PLNweek-8 post-15

The title of a post called "Not Your Parents' Parent-Teacher Conference" caught my eye so I started to read it. In this blog by Karl Fisch it was saying how teachers are frusterated with how conferences are handled. He was saying how it seems like all these parents are focused is the grade and not the actual learning, I believe this as well.

Though my mom was unable to go the conference when she does go she thinks that it can sometimes be a waste of time. Experiences in the past have been my mom goes sits down, the teacher pulls out the grade book name some missing assignments maybe show a project or two and then it's on to the next teacher. All of that information my mom could have found on line or in my binder so that was a pretty pointless "conference". That's is why I was very releived to hear that other teachers felt this same way.

As Mr. Fisch mentioned my teacher Ms. Smith tried something different this year to actually try and make these meetings more meaningful. She had us write up a response to our learning, some goals we would like to achieve (not just grade wise) and a letter to our parents. Our parents would then take this to the conference and this is what they would discuss. I think that this made a huge difference and really acheived the real point of these conferences.

PLNweek-6post-14

I decided to look into a little more on filtering. So that is why I read and article called, "Even More on Filtering" it obviously was going into more depth and discussion on filtering. I recently had a project in my English class where we made our own wikis. I wanted to put a video on our page but because of the filtering blocks I was unable to do so. I don't think that my grade suffered from this but I think it deffinately could have been improved if I had this vidoe on my project. That was just one of those times where filtering yet againn blocked and denied me from education. It wasn't a tragic loss of information but it was quite bothernsome to not be able to add a simple video. This is why I think they should cut down on filtering, but just still continue to block the un needed sites like Facebook, and Myspace. Filtering student computers can be positve, but it can also at times get in the way of learning.

PLNweek-6 post-13

In an article I read called “Are You Ready to Grow? What’s Holding You Back?” by: Mrs. Parsons, it was talking about how there is too much information out there for our brains to understand. This made me think a lot about how much the human brain is actually capable of. Mrs. Parsons was saying things like how the knowledge of this world surpasses that of the human mind. So then I thought well, who put that information there…yes us! The humans with supposedly their tiny minds. Now I don’t think that Mrs. Parson was trying to say that we are all stupid and oblivious to the fast pace of knowledge in our world but there are others who would say that.

I personally think that we have not yet succeeded to come to see the full capability of our own brain. I believe that the human mind is an infinite source of knowledge and can never really be at its full potential. Now that may seem very confusing and I even confuse my self but think about it, how can we really know how smart we can be if we are never as smart as we can be? Wow. Why would our minds have a little meter of how much it can contain and when that meter hits the top its time to empty. No, I don’t believe that at all. The tough thing is that we are the most intelligent species on earth. We can see how smart a dog perhaps, can be, because we are dominant over them, but there is no one dominant over us that can tell us how smart we can be. No one on this earth at least.

I personally believe in God, and with that I believe that he created us and our minds. So, why would he put a limit on that mind? Some people say that technology is now “passing” us in intelligence. I don’t understand where they would come up with that idea. To me God made us, how can we be smarter then him? Well we can’t, it’s the same thing with technology; we created it, so how could it possibly be smarter than its creator?!

Another thing that ticks me off is when people say they aren’t as smart as someone else. Aren’t we all an equal race? So how on earth could someone else truly be more intelligent than another person. Yes they may contain more knowledge, at that moment, but if the other person really tried they could be just as smart. None of us have come to the full capability of our own minds like I said before I believe that our minds are infinite. Is that a good thing? Or a frightening thing knowing that we can be as brilliant as we want! What comes along with that kind of power? Well, I honestly have no idea but that’s what the future holds.

PLNweek-6 post-12

In an article I read called “Supplementing my Kids" at http://weblogg-ed.com/2007/supplementing-my-kids-education, written by Will Richardson who is a concerned father that his kids aren’t getting as much education as possible. He feels that they are learning more things that are already passing us and not enough on what will really help them in the future. Though school has changed a lot over the years I feel that it may still be slacking a little in keeping up with our faster changing world.

Will also mentioned how many worksheets his kids get every week. I can totally relate to this. Sometimes it seems like we get worksheets just to keep us busy, teachers say they are practice, but then so is homework, and quizzes, and other class work. So is all we are ever doing is practice? That seems like very stagnant learning. All these worksheets and notes just seem like busy work, I hardly actually learn from them, getting answers from a book or notes doesn’t really help me.

Another thing he talked about how there is a lack of connecting in schools. So much of our work is individual and tedious. When I personally learn the most is when I react to others, and discuss with others. Sometimes this doesn’t always work because there will always be those kids who don’t want to participate, and will just do what everyone else is saying, and just copy other kids answers. But that’s their own decision not to learn, and engage themselves in the discussion or work.

PLNweek-5Post-11

For my PLN i read an article called "Doctors Decisions" wich talked about a very tough subject. Of course a doctor is supposed to help its patient and ultimately making their life as long as healthy as possible. But in some certain tough situations it may be too late to save them. When I was reading this I thought of when people are on life support. I really dont think that people on life support are really living a life at all. If you know that this person has no life left then I think the best decision is to let them go. Keeping someone alive just so you don't have to loose them is wrong I think. This related to me, because recently I had a cat that had a stroke and could no longer walk. I really didn't want to put him down but I knew it was the right thing to do. Keeping him alive just so I wouldn't go through pain would be unfair. This is what I got from this powerful blog.

Reflection

I think i did pretty good in my presentation. From the responses I got I spoke clearly and didn't seem nervous. I think I could have looked up and not read so much from my paper. I went into good detail with all of my PLNs and connected it to myself. Next time I think I am going to try and speak a little louder and not be so dependent on my paper and trust that I memorized it well enough.

PLNweek-4post10

For my PLN I read an article called “More on Filtering” by Karl Fisch at Fischbowl.blogspot.com. It talked about whether or not it was a good idea to use filtering on school computers. When they mean filtering they are talking about blocking students from certain websites. At first I thought that this is a good idea because the sites that they are blocking we don’t really need anyways. They block things like Myspace, Face book and YouTube; those sites are more for social and entertainment purposes. Then I started to see what some other people thought about this and some made some good points. Avereel2011 said “We may not necessarily need to use these sights at the current moment, but sometime during the school year, we may want to add a video to enhance a project, but because of filtering, we would not be able to even view the video” I thought that this was a very interesting point because there are other ways to learn one of them including video, so is it possible that filtering is limiting us to our learning ability?

Then again if these things weren’t blocked I think students might more tempted to go on these sites and get off track. So I think that these sights should be off limits to students on a daily bases, but in some situations I think that the teachers should be able to “unblock” it and make these sights viewable maybe only from his/her computer, then block it again. Some kids that I know have already figured out how to get by this filtering system, so I think that there should be a password that only the faculty knows. Otherwise kids can get in, and teachers can not, and that ruins the whole idea of having these filters.

PLNweek-4post-9

Have you ever had a teacher that didn’t even know your name, even if you have been in that class for a whole semester? If you did, or maybe just had a teacher that never really cared to get to know you or connect with you, you probably didn’t trust them or talk to them that much. In an article titled “Speaking from the Soul” by Karl Fisch it talks about how important the relationship between a teacher and a student is.

I believe that this relationship is critically important for a child to succeed. I have noticed that the classes that I do the best in are the ones with the teachers I like the most, and those teachers that I like the most are the ones who talk and connect to me. They aren’t just there to get a paycheck. If I don’t know much about someone and they don’t care to know much about me, then why should I really listen or care to what they are saying?

In English we have done most of our projects basically about us, and our life. I think that it is extremely cool that Ms. Smith is trying to get to know us as more than just her students, or a letter in a grade book, but as people. She even does these “reality checks” with us just to see how we are that week. In one of my other classes though, my teacher hardly ever talks to the students personally unless it is about themselves, and can hardly remember anyone’s name… and we’ve been in school for how long? I understand that being a teacher is a hard enough job and taking the time to sit down and learn about every single one of your students is difficult, but if you put in some kind of effort it could make all the difference.

The relationship between a teacher and a student is very important for many of the reasons that I have stated. I truly believe that it helps in the learning experience. The more you trust a teacher the more you will want to go in and ask them questions and get help. Isn’t that what all of our teachers tell us? Is that they are here to help us become better learners, well knowing our names might be a good start!

PLNweek4-post8

I read an article called “School as a Node” and as I was reading this the author kept using the word “node”. Well, I had no idea what this word was so I looked it up and the definition I found was, “a centering point of component parts.” This still didn’t make a whole lot of sense but as I looked at some other definitions the idea I got from this word is that it’s a sort of joint of stable part that is linked to other moving parts that need the node to move.

As I read on in the article it started to talk about how school isn’t our only source of information and knowledge. I totally agree with this thought. Probably only 70 % what I learn comes from school, and that other 30 comes from everywhere else in life. For me I learn many important lessons from my family and friends. I learn determination and strength from exercising, I learn forgiveness and serving from church, love and care from my mom. So a lot of what I learn isn’t coming from the classroom.

In the world it is the same thing. Other kids and adults get their knowledge from other sources. Like sports and family like I mentioned, and work, for adults. When people limit themselves to just school they aren’t really getting all of the knowledge as possible. It’s like when I looked up the word “node” if I had limited myself to just one definition I wouldn’t have fully understand the word or probably the entire article.

PLNpost-7week-3

In an article called “Missing the Science of Teaching” written by; Diane Carmen it was saying how the subject of science seems to be ignored these days. Even though Science isn’t my favorite subject I can really understand where she is coming from. Sometimes we treat science as if it is an extra class.

Science is actually a really important subject to learn, even if you don’t plan on becoming a doctor, or a scientist. In my E.R.E class it seems as if we do more math than in my actual math class! Don’t we think math is important? In labs we always have to do a write up and explain what we saw and so on. Isn’t language arts a big part of our education too? So why do we think that science is just an “extra” class that is for some reason required to be in the curriculum?

In this statement here I think the author makes some really good points;

“O'Brien said that many Colorado kids had little or no science instruction in
elementary or middle school, "so it was no surprise when they would sit down
with a high-school counselor and say, 'No, I don't want to be doing science."'
We let 14-year-olds determine our future and created an epidemic of
scientific illiteracy in the process.
Now some of those once
science-challenged 14-year-olds are teachers, so it's no surprise that many
educators believe science can't be integrated into reading and math instruction.
"If the teachers are feeling allergic or uncomfortable or unsettled about
their own scientific knowledge, sure they will say, 'That's something we can
scuttle,"' O'Brien said. "At this point what we need is science education for
teachers." ”

The first thing she points out is that if we don’t make science seem important and the teachers don’t care, then the students won’t care either. Why should they? They already have teachers telling them that it’s not an important subject. But what happens when they want to get into a college and major in architecture. But in middle school and high school their teachers told them they wouldn’t really need science unless they wanted to be a scientist, well what about now? Then what is that kid going to do , either to back and learn science like it means something, or I guess try to find a different career choice.