PLN 20

I read a post on Roger's personal Blog called Retakes and it was about how he has been giving the option for retakes and some people do them but some of them don't even do any better and there is a few that do worse. This is how I responded:

I think that it is good that you give your students the choice to have retakes but if no one does it then it is kind of a waste. I Like retakes because if I get a bad grade on something that I don't get then I can go in and talk to my teacher and take it again. Retakes are good not only for getting your grade up but they can help kids make sure that they understand the material. Also it is a waste of the kids time when they come in and don't even do much better than they did before. It is probably because they just hope that because they have seen the test before they can do better on it. Whenever I go in for a retake I study more to make sure that I can do better, or I try to study in a different way to see if it can help more than the previous. Maybe you can Have a couple quizes where if kids do bad on them they have to retake them until they do good that way they would have to find a way to do good on them and they would eventually get used to doing it.

PLN 19

I read My Blogging Legacy on Weblogg-ed and in this post Will talked about how his mother passed away and that he still had so much more to ask her. He also said that he had a dream where he had passed away but his kids were wanting to know more so they were on line and an avatar was giving them all the information and answering their questions. And he said that he hopes that other people carry on the blogging and this is what I had to say:

First of all I want to say that i am very sorry about your mothers death. I am sure that that is very hard for you. I think that the dream that you had is very cool. It is very interesting what the mind can come up with. That kind of technology sounds really cool and who knows what the future will bring. I also think that it is cool that you are interested in knowing all about your mom. I am really glad that you posted this because now that I think about it I have a lot of questions for my parents, even my grandma. And in the future I'll make sure my kids know everything that they want to. It is also awesome that you have this blog and hopefully it will be carried on in the future and even after them because blogging is a great way to express yourself and any topics that you feel are important. Blogging is really cool because there isn't just one certain thing to talk about you can talk about whatever you want and that is cool to me because I really enjoy expressing myself and maybe one day I'll get a blog of my own.

PLN 18

I read Study: Young Kids Online by Will Richardson and this is what I had to say:

This is a very important subject to me because the internet can be a very dangerous place especially for young children. If a kid gets on my space and posts a bunch of information about themselves anyone can get to it and use it. It is kind of scary if you think about. I think parents should supervise there kids while they are on the internet or they should put parental guidance on their computer. Another danger is if the kid gets on a bad website and it gives the computer a virus. Those can be dangerous depending on what kind of information you have on your computer because it can possibly be hacked. If I was letting my kid on the computer I would just tell him what sites are ok to go on and what kind of sites are bad and I would block them just in case. Hopefully people can learn from you blog and prevent things like this from happening.

PLN 17

I just read a post by Darren Draper title Becoming A Better Teacher and I said:

I like that you posted this because there are a lot of things to say about it. First of all this list gives an ok guide line for teachers but there are definitely some things that I don't agree with. For example, it pretty much says teach the same thing in the same way that you have in the past and I think that that is boring. Teachers should come up with creative ways to teach there material. That way they can figure out what works for them and what doesn't. And that leads me into the don't take feedback from your students. I would think as a teacher you would want to know if you are teaching things well and what the students think. It helps me to learn better when we have class discussions in class and everyone puts in some input into the conversation. This can help me see it from another point of view and sometimes that helps. Also teachers should talk to each other about their teaching techniques and if it is working well for them because that can really help sometimes. I think that this list is good if you have already got everything figured out but there are still some things on there that are still a must to me.

Thanks,
Ethan

PLN 16

I read a post by Will Richardson called Blogging/Tweeting/Reading Funk Abatement and this is how I responded:

I like this post because everyone needs a break sometimes. Right now I could really use a break from school. But there are only 3 more weeks so I think I can handle it. Anyway,I think breaks from learning and working are very important because you can get overloaded with all of that stuff and it is good every once in a while to not have to worry about it. This is the reason why I like summer so much. It is so nice just to do whatever I want for three months without having anything to worry about. School and work are very important, I just think it is hard to handle all the time so I’m glad that we have breaks from school because doing the same thing every day can get really old. I think that it is really cool that when we have jobs they let us choose our vacation time so that we can have a break whenever we need it the most. Good job on this post and I look forward to more good ones from you.

Check out his blog, it is very interesting: Weblogg-ed

PLN 15

I read a blog by Karl Fisch called The Need for Textbooks and here's what I said:

That is very funny to me because it seems like lately textbook are becoming more and more out dated. I think that textbooks are good but they are such a chore to bring home from school everyday. You can see how much that technology is replacing textbooks in the schools. In my English class all that we pretty much use is our laptops. Even my French and my math books are on the computer and probably a lot of my other classes to. I think that this is cool but the schools should still keep the textbooks anyway because not everyone has working internet or a computer. So it is definitely a convenience to have them on line, but it is good to have them at the schools to, especially during a tornado. I have nothing against textbooks, besides the fact that they are extremely heavy, but it is so much easier to have them on the computer so I don't have to bring much home after school.

PLN Presentation Reaction

On my second presentation I felt like I did a little better be cause everyone said I made great eye contact and spoke loudly and looked like I knew what I was talking about. This time I did not use notes so that helped with the eye contact and speaking better and not just reading from my paper. I did pause a couple of times because I lost my train of thought but I felt like I saved it pretty well and other people said so also. Even though my posts were not related I think I transitioned well and talked about important things in the world and in our class. It felt like an overall good presentation.