Blog Post 8 and C4T #4

C4T #4: Google Block Party
Hi, my name is Anna Dumas, and I am a student at the University of South Alabama under professor Dr. Strange. I will be commenting on three of your posts over a week's time. The Google party seems like it was a bunch of fun, but what was the goal of it? I am uncertain as to what ISTE is and would be interested in hearing more about it, and how you will be using Google Earth and the new information balloon template in your lessons. Please feel free to take a look at my blog if you have time.

What I've Learned This Year: Hi, I'm Anna Dumas. I just read your post as an assignment in Dr. Strange's EDM 310 class. Thank you so much for sharing your 1st year teacher experience. It is so nice to hear that all first year teachers struggle, and that teaching students isn't easy peasy. Your topics of what you learned were great points to talk about because they are important for all teachers to work on. The best one, I think was to remember to continue to learn. I feel like students are more motivated to learn about a subject if the teacher shows them that they are willing to learn more about the subject than they might already know. Learning along with the students calms nerves, and shows the student that if the teacher can do it so can they. I plan on continuing to follow your blog so keep the information coming.
You can contact me on my class blog

Instructional Timetoast and Blog 7

Carnegie Mellon:

This video was well worth the watch! I have always been a huge fan of Disney World, and the Disney Imagineer, and animation studios. To hear how passionate Dr. Pausch was, and is, even in his last days of life, about learning in a way that is 100% fun was awesome. I agree with him that having fun while learning is the only way to do it so that what you learn sticks with you forever. Learning through having fun builds relationships, memories, and ensures a well-rounded education for students. If learning isn't fun for the student then the things we hear from them today like "Why do we have to learn this?", and "Why is this subject so important anyway, I'm bored!", will be very accurate, legit things for them to voice. Learning must be, must be fun or else it is pointless and a failed attempt to teach by the professor. I love the idea of the Alice Project software as a tool to help students of all ages to learn computer programming and java script. I'll admit, I hate having to learn about how computers' innards work in the traditional boring ways of reading websites, and Google searching, these ways are not fun for me. I would much rather the internet be set up in an almost imaginary world setting that was interactive and colorful and interesting. I say this, and I'm a college student but age has no boundaries for fun! Look at Dr. Pausch, he is in his last days of life, and the man is full of fun. His whole hour long speech was a fun roller coaster if you will. He started off with jokes, and interjected throughout his whole speech to keep the audiences attention. Throughout the whole lecture I kept my interest in what he was going to say next. Another thing he spoke about was to be encouraged when you hit a brick wall in your life. "Brick walls let us prove how badly we want things." This is such a great quote, and it is also such an incredible truth. When students and teachers alike hit brick walls in life, if they are really passionate about what they want when they hit said brick wall, then it is so very important to find a way around the wall if it is truly a goal in your life that you are dying to reach. Otherwise, the goal wasn't that important after all and you move on to other things. However, Dr. Pausch I feel thinks it is very important to look beyond brick walls in our lives and strive to the best that you can to achieve your goals. You never know how important your knowledge is going to be to another student or colleague, and if you don't have a positive, fun attitude toward what you are teaching, I believe it is fair to say that the student won't either.

Audacity recording:

C4T #3

Learn Central

I loved this helpful learning tool website! I was like an index for finding just what you need if you have a problem that is “how-to” related! It is great to know that there is one web-site dedicated to directed in me to the help tools I need for every learning problem. Each link listed on the site had such great ideas and solutions to every problem imaginable!