Blog Post #10

Adventures in Pencil Integration, by: John T. Spencer

I'm a Papermate. I'm A Ticonderoga.

On my first look of the cartoon, I believe the cartoon was making a comparison of generic products verses name-brand products. I have always been told that "You are crazy if you pay double the price for that name brand, the generic brand is just as good". Both characters have cheapish looks on their faces. From the looks on their faces, Papermate realize his product is inferior to Ticonderoga, but he has to support it because this is what has worked for years. Ticonderoga, on the other hand, she knows her product is superior, but probably not worth the high price it costs. She also realizes the type people who will be purchasing her product and the cost has to be more. If I had to compare the two characters after reading the blogs and fitting the cartoon into our class, I would say that Papermate looks like and old school conservative style of teaching. A teaching situation that works, but not moving forward; a teaching style that is being left behind. On the other hand, you have Ticonderoga, who appears 'new age', and trendy. Ticondoraga's users will write more on a PC or laptop than with paper and pencil. This was my first take on the cartoon.


Why Were Your Kids Playing Games?

In this blog, Mr. Spencer describes a situation that happens between he and his principal. The principal is concerned only with student's standardized test scores and how the school looks. The principal wants Mr. Spencer to follow the model of a teacher who follows boring rules. He does not want Mr. Spencer to roam outside of the box. It seems as though anything taught with student interaction is considered 'playing games'. He wants him to teach only what is on the state tests. On the other hand, Mr. Spencer is teaching his students real life situations,that will help them through life. Mr. Spencer is not only teaching his students course objectives, he is also teaching his students information that will help them be productive citizens in society. When I was in grade school, I definitely learned best when my teachers had us engaged in collaborative and cooperative learning. I remember these lessons a great deal more than the teacher who simply lectured to us and we memorized/(burp-back)the information. Learning while having fun; this is the kind of teacher I hope to become. Mr. Spencer wants meaningful learning to occur, while his supervisor wants instant/quick learning to occur. The principal does not seem to care if the information is learned for a long period, just the time it takes to pass the test. Again, Mr. Spencer wants his students to learn behaviors that will take them throughout life.

Why I Am Not Neutral

Mr. Spencer's blog, Why I am Not Neutral speaks volumes about the kind of teacher Mr. Spencer is. Mr. Spencer places his students first, no matter what the situation is; he believes it is his job to teach and care for his students. This article deals with immigration, but more than anything, it deals with what's right and wrong. Mr. Spencer points out that it is our jobs as teachers to teach a child. He says that he cannot be neutral to the situation of immigration; he believes it is our responsibility as educators to educate. We do not assume the political role and teach only students who are American. He lets the reader of his blog know that as teachers, we do not know the circumstances and just should assume that the child needs to be taught; excluding political right and wrong. Mr. Spencer points out that immigration was sparked by the demand from the United States. Juan, his student, is merely an innocent bystander, who is simply trying to deal with the cards he has been dealt. In each blog I read of Mr. Spencers, he is always trying to do what is right for his students; no matter what status-quo may be. After reading several of his blogs, he was criticized by some of his readers, but he always stood behind what he believed to be true. Great blogs!


Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please? by: Scott McLeod

Dr. Scott McLeod is one of the nations leading academic experts on K-12 school technology leadership issues. He is director of Innovation for Prairie Lake Areas Educational Agency 8 in Iowa. This information was taken directly from his bio page. The blog on Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please?, was a blog showing how the na-sayers view technology. The blog uses much sarcasm to emphasize how people who are negative about the new wave of technology, are being left behind. I have heard so many times from my grandmothers, how technology is going to make our brains explode and how they got along just well with paper and pencil. I have heard, with my own ears, how the Internet is used for all the wrong reasons. My little brother, who attends high school in a county that has computers for all their high school students, says that discipline is down since the computers have been given to all the children. Sure, there are some students who will misuse the computers, but these are students who were probably going to do it no matter what. The benefit of these computers out-way the few students who will misuse them. My younger brother is able to use his computers to download assignments, research for projects, communicate/collaborate with his peers,learn more about current events, and most of all stop asking to use my laptop. Being able to sync information from IPads, IPhones, IPods and my laptop has made life wonderful for me. I think you put your blog in perspective in your last paragraph, where you said “cause I’m doing all of it with my children, can't wait to see who has a leg up in a decade or two, can you?" What I believe you were saying, is will you and your family/child be left behind because mine will not. I love the sarcastic tone of the blog; makes you want to continue reading the blog. Thanks for sharing your blog with us.

Project 10

Finding the Right Tool

Project 10 challenged me to find new tools and tell how I would incorporated them into my classroom when I become a teacher. I did not realize when I began my research on this project, that I would come across so many different tools that will benefit me when teaching. What I have to learn, is how to incorporate technology into physical education. I thought this would be a hard task, until I did the research for this project. I found the materials I will need, straight from the Internet. I will be teaching physical education to grades K-12. Although I would like to teach secondary physical education, I have been told by many people, that I should take any level position offered to me while trying to gain employment with a school system. I'm assuming I will also teach a co-ed. physical education class.

While researching this project, I came across some amazing resources/tools. The websites I think I will incorporate into my lessons are: Electrikids for Teachers (www.electrikids.com/teachers.html) and PE University (www.PEUniverse.com). Electrikids for Teachers provide teachers, parents and students, free fitness related activities to download and use. The website also provide other websites related to physical education. Electrikids include activities I intend on incorporating into my lesson plans. Some of the activities listed included: Traffic Cop, Body Map, Applauding Heart-rate and Bean Bag Hockey. All of these activities include helpful tips and demonstrations on how to keep our bodies healthy and fun ways to enjoy physical activities. PE University is another website found while researching this project. PE University provides PE video activities, demonstrations on how to use weight-lifting equipment properly and social media websites exclusively designed for the physical education professional. The social medial component is compared to YouTube and Facebook.

Although the tools listed above, is more than sufficient to improve my classroom objectives, I did come across another tool that I plan on incorporating in my physical education class. The tool is the Wii Gaming System. The activities on this game is directly linked to the physical education classroom. This will be a most useful tool in my class, especially on rainy days. I learned that physical education should always include teaching that will promote good health, but also include learning that is enjoyable and fun. This is turn, will hopefully help my students become life-long lovers of physical education.

I will share this information with my students and parents in their course syllabus.

"Autism"

Learning about Autism

After reading Ms. Lentine's website Wretches and Jabberers,Learning about Autism and watching the video on Tray and Larry, I learned a lot about autism in 30 minutes. After viewing the trailer, I thought that both men had the disability of retardation, not autism. I have a couple of friends and a cousin who has autism, and they look and talk, what I consider "normal". They are totally different from Tracy and Larry in appearance. When I completed the video, and looked through the website, I found that even though they look different, or "normal", Tracy and Larry may be smarter than me, my friends and my cousins. However, one of my friends are very intelligent.

What was interesting about the website, was when I visited the Larry and Tracy part of the site. I was amazed at how well both men were able to put their words and meaning together when they typed them. Also, if you look at Tracy with shades on, you cannot even tell there is anything physically different about him. However, without shades, you are able to see a difference. It is very interesting to me how two men with this disability can make such a difference in life and we "normal" people whine about a headache.

I was wondering, does autistic people have a vast range of intelligence like a “normal” person? Also, are there different levels of autism; if so, how many? Last question is autism the same as Asberger’s Syndrome? Again, thanks! I’m glad we have people out there like you making a difference and 'schooling' people like me.

C4K Summary for the month of March

C4K #6

Maggie

C4K #6, Comment #1

The student I commented on this week is Maggie. Maggie is a 6th grade student from Adelaide, Australia. Maggie calls her blog A Learning Blog. Her subject this week is Cyber-bullying 2. Her first post dealt with cyber-bullying and what cyber-bullying is. Maggie is keeping a log on cyber-bullying. This week, she tells us that she is learning how to stand up for others when they are being bullied. In my comments to Maggie, I told her that any type of bullying was wrong and that I was proud of her learning about how to handle bullying.


C4K #7, Comment #2

The student I commented on this week is Juliana. Juliana is a student in Ms. Lentine's class. This week, Juliana was learning about a man name William Kawkwamba. Mr. Kawkwamba is a determined man who early in life worked to better the living conditions of his village. Mr. Kawkwamba built windmills/turbines for his village. The challenge was not having materials, so he built it out of scraps from the junkyard. Juliana thinks that Mr. Kawkwamb is a very smart man and so do I. Juliana said that if she was able to invent something, she would invent a portable wifi. Good idea. In my comments to Juliana, I told her that her invention is a great idea and would be very useful when we are in a dead zone and need to use our laptops. I told her that I would invent a time-machine because I spend so much time on this class, that I need more. I also suggested to her that she continue to learn as much as she can about computers, because it will help her in the future.

Blog Post #9

What I Learned This Year - Volume 4 2011-2012

Mr. McClung has a wonderful perception about teaching. He states in his blog that teachers work for the students. I love this because when we work for someone, we always try to do a good job. I guess instead of the children paying us with money, they pay us by learning. Mr. McClung's goal is to ensure his students are enjoying themselves while they learn. What I took from his first theme, was work with who you have. The students are who we teach and have all day, so worry and take care of them; everyone else will/should be happy and respect a person for this. His theme is Dance with who you came with. I believe my take on his theme is on target with his words. If his students are learning and happy, his peers should be happy for him.

By writing and keeping a blog, teachers can do a self-assessment on themselves each year. The blog will allow a teacher to reflect on good things that happened within the year and improve on things that went wrong. Other peers and students reading the blog may offer their opinion and also help better my teaching skills.

Mr. McClung's second theme was Challenge Yourself. This theme tells how a teacher can get bored with themselves if they do not change it up sometimes. As a future teacher, this is something I worry about a lot; How will I keep my students excited about learning? What kind of skills will I teach as a physical education teacher, that will keep my students excited about good health. Mr. McClung used words that helped to express his feelings; the words were suck and funk. I have sat in classes that were so boring, I hated to go to them each day.

After reading this blog and even having these thoughts before reading it, I probably need to consider a minor in another area in education,just to have a choice. Mr. McClung will always be a good teacher because he will always try to make his class enjoyable for his students.


What I Learned This Year 2008-2009 I chose to read Mr. McClung's latest blog first. After reading his first one last, it seems as though Mr. McClung grew as a teachers. Maybe he didn't grow so much, but had different things to learn as a new teacher. Even in this blog, Mr. McClung realized he had to change the group he was trying to please. He learned in that first year, his goal had to be focused on the students. As a new teacher, I do plan on having good communication skills. I also hope I am placed with a good mentor, who will help guide me through my first year. An important point made by Mr. McClung is for us to remember that we are dealing with children. He suggests we don't go crazy and to be sure to make our expectations attainable for our students.

This blog definitely helps me to feel more comfortable as a future educator. Mr. McClung's suggestions is to realize we are not perfect and we will make mistakes; this takes a lot of heat off the rookie teacher. The last point made by Mr. McClung was for us to always be willing to learn. This is a statement that has been made throughout this class. With technology always changing, we should always be willing to learn.

C4K # 5

C4K #5 - Jessica R.

The student I commented on this week is Jessica R. Jessica lives in Iowa and is an 8th grade student in Mr. Boylen's Language Arts class. Jessica's teacher asked his students the question, what do they think is gained from blogging with other students outside their school. Is it worth the time? Why or why not? Jessica states that she believes blogging is worth it. She believes that blogging helps to bring the shy student out of their shell. She also believes that by blogging, students are able to learn different things about people and places. The last thing Jessica mentioned in her post, was how blogging can help students be better writers, by using correct punctuation.

C4T #2 Summary for February

Heidi Siwak

http://www.heidisiwak.com/2013/02/feedback-and-uncomfortable-moments.html#comment-form

Feedback and Uncomfortable Moments

In this blog, Ms. Siwak was teaching her students about Feedback and Uncomfortable Moments. This lesson was similar to the lesson we learned in peer editing. In this lesson, Ms. Siwak had the students to create Linoit boards for class presentations; first time I had ever heard of a Linoit board. The Linoit boards could be designed however the students wanted. After one student begin his feedback with I didn't like, it led into an entirely different lesson. Ms. Siwak gave a question to the students asking should a person be blunt and honest or avoid being critical when giving feedback to a person's project. Since all of the projects were so different, feedback was also different. A student name Ben stated it best "People think differently and the design will reflect their approach to thinking". I totally agree with Ben. I was always afraid to make my projects look different than my classmates, even though I wanted to. In my class, we had 20 or 25 projects that were almost the same. If I had thought like Ben, my projects would have all been different and unique. I was too afraid my classmates would think of me as being weird and different, so I stayed with the norm. When giving feedback, I believe in what we learned in this class. I believe feedback should be honest to the point of not hurting. I think feedback that is too critical can cause a person not comfortable with giving presentations to hate the process even more, if they are embarrassed.





C4T #2, Comment 1

Ms. Heidi Siwaks Blog http://www.heidisiwak.com/

My comments are for Ms. Heidi Siwak's blog for February 20th, 2013. Ms. Siwaks's is a top teacher in Ontario, Canada who has wone many awards for her work in creating new learning models. Her blog for February 20th dealt with a lesson on where good ideas come from. Ms.Siwak's blog helps the reader to understand that the job of the teacher is to question. She does not believe it is the teacher's job to teach content and concept. Ms. Siwak believes this should be figured out by the students, with her guidance. The teacher used Integrative Thinking in this lesson. Students came up with many ideas as to where good ideas are generated. Again, the teacher's role in this lesson was to question, guide and give instructions. Ms. Siwak's method of teaching is definitely for the 21st Century Classroom, according to what we have learned so far in previous class lessons.

Blog Post # 8

This Is How We Dream Parts 1 and 2 (Richard Miller)

In the video, This Is How We Dream, Richard Miller discuss writing and multimedia. The questions asked in the blog, were am I prepared to write with multimedia and will my students be able to do this? I would have to say yes on both questions. As a student at the University of South Alabama, I write using multimedia all the time. As for my future students, I'm sure they have been writing using some sort of multimedia since elementary school. I do believe we will have better multimedia to choose from in the future.

In the video, Mr. Miller discuss the incremental changes that have taken place in writing and research through multimedia. He made a profound statement at the beginning of the video, that states, "We are living in the greatest change in human communication, in human history". Well said. Who would have ever thought we would be able to communicate with someone overseas by the click of a button, or turn a class assignment in to a teacher who is vacationing in Paris. As I reflect on my childhood, I remember my parents buying me a Leap Frog. To be honest, I can remember always having some form of technology to learn and write stories on. However, in the past five years, multimedia has taken off and advancing so fast, that it's hard to keep up with. People/genius' like Mr. Miller are making dreams come true.

Mr. Miller said we have made incremental changes by leaving the paper, pencil and library to working in word documents on our laptops. He also says that having a book as a web based document, and something that will always be out there, is also considered an incremental change. Writing with multimedia, boy have we come a long way. I laugh at my parents when they say they had to use a typewriter when they first began college; and said they were glad/proud to have it. They said that when they finally were able to purchase and electric typewriter, with erasing capabilities, it was like hitting the lottery; I just laugh. I truly believe I live in the best era in history. Because of all our advanced multimedia, we have any tool to write and research with, at our hands. Creating a dynamic presentation or writing a good research paper, is now a cinch. It is so much information out there to choose from. My generation is able to get help from people all over the world. A 'Culture' helps me to write my papers and create my projects. My generation is like the title of my video "Living the Life".

As I watched the video, my mind just went to sci-fi television. It just does not seem possible to have such technology. However, when I look at old Star Trek shows, I'm sure people of that generation did not believe some of the 'tools' they had on the show either. However, some of them did come to realization, and advanced far beyond the show itself. I wonder, could Mr. Miller and his friend be creating a 'Beam Me Up Machine? You never know; he is WAY out there.

Mr. Miller seems to be a man who is always on the cutting edge of technology. I believe Mr. Miller is the most knowledgeable person, on technology, we have studies so far in our EDM 310 class. Some of his ideas are unexplainable; they are really out of this world, or at least not able to be seen or understood by anyone in this world. Many of his ideas are still in his head, only a dream, that one day he hopes to come true. Mr. Miller will always be a man to push the buttons on technology. However, he does believe that a culture, (the world), is what makes today's multimedia a success. I do believe Mr. Miller wants all of us to get on board and be a part of his magnificent dream.


Blog Post #12 by Carly Pugh

Carly's post was outstanding! I believe Carly would be considered a prize pupil of Mr. Millers. I think she exemplifies the proper way to use multimedia in writing. Carly's blog shows the reader and the watcher of the videos, that she will be a teacher who will always ask for more from her students. Carly will not accept less than her student's very best. She will make learning meaningful and fun, allowing her students to search the web and problem solve by using multimedia tools. I do not believe Carly will criticize her student's writing, I believe she will encourage them to try new things and embrace new ideas.

This is an assignment, because as future educators, we have to continue to push the envelope for ourselves and our students. We have learned in this class that technology never ends; there should be and will always be something new around the corner, when it comes to technology. I guess it's an assignment to make us explore all the multimedia possibilities out there. I believe the assignment is to help make our writing and projects more meaningful, thought-provoking and interesting. In return, it is our responsibility to teach our students these useful skills. Wonderful assignment.Student VideosFirst of all, I must say what a good job the students and Dr. Strange did on the videos. I absolutely loved Chipper's part. Her excuses are as bad as 'My dog ate my homework'. Why don't Chipper just do her work and study up on her vocabulary. Thanks for making me laugh. Also, ladies, I have gotten through a lot of hard times with ? for Dummies; you did a great job too.



As for my own creation, I would like to show two very different types of teachers. I would like to create a video showing a teacher who has been left behind, we will call her Ms. Oldway. The second teacher is a teacher who has made her a 21st Century classroom we will call her Ms. GotItTogether. My video would have Ms. Oldway's classroom in straight desk lines, students sitting quietly waiting for Ms. Oldway to start HER lecture. There is a book on Ms. Oldway's students desk and they would not be able to open it until she gives them permission and the page number. Ms. Oldway will be the only person who is able to talk in her old classroom. She would Shhhhhs the students who want to speak or talks out. Students will not be allowed to communicate or collaborate with their peers and the teacher will ask the questions and answer them herself. The answers for a quiz or test will be a,b,c and d, or yes or no (y or n). We might see worksheets to be handed out or vocabulary words on the board. Teacher uses a red marker to mark the one choice answer wrong. Lastly, the children are drained from being so bored and they simply do not look happy. In fact, the students are all the color of grey.



On the other hand, we have Ms. GotItTogether. Ms. GotItTogher's classroom looks much different than Ms. Oldways. When you walk into Ms. GotItTogether's classroom, you don't even see her because she is sitting on the floor with a group of her students. In this classroom, the students are in groups of four or sitting in a corner working on their laptops. A perfect class would have all students with computers, but this class has two students per one computer. While observing this class, you will see students sitting and talking; when you listen closely, you see that they are collaborating and communicating over a problems that has to be solved. In this room, Ms. GotItTogether encourages this type of learning; in fact, she insists on it. While viewing student's work, you will see that the students are on all different websites. You hear noise from videos playing, you see students blogging with other students around the world, about the topic they may be studying. You will also see all sorts of of technology being used. Most of all, you see happy students and meaningful learning taking place. I chose this to be my video, because all semester, we have been learning what an effective class should look like and what an ineffective class looks like.

Learn to Change, Change to Learn

The video Learn to Change, Change to Learn did appear to hit schools today pretty hard. However, I believe most of the attacks were valid. I believe the speakers in the video were simply trying to emphasize or yell out the need of change in today's schools. They are really passionate about incorporating technology in every part of teaching. The people speaking in the video are really saying that we have to give students more of an opportunity, than just meeting some state standards. Real world situations have to be taught for students to attain meaningful learning. Students have to be able to do certain things, such as: find their own information, be able to communicate and collaborate the information, synthesize the information and validate the information. I believe the man who listed these characteristics is saying exactly what educators need to hear.

I do believe however, they did not give teachers justice in their roles. I believe teachers will always be a crucial and needed part of education. Will their roles have to change as we move to a 21st Century classroom, absolutely! Will their roles need to be any less important, I do not think so. Teachers in our new technology world will have to be skilled in the most updated technology possible. Teachers will then have to be good facilitators in showing our students how to properly use all the new tools available. I believe our best teachers will be teachers who will allow our students the opportunities listed by the speakers on the video. What I did not hear on the video a lot, was a road-map for putting their plan in action. People were giving their opinion, but they did not give ways of helping the process get started.

Again, their arguments were valid, we as future educators and people on the local, state and federal levels, have to come to grips with the times, digital times. For our students not to fall behind, we have to allow them the challenges of today's technology.

Scavenger Hunt-Web 2.0 Tools

#1 The tool in Discovery Education that most similar to Twitter/Facebook and provides a social platform for teachers, parents and students, is Community Tools. As a future teacher, I will use Discovery Web 2.0 in many ways in my classroom. It looks like a site that a person can find any type of information they are looking for. I will use the Community Tool, to communicate with faculty, students, parents and other educators around the world. I will use it to list websites found on Discovery Education as a resource for my students. I will also list assignments and due dates so parents and students can stay up on 'the happenings' in my class. It will also be helpful in allowing student independence, to begin an assignment when it is posted.

#2 Presentations

The tool that most likely created the Discovery Education video is Presentation. Presentation is a tool that allows anyone to add life to something they are presenting. The Presentation tool has features such as Slide Share, 280 Slides, Prezi and Picsviewr. Prezi is a feature that uses Canvas to present instead of slides. I was unable to locate the button for pricing, but I did look at the bottom. Discovery Education gives many great deals to teachers and students. Most of these deals appears to be in the form of free resources. Some of the free resources available for teachers are: Puzzlemaker, lesson plans, Discovery Student Adeventure, Brain Boosters, Clip Art, Learning Adventure and WebMath, to name a few. Some of these same resources are available to students. It appears that pricing is free if the school or district has purchased Discover Education. The only thing required of a teacher and student would be a passcode and a login name.

#4 Related Links

Related Links is a tool that I have never used. It contains the Best of the Rest in Discovery Education. Some of the features in this tool are: wordle.net, which is a "word cloud" generator. Related Links also has Glogster, which I have heard of but never used. Glogster is a feature where you can use multimedia to "Poster yourself". Other features include a Smilebox, which is online scrap-booking. MakeBeliefsComic is a feature I definitely plan to explore. This feature allows a person to create their own comics. Related Links is a tool that I will definitely explore more in depth.

C4K - Summary for February

C4K-Chaynce

The first blog I did was on a student name Chaynce Eady. Chance is a 10th grade in student at Baldwin County High School. Chaynce is in Ms. Miller's 1st block class. Chaynce did an interesting report on Mr. Lamar Smith, a black farmer. Chaynce said in his blog that Mr. Smith was a major contributor in the Civil Rights Movement. He was an organizer for voter registration and was also a World War I veteran. Chaynce alos included photos in his blog of Mr. Smith. This was a great blog since it is Black History month. Good job Chaynce.

Project # 8- Group Podcast

Group Podcast- The Strangers

(PLN) Project #9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=YEls3tq5wIY

Professional Learning Network

For my PLN, I downloaded Symbaloo. After watching the video of the 7th grade student and seeing how organized she was because of this tool, I decided to use it also. I have a long way to go in building my PLN, but I plan to build it throughout the semester. I hope to add Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, Skype and Pinterest to my Professional Learning Network. I hope to follow people like Mr. Michael Fawcett, a teacher from New Zealand on Twitter and use Symbaloo as a tool to help me stay in tune with the digital world. Since a PLN is never complete, I intend on allowing it to help me with my organizational skills while attending The University of South Alabama. While looking at all the videos on creating a PLN, I agree with some of the experts, it is the teacher and administrator who needs to learn how to build a PLN, because the students have already built their community and network. I do not know if I will ever achieve the PLN of the 7th grader, but I will do the best that I can. It was encouraging to know that a PLN does not have to be perfect; I'm sure mine will not be.

Blog Post #7

Randy Paush's Last Lecture

After watching Randy Pausch's Last Lecture video, my first thought was of Tim McGraw's song 'Live Like You Are Dying'. The video struck so many nerves, that I truly had to reflect on my own life. The video helped me to realize that my troubles, no matter how hard they may be, are not the end of the world. What a powerful lecture

We were asked in our blog question, to identify what Randy Pausch says about teaching and learning. To me, Randy did not list any particular teaching and learning styles in his lecture, he simply allows us to pick out throughout his lecture, the teaching and learning moments. He did this by discussing three points: childhood dreams, enabling dreams of others and through lessons learned: How you can achieve your dreams or enable the dreams of others.

The part of Randy's lecture that deals with achieving your dreams, dealt with his bucket list. He shared with the audience how he achieved his dreams. He lets us know that achieving your dreams is not easy, but with the help of others, they are definitely attainable. My take on this lecture, is that if we have dreams, we can never give up on them. Randy tells us in so many words, that we have to depend on others to help us attain our dreams. Randy makes it very clear, that we should go for our dreams no matter how hard they may seem. He believes that if they are not attained, we did our best to try to make them come true. I believe this teachable moment tells us to push our students and not allow them to take the easy way out. He makes this point clear when he speaks of his class turning in outstanding assignments and him still asking them for more. Lesson learned, push our students to their highest potential and challenge them to reach for the stars.

Another lesson we should teach our students, is Indirect Learning, so he did point out a couple of learning styles. I too think Indirect Learning has to take place before anything else. Teaching a student integrity, hope, respect and fearlessness should be taught first. Head Fake Learning is also a way we should teach our students. I believe this is how my teachers helped me learn; they gave me fun ways to figure out complicated problems; making me believe I was having fun, when I was really learning something hard. Giving a child a task and allowing them to figure it out through ways that do not feel too complicated, is when meaningful learning takes place.

Randy believes that teaching can come from everywhere and be learned from anyone. Learning should come from students, teachers, parents, everyone. He believes a teacher should give students the reign to explore their imagination and we as teachers should help them to explore it. Teachers should be able to teach to different people and that a good teacher should always be able to think like a child. I guess he means that a good teacher caters to the audience they are teaching. Other useful advice that will be useful to me as a new teacher is: to be loyal, the students advocate, not a know-it-all and be apologetic when necessary. I believe he is telling us to win our students over and we will have their respect for life. I also believe he wants us to teach our students as early as possible, in hopes that learning becomes a part of them.

Again, this was a very powerful video. It is so powerful, that I watched the 40 minute interview with Randy and Diane Sawyer. I also went back and read my blog post #1 on Randy. I did not realize his condition at the time, but after this blog/lesson, I understand blog #1 much better. Brick walls are there to weed out the people who really do not want something bad enough. A person wanting something enough, will tear down the brick wall. Well said Mr. Pausch

A great deal of respect is owed to Mr. Randy Pausch and his Last Lecture video. He is a hero in my book and I intend on being a 'Tigger Teacher' in my future classroom.

C4K #4

http://pessaraio.blogspot.com/C4K

The student I had for my C4K blog post is name Sarai. Sarai attends Pt England School in Auckland, NZ and is in year 5 in school. Her teacher is Miss. Ouano and she is in room 14. Sarai's blog was fun to read. I learned that her favorite television show is Amazing World Gumball, her favorite animal is a dog, her favorite restaurant is McDonalds, her favorite game is Temple Run and her favorite place in the world is Australia. Sarai's wish is to take her family to Hawaii on a family vacation. In my post to Sarai, I told her we had a lot in common. My favorite animal is a dog and my favorite restaurant is McDonalds. I hope she responds to my post and tells me the kind of dogs she had in her slide show. I cannot believe students are learning this technology so early. Sarai is learning in year five, what I'm learning in college.

Sarai's blog also describe her weekend. She attended her friend's birthday pool party. She said she ate potato salad and sausage and had a great time. She had a neat looking cake in her post too. I look forward to reading more of Sarai's post.

Project #6 - This Is My Sentence Video

This Is My Sentence Video by: Phillip Hall