Thing #4

Commenting is very important in the online community. Even while in college, in my online classes, we have to comment on discussion posts made by other students. I find it bothersome when people do not comment in a method that shows that they understand or 'hear' the other students post. We are not commenting just to comment, we need to agree, reinforce, disagree or argue with a blog posting. For this posting, I commented on seven blogs to include:

Emily Sehi:
Emily discussed commenting in her Thing #4 post. I commented on her post because her blog is very inviting and easy to follow because of her use of screenshots, pictures, and links.

Rachel Funderburk:
I commented on Rachel's posting for Thing #3 because she agreed with many things I had posted in my own blog. I love how she is planning to bring blogging into her classroom. I also enjoy the background of her blog, it seems very academic.

Amber Law:
With the very cool background image and use of transparency modules, Amber's blog connected with me before I ever started to read her posts. I initially went to her blog because she had commented on mine, showing the importance of commenting. I commented on her Thing #3 post because of her inviting first paragraph. She had a very good message in the posting, but with the first paragraph, she hooked the reader.

James Harris:
I also commented on James' blog with his Thing #2 post. I commented on it because, although similar to others, I liked how he modeled his avatar after himself. His avatar has a coffee cup, which seems like I am notorious for when I am on campus. Also, with his blog, he reminded me that even though we have the ability to use various colors, backgrounds, transparent variations, and pictures, sometimes black font on white background is best and easiest to read.

Megan Singleton:
With a similar academic background as Rachel's, I also initially went to Megan's blog because she commented on mine first. I commented on her Thing #4 post. She had a easy to follow posting that contained a lot of information so I am using that style for this posting. Also in Megan's posting, she mentioned commenting on her cousin's blog and that lead me to my next comment.

Andrea Brewster Photography:
After following Megan's comments, I found my self on Andrea's photography page. I was caught up by the talent evident in her photography. I think it is important to let artist know that what they do is appreciated. Sometimes artist do work for no compensation and encouraging the ones that connect with you (similar to blogging) will give them the motivation to keep doing the good work.

Politics by Justin:
Finally I found Justin's blog page (actually I found it before doing this assignment earlier this week) and his blogs really connect with me. He has strong political beliefs as do I. I had read his postings before but because of this assignment, I decided to go back to his blog and actually comment on something. I then noticed how the comments that Justin gets on his blog are both negative and positive. However, I also noticed that he replies to many of his commentators. He has over 3,000 followers on facebook but on a posting, he only had about 5 commentators. More people should comment on blogs that they like or disagree with.

Thing #3

How can I use blogs in my future classroom? I would assume the possibilities are unlimited but I could only think of a few. One way, I could use it to bring the classroom to the parents. Although not all parents are always there for their child's education, I want to make sure I make it easy for the ones that want to be involved to do so. When I was in High School (private school) there were many parents that wanted to be involved in the students education and I think a Teacher's Blog forum would have been very nice. For myself, I would think blogging daily or a few times a week regarding the 'goings-on' of the classroom would help to keep parents involved. Also, another thought that I had, would be to use a blog to supplement the classroom lesson. I think, since my subject would probably be History or Government, that after specific lessons, to have links to videos or websites regarding today's government or laws and have students comment on those. I think students would be more apt to go home and watch a Youtube.com video about a topic and to write a short blog on it than to answer 50 questions from the end of the chapter. Either way, there are lots of good educational stuff on the web that we may not be able to show (Youtube.com videos for example) during class that can be used as homework. Instead of using 15 or 20 minutes of class time on a video, spend that time with the students doing peer-to-peer activities and have them watch the video at home. Technology has come a long way and there are many ways we can use it to benefit the children of the classroom.

Thing #2

Creating this blog and Avatar was a simple task for me. I know how to read and write. Blogging is something that I experimented with but, because I have difficulty sounding professional or creating coherent ideas on paper, when I blog it usually became a fruitless effort. In non-professional settings, I did usually blog on Myspace.com and other social sites where friends and acquaintances would read and comment. Regarding the naming of my blog, I, for the most part, am a very basic person; therefore, when I create new things, I usually create the most basic and simple title. My experience with creating this blog was not hard. I found it to be easy. Although I have not used the updated "Blogger" site, most websites work similarly. I found that I was helping other students more with the site than I thought I would have for a class at this level. My avatar was suppose to look similar to me. My hair is usually short, except when I have a really busy month, and most of the time I am listening to music with my big headphones. If there was an 'extra accessory' it would definitely be a coffee or Starbucks cup.

Thing #1

Learning about the "7 1/2 Habits for Lifelong Learners" was interesting for me. Although I had some difficulty with the link in the original blog, I explored on my own to find out more information about this topic.Many of these habits, I now notice that I, personally, do without thinking about it. One of these that seems to be easy for me is Habit 6 - Use Technology to your advantage. Growing up in the quickly growing technological age, I had to learn about technology at an early age. Technology has always been on of my strengths and I use the internet, documentaries, and other technologies to try to broaden my knowledge about things that interest me. I think technology will be a very valuable resource in the classroom when I begin to start teaching. One of the habits that I found to be the hardest to follow is probably Habit 1 - Begin with an end in mind. Usually when I begin to research a topic or take the time to learn about something new, I do not usually have a purpose for doing so unless it was required by classwork. Most of the time I am watching documentaries, reading encyclopedias, or looking up information on the internet just because I can. When I start teaching, I will need to learn that having 'an end in mind' will not only help myself in the learning process, but will also be valuable habit for the students.