Blog Assignment #5- Part 2

To be completely honest, I have not spent the amount of time I wanted to on my PLN this semester. I have a Symbaloo account and did build on that some, but Twitter is where I spent most of my time. I really think that Twitter will be the foundation for my primary PLN going forward. It is just a fantastic place to share information and I think it is exactly what I need. I really like the format and the ease that you can share and link things to your followers. I have built my follower/following base up some, but not as large as I would like. I really learned a lot about PLNs this semester and plan very much to utilize them when I have my own classroom. It is one of the things I am more excited about when looking forward to graduation.

C4T #4

Julie Vincentsen is a principal who has her own blog. She had a post about IEP's, which I am learning about in my special education class right now. She suggested using audio books for a student that had a reading disability. She also linked a fantastic list of audio book websites. It was a very informative post.

Ms. Vincentsen's 2nd post that I read was about Martin Luther King. It was posted around MLK day. I found it to be very appropriate, especially with all the issues surrounding Ferguson, MO this week. It was great to look back and reflect on how Dr. King would handle this situation.

Blog Assignment #14

Some of the problems that are addressed in Joel Kline's USA Today article are:

-Academic training for teachers is not strenuous enough
-We don't recruit the proper people to be teachers
-Teachers are rewarded based on seniority and not merit

I very much agree with the first problem listed. Granted I only have my short few semesters to base my opinions on, but I do not see the process of becoming a teacher as one that requires a great deal of effort. I recently took the AECTP and was shocked at how elementary it was. It seemed to be set at grade school level, specifically in the reading section. I would hope that we would want our teachers to be more competent than a grade school standard. I am also not a believer that a "C" should be good enough to pass academic classes in higher education. A higher education degree is supposed to be an endorsement of some type of subject matter expertise in one's field. I don't feel like only retaining 70% of the knowledge is a high enough standard for college students. This is in reference to all college level education, not just the teaching field. I'm not saying everyone must have a 4.0 to receive their degree, but I do think a 3.0 should be the minimum to continue in higher education learning. If one cannot retain and present at least 80% of the knowledge they have learned, then I don't think they have demonstrated an appropriate level of expertise in their field. I wouldn't allow a mechanic to only fix 70% of my car's problems and I wouldn't allow an engineer to only meet 70% of building code. If that is the case, why would I be okay with the person who is responsible for teaching my children to only have achieved 70% of their expertise before imparting it?

The second problem mentioned of recruiting the proper people is something I agree with as well. The article says that "we've let anyone with a college degree become a teacher." I think it's very true that we don't exactly pick only the highest hanging fruit. The teaching profession lacks a lot of respect in the national perspective. I think the lack of top quality recruiting is a by-product of this. We, as a society, have a hard time telling each other that we can't do what we want to do. The MCATs and LSATs make this easier for the medical and law fields, but the rest of the nation has issues telling people that they shouldn't go into profession x,y, or z. Why is that? We don't do this with the arts or athletics. Simon Cowell has made millions of dollars telling people they aren't good enough to be professional recording artists. If I was to paint a picture and take it to any art dealer, they would tell me to get lost and seek another profession. I probably couldn't get cast in a Broadway show and I would get laughed out of an NFL tryout before the first whistle blew. Yet, if one walked into a school which had positions open, with a degree and resume in hand, one could most likely get a job. Again, this isn't an issue which is exclusive to only the education field. If we demanded our educators be some of the brightest our universities had to offer, it would pay dividends in the future generations.

I cannot speak to the third problem of teachers being rewarded based on seniority and not merit, as I have not been employed as a teacher yet. I do, however, have 10 years of experience in the work force and have seen multiple systems of rewarding behavior on the job. If it is only seniority that is rewarded, then one is only incentivized to do enough work to not get fired. Unless it is in one's personal nature to achieve more than the standard, employees won't produce results that are higher than what is required. If one is rewarded based on the quality of work, then there will be a constant competition to achieve the rewards. The quality of work will skyrocket.

I think the article raised some fantastic points about the problems in the education field. The solutions presented seemed to all lean toward improving the quality of the educator. While this seems obvious, it is actually a very good plan. If we can overhaul the process by which we choose and train educators, then the field as a whole will improve. If we can improve our field, then the future generations of students will benefit greatly.

C4K Summary for November

Mehtab is a student in Mr. Wigmore's class. I had a very difficult time finding context on this class. There is no class biography or an introduction from the teacher giving any specifics on location, ages, grade, curriculum, etc. I spent a few minutes going through Mehtab's blog and other students' as well. The best I gather is that they are in grade 4. The vast majority of their blog visitors come from the northeast and Mehtab refers to "soccer" often, while he uses British spellings for other words. He is of Indian decent, possibly an immigrant. I'm going to use this experience when I have my own class blog. It is important that the visitors to our blog have some context on who your class is. I think Mr. Wigmore should have some type of class introduction on his blog. Mehtab's post was about all the sports that he likes. I wrote to him about the sports that I like and told him I would go watch some cricket videos on YouTube. Cricket is his favorite sport, so I thought I would let him know that his blog is helping spread an interest in cricket.

Jaden is a 5th grader in Chula Vista, CA. His post was a "sneak peek" to what I'm assuming is a story that he will be posting later. It was actually really well done and enticing. It was only a few sentences, but he did a very good job of hooking the reader. I'll probably check back in to see how the story unfolds. Pretty impressive for an 11 year old, huh?

No C4K this week for Veterans' Day!

This is me reenlisting in the Marine Corps back in 2007. We were in a town in Iraq called Dulab.















Victoria wrote a post about the end of the 1st quarter of school. She has a great attitude about trying to improve her grades. She made a point to let everyone know that she sees her teachers as heroes. I thought this was amazing. I think sometimes I'm so focused on classes and homework that I forget that I'm going to have kids looking up to me very shortly. I hope that some of my students will think of me as a hero.

Project 12b

Here is Group 7's SMART Board presentation collaborative project:

Blog Assignment #13

Instructions:

Watch this video on making history fun. What can you, as a future educator, take away from the video?

The first thing I notice about Mr. McCarthy is his infectious energy. Regardless of what anyone is teaching, if they spoke to me in the way he is speaking to the parents, I would be paying attention. Being excited about what you're teaching is the first step to keeping a student's attention. He also is making his class fun. He made a point about connecting the subject matter to one's life today. What a great point! Especially in history class, students often don't see the connection as to why they should be learning x, y, or z. If we can connect it to their lives, then they will be more apt to participate. Mr.McCarthy mentions getting the burning question of "Why?!" after a lecture. I absolutely love this point. He teaches with the intent of making his kids want to know why and want to understand. He isn't teaching with the intent of just getting them to be able to burp back information on a test. I really love that last point he made. If we can get our kids to want to learn, as opposed to just remember facts for a test, then we will have done our jobs.

Blog Assignment #12

My family has a history of hearing impairment. My maternal grandfather wore hearing aids from his 40s on to his death at 89. My mother is very hard of hearing, as are most of her siblings. I have lost a significant amount of hearing in my right ear due to military service and I imagine my genetics don't help with that. I have often thought of what it would be like if I was afflicted with my family's impairment at a school age. This post was a great chance to see what would be available to me if I was a hearing impaired student today. The Hearing Loss Association of America has a section of its website dedicated to Hearing Assistive Technology. In the link they talk about an FM system. I have vivid memories of my grandfather using one of these to listen to the TV. After multiple complaints from my grandmother about him blasting Braves games at full volume they invested in one of these FM systems. He placed the receiver close to the speakers of the TV and he had it hooked into his hearing aids. As an educator, I can see this working well in the classroom. The teacher could simply wear the receiver around his or her neck, or keep it on the desk if it was powerful enough, and the student could take it from class to class. It seems kind of primitive in today's technological world, but if it isn't broke, don't fix it. I guess.

Linked here is a video from Oklahoma about Assistive Technologies that educators can use to help deaf/hearing impaired students. Around the 5:30 mark of the video, the iPad is discussed. It seems as though iPads are becoming quite the norm in classrooms these days. I found this short section of the video to be very interesting, as I'm expecting to have iPads available to me in my future classrooms. Here is a short video of deaf students using iPads for the first time. You can see how excited the children are, but also look and see how engaged they are in their learning. My wife, God bless her, is an avid Pinterest user and heard me talking about this blog post. She very quickly found this board. I don't really know how Pinterest works, but there is some really great information on that link. That's what's so great about our modern world today; there's so much information out there. I think that if we just put forth the effort, real effort, to find it, then we will always be in a position to help our students. -Kyle Parrish


Assistive technology can help students with learning disabilities leverage their education. It can be a wonderful tool for students that have Dysgraphia which affects a student's writing ability. This disability primarily affects handwriting and coherence. Students with this writing disorder will not perform efficiently when being taught how to form letters. Furthermore, they will probably forget how to correctly form words later because of improper movements of muscles required to write. However, there have been technologies created to help them counter this problem.
Dragon Dictation is a speech recognition application that produces words you speak by recording your voice. It allows you to update social media statuses such as facebook and twitter by speaking. Dragon allows you to speak and send emails or text messages. Additionally, people can create notes and reminders to help them navigate throughout the day. This technology could be useful for students in the classroom who have Dysgraphia because it would allow them to complete their writing assignments by speaking out their words. As a teacher I could allow a student to use their device to assist them in the writing process. This is another way technology is affecting education in a positive way because it is assisting students who have learning disabilities. -Justin Thomas


This short six minute YouTube video, Braille in the classroom, it helps you understand how braille works, how it is helpful, and some of the different types of braille. One of the devices they use is called braille display. This device will connect to the computer and will transfer the text from a computer screen into braille for the student. In the YouTube video iPad usage for the blind he shows us how to use the iPad from a blind person point of view. As he demonstrates, you can hear how he has the voice control instructing him in he background. The voice control helps him find his apps, tools, or whatever item he is looking for. Having an iPad in the classroom would be very beneficial to the student. Especially since everything is changing into technology. -Macy Roe


Math is a tough alone, and the hardest subject in school for some. I could only imagine how difficult it could be for a blind individual. In the video Teaching Math to the Blind Professor Art Karshmer introduces a tool that allows blind students to still use Braille, something they're familiar with, and electronic feedback. Instead of the math problem written in one horizontal line the student can align the math problem the way it should be. They are also able to receive verbal feedback of the math problem.
I think this tool is very useful for blind students. It is important for them to understand math because as Professor Art Karshmer said in order to get a job in engineering, technology, computer sciences etc. math is an important part of the equation, and the easier it is to practice and understand it the better, and with this tool its definitely possible. -Janae Ivory

C4T #3

Elvira Deyamport is a teacher for gifted students and very active in the new technological world educators are finding themselves in. She had a great post on a conference she recently attended where she was able to present and discuss PLNs. She had her presentation linked and some outstanding tips and information about how to grow and manage your PLN as an educator. This is one of the more informative blogs I have had the opportunity to visit this semester. I really suggest everyone go check it out to learn more about PLNs.


Ms. Deyamport had a new post up for me to comment on this week. This is the first time I have had a teacher post something new after I commented on their first post. She listed all types of examples from her students and their writing assignments. She had one assignment that was prompted by a 5 word story. The students could only use 5 words and had to tell a story. It was really cool and interesting to see what they came up with. There was another prompt of inanimate objects writing to each other. The kids got VERY creative with this one. Click the link and go check it out!

Project #10 Teacher Interview

This is a video of the interview I conducted with Genny Parrish. Mrs. Parrish is an elementary teacher at St. Mary's Catholic school in Mobile, AL. She teaches elementary P.E. and middle school religion.