Journal 5: Get Your Students Moving

Fish , B. (2011). Get your students moving. Learning and Leading, 34(6), Retrieved from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/20110304#pg36

In "Get Your Students Moving," Betty Fish gives many examples of how she got her students to participate in physical activity, while in the classroom. She states that students shouldn't be just restricted to moving around doing activity during Physical Education (PE), and that getting students moving also promotes healthy learning which students consider fun. One of the activities she explains was one used for her Heart Adventure Challenge. She had the students pretend to be blood flowing through the heart, and to produce a commercial for the whole school to educate them on keeping the heart healthy. Another activity she outlined was one where she had simple relays for students to participate in, with simple learning objectives like putting numbers in order. This activity was short, let student's be active, and also sparked student interest because it was a race. Fish also used Skype to video chat with an Olympic athlete, giving students an example of live communication. The students really enjoyed this, and they would ask to Skype with the same athlete to see how she was doing! Overall, Fish stresses the importance of getting your students to move around while educating them!

What about the students who can't physically move around?

Fish gave students different tasks for her activities. The tasks weren't all limited to physical activity. Students were given tasks like creating, presenting, etc. If a student can't be physically active to the level as other students, they can still participate by doing other activities within the activity. By being active, it is not limited to physical activity, Fish just wanted to give her readers different resources to teach children how to move in different aspects.

By giving students freedom to "move around," do they perform negatively in the other not so fun activities?

I think students would just look forward to the "moving around" activities. Different teaching styles should always be welcomed, and I think that in any activity there is room to "move around." I think a teacher should just be open minded to trying new innovative teaching methods, and to always think of how a lesson could improve and promote the most learning it can!

Technology Self Assessment: School 2.0

Completing NETS-T 3, I used the School 2.0 website, and I completed a quiz as a reflection tool to assess my current level of skill in technology integration.


I chose to investigate the Top 10 web 2.0 tools for young learners for the NETS-T Module: Model Digital-Age Work and Learning. In the article I found lots of new technology tools for young learners as well as for myself. While exploring Kerpoof I found that young learners are able to do many creative activities set for their age group online, while also learning important web browsing tools for their future. Voki was also a great tool to use to get students involved by giving them the chance to create their own talking avatars to use on blogs, profiles, and email messages. A site called Create A Graph was also included, but seemed to be not as exciting and creative as Voki or Kerpoof. The simplicity of YackPack, looks like it gives educators a simple easy way to communicate and is user friendly so many can not be clouded by the difficulties of widgets and such. It seems to be like a group in Twitter, but its a group chat with pictures! While browsing Animoto I realized how easy technology is becoming for all, and that making creative slideshows or videos isn't as hard as you might think! Other Web 2.0 tools for young learners were mentioned, like skype, blogs and wikis, but these were the most beneficial for me. If we can teach young learners how to use these, then they will be properly educated, and be able to use technology for many different purposes.

Journal 4: "It's Time to Trust Teachers with the Internet"

Schaffhauser, D. (2010, December 1). It's time to trust teachers with the internet: a conversation with meg ormiston. Retrieved from http://thejournal.com/Articles/2010/12/01/Its-Time-To-Trust-Teachers-with-the-Internet-A-Conversation-with-Meg-Ormiston.aspx?sc_lang=en&Page=1

In this interview, Meg Ormiston cannot stress the importance of giving teachers access to more Web 2.0 tools in schools, and for schools to let up their firewalls. She states that students are excited to interact with other students by using new technology, and that teachers are getting frustrated because they are being pressured to use 21st Century technology, and then being banned to do so. Students have access to these tools on their phones and at home, but they aren't being taught how to appropriately use them in an education sense because schools are blocking them from existence. Ormiston feels strongly that this vicious circle created is not beneficial to either the student or the educator. Both are left in the dark; one is uneducated, and one is educated with no where to go.

If firewalls were let up in all schools around the country, how would we know that all of the educators would even be knowledgeable enough to handle the new responsibility?

This would cause problems for teachers who have been teaching for a good amount of time, because most teachers who are the most knowledgable about Web 2.0 tools are the ones who new. Districts would have to make it mandatory for their teachers to be educated by teaching them how to use new technology to their advantage. This may cause trouble considering that some teachers may be against it, and wouldn't want to spend extra time learning it either.

With negative views on social networking sites all over the news, would parents be supportive with the use of Web 2.0 tools for their children?

I think the same problem with parents being skeptical about the new technology is the same problem educators have (hence the blocking). If districts let their parents know EXACTLY how their students will be using these tools, it could change their views on it, and even make them a little more educated on their use. I think educators, parents, and students all need to be in this together and have to be open to using Web 2.0 tools for their advantage. The hard part is proving that there is an advantage to using these tools for those who are in the dark about them!

Journal 3: 100 Things That Make Me Happy

1. Getting flowers on Valentine's Day <3
2.When my boyfriend visits me at work
3.My family
4.My boyfriend
5.Disneyland
6.Heath Bars
7.Victoria's Secret Sales
8.Traveling
9.Airplane Food (weird I know)
10.Holding kittens
11.Weddings
12.Going to church
13.Popsicle on a hot day
14.Being tan
15. The beach
16.Laughing until my tummy hurts
17.Spending time with close friends
18.Smoked salmon on my salad
19.Making people happy
20.Playing Text Twist with my boyfriend
21.Doing old cheers from high school with my best friend
22.Blue Moon
23.Reading a good book
24.Hammocks
25.When my boyfriend sits by me on the couch
26.Getting to know old people
27.Pasta
28.Making new friends
29.Painting
30.Figuring things out on Word
31.Pedicures
32.Trees
33.Full tank of gas
34.My map app on my iphone
35.Cheerleading
36.Flashlights
37.Hikes
38.Waterfalls
39.New Boots
40.White Chocolate Mocha
41.Christmas
42.Blankets
43.Fair food
44.Re-runs of old shows
45.Australia
46.Top 40 songs
47.Dancing
48.Seashells
49.Poems
50.Free things
51.Home cooked meals
52.Naps
53.The Notebook
54.Forever 21
55.Hawaii
56.Skype
57.My dog, Bonnie
58.Getting paychecks that are bigger than you expected
59.Mexican food
60.Painting my nails
61.My best friends
62.Spring flowers
63.Days when class gets canceled (sorry)
64.Guacamole
65.Smoothies
66.Turtles
67.First kisses
68.Spicy things
69.MAC makeup
70.Snickers
71.Old jokes that are still funny
72.Seeing whales
73.Music videos
74.Hot tea
75.When I turn my pillow over at night to the cold side
76.Deep conversations
77.Clean laundry
78.Finding money in my pockets
79.Holding hands
80.Finding a good quote
81."Living life" moments
82.Trying new food
83.Giving good advice
84.Gift certificates
85.New school supplies
86.Massages
87.Self help books
88.Being my mother's daughter
89.When someone tells me I'm pretty
90.Falling asleep to the ocean
91.Finding something new out about yourself
92.Talking with R's as W's
93.Eating breakfast
94.Quality time
95.Cranberry juice and sprite mixed
96.Praying
97.Family Pictures
98.Dreaming
99.Flossing my teeth
100.Enjoying the simplicity of life:)

Journal 2: Join the Flock and Enhance Your Twitter Experience

Ferguson, H. (2010). Join the flock. Learning and Leading with Technology, 37(8), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/issues/Join_the_Flock.aspx

In "Join the Flock," Ferguson outlines many educational tools for the use of the social networking site, Twitter. She explains that a PLN (Personal Learning Network) on Twitter can be beneficial to educators for sharing and learning from each other. She then explains how to set up a Twitter account, and that you can do many awesome things with it, like follow people who have the same interests as you, or enter into a specific topic chat by use of the # key. She also outlines Twitter vocabulary that one can use when starting Twitter. For example:

• Twaffic: Traffic on Twitter.
• Tweeple: Twitter users.
• Tweeps: Your PLN followers.

These are just a few Twitter terms that she outlined, but she also gave definitions to more important things like how to follow someone on Twitter, how to microblog, and how to reweet something that someone has already posted. She explains that Twitter may be overwhelming at first, especially to non-social networking site users, but gives confidence that anyone can use Twitter effectively with enough time and patience.

How can you know that you will be getting strictly educational information? Aren't there a lot of personal tweets that get in the way?

Ferguson explains that there are many kinds of tweets that people tweet on Twitter. She proposes that to avoid mixing personal tweets with work related educational tweets, one should make many different usernames on Twitter, so that they can have separate accounts for different purposes. One can also avoid mixing the two by being selective in the people they follow and the chats they participate in.

Twitter seems to be very new age, and is only limited to 140 characters a tweet, is it really that effective?

Because Twitter is limited to 140 characters, it helps people get their information faster. There isn't long descriptions or essays that one has to filter through to get what they want. The point of Twitter is to get and share information fast, and the more effective Tweets are those that give out links to learning modules or information that one wants to share. It's a tool that is used for quickly getting and sharing information, and 140 characters is just enough space to do so. One can also do multiple tweets if their first tweet wasn't good enough too!

Journal 1: Do Web 2.0 Right by Daniel Light

Light, D. (2011). Do web 2.0 right. Learning and Leading With Technology, 5(38), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/digital-edition-december-january-2010.aspx

In the article by Daniel Light, I found his findings about using web 2.0 tools in the classroom beneficial and interesting. It made me think of the ways I would use technology in my classroom when I become a teacher, how I can creatively keep my students engaged with them without over doing it, and also how I would create a classroom community on and offline. Before reading this article I thought that using things like classroom blogs would only be possible in higher learning aspects, such as college classrooms, but now I am starting to realize that students as young as elementary age are learning how to navigate online. I also had no idea how much technology is already being used in primary and secondary schooling, and that the world is becoming an online community in more areas than one.

Do you think that using Web tools in the classroom will create more of a status separation? Will all students be able to successfully access these online tools?

This was something that came to mind when reading the article. What if I use an online blog and assign homework for students and one of my students does not have a computer accessible at home, or access to internet at home? This seems like it would be a problem because if the student did not have access to the internet at home, then he or she would not be able to to create something for my classroom if not all students couldn't participate in some activities that other students could, and this could create more separation between students than need be. I would never want participate equally.

In the article Light proposed the concern that teachers need to use their online tools in a way to promote communication both on and off line with students. Do you agree that all these online tools such as blogs can successfully do that?

This was another topic that concerned me throughout the whole article. In this class I believe that our personal blogs have been used in a positive way, and that it also creates a tighter in person community. I have been able to read things about students that I probably would have never known if we did not blog. It's nice to understand students and connect with them once you have seen their personal creativity into use. As adults, I think that we have been limited to our amount of "fun" and "creative" aspects in schooling, and I think that blogging has helped bring that side out in us. I believe that if done right, using web tools in the classroom can create even a stronger classroom offline community bond.