Special Assignment- Mr. McClung's World

Mr. McClung is an 8th grade History teacher in Arkansas. He is in his 3rd year of teaching. He loves to incorporate technology is the classroom as much as possible. He is also a huge sports fan and coaches cross county at the school he works at. As an educator I think he is one that exemplifies how technology should be used in the class room. I think he cares a lot about teaching students. I think that his students is the primary focus. As required I read the class room rules and I must say they are very different. However, I do like them and think they are a great set of rules to have. I never understood why teachers always wanted students to be quiet in the class room. I like how he lets the students know that they must communicate. I think these rules show that he is a very involved teacher and he wants his students to be involved as well. I think everyone needing a calender is very important. Obviously Mr. McClung is VERY organized, by having a daily planner it will help the students become organized. Students need to know how to prioritize their time. I think that Mr. McClung's penalties for homework being late is a little harsh, however, it helps the student learn how to be on time with their work. It will eventually help them for when they get to college. I think that he is doing a wonderful job. his teaching strategies are the best that I read about so far. Many teachers get away from the fact that students learn differently. I think Mr. McClung on the other hand is a great addition to the education system. I only hope that I can be as affective of a teacher as he is.
For my C4K I Lesson Learned 2: Club Activities. I think my child name was Tyler but they had a day each week called club activity. During this time the students would complete their activity. The activity was wii sports. This was a great idea for the students and teachers because it gave the students time to bond, relax, and engage in a positive way. It allowed the students to have a more laid back day and enjoy the students engaging positively.
Mr.McClung's blog is very useful and helpful for teachers, administrator's, parents and students. It allows everyone to see what the classroom is like. It also helps everyone know what is going on in the class room. It keeps everyone updated. Essentially the class blog is an open book to the class room. I think the reason why Mr. McClung's blog is different is because he doesn't mind sharing his ideas with others. He wants others to see what he is doing and wants to show them it can be done. I think its more of him taking a chance to let people know that changes in education is necessary. I think he is not afraid to show what his is doing in the classroom and I thank him for that.

Project 14 Teach Someone Something

Blog Post 11

First Graders is Ms. Casidy's Class. I thought this video was too cute but it showed a plethora of techonlogy. There were smart boards, laptops, computers, projectors, camera's and headphones. I was very suprised that these were only FIRST GRADERS!!!! They are to be very smart and technology savvy. Blogs in first grade is amazing!! Very different from when I was in first grade (coloring, matching, etc). I love that they use the technology at a first grade level, It is very age appropriate. I love how they use skype to talk to other classrooms. That is such a great idea. I think that in my class room I would like to use blogs and skpye. I think as a soon to be science teacher it will be very helpful to my classroom. I think technology has a very huge part in science and should be interesting and exciting to use. I think skype would be great to use as a prohect mechanism and blogs as a daily or weekly diary. If given the resources I would love to incorporate the things we learn in EDM 310 in my classroom.

Blog Post 10

When I finished reading Morgan Boya post i agreed qith her. The way students are learning these days is not helping. If anything it is harming the students. We can not use teaching styles from over a hundred years ago to teach the students of 2011?? It doesn't make sense. And for colleges and universities to be the same way. How do we expect to get ahead when we are still going backwards?? I thought Dan Brown's video was exciting. he explain s how the way WE teach today is not affective. We must change our learning styles in order to become better educators. Edm 310 is a great example of the type of learning not just college students should receive but middle schoolers and up. Every one should be allowed to participate in their learning. By doing you learn more because it helps you know if you know what your doing or not. And when you make a mistake it allows you to learn from it. I think the way Dan portrayed this information in the video was very entertaining. I think more people should watch and learn from this.

Tom Johnson's Don't Let Them Take the Pencils Home! I thought was a great read. It was a great message as well. I thought it was great to focus on how to alternativelty handle the "pencil" situation. I think that the message this gives is that you should not always place blame nor should you try to take away from a child, but learn how adjust the situation or compromise to where it is beneficial for the child.

Blog Post 9

As I read Mr. Clung's post I began to smile. As an employee in a highschool setting and a soon to be teacher I could not agree with his post more. I really appreciated the insight from his expeirences. As it is coming to a year of me in education I must say that teachers do get away from their purpose as to why they got into education. Many have forgotten that it is all about the student because with out them the teachers wouldn't have a job. Many have forgotten that what the student thinks does matter. Also many have forgotten how to communicate with the staff and the students. I like the poin that Mr. McClung made when he said you must know your audience (the students). I think this is very important because it helps you as a teacher with your teaching style because students learn differently. Furthermore knowing your students make them feel important and know that if no one cares, you do! I think this will help us future teacher a lot, this is something that we do not learn in the classroom. I think that he has learned a lot in his firt year of teaching and to admitt his faults shows that he wants to be a better teacher. I wish him the best of luck and I hope I learn as much as he did in my first year of teaching.

Summary of C4T #3

My teacher was Tyler Rice. The first post I commented on was ttitled "It is better to burn out than fade away". He took this phrase from Kurt Cobain. This post was about how he feels about his place in education. I think that this post explained a lot of the things he was doing in education and wanted to do. He applied for and received an entrepreneurial award from the WWashington STEM. He has applied for a lot of grants so that he can get better resources to teach with, however, he does the best he can with the resources he has. He believes working hard towards a goal is important but it the goal can not be reached that he believes it is better to move on than to burn out doing something that is not going to work.

The next post from Mr. Rice was how he feels about his blog. He wants his blog to go in a different direction. he has been writing informative, persuasive, or motivational blogs, but now he wants to write reflective blogs. He hopes that he doesn't lose his followers but choosing to make this sudden change. I think that as long as he is happy with what he does than that its most important. You cant always please everyone. You have to please yourself first, you have to know who you are.