Mobile and his contract with the U.S. Navy will be up in April so we decided to move back to his hometown until both of us finish with school. We have two small children, Braelynn and Brooklyn (ages 2 and 7 months), so the family support has been beyond helpful. Currently, he is in Virginia until his contract is up so I'm here trying to balance my school work and taking care of my children.
I entered the education field because I really got tired of seeing so many people over the age of 18 who didn't know basic grammar, spelling, and math so I decided to do something about it. My academic passion is math, though.

Practice Post

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Monday, January 13, 2014