C4T Post 1 & 2

Post #1
I got Mrs. Ripp's blog this month, and I really liked her personality. She made me think about a lot! In the first post I commented on she was having a moment where she feels like she failed a student. She felt she didn't motivate this particular student enough when she had the chance. She began wondering when and if teachers should apologize to the students they can't seem to reach.
My comment to her was an introduction first. I asked her a question about how exactly do you control a classroom with out using rewards as motivators. I don't want my class to expect that. She gave a great link to more of her posts to read.


Post #2
Mrs.Ripp had an incident with a student where they didn't see eye to eye. But she said she deserved it. The issue was she admitting in the post that she wanted to be "right"  and she wouldn't back down. The student later sent her an email explaining why he was also stubborn about being right.
And she felt like this was a "gift" that he gave her in a sense of him finally opening up to her. This gave her a chance to redeem herself and become a better teacher because of the situation.
My response was I told her it was a wake up call to the fact sometimes things like this CAN happen. I told her these types of moments of feeling like a failure and then getting uplifted again is what make us good teachers.

Project # 8

Blog post #7

Randy Pausch: The Last Lecture

Even though I stumbled upon this video in the first week of class and found myself being very emotional watching it, the second time wasn't much better. Stories like his always makes me think about how I would act given his situation. It's amazing to me that he is so positive after learning he has only 3 months to live. Randy Pausch is motivational speaker and a awesome educator. His ideas, and the things he has accomplished speaks volumes about the type person he was.

One of his main focuses is making your childhood dreams come true. Not many people get the chance to or have the drive to make those dreams come to life. He says that road blocks are not there to keep us out, but there to make us work harder. I can relate to this in that I feel I have had many road blocks keeping from finishing school due to other responsibilities. I feel it's extremely important to push the people you care about to keep going and not give up. It's something that I will always strive to do with my future student to help them succeed.

Randy Pausch had many talents that he used in his life. He was an athlete who loved football, worked at Disney, and was a professor. He always used his talents and interests in things that were worthwhile. Randy gives us the advise to always be motivating, and have fun no matter the situation. Always to show dedication to your work and never give up no matter how many times you are told no.

This advise applies to everyone, but in his case it was to his children for after he is gone. This advise also applies to me as this is the advise I want to teach my students. I want to show a desire to learn no matter how many times they are put down.  To always be honest and simply be the best they can.  Randy Pausch is such an inspiration to me, and I can see why so many people cared for him.

C4K Summary for February

My first C4K is IBMurray05 and he is a 9th grade student in Mr. Cometti's class. The students were to post about their academic goals for the school year. In my response I praised him on his dedication to his studies.I let him know his ideas of doing a small amount of homework each night to help in procrastination inspired me. I told him to continue to do well and I shared the video on time management by Randy Paush.

In my second C4K I commented on Alyssa's blog, a second grader from Ontario, Canada. Alyssa is in Mrs. Balestrin's class and her post was on a sport she enjoyed playing called ringette. I had never heard of it so I asked her if it was similar to hockey. I explained to her it didn't get all that cold here like it does there. I told her it was great she liked to play sports, and that it kept her healthy and strong.

 My third C4K was with year two students in Mrs. Jenny's class. These students are from Auckland, New Zealand. They are just starting their school year so I wished them good luck! The two students I commented on was Kelly and Lucy. My comment included my well wishes for the new year, and I wished them good luck with learning how to blog.

In my final C4K I had a 10th grader named Lauren in Mrs. Martin's class. Lauren had to interview a classmate using video. I asked her how she liked blogging in school, and if she enjoyed interviewing her friend. I told her about my class and how we are learning to blog and  learning many more aspects of technology to incorporate in our classrooms one day.