ALEX or the Alabama Learning Exchange is a work in progress. Its main purpose is to make information available to teachers, parents, and students so that everyone can benefit from it. It is a website where teachers can share their lesson plans, and find lesson plans other teachers have used. It is also a resource for web links and activities that parents, teachers, and students can use.
It has a search engine where you can find specific lessons based on the grade and the subject. You can also combine different subject areas and find lessons that cover them all.
There is also a section where teachers can go to find different opportunities for professional development and grants. There are also links for teaching and learning tools, best practices, and podcasts.
I believe that ALEX will be an excellent resource that I will use frequently as a teacher. I think sharing resources is essential. If you share lessons that work with others everyone will benefit from it. This website has excellent lesson plans and resources. I can only imagine all of the things that it will offer by the time I am teaching on my own. It is very exciting!
Watch this video and tell what you think it means to teach in the 21st century.
I think to be a great teacher in today's society, you must be open to technology and all it has to offer. Teachers are being, for a lack of a better word, replaced by technology. Students can find anything they want to know using the internet. Teachers need to adapt to this shift in society and change the way they teach. Teachers should learn about the latest technology and try to use it when they teach. Teachers should give students access to tools they can use throughout their lives. Teachers should show them how to use these tools and what they can accomplish with them. This is what I believe it takes to teach in today's society.
For this project, I emailed this form to 27 people. I had 18 people fill out the form out of 27. I will list the questions below and the results for each question.
1. How often are you on the internet?
1 -Rarely 0 0%
2 0 0%
3 0 0%
4 0 0%
5 –Everyday 18 100%
2. Which devices do you use to access the internet? (Check all that apply.)
Cell Phone 9 50%
Laptop 16 89%
Desktop Computer 8 44%
IPad 1 6%
Computer Provided by the School or Public Library 6 33%
Other 0 0%
People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%.
3. What type of internet provider do you use?
Cable Internet 11 61%
Local Phone Company 3 17%
Satellite Internet 0 0%
Cell Phone Company (Verizon, AT&T, Cellular South, etc) 8 44%
Other 0 0%
People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%.
4. Which internet browser do you use most often?
Internet Explorer 8 44%
Firefox 6 33%
Google Chrome 6 33%
Safari 7 39%
Other 0 0%
People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%.
5. What is the most common reason you use the internet?
Work 0 0%
School 11 61%
Personal 7 39%
Other 0 0%
6. Which search engine do you use most often?
Yahoo! 0 0%
Google 18 100%
MSN 0 0%
Ask Jeeves 0 0%
Google Squared 0 0%
Bing 0 0%
7. What social networking websites do you use?
MySpace 1 6%
Facebook 17 94%
Twitter 5 28%
Other 0 0%
People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%.
8. What website is your home page?
Google.com – 11
Yahoo.com- 1
Crosswalk.com- 1
Aol.com- 2
Apple.com- 2
Facebook.com- 1
9. How many computers do you own?
1 11 61%
2 5 28%
3 2 11%
4 or more 0 0%
10. What brand(s) of computer do you own? (Check all that apply.)
Apple (Mac) 3 17%
HP 6 33%
Gateway 3 17%
Dell 7 39%
Sony 0 0%
Toshiba 3 17%
Acer 1 6%
Other 1 6%
People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%.
Analysis:
According to this survey, everyone that answered is on the internet at some point every day.
Nine out of eighteen students use their cell phones to access the internet. Sixteen out of eighteen students use laptops to access the internet. Eight out of eighteen students use desktop computers to access the internet. One student uses an I Pad to access the internet, and six out of eighteen students use computers provided by a school or public library to access the internet.
Eleven out of eighteen students use cable internet, three out of eighteen uses a local phone company, and eight out of eighteen use a cell phone company as their internet provider.
Eight out of eighteen students uses Internet Explorer, six uses Firefox, six uses Google Chrome, and seven uses Safari as the internet browser.
Eleven out of eighteen students use the internet primarily for school, and seven out of eighteen students use the internet primarily for personal use.
Everyone who answered this survey uses Google as their primary search engine.
One out of eighteen students use MySpace. Seventeen out of eighteen students use Facebook. Five out of eighteen students use Twitter.
Eleven students out of eighteen use google.com as their home page. One student uses yahoo.com, one uses crosswalk.com, two students use aol.com, two students use apple.com, and one student uses facebook.com.
Eleven students own one computer, five students own two computers, and two students own three computers.
Three students own Apple(Mac) computers, six own HPs, three own Gateways, seven own Dells, three own Toshibas, one owns an Acer, and one owns something other than what was listed.
From this survey, I have learned that everyone that took the survey use the computer at least once a day. Most of these students use their computers primarily for school work. I also learned that everyone who took this survey use Google as their primary search engine.
I will be doing the final project with Darlene Staimpel, and Kristen Key. We will be teaching a lesson to students about things they are currently learning in class using Skype. We will be using Screentoaster to record our Skype session. Our students will be from Mrs. Lucassen's 3rd Grade Class at Elberta Elementary School in Elberta, Alabama. Mrs. Lucassen has never used Skype before. She is very excited to learn how to Skype so that she can use this with her students. It should be very interesting! I am very excited about this project as well!
When I share with people that I don't believe in rewarding or punishing students, I tend to get some very odd looks. The idea that a parent or teacher would not reward children for good behavior or punish them for being bad seems to many to be more than just a foreign idea.
Here is one of the first questions I get asked:
Don't you believe in consequences? How will children grow up to be good people if they don't know that there are consequences to their actions?
I do believe there are consequences for people's actions, and kids really do need to learn this, but when people imply that children need to learn consequences, they almost always mean the consequences to the child. If this is the kind of myopic character development we endorse is it any wonder how many kids grow up to be self-serving, egotistical, narcissists?
In his book Beyond Discipline: From Compliance To Community, Alfie Kohn makes the case that punishment actually impedes the process of ethical development:
A child threatened with an aversive consequence for failing to comply with someone's wishes or rules is led to ask, rather mechanically, "What do they want me to do, and what happens to me if I don't do it? - a question altogether different from "What kind of person do I want to be?" or "What kind of community do we want to create?"
Think about such a shift in the context of this commonly heard defense of punishment:
"When children grow up and take their places in society, they're going to realize that there consequences for their actions! If they rob a bank and get caught, they're going to be put in jail. They'd better learn that lesson right now."
The fatal flaw in this argument is that we want children not to rob a bank - or do various other things that are unethical or hurtful - because they know it's wrong, and also because they can imagine how such actions will affect other people. But when disciplinarians talk about imposing "consequences" for a student's actions - and inducing him to think about those consequences ahead of time - they almost always mean the consequences to him. The focus is on how he will get in trouble for breaking the rule. This fact, so fundamental that it may have escaped our notice entirely, is a devastating indictment of the whole enterprise. Just as some people try to promote helping or sharing by emphasizing that such behaviors will eventually benefit the actor, so the reason for the child to behave "appropriately" is the unpleasantness he will suffer if he fails to do so.
By contrast, ethical sophistication consists of some blend of principles and caring, of knowing how one ought to act and being concerned about others. Punishment does absolutely nothing to promote either of these things. In fact, it tends to undermine good values by fostering a preoccupation with self-interest. "What consequences will I suffer for having done something bad?" is a question that suggests a disturbingly primitive level of moral development, yet it is our use of punishment that causes kids to get stuck there!
You say you're concerned about the real world, where some people do awful things? So am I. In the real world, getting children to focus on what will happen to them if they are caught misbehaving simply is not an effective way to prevent future misbehavior because it does nothing to instill a lasting commitment to better values or an inclination to attend to others' needs. Most people who rob banks assume they won't get caught, in which case there will be no consequences for their action, which means they have a green light to go ahead and rob.
If we really care about character growth and ethical development in children, we have to stop managing their behaviors and start working with them as safe and caring allies. We need to stop seeing misbehavior as this thing to be squashed out and start seeing misbehavior as problems to be solved together.
We have to stop reacting to misbehavior by saying:
He has done something bad; now something bad must be done to him.
And we need to start saying:
We have a problem here; how are we doing to solve it together?
On a superficial level, some disciplinarians use the "real world" as justification for rewards and punishment as a means to manage children's behavior; however, real pragmatism tells us that working with kids to solve their problems constitutes as the only hope we have of reducing the frequency of misbehavior over the long haul, and our only hope for helping kids grow into caring citizens.
Lilian Katz summarizes this discussion up nicely:
Some teachers tend to focus on what is happening rather than on what is being learned. They may wish to simply stop the incident rather than consider which of many possible interventions is most likely to stimulate long-term development and learning.
It takes courage not to punish, and it takes real effort to see misbehavior as an opportunity for the teacher to teach and the student to learn.
My Comment:
Hi Mr. Bower,
I am a student at the University of South Alabama. I am currently taking EDM 310 with Dr. Strange and I was assigned to comment on your blog posts. I will be posting a summary of my comments on your posts to my blog (http://hamptonteriedm310fall2010.blogspot.com/) on November 7, 2010. Please feel free to take a look. You can also visit our class blog at (http://edm310.blogspot.com/)
I really like your approach to discipline. I have a one year old and I have really struggled with how I wanted to deal with discipline issues. I do not want her to act out or get into trouble but yet I do not want to punish her. I want to teach her the right way to behave and show her why her behavior might or might not be appropriate at that certain time. I think I am going to have to purchase the book you mentioned. Thank you for your post!
Post # 2:
Alberta's new math curriculum
Alberta Education recently released its new Math Curriculum, and I want to highlight how progressive this new curriculum really is.
I am relatively new at teaching math; however, my professional development in this area has led me to appreciate constructivism, so you can imagine how excited I was to see Alberta's new beliefs about students and mathematics learning:
Students learn by attaching meaning to what they do, and they need to construct their own meaning of mathematics. At all levels, students benefit from working with a variety of materials, tools and contexts when constructing meaning about new mathematical ideas.
The learning environment should value and respect the diversity of students’ experiences and ways of thinking, so that students are comfortable taking intellectual risks, asking questions and posing conjectures.
Students need to explore problem-solving situations in order to develop personal strategies and become mathematically literate. They must realize that it is acceptable to solve problems in a variety of ways and that a variety of solutions may be acceptable.
This video on math is also featured on Alberta Education's web site:
Keep in mind though that its one thing to say these are our beliefs about math and quite another to have teachers and students actually experience math this way.
Walking the talk is the real challenge.
Making the shift from teaching math as a behaviorist to a constructivist will prove very challenging. Many educators will be reluctant to give up their right answer and algorithms focus. Frankly, many students who have been convinced math is simply a game that requires them to follow the rules may too be reluctant to give up the behaviorism approach. However, if we want to save math from the depths of education hell, we have to fight this good fight, and I'm proud to see Alberta Education lead the way towards a better way of learning math.
So what's next?
Teachers in Alberta are going to need a significant amount of professional development if this curriculum is to come to life, because I know far too many teachers who scoff at things like whole-language and constructivism while wearing behaviorism as a badge-of-honor. My Comment: I have to say that I think this way of teaching math may work really well for some students. In school, I always earned good grades in math. The only problem was that I only remembered how to do the problems long enough to take the test. It has proven difficult for me to remember how to do most math problems that I have been taught to do. I think students like me would appreciate learning math in a way that it relates to other things we know. If we understand why we need the math and how it applies to our daily life and things we do, we could appreciate it more and have a way to remember what it is that we are learning. I would most certainly be open to teaching math in this way, but I would also be open to the fact that other students may need to be taught in a different way as well.
Hi Lee! My name is Teri Hampton. I am a college student at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama, in the United States. I have never seen hyperstudio used before. I thought you did a great job portraying a Pacific voyage. Keep up the good work. :)
C4K # 4
Brodie's Post:
Search engines are things like google bing & so on Search engines do just what it says.So if you go into a search engine and type in large cat it will come up with some infomation on large cats but also come up with infomation on Lions because a lion can some times be nowen as a big cat. Google is a good search engine it will give you lots of results and what they think is the one you are looking for. Bing is another good search engines like google it gives you lots of options.
My Comment:
My name is Teri. I am from Mobile, AL in the United States. I am a college student at the University of South Alabama. I am currently taking the class EDM 310 so hopefully Ibecome a teacher someday. I recently learned about some interesting search engines. I can help you come up with a few more if your teacher doesn’t mind.
C4K # 5
Jaimi's Post:
Hi, I’m going to tell you a bit about me
Family:Ihave a brother Josh and two parents and i have a little puppy called Ziggy he is sooooooooo GORGEOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
Friends: I have lots offriends but my best friends are Lucy, Brooke, Sophie and Daisy they are really awesome.
Sports: My favourite sport is Tennis but i love nearly all sports. I used to play tennis but now i don’t any more.
I love all animals but my favourite animal is TIGERS they are soooooooo cute.
I reckon i am pretty lucky cause i live near all of my cousins and have really awesome friends.
My favourite footy team is collingwood and it has been for a very long time, cause they are just awesome as and better than any other team. My second favourite team is the Hawks they are pretty awesome too but collingwood is way better.
At school my friends and i always chat to each other at recess and lunch. At lunches on Thursday my friends and i go in the music room cause we are doing a band it’s awesome,And i’m singing in the bandbut i’m a really bad singer!
I am turning 13 this year and i’m am so happy cause i’m having a party too but i don’t no what to have for my party.
My Comment:
Hi Jaimi!
My name is Teri, and I live in the United States. I am a college student in Dr. Strange’s EDM 310 class at the University of South Alabama.
I really enjoyed reading your blog post. I love your puppies name, Ziggy. That is really cute. Did you name your puppy?
Keep up the good work Jaimi. You have a great blog!
C4K # 6
Logan's Post:
I’m not good at poems so mine do not rhyme
but please do read this if you have time
somebody stole the number nine
no one knows who comitted this crime
but some how on earth you must have had time
because you read my poem that does not rhyme
My Comment:
Hi Logan,
My name is Teri Hampton. I am currently an EDM 310 student at the University of South Alabama. I really enjoyed your poem. You have a lot of talent. I hope you keep writing! :)
As we continue to move forward with our create your own country projects, students have started to become more and more creative with how they are putting their projects together. In the video above you will see Ortiz and Coleman explain the two components that make up their project. First of which is Google Docs and the second is Google Sketch Up. Students are using Docs to host all of their information about how their country was established and how it operates, and they are using Sketch Up to design the physical map of their countries.
My Comment:
Hi,
My name is Teri Hampton. I am currently taking Dr. Strange’s EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. One of our assignments is to post comments on different students blogs, and this week I was assigned this blog! This project is really awesome! I have never seen Google Sketch Up before. The map they were creating was incredible. I wish I would have gotten to do projects like this in school. I can’t imagine how great these projects will be when they are finished! Thank you for sharing!
