Blog Assignment 15

Blog Assignment 14

1. I missed the metaphor of the pencils and computers in John Spencer’s blog post, but once Dr. Strange told us to switch pencils with computers, it made more sense. I did know that there was another meaning to the post, but I don’t know why I didn’t catch the metaphor.

2. I hear a bunch of metaphors in my everyday life. Songs and movies are great ways to hear metaphors, especially for me because there is always something on in the background at my dorm. In the song “Wildflower” by the JaneDear Girls, they sing, “I’m a wildflower growing in the sunshine, soaking up the way of life I was raised in.” Also, in the movie You’ve Got Mail, Joe Fox gives Kathleen Kelly the advice to “go to the mattress.” That meant that she was supposed to fight to keep her business alive. Also, on Easter Sunday, I went to church and the pastor proclaimed that we are all Humpty Dumpty, and delivered a lovely Easter sermon focusing on that metaphor.

3. Some things that we can do as educators to help our students understand and use metaphors are to use them more ourselves, and give assignments like this one where we tell the students to document the metaphors they hear used in their everyday lives.

4. I think people use metaphors to make life and language more interesting, colorful, and thought-provoking.

Final Project #16

Overall, I think technology is very important in education and needs to be incorporated in it more than it already is. The teachers I’ve learned about this semester, especially the elementary teachers, who are using technology in their classrooms, are doing an incredible job preparing their students for the future. The sooner students are introduced to it, the better off they’ll be. Thank you to everyone who helped put this project together!

PLN Final Report

My PLN is very similar to what is has been through most of this semester. I have added a few more links to my Symbaloo page, and I continue to use the ones that were already there. I have learned more about other websites because of this class, and I will use them even after I finish this class. I visit my Twitter page quite often, but even though I don’t do a lot of tweeting, I do like to read what others have to say and find out about things that are going on everywhere. Also, Google has been a constant tool that has kept me connected to my group members by emailing and document sharing.

C4T #4 Summary

I was assigned to comment on Joe Bower’s blog, “For the Love of Learning.” For his post, he uploaded two videos from YouTube. The first one was a film taken from a cable car moving down a street in San Francisco before the earthquake in 1906. The streets were crowded with people, cars, and horse-drawn carriages, with chaos everywhere because there were no traffic laws. Also, there were tall buildings surrounding the street with a clock tower at the far end. The second one was a film taken from a cable car moving down the same street after the earthquake in 1906, and the images were completely different. There was rubble all over the street and there were hardly any people around. However, the clock tower was still standing at the end of the street.

I commented that the damage the earthquake did was awful, and it must have been devastating, just like the recent natural disasters around the world were catastrophic. It’s a good thing that there are now laws telling us how to drive so everyone is safer and won’t have to worry about accidents, or at least as many accidents. Also, a historian was able to pinpoint the exact date that these films were made based on various characteristics of the images, and I thought that was truly amazing!

In the next post, Mr. Bower wrote about The Save Our Schools March & National Call to Action. The purpose of this establishment is to take back the school system and make it more about substantial learning rather than just passing tests. There is going to be a march held in Washington, D.C. in July so people can make their voices heard. In my comment to him I said that the rally was a great idea and I hoped many people showed up to help make a difference for our schools.