My Final Reflection on EDM 310

My Final Project (#16)

For this project, Matthew Poirier and I created facebook pages of historic figures relating to our current educational choices. He is an English Education major, so his facebook page was on Mark Twain, the author famous for his novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and because I have a minor in music, my facebook page was on George Howard, a professional jazz musician who began his career in the late 1970's.
We thought that an idea for a facebook page being incorporated into teaching would be very fundamental. Think of this scenario: Matthew, after graduation, begin teaching literature at a high school. One of the weeks he is there, the class and Matthew discuss a famous literary author, for example, Mark Twain. Assigning the students to create a facebook page about this particular literary figure is a wonderful idea because (1) it was very fun creating the facebook page on Mark Twain, (2) while doing research he learned many things about Mark Twain he had not known prior, and (3) facebook is a great tool that young students can easily relate to. They wouldn't really see it as "work," but rather a creative way to learn about a historic literary figure.
I, on the other hand, have been following George Howard for as long as he has been around. I too , learned a lot more personal things, about Mr. Howard, than I knew before my project. I discovered how he got into the music business, and where he graduated from college. I learned he was a music Major, and that the great Grover Washington Jr., gave him his first big music break. Sadly, I also discovered the reason for his death. He died of colon cancer, at a very young age,by musician standards. I have purchased all of his releases, as a tribute to his greatness, because one day, I truly believe, they will be worth a ton of money, in the very near future. You know what they say about jazz. Its like fine wine. Its gets better with age. Currently, I am a teacher and I often draw on my musical background, to field questions about the history of Jazz, and how it all got started.


Because Mark Twain was simply his pen name, the facebook account is under his real name:
Samuel Langhorne Clemens

My Final PLN Report

On my PLN I decided to put all the internet sites I visit the most. Here are just a few to mentioned:
Facebook
Twitter
Youtube
Rivals
Scout
PAWS
University of South Alabama
Microsoft Word
Google
FireFox
and many more sites. I will continue to add new sites as needed. Will look into bill paying sites as well. It s really nice to have every site one key stroke away. I utilize my PLM on a daily basis.

C4T #4

Learning Is Messy-Blog

Summary (post#1)
Brian is a teacher who was picked to go on the last space shuttle mission. He was invited to twitter the whole event. Its a first, and his students are lucky. He will be traveling with Mark Kelly, who is the husband of congresswoman Gifford. She was shot by a gunman in Arizona. I told Brian to say hello for me. He said the initial launch has been postponed once, and is now scheduled to launch on April 19, 2011. I told him to stay in touch and feel free to respond to my comments. I left him my contact information.

Summary (post#2)
Brian was a little disappointed that the shuttle mission was delayed again. The good thing, was he was able to send pictures to his class, of the housing facility, for the shuttle, and all of the inner-workings of the launch experience. Brian was also able to make homework assignment via several modes of technology. Bottom line, even though the mission was delayed, once again, the experience was priceless.

Blog Post #14/ Special Assignment

METAPHORS

I feel like the reason I, and several other students missed the metaphors, in Tom Johnson's post was because we are students. There is this mindset, to do whatever the teacher instructs you to do, when the teacher instructs you to do it. Its kinda like having blinders on. You know there is the possibility, of something going on in the background, but thats not what you were instructed to do. This assignment, like all others, is for a grade. I'm sure despite their curiosity, most of the students decided, to take the safe route.

Since the class was asked to keep a log of metaphors, I have been totally surprised, at the number of metaphors I use everyday, without paying any attention to it. Its like a part of the English language, we take for granted. Almost every sentence I heard or said, had a metaphor in it. A conversation would definitely be boring with out them.

As educators, we may have to tell our student, to not take everything so seriously in class. Tell them to not be so hard on themselves. And most of all, tell them its ok to be wrong, because thats what we are in class for, to find out why. Make sure they know about the "Head Fake".

The reason we use metaphors, is to add our personal touch to our conversations. We use them to add more meaning to pronouns and nouns. Sometimes an adjective, just isn't enough. Metaphors show how intense a person can be. They also can coin a phrase, like no other.