C4K Summary for February

C4K #1 2/8/2015

My first C4K post was for Kaleb. Kaleb is very into sports. His blog post was about a book he had recently read about Lebron James. He found Lebron very interesting, so I told Kaleb how great is was to read biographies about people that we find interesting! You can read his blog by clicking on this link: Kaleb T's Blog! My comment to Kaleb's blog was: Hello, Kaleb! My name is Shelby Begley and I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama.  Your post is great!  That is awesome that you are enjoying this book about Lebron James.  Biographies are great ways to learn more about people that we find interesting.  Keep up the great work, Kaleb!


C4K #2 2/15/2015

My second C4K was for Megan. Megan's post was about a personal experience. Sometimes it can be tough to share stories such as hers, but I was glad that she decided to share so I could read it! I could relate to these tough times, so I made sure to express that to her when I was commenting. You can read her post by clicking on her link: Megan B's Blog! My comment to Megan's blog was: Megan, My name is Shelby Begley and I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. Thank you so much for sharing this story. I know that it sometimes it can be hard to share stories that have to do with difficult times in your life. I can relate to these hard times you have experienced. I have also lost many people close to me. It is great to have family there with you during tough times. Their love will help you through anything. Keep your head up, Megan!

C4K #3 2/22/2015

My third C4K was for Ava. Ava wrote about Lemony Snicket. Ava is an amazing writer and I really enjoyed reading her post. You can read this great post right here: Ava's Blog! My comment to Ava's blog was: Hey Ava! My name is Shelby Begley and I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I loved your post! It was very well written and it held my attention the whole time. Lemony Snicket books are always so interesting! I cannot wait to hear more from you. Keep up the great work!


C4K #4 2/27/2015

My fourth C4K was for Kaleb. I commented on Kaleb's blog for my first C4K, also. Since he loves sports so much, he chose to write about them once again! This post was about the book "Coach Carter." Kaleb expressed his interest in the story as he summarized the book. His post on "Coach Carter" can be found at: Kaleb T's Blog! My comment to his post was: Hello, Kaleb! My name is Shelby Begley and I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama.  I really enjoyed reading your post! I am a big fan of basketball!  I love the Coach Carter story, also!  It is very admirable what he does for his players.  He teaches them responsibility as well as respect for themselves and their futures.  I think you did a great job writing about this book!!  Keep up the awesome work, Kaleb!

Blog Post #6

Project Based Learning:

After watching these videos, I started realizing how valuable all of this information could be for my future. The first two videos,Project Based Learning Part 1: Experiences of a 3rd Grade Teacher and Project Based Learning Part 2: Experiences of a 3rd Grade Teacher, really explained how PBL (Project Based Learning) is showcasing the act of learning. Anthony Capps goes into detail about how PBL is not simply showing what a student learned, but it is really a form of learning. I enjoyed Mr. Capps explaining what goes into an appropriate project. This was broken down in a way that I feel is helpful for students like myself. The components of a successful project are: student interest, community involvement (when necessary), authentic audience, and the project must be content driven. The "content driven" section of a project is what I feel most people tend to lack in. These components will drive students to work harder and dive into projects to show their full potential. As a future educator, that is all I can ask of my students.

The third video I watched was iCurio. This was the first time I had heard of iCurio. This is an educational search engine geared towards students. The interesting thing about iCurio is that it acts like a normal search engine, but it filters the results for educational purposes. Along with filtering for educational purposes, iCurio also stores content that a student finds valuable for their studies. This tool is very helpful when it comes to learning about virtual storage and organization, which is very important to me. Also, iCurio is geared towards younger children, so it is very useful in elementary classrooms. The content blocking aspect of this tool is key for elementary aged students. I would love to use iCurio in my future classrooms. Watching Discovery Education made me very interested in learning more. I am such a visual learner, and having visuals has always helped me to grasp a concept much faster than whenever a visual is not present. Anthony Capps uses a great example with his students. He encouraged his students to use Discovery Education with a project they were doing on plants. With this tool, students will be able to look closely at the differences in the plants and watch informative videos on the plants as well!

The Anthony-Strange list of Tips for Teachers Part 1 listed tips that all teachers should strive to do. Some of the tips are:

1: Teaching never ends
2: Be flexible and engaging
3: Reflect on your work and revise
4: Learning is constant
5: Have a goal


Don't Teach Tech- Use it explains the importance of technology with education. The video stresses that technology should be used as an aid with teaching, but that technology is not what they need to be taught. The students do need to be taught how to use the technology, but they should be taught one tool at a time. In Additional Thought About Lessons, Anthony Capps explained the four components that are required to make a lesson complete. These components are: daily plan, week plan, year plan, and unit plan.

My Sentence Videos

My Passion Is...





My Sentence Is...

Presentation Project #3

Blog Post #5

Personal Learning Networks

In Project Six- Developing a Personal Learning Network, a Personal Learning Network is defined as "those people, places, organizations, and activities which enable you to learn. When people start building their PLN's, they will make connections that will continue for the rest of their lives. The amazing part about PLN's, is that they never stop growing. Once you make that connection with a few people, you can connect with the people they are connected with, and so on. I have already started making PLN's with my EDM 310 class. We were put into groups and now I communicate with my group every week.

I thought a very accurate description of how well PLNs work was discussed by Michael Fawcett. His video, PLN- Michael Fawcett Offers His Insights, explains some very good points about Personal Learning Networks. He talks about how he sent out a question on Twitter that his student had about Neil Armstrong, and within 30 minutes, he had an answer. The most amazing part is that this definitive answer came from NASA. That is such an amazing example of how helpful PLN's, and today's technology, can be.

C4T #1

My C4T teacher for this assignment was Eric Langhorst's 2014 MSTA Convention - Flipping the Classroom and Google Tools. This blog post was very interesting to me. Eric talks about "flipping the classroom." This is an interesting concept for 21st century teaching. This concept brings activity to a classroom. Flipping the classroom gives students more time during class to do learning activities together. This requires them to do a little more work outside of the classroom so that there is more time for the instructor to go around and answer questions during classroom activities. My comment to Eric on his blog was: Dr. Langhorst, My name is Shelby Begley and I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. Before reading your blog post, I had heard a little information about flipping the classroom. After reading through your post and watching the videos, I have become very interested in this teaching style! I think this is a great way to become more interactive with your students, as well as teach them more. This a style that my EDM instructor has applied to this class. I like the idea of being able to go into my future classroom and spend more time helping my students learn in a hands-on style. I do think that this could become slightly more difficult for Kindergarten, which is the grade I want to teach. I would definitely have to find a way to adapt this teaching style for students at that age. Thank you for sharing this blog, it was very informative!



In Eric Langhorst's blog, Augmented Reality App Brings History Alive at Kansas City's Union Station, he talks about using an application that allows students to use their smart phones on a field trip to Union Station. The app is supposed to make history come alive using augmented reality. My comment to Eric on his blog was: Applications are resources that I feel that students find interesting and fun. They allow students to learn in an "out of the box" setting. I also believe that any time you can allow students to use their phones for learning you should. Some teachers see the idea of using phones and technology in a learning environment as negative that they do not use them to their fullest potential. Thank you for sharing!

Project #15

Search Engines

WolframAlpha
WolframAlpha is a new search engine for me. I had never heard of it before doing this project. WolframAlpha is a website that is extremely helpful for any problems that fall under the math and science categories. I started typing in math problems, and it would solve it for me right on the spot! This search engine would have been extremely useful to me in all of my math classes! WolframAlpha will definitely be under my favorites on my computer now.

WOW
Since WOW is enhanced by Google, they run the same type of way. I looked through this site a little and I definitely would not use it. My computer did not even want me to continue onto this website. After looking around, the information does not seem very credible. I would not suggest using this website.

Yahoo!
Yahoo! is a search engine that many people use today. This search engine is a very general one in the sense that any question can be typed in and Yahoo! will direct you to the website you need to continue onto. Yahoo's homepage serves more as a news site than other search engine's homepages. Yahoo! is still a powerful search engine. Although it is not my first choice, it has proven to be very successful in my past research.

Bing
Bing is a newer search engine. It has become very popular in the past few years. The main use I have had for Bing is image searching. They always seem to have better images and more of a selection than other search engines. Bing also helps bring the people in your social networks together. They help you spend "more time doing."

Ask
Ask is a search engine that serves more as a "question and answer" type engine. I do not usually use this search engine because I never feel as if the answers are totally correct. This would only be a search engine that I use to look up answers not related to academics.

Dictionary
Dictionary is a search engine that I honestly never thought of as a "search engine." It is definitely a search engine that I use very often though! I always find myself going to this website and looking up how to spell words or the definition. This is an amazing search engine for academic purposes. Dictionary gives you everything you could ask for when looking up a word: the definition, the word's origin, and many more. I recommend this search engine to every student and teacher.

YouTube
YouTube is a very popular search engine for videos. Virtually every video is at the tip of your fingers through this search engine. As I have gotten older, I have started using YouTube for academic purposes. This search engine is vital in classes such as EDM 310. Through this search engine, we can create and share our own videos, or learn through viewing other people's videos.

DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is a new search engine to me. I found that it does not track you, so it gives you privacy while you search. After looking through this site, I learned that I really like it. If you type in a word such as "dog," it gives you more definitions than you could ever imagine the word had. This search engine seems to give credible sources and answers, so I would use it again!