C4K for April

First Comment:

Mrs. L's Awesome 7th Grade Class

Hi Braxton, 


I am student at the University of South Alabama in the College of Education. I really enjoyed reading your post! I am not a sports fanatic but I do enjoy watching baseball and football.I thought you did a great job at explaining the book without giving the ending away. I think it’s great that you want to read for fun! Reading helps strengthen your mind and keep it sharp. Keep up the good work! 



Thanks, 


Jesse Reed

First Summary:

Braxton did a great job summarizing the book he read, "The Big Field" by Mike Lupica. He summarized the book without giving away any of the really good parts! I can tell that he really enjoyed reading the book and that is an awesome thing. More students need to be excited about reading. It helps stimulate and keep your brain sharp. I thought that he had good grammar for a 7th grader as well. 

Second Comment:

Mackenna C's Blog

Mackenna, 

Happy late easter! I am a student at the University of South Alabama studying to be an elementary school teacher. That galactic egg looks pretty cool! I have never seen one before. I also got something for Easter too! I got basket full of candy and a shopping trip with my mom. Hope you enjoy your gifts!

Thanks for sharing, 

Jesse Reed

Second Summary:

For her blog post Mackenna talked about what she got for Easter. I just now realized that the galactic egg was a chocolate egg. I thought it was a toy! Anyway, Mackenna talked about how excited she was that she had received an Easter gift. There was not much writing in her post so I could not tell about her writing skills. She seemed very excited about her egg and the other candy that she received.

Third Comment:

Mrs. Gardner's Class

Hi Cayla,

I am a student at the University of South Alabama studying to be an elementary school teacher. That is an interesting choice of lunch for your teacher! I think if he were to eat that he would definitely get sick! I laughed pretty hard at the baby vomit! I can tell that you are very creative person. Keep up the good work Cayla!

Thanks,

Jesse Reed

Third Summary:

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Cayla's post. She came up with what she would feed to her teacher for lunch and I want to share it because it made me laugh. For salad she would serve him baby vomit, for soup it was blood soup, for the main course she would serve him worms ice cream, to drink it would be sea salt water, and then for dessert it would be raw eggs and raw fish! I could tell that she put some thought into her post and came up with some pretty creative items to feed to her teacher.

Blog Post #14

    For this blog post we were assigned to read Teaching Can Be a Profession by Joel Klein and list the problems and their solutions that Joel mentioned in his article and whether or not we agree with them.

Problem: Virtually anyone with a degree can become a teacher
Solution: Recruit from the top third of graduates

   I disagree and agree with him on this one. Recruiting from the top third of graduates would put a lot of people out of job. I know that we as teachers need to be held to a higher standard but requiring that teachers will only be hired if they are in the top third of their class is a little harsh. I know that my mother was a wonderful teacher and I bet that she was not in the top third of her class. I do agree however, that teachers need to be held to a higher standard. Makes me think of the saying, "those who can't teach". That is not true at all. However, I do think that schools should be as lenient when it come to who they accept into their education programs

Problem: Seniority (The most recently hired teachers are fired over the ones who have been at the school for a while regardless of performance)
Solution: Professionalize teaching so that excellence would be the guiding hallmark

    I totally and one hundred percent agree with this. This topic is something that has bothered me for years and I do not understand why it is in place. I know that when I start working at a school I am going to be so excited to try out new things with the students and try my best. Sometimes, older teachers are very set in their ways and longer try to be the best that they can be and try new things because they are comfortable and know that they are not going anywhere. I do not like the idea of tenure and I have pondered for a long time why all schools use this policy. As a result, the incompetent teachers are not able to be fired. 

  In conclusion, I love Joel Klein's idea of professionalizing teaching to an extent. I do believe that teachers should have higher standards but recruiting teachers that are in the top third of their class is maybe a little but too strict. Humans are human and we make mistakes. I know I have missed a couple of assignments in my college career and it has brought my grades down slightly. Recruiting from the top third really doesn't leave any room for human error, in my opinion. However, his idea to professionalize teaching is very innovative and I strongly agree with him on that. Cutting out the idea of seniority and hiring teachers that are well equip for the job is a great idea. 

C4T #3

First Comment

Hi Dean,

I am a elementary education student at the University of South Alabama in EDM 310 and I will be visiting your blog this week and again in two weeks. I am going to summarize my visits to your blog on my blog, reedjesseedm310.blogspot.com on April 4th! In EDM 310 it teaches us how to use technology in the classroom and why it is so important that we do. I agree with you that change needs to take place. I have learned that when technology is implemented in a classroom the students are able to take that learning into their own hands therefore making it more personal and geared toward their style of learning. I have also learned that a lot of teachers are not ready to make that change. The methods and techniques that teachers used 10 or more years ago are not going to work on the 21st century students. EDM 310 is teaching us that technology is a necessity for learning.

Thank you for sharing,

Jesse Reed

First Summary

In this post Dean talks about the changes that need to take place when it comes to the way that we teach. He says that 21st century technology should be implemented in the classroom as soon as possible.  He challenges teachers to change. His post touched on a couple of things thatthis classes really stresses. For example, the use of technology is necessary for students of today to become adequate learners

 Second Comment

Hi again Mr. Dean, 

I really glad that I chose this post to comment on and read because I am so excited and amazed at how much my personal learning network has grow since I started blogging and using technology. My professor requires us to comment on teacher's blogs and I have had different conversations with each of them and they have helped me grow and be more confident in the career path that I am choosing. I have had so many people tell me that teaching is going to be miserable and that I should do something else. I am happy to say that I am so excited to purse my teaching degree and be able to implement everything that I have learned about technology in my classroom!

Thank you for sharing, 

Jesse Reed

Second Summary

In this post, Dean shares his story of how he built up his personal learning network. He started constructing it when he made a Blog account and a special needs teacher that is very influential in the technology world commented on one of his posts. I feel like his story is similar to mine because through these C4T comments I have had every one of teachers i was assigned to comment something back. The comment was always helpful and encouraging and I love to hear from someone older than me and more well-established!

Blog Post #12

Blog Post #11

Back to the Future
In this video, Brian Crosby presented the "High Hopes" project that he did with his high risk students. The students were considered high risk because a lot of them were on free lunch and their parents were from foreign countries and the students could not speak English that well. Most of them did not know what country they were from. The "High Hopes" project was a project that incorporated Language Arts, Science, Art, English, even a little History. The students learned about how hot air balloons worked through science projects and blogging. I really enjoyed watching this video and thought that this project was extremely creative. The students even posted their high hopes online and then opened them up for the world to post their high hopes as well. I will defiantly be using this project in my classroom in the future.

Blended Learning Cycle
In this video Paul Anderson explains his learning cycle. It is comprised of six parts:
1. Question
2. Investigation/Inquiry
3. Video
4. Elaboration
5. Review
6. Summary Quiz

Making Thinking Visible
This was a short video by Mark Church explaining a little bit about what his book is about. He had his students get into small groups and discussed the early human beginnings. The students discussed the topic and then put a saying on a banner that was related to the topic. At the end of the project, the students got out their banners again and see if they had the same opinion or question. I like this idea because the students were able to see how much they learned and how their opinion changed.

Super Digital Citizen
This project was a great idea on how to teach digital courtesy and safety. The students in Sam Payne's 4th grade classroom created a superhero and a comic that helped in keeping the digital world safe. The students seemed very engaged and were very eager to share their projects. I really liked that the students were so interested about the project and sharing what they created and reading what the other students have come up with. I would really like to know what app that the Mr. Payne used to create the comics and use it in my classroom. At the end of the video, there were some learning takeaways that I want to share:
1. Write narratives to develop imagined experiences or events
2. Analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to text
3. Ask and answer questions

Project Based Learning
In this video, three Canadian teachers have combined their classrooms. The students learn through projects that engage them more than the segmented and separated classrooms do. To my surprise, the teachers said that they actually had more time to give the students individual feedback. Moreover, the students appreciated and took more pride in their projects and worked harder to complete them correctly.

Roosevelt Elementary's PBL Program
The students and parents in this video seemed to very pleased with the PBL classroom learning environment. The teachers and parents spoke about how much their students and children are benefiting from this PBL classroom.  They even said that the community was coming together more because of the PBL classroom. The benefits were:

• The students were learning real-world problem solving and skills
• Students are able to show that they really understand the topic
• Self motivation
• Public speaking
• They learn to support each other and work together
• Collaboration skills with other students and teachers
• The teachers are able to teach multiple subjects in one project

Project #14

Lesson Plan


Activity Sheet


Coloring Sheet


Class Participation Rubric


Content Standards


Project Calendar


Here is a link to my drive as well:
Jesse Reed's Drive