Project #8 Book Trailer

This is my book trailer for Charlie and the New Baby.

Project 7 Part A

My Sentence Is...


My Passion Is...

C4K Summary for September

I was assigned Ana for my first C4K. Ana’s post is about the lifeguard’s perspective of the waves. She talks about the surfers that are in the waves. She also talks about how a child jumps off a pier and how the waves “swallowed him up.” The waves made the boy struggle. Ten seconds would go by without seeing him and he would pop back up again. Finally the wave “spewed” him up.

Below is my comment I left on her post.

Hi Ana! I attend the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. I love your story about the wave from a lifeguards view. I know that I definitely could not be a lifeguard. I could not possibly keep my eye on everyone. Keep up the good work with your blog!

Twitter: @sydneybreeves
Email: sydneybreeves@gmail.com
My Class Blog: http://edm310.blogspot.com/
My Blog: http://reevessydneyedm310.blogspot.com/

Below is the link to go to Ana's post:
http://pesanav.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-wave-perspective-of-lifeguard.html#comment-form


I was assigned Cameron V for my second C4K.In Cameron V’s blog his topic was elephants. He talks about how elephants will feel sad about losing their monarch and living on the game reserve. He says that the elephants are sad because of actions that happened earlier. He also talked about how if the elephants were to escape what would happen.

Below is the comment I left on the post.

Hi Cameron V! I am a student at the University of South Alabama. Elephants are one of my favorite animals. I love your blog post! You make some awesome points about elephants and game reserves. It’s great how you thought about the many possibilities for the elephants and told some background information on the herd. Keep up the good work!

Twitter: @sydneybreeves
Email: sydneybreeves@gmail.com
My Class Blog: http://edm310.blogspot.com/
My Blog: http://reevessydneyedm310.blogspot.com/

Below is the link to go to this post:
http://kidblog.org/ElkPelicans_2014/79529b24-5307-4d28-b91a-21d180be6ff7/elephant-whisperer-blog-task-5/#comment-159


I was assigned Lauren for my third C4K. In Lauren’s post she tells a story about three friends. Jake is making a pizza and “chunked” it at the wall. Dani comes to Jake and says that they can’t go to the crocodile festival, and then the doorbell rings. Theo walks in and notices the orange spot on the wall where the pizza landed. He thought his friends forgot him. She ends in a cliff hanger so you never know what happens at the end of the story.

Below is the comment I left on the post.

Hi Lauren! I am a student at the University of South Alabama. I am in Dr. Stramge's EDM 310 class. I love your story! You tell it so well. You can see the actions happening. I also love your ending. This was a great post. Keep up the good work!

Twitter: @sydneybreeves
Email: sydneybreeves@gmail.com
URL for class blog: http://edm310.blogspot.com/
URL for my blog: http://reevessydneyedm310.blogspot.com/

Below is he link to go to her blog post:
https://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fkidblog.org%2FMrsGreerELA2%2F

Blog Assignment # 6

First of all, I would like to say I really enjoyed these videos. I learned a lot from them. Project Based Learning, PBL, is what it sounds like it is. It uses projects to help people learn. PBL must have certain things for it to strive: an authentic audience, include a student's interest and choice, involve the community, and should be driven by content. One of the keys to PBL is democracy and reflection. PBL helps teachers in that the teacher can grade as the students review each other's work during the reflection period. Review and reflection are very crucial and we as teachers must realize that things are not going to go as planned. Planned questions are good in the since it is a starting place, but we should never limit our students to just one question, or well anything. We must create opportunity for them to go on. We must be proud of what they are doing. When students see us as teachers proud of them, they will become proud of themselves.

ICurio is something I could see myself and my students using in the classroom. It is an online tool used for safe searches in the classroom. You can search text, audio, and videos. It also has storage for students to place things in folders, so they can go back to it later. Timelines are another feature. The historical feature allows students to enter criteria and search for people who meet it.

Discovery Ed is another tool I would use in my classroom. It is videos that are used to learn. This is used to enhance and bring text to life. If you can see something, you are more apt to learn than if you just hear something. I was am visual learner, and this would have helped me tremendously in grade school.

I found Anthony's Tips for Teaching very helpful. The major factors for you to be a good teacher are as follows, but not limited to: you must be interested in learning yourself; teaching is hard, but you are the one who makes it fun; surprises will always happen so you must be creative and flexible; make sure you aren't leaving a child behind by keeping them motivated; and you must reflect and revise for your audience. These are certainly not all of the factors.

Technology is an important part of education. You can't avoid it, it's EVERYWHERE. It should be involved in your curriculum because of this simple fact. Teachers must introduce how to use technology by scaffolding, or building on concepts. Teachers must introduce technology, not teach it. Technology makes classrooms cleaner and information becomes easier to share.

Anthony also talked about the layers for a lesson. They were how it fits into your year, your unit size, your week, and your day. All of these factors are equally important, and they all have to be considered for a lesson.

I thoroughly enjoyed these videos and I could see myself using these techniques in my own classroom.

Click here for PBL Checklists!

Project # 7 Part B: Parent and Student Videos

Blog Assignment # 5

Dr. Strange said, "Your personal learning network is the set of people and tools that you can call upon for help, consultation, collaboration, or other assistance." There are many different PLN today. Some of the most popular are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blogs.

My PLN has developed immensely since I began EDM 310. I had a Twitter, but never got on or commented on it. I have had a Facebook for years. In this class I have created a YouTube account, a blog that I use quite often, and a new Twitter. The internet in general is a PLN all to its own. It provides so many ways to connect with people and ask questions, and maybe even answer questions. I have completed interviews before, but I never looked at them as PLNs.They are just they personal version of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blogs. I could see myself using these communications more when I become a teacher. These days, you can get a quicker response because everyone has an iPhone or smart phone within arm's reach.

I am happy with how my PLN has evolved, but I could see things growing even more, class pages, YouTube videos, and maybe who knows, I may even have my own personal blog. Don't expect your PLN to develop over night. Groups of people and tools are what make up your PLN.

Creating a PLN!

Project # 3 Presentation

Search Engines Blog

I chose WolframAlpha, Bing, Gigablast, Soso.com, Yahoo, Youdao, DuckDuckGo, and Baidu as my eight search engines. I will explain what each search engine is used for, how they work, and give an evaluation of them. There will aslo be a like to look at the search engines yourself.

First on my list is WolframAlpha. This site is useful for looking up historical data, probabilities and poker hands, nutritional information, color facts, and words and wildcards. This is mostly numerical data. It works by a computational knowledge engine. It does not scan the web for material, but relies on a database controlled by the employees of the company. I like this site. I wish I would have known about it when I took Statistics 210.

Click here for WolframAlpha!

Second, I chose Bing. It is most useful for shopping, travel, local information, and health. It works by a programming code, also known as an algorithm. It narrows down and filters the results. From my experience out of the search engines I have used, this was my least favorite. I did not like the way information came up after the search was completed.

Click here for Bing!

Next, I researched Gigablast. It provides large-scale information, high performance, real-time information, and has retrieval technology from partner sites. It works by an index. It generates sites with related concepts from your qwerty entry. I don't see myself using this site because it seems so much like Google, which is my favorite.

Click here for Gigablast!

Soso.com was the next site I chose. It is useful for instant messaging, online media, video games, value-added service, and e-commerce. I see this site being a way to be social. It works as a browser hijacker, meaning it promotes other free downloads and changes the homepage on your computer. This site also looked a lot like Google, even down to the color of the word "soso.com".

Click here for Soso.com!

Yahoo was the fifth search engine I chose to look into. I find this site very useful about anything and everything. It has possibilities for e-mail, communication, and even to advertising. It works by providing a listing to users from a variety of sources. This is one of my favorite sites, because I've always used it. I am familiar with how it works.

Click here for Yahoo!

Next, I researched Youdao. It was useful in finding webpages, images, news, music, blogs, dictionary entries, and more. It concentrates mostly on dictionary entries. It works by using a spider and an index. My evaluation for this site was hard. If I could read Chinese it would have been a lot easier to evaluate. Overall, it looked like Google, because of the categories at the top of the page.

Click here for Youdao!

Seventh was DuckDuckGo. This site gets the best resources, rather than all resources. It works by a driven community, servers, and algorithms. It has more privacy, a smarter search, and less clutter. I like this site and could see myself using it in the future. It is so simple.

Click here for DuckDuckGo!

Last, I looked a Baidu. It is a language search engine. It also looks up audio files and images. It works from an index of over 740 million pages, 80 million images, and 10 million multimedia files. This was once again a site that would have been easier to read if it was in English. It looked a lot like Yahoo, as far as it was set up.

Click here for Baidu!

Blog Assignment #4

I chose to answer the question "What do we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher?" be reading and reviewing The Right Way to Ask Questions in the Classroom.

Teachers have a lot to consider for asking questions. For so long teachers were the ones to know EVERYTHING. Getting that wrap as a soon-to-be teacher is scary. To be honest, teachers don't know everything and never will. Teachers should never assume that their students know nothing. Teachers must also accept that students can teach teachers. Everyone learns something new every day.

There are some guidelines to asking questions. Never say this is the end of the question asking time. When you tell a student that this is their last chance for any questions you are shutting them down. They may not have a question yet, and may think of it after the certain part of that course has been taught. by you saying that they do not have any more chances to ask questions, they will, of course, not ask. Also, the students that feel they are not smart will not answer, because they feel that someone who is "smarter" will answer. As a teacher, you must also give sufficient time for a student to answer a question. Don't ask a question and move to the next student if they don't spit it out right away. It will help if teachers use a strategy to question asking. Keep the same strategy throughout the whole school year. One easy strategy would be to ask the question, wait a couple of seconds to give the students time to absorb your question, and then call on a student. It would also help to call on students at random. You do not want the students to think that if they answer one question they are through for the day. You want to challenge them constantly.

C4T#1, posts 1 and 2

I was assigned Stories > Data to read for C4T#1. Michael Kaechelle had just attended a motivational speech to start the new school year. He is not a fan of motivational speakers. There was one topic he agreed with the speaker about, stories are greater than data.

Below is the comment I left for Mr. Kaechelle's post.

Hi! My name is Sydney Reeves. I am a junior at the University of South Alabama. I am in Dr. Strange's EDM 310 class.

I actually do like motivational speakers when they do their job right. they are supposed to get you excited about an upcoming event. But, if they don't take their job seriously, I could see where that could be a problem. What do these speakers do to make you dislike them so much?

Twitter: @sydneybreeves
Email: sydneybreeves@gmail.com
URL for class blog: http://edm310.blogspot.com/
URL for my blog: http://reevessydneyedm310.blogspot.com/

I was assigned How to Get Students to Own Their Learning to read for C4T#2. Mr. Kaechelle talks about how he took a project about watershed that was normally completed at the end of the year, and make it the first project of the year. He brought in two speaker from LGROW to excite and help his students learn. It required the students to work together and brain storm. They became passionate about their work and they owned it. Little did his students know, they were learning a skill they would use for the rest of their life.

Blow is the comment I left for Mr. Kaechelle's most recent post.

I love the idea of starting the school year out with this out project. Students are not in their stereotypical "groups" yet. I also like the idea of working on the project throughout the year. It gives a sense of the real world. During jobs in the world today, it may take days, weeks, months, or maybe even years to complete a task. The students also get a sense of working together, which is critical in the world we live in today. They learn that not everyone is the same, and that different people bring different ideas to the table.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this post! I could see myself using this in my classroom in a couple of years.

Twitter: @sydneybreeves
Email: sydneybreeves@gmail.com
URL for class blog: http://edm310.blogspot.com/
URL for my blog: http://reevessydneyedm310.blogspot.com/

Blog Assignment #3

I. Complements
A. Stay positive
B. Start with them

II. Suggestions
A. Word choice
B. Details
C. Organization
D. Topic

III. Corrections
A. Punctuation
B. Grammar
C. Sentences
D. Spelling

The best thing you can do for a peer is to give them a compliment. That can turn their whole day around. As a peer, you may be the only one that says something positive to them. Always keep everything you do positive, especially compliments. If you tell a peer everything he or she is doing wrong, and never say they are doing anything right, they will break down before your very eyes. If you are about to give a someone constructive criticism, always start out by pointing out the good things in their work. It will get their self-confidence up and they will be more apt to listen to what you have to say.

When you are criticizing or making suggestions to a person, always watch your word choice. They may have worked his hardest at this work and when you tear them down, they are most likely not going to work that hard again. You must use very specific details. People can not read your mind. They need to be shown and guided on what to do. You must be organized when you help them. Do not jump all over the paper or task you are working on. They will not be able to follow you. That being said, stay on topic. Everyone's minds can only focus for certain periods at a time on certain things. If you stay on one task, they are more likely to understand what you are trying to explain.

When you start making corrections to their paper is when to be very careful. We need to watch for punctuation, grammar, sentence structure, and spelling. anyone can sometimes be careless, but their are those few people who just really need help. Take that into consideration. Maybe try to to teach that struggling person again at a time when they can focus.

Click here for other ways to learn how to critique.