Gapminder.org

This website allows people to discover life expectancy and income of countries all over the world.  You can easily compare countries from the past and/or present day.  It is so much quicker to look up any year and check out the life expectancy and income on Gapminder.org rather than having to search over the internet.

TED -- Salmon Khan

Salmon Kahn explains how people prefer to watch videos on educational tutorials rather than being taught in person.  Putting yourself in someone's shoes, it makes sense because they can easily pause videos and re-watch them if they do not understand.  Salmon posted some math tutorial videos on YouTube and people stumbled upon them.  These videos are able to penetrate a classroom and home school students.  KhanAcademy is an online math tutorial that allows students to solve problems that have the same concept.  It starts out doing simple math problems like adding and subtracting single digit numbers.  KhanAcademy is a scaffolding approach; whenever you show achievement in a certain concept, then the problems will gradually get harder.
I also like the fact that students can solve the problems however many times needed.  KhanAcademy allows students to work on their own pace until they can grasp the concept.  Every child learns at different paces and this site allows children to work on their own pace without skipping out on important steps they need to know.

2 Education Articles

Sequestration cuts will shortchange students, universities say
Can President Obama be any worse of a President? I mean really.  How do you fail to reach a deal for spending cuts?  Schools have lost $4 Million dollars in 2013 and supposedly $8 million in 2014.  Obama and his wife are too worried about publicity and taking over the world.  It looks like communism and total control is all Obama wants.  President Obama is a man that wants to put microchips in everybody's right hands to keep personal financial information as well as everything else.  Without this chip no one will be able to sell or buy.  In order to buy or sell anything your right hand will have to be scanned.  It is the end of times as we know it and hardly anybody is noticing.  I do not think our country has been in worse hands until now.  So for all of you who voted for Obama be ready to have to cough up money for school and have everything you do tracked by the goverment.

K-12 student database jazzes tech startups, spooks parents
This whole system is a load of bull.  It is not fair to the parents or the students for the department of education to freely share social security numbers and addresses to "school officials".  This is by far one of the stupidest things I have ever heard and I can not believe that the government is allowing this to happen.  Since when did the US become a communist country?  People need to open their eyes and see that the President and the government are wanting total control.  Keeping complete track of somebody is creepy.  No one needs to know such personal information except for the children and the child's family.  This is not right and should banned.  I will personally be homeschooling my children if it reaches the state of Mississippi because I will not allow my child(ren) to be tracked.  It's okay to keep progress of a student's school records but does the government really need social security numbers, the child's output on school, and such personal information?  This disgusts me.

Ken Robinson says school kills creativity

Since mistakes are looked down on as adults, children slowly lose their creativity because they are no longer prepared to be wrong.  Public schools prepare students' to be professors and the education system is teaching only academics.  Creative people think they are not creative because they are told growing up "you will never make it as a musician", "you will never become a great painter" and it discourages children from putting their creativity on the table.  Often times adults hold back their ideas because they do not want to look or feel stupid.  Intelligience is distinct.  Everybody has their own talent that somebody else lacks.  Education should not only be about academics, but creativity as well.
I agree with what Ken says because children need to be pushed to be creative because everybody is intelligient in their own way.  Not everybody learns academics as well as others.  Perhaps the students' having a hard time learning academics excel in arts.  People need to be encouraged to do what makes them happy because anybody can do anything they set their mind's to.

:)

John Hunter's World Peice Game

1.  When John Hunter said he is "standing on the shoulders of many people", he meant that he is over all these children and he wants to guide them in a way to better their future and education.  If John was to stumble and mislead his students then it would cause the whole classroom to stumble and fall apart.

2.  John Hunter used a game because he wanted the students to learn using their whole bodies.  John is shooting more towards kin-esthetic learners.  He said that he never liked lecture-based learning and he wanted to make learning fun.  Hunter wanted to get his students fully engaged and challenge them to think in a way to add on to their current knowledge and form their own opinions.

3.  All of the students play different roles in the game.  A few of the roles include: weather goddess, prime minister of a specific country, somebody to sabotage the game (saboteur),  and a person who controls peace in the game.

4.  John Hunter's role is a friend.  He likes to sit back and observe the children and let them make their own choices.

5.  The students write condolence letters to families because in any war people will be lost and John Hunter is trying to make the game as real as possible.  It also give the opportunity to add writing in this game.

6.  John Hunter is a very passionate teacher.  He wants his students to learn independently so they can build on their current knowledge.  John is not the type of teacher to stand in the front of the classroom and lecture, but a teacher that wants his children to learn more on their selves and through their own experiences.

7.  I would feel successful as a teacher to see that the students actually understood what they was being taught.  The students are showing content understanding by performing tasks in the game and carrying on the activities and taking care of their own countries.



Ted - John Hunter

Technology tip & software I want to learn more about

Technology tips:

• If you have a file to large to send by email then go transferbigfiles.com.  You can send large files for no charge. (Up to 2 Gigs)
• Ctrl+F finds words on the page.
• Ctrl+S saves your document
• Ctrl+V pastes
• Ctrl+C copies
• Ctrl+Z undoes
• Ctrl+A selects all
• Ctrl+ALT+delete is a task manager
• Ctrl+2 double spaces (only works in office program)
• Alt+Tab switches between open programs
• Ctrl+B bolds
• Change passwords on a regular basis and don't have all the passwords the same (letters, numbers, capital leter, and special character).
• Ctrl+W closes tabs
• Ctrl+L left line
• Ctrl+R right align
• Ctrl+E centers
• Ctrl+1 single spaces
• Ctrl+P prints
• Ctrl+tab opens a new tab
• Hold down print screen takes a screen shot on Windows
• Ctrl+I italicizes

 

Software I want to learn more about: Antivirus Software

RainForest Animals Concept Map

Rainforest Animals

I.       Mammals

Mammals are warm-blooded, have a vertebrae and a four-chambered heart.  They also have hair, in which covers the skin.  Also, all mothers produce milk for nourishing their young; milk is produced by mammary glands.  Mammals range from an inch and a half (bumble bee bat) to 108 feet (blue whale).

A.    Bengal Tiger

B.    Gorilla

II.     Reptiles

All reptiles are cold-blooded and lay eggs.  They are covered in leathery, like skin, such as, horny plates or scales.  Reptiles are able to breathe by means of lungs.  This group of animals transport by slivering, crawling, and creeping.

A.    Boa Constrictor

B.    Anaconda

III.    Amphibians

Amphibians are cold-blooded animals that have smooth skin.  They hatch an aquatic larva to produce their young.  When amphibians hatch, they transform and have gills.  After full development, amphibians are capable of living on land or water and have both gills and lungs.

A.    Poison dart Frog

B.    Red-eyed tree Frog

IV.    Arthropods

Arthropods can be found in every environment; land, trees, water, and the ground.  Arthropods have an exoskeleton and segmented bodies, as well as jointed appendages.  Arthropods happen to be the largest animal group.  This group consists of: insects, arachnids, and crustaceans.  All arthropods have six or more legs.

A.    Blue Morpho Butterfly

B.    Leafcutter Ant

V.     Birds

Birds are bipedal, meaning they have two feet.  All birds are warm-blooded and lay eggs.  All birds have feathers, as well as wings to help them fly.  Birds can range from 2 inches to 9 feet tall.

A.    Parrot

B.    Toucan

1.    This bird lives in holes of hollow trees.

2.  Toucans are located in Central and South America in
tropical and sub-tropical rainforests.

***Activities***
- Color sheets to remember the colors of the animals
- Make an ant farm
- Guess the Rainforest animal sound
- Bingo
- Create paper plate animals