Joy Singers

Joy Singers

Joy Singers at Fountains.

December 2, 2019 Joy Singers from Oakmont Baptist Church visited Fountains retirement community in Tarboro, NC. What's so special about that?  Let me tell you!

In my morning meditation and prayer time I stumbled on a page that said, "Anytime you visit a small town, eat lunch at any restaurant named "On the Square". Sure enough in Tarboro, North Carolina there is a lovely restaurant named On the Square.  Our food was delicious and service was great.  Best of all was the fellowship.

As you can see, smiles all around as the group enjoyed salads, hamburgers, and specialties from On the Square. Food and fellowship are sacred to Baptists.

Oakmonters now residing at Fountains were glad to see us. True to form, their presence at this retirement community brings happy faces and sweet spirits.

There was a great turnout for the Joy Singers Concert. Singing is always better with a good audience. The Joy Singers brought Christmas cheer to the audience and they joined in with their own great singing. Following the concert there was time for greetings and special prayers for friends in Tarboro.

Although she does not see with her eyes, this lady sees with her heart.

The Joy Singers enjoyed a short reunion with Jack and Bet, Pat and John, the Maynards,  and other Oakmonters now residing in Tarboro. What a Joy to share Christmas music with good friends.

Thank you, Oakmont Baptist Church, for providing transportation and music needed to celebrate with friends in Tarboro. 

Our Great Class

Our Great Class Fall EDTC 4001

There is an advantage in having a class with high enrollment--- you have more protection when strange and threatening people barge into your classroom. This past week, a misguided young man stormed our classroom with a strongly worded political message. What he doesn't understand is that no one, really, is persuaded with obscenities. 

This report in the LATimes is an example of crude politics associated with Campaign 2016. I certainly am in support of free speech, but let's get it right. Attention little boy in the article--- I don't recall seeing a female dog in heat included in any of primaries. Teachers, it is up to you, along with parents, we must guide children into civil, intelligent, and thorough fact finding when involved in politics. It is a challenge these days, but educators and well-informed parents are the most likely to make a difference. 

Nicaraguan child proudly displays her coloring sheet.

As you already know, 4001 is all about using technology and digital resources in the K12 classroom. But, even the slickest gadget is useless if students are disorderly, noisy, and not paying attention.

 I love it when 4001 students shared useful strategies for classroom management. Here is a great idea shared in one our class's recent blogs.

As I recall, every class is different, every student unique. There is no panacea for classroom management. But, with persistence and careful attention to the needs of the children, you will eventually find what works for your class. For me, it was a little hampster in a cage used as a reward for good behavior. For others, it is a soft voice and a continual reminder that "we are a family and we respect one another". For others, "caughtcha being good points" to be traded at the end of the week for treats. 

The young women who lead the programs for the children in Granada, Nicaragua used the reward system. Children who completed special projects, listened attentively, and were respectful of others earned treats a the end of the week.

East Carolina University

We have a great group that meets each Thursday morning.

Our first class meeting, students reviewed articles focused on importance of technology in the classroom. We quickly discovered that the term technology is very broad and should be replaced with specific tools for specific tasks. For example, multimedia engages the learner; word-processing produces elegant documents; spell check ensures professionalism; cameras record images for storytelling; robots can build cars; magnetic strips withdraw money from the bank; and databases provide digital information.
For assignment 2, we will begin our professional blogs. We know this is our story and we will enhance the story with images, video, and hyperlinks to a rich variety of information. In my most recent blog, I began a story about Nicaragua.  Our class will write and publish many great stories and we will learn from each other through these stories.
Here I am working with a little girl in a small village library located near Granada, Nicaragua. The children have no books so donations through Amazon.com are appreciated. Missionary teams from the U.S. deliver the books because postal service is expensive and slightly unreliable.

We, as a class, learn by what we share. Eugene Peterson calls this the wisdom of each other.  I have a great resource call Sweet Search. Use this with your students for safe results when searching online for class assignments. Flippity.net is very useful for flashcards, spelling word organization, and other everyday kinds of tools. Kelly Priest is a graduate student in EDTC 6070. She reviewed this resource for a class assignment.
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Fippity http://flippity.net/

High School - Cross Curricular

Free

Usability - Students can create digital flashcards from a Google Sheet.  The site gives you the template you need to edit to create the flash cards.  Students can add pictures or media to the cards. For younger students, teachers could create the cards, but high school students could easily create their own flash card sets.  

Potential Uses - Test Prep, practice questions, vocabulary review when the template is complete, there are other activities that can be used for review as well.  

Digital Literacy Models

A Model for Digital Literacy

There are many definitions for the term digital literacy. Teachers and other educators know students must master literacy skills in diverse formats. Reading a printed page requires a certain set of skills and cognitive processes. Reading from a webpage requires the same skills in addition to those using hypermedia, embedded commands, popup screens, multimedia with motion media, and a variety of multi-modal devices that can entice and distract the reader. East Carolina University graduate students in EDTC 6070 Digital Literacy in K12 Schools were assigned readings related to concepts in digital literacy. Added to their knowledge base were explanations for use of theoretical models in the field of instructional technology. For this course an education model is defined as an image or icon that describes a unique and complex idea using multimedia tools to create a display on one screen. The following slides show the depth of their understanding for the term Digital Literacy.

See display of models at 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Uvds6YH99Kj0pR2QlPmhiq5-d_IgPKIN754A3U44GoU/present#slide=id.p

 

Working with word clouds

Facebook Rules and Regulations about Names and Titles.

What do you think?

I think it is interesting the recent debate over use of professional titles for clergy on Facebook. I have been reading the rules and regulations and was surprised to see how closely one's identity is investigated prior to approval for your Facebook account. Most surprising is the rule prohibiting use of professional titles such "Dr." or "Reverend". Both titles represent a high degree of effort and sacrifice following many years in advanced degree programs. It does seem to be an important question for students engaged in the study of digital literacy. If you're terrorist, your posts are displayed in order to shock the world---not so with the preacher at the corner church. Not to be outdone by Fox News, CNN also reports on the Facebook name controversy. If you are a drag-queen, your title is acceptable for viewers in Facebook's public forum.  

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg defends the real name policy as part of their safety protocol, “We know that people are much less likely to try to act abusively towards other members of our community when they’re using their real names. ....". Personally, I would not want to be in a position where I must face the decision to accept or not accept a person based on title, profession, race, religion, or political agenda. Recent decisions to remove Facebook postings of beheadings is an atrocity requiring little debate, but what about decisions to accept or reject children under the age of 21 or 18? What about Facebook manifestos published just prior to or following acts of violence. Or, you could be like me and have two different identities. I am Carol A Brown with friends in the community in which I live but just as real is my role as Carol Brown at ECU within the academic community. I wonder if Facebook knows if I'm really two different people?  

Blogging for Teachers

Blog sites are such a common mode of communication, we rarely think of the technology. Instead, our favorite blogs bring to mind such things as resources, best practices, personal enrichment, inspiration, and news to help decide who the next president will be.  I have several blogs bookmarked that are categorized by digital tools, trends in K12 education, volunteerism, and personal inspiration. I've always said, "book authors are our friends". We come to know favorite authors as if we've visited over lunch or exchanged email communication. The fact is, most of my favorite authors are deceased, but I still count them as friends. These include :

Elisabeth Elliot author of Through Gates of Splendor;

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German pastor executed at end of World War II;

Dallas Willard, greatly beloved philosophy professor from UCLA, and

Dave Jonassen, one of the early authors of constructivism as a paradigm of instruction.

I've studied their books and reflected on blog posts to form lasting friendships with these well know authors of the past. Blogs are perfect for getting to know someone before you actually meet them. Blog authors tend to write from a more personal perspective on a blog. They take risks and trust their readers to read between the lines--so to speak.

If you can persuade your students to become avid bloggers, they may benefit from the opportunity to becomes friends with blog-authors, or to become author/friend on their own. According to Heidi Jacobs (editor of Mastering Digital Literacy, Solution Tree Press, p. 10) we live in a time of personalized learning. Personalization is about learner's choice and action; learners are encouraged to make personal decisions about their learning. ...Blogging fits into the trend moving from standardized to differentiated and personalized learning. When we read a textbook, the learning does not end with the final chapter. Indeed, most textbooks merely whet the appetite for topics related to undergraduate and graduate education. Authors are continually adding to their books, updating with new editions, and branching out into related subjects. I think this is representative of our 21st century information society. Information is never exhaustive. Seeking never ends, and learning is limitless.

Great Blogs for Teachers will give you kickstart in your personal blog reading. I think you will be able to mine this collection of blogs and discover many useful resources.

[image from https://blogs.city.ac.uk/ retrieved August 27, 2015]

I just made a new Voki. See it here:

I just made a new Voki. See it here::

 http://www.voki.com/pickup.php?scid=11039672&height=267&width=200

Voki has online multimedia tools for creating an original avatar. This is great fun to send a message to a class, parents, or other teachers. It will leave a memorable message and adds humor to everyday notices and reminders. You are able to create a special character with original colors and accessories. The voices are male and female. You can also choose to record your own voice. Links can be sent through email, or you can post to Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks.

Virtual Posters with Glogster

[ source of video is www.usinglogster.com]

Meet Jessica in Watertown New Jersey. She describes how she created an electronic digital poster using Glogster.com   She also used Google Earth, World Book Online, her digital research skills, writing skills, paper and pencil to prepare passports for visiting many regions of the world.

Hi! My name is Carol Brown. I am associate professor of Instructional Technology at East Carolina University. I began my career as a 5th grade teacher and later became school media specialist in Little Rock Arkansas. I loved working with children both in the classroom and in the center. My most famous student was Chelsea Clinton who was in the 3rd grade at that time. Chelsea loved working on her little computer and learned all her times tables using a drill and practice program we designed just for her.

Later I was accepted into the doctoral program at the University of Memphis where I worked with the author of several textbooks. Dr. Gary Morrison and Dr. Deborah Lowther both shaped my knowledge and understanding in how to use technology effectively for learning. A great professional combination for me is reading and digital resources, thus EDTC 6070 was designed and offered to students at ECU. Digital literacy is an unending topic of study with limitless potential for helping people of all ages learn more and learn better.

I have been at East Carolina since 1999 and enjoy reading, writing, and teaching. I also serve the community through the Book Buddies after school program. You can read about Book Buddies at another of my blogsites.