Alice Learning Experience

Learning how to create a game using Alice programing surely was not easy and it definitely took a lot of time to complete. Yet, it gave me the opportunity to understand gaming from the creators point of view. See, I'm not exactly a gamer and not very tech-savvy, but I certainly learned a lot from creating a game. A game creator must be quite detail-oriented and patient to work out each and every design, movement, character, and dialogue. They must also be willing to start over from scratch multiple times because ideas don't always work out as you think they will. Flexibility and creativity would be another good characteristic of a game creator in being able to fix glitches and loop holes as well.
As each person presented their game in class this week, it was neat to see all the different details and how the creators of each game implemented learning opportunities for the game to be used within the classroom for students to learn various content. I believe that games can be beneficial for the classroom to teach content since it keeps students actively engaged in learning.
Even though creating a game through Alice was difficult at first, it was well worth the time since it allowed me to think critically about how to create diverse ways to meet the needs of students' learning.

Education Society

I chose to research about the National Association for the Education of Young Children since elementary education is the certification I am seeking. This organization serves as an advocacy for early childhood education. They offer many opportunities for professional development along with resources for parents, educators and administrators. NAEYC would help me professionally by:

1) continuing my education through interactive online learning programs, training sessions, and workshops that they offer which equip educators concerning developmentally appropriate practices (DAP), communication skills, assessment for preschool and accreditation,

2) informing me about issues within early childhood education,

and   3) providing a library of resources to use in the classroom.

To learn more about this association, visit:
http://www.naeyc.org/content/about-naeyc

Ladder Feedback

            When it comes to any type of feedback or evaluation, I always prefer oral communication compared to written communication. With oral communication, I can ask further questions about the feedback given to me or clarify anything that was not clearly communicated. I understand how written feedback is useful if one does not like confrontation or would prefer to keep record of their feedback to refer back to and help remind the ares of improvement needed for the future.

Multiple Intelligence

   When I took the multiple intelligence test, I believed that my two main learning styles would be kinesthetic and naturalist. (Boy, was I wrong!) To my surprise, the results displayed that my highest scores were in the kinesthetic and music categories. It was completely different from what I had expected. How many of you had that same experience? If so, what did you learn about yourself?
    Due to the circumstances, I became intrigued as to whether or not both the learning styles, kinesthetic and naturalist, showed any relationship within the rest of the class's results. I began the process by collecting data from the first ten participants. (This is demonstrated in the chart below.) From the information gathered, I discovered that four out of the ten participants had a higher score in the naturalist column and five had a higher score in the kinesthetic column while one participant shared the same score in both categories. Drawing from these results, I concluded that an equal relationship between the two learning styles is not very common. Either people who learn more through 'doing' or 'hands on' activities use less naturalistic ways of learning and vice versa.
   From this activity, I learned that simply because I am more interested in a certain type of intelligence, it doesn't mean that I learn that way best or that it is my area of strength. Instead, learning is based on our mental abilities which, according to Gardner, there are multiple ways that we learn and our strengths are within the ways we learn best.

Blogging Beginner

Yes, this is my very first blog and, to my surprise, found that it was quite simple to create one. I am excited and looking forward to exchanging ideas with everyone on how to utilize technology in the classroom for the benefit of our future students. 

I love the idea of using a blog in the classroom because it allows students to have more time to reflect on what they have learned, form their own opinions or thoughts and express them to the class.

•  I would, first, begin the blogging process by creating one blog for the entire class.

           - This blog would be used for posting announcements, assignments, projects, due dates and discussions for the all the students to respond to and for parents who desire to know what goes on in their child's class.

• Next, I would have each student create their own blog.

           - For this blog, students would be encouraged to post their own research, discussion topics and questions, or simply express their thoughts and opinions while other students would be able to view and comment with specific guidelines.

• Finally, I would like to combine discussions with other classrooms and not only the one classroom alone to allow the students to be exposed to other opinions and learn from other students.

From this experience, my goal would be for the students to learn communicating skills and how to express their thoughts effectively through writing.