The Edible Schoolyard

Today’s society is providing our children with unhealthy foods. Families usually eat out or away from home. This pattern is affecting our youth. Our children need to be introduced to health foods and possibly participate in the preparation of their meals. Alice Waters from Berkeley, California felt we should take it a little further than that and incorporate health foods into our academic curriculum. At Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, Waters created a learning environment that is essential to the students learning and diets, with the permission of the principal who thought it was an excellent idea. King’s cafeteria had been closed due to the overpopulating student body. The students were being served microwave bag lunches outside on the blacktop. Water suggested that the students plant and care for a garden on an acre surrounding the blacktops at the school. This would become their learning environment. She also reopened the cafeteria so the students could utilize it as a learning tool, cooking and eating the foods from the garden instead of the bag lunch they were receiving everyday. The students sit in the center of their garden learning many subjects and eating their home grown produces. “Children learn about the connection between what they eat and where it comes from, with the goal of fostering environmental stewardship and revolutionizing the school lunch program.” Waters believed children learn more when they are eating because they are using all their senses. This area of the school was named The Edible Schoolyard.

I really enjoyed the pod cast. It revealed so many unique ways to educate your students with something as simple as foods. This schoolyard also teaches students long-lasting life skills. I will definitely integrate a few of these activities into my lesson plans. One idea that I thought of while typing this post is when I teach my students their organic shapes, we can grow some fruits prior to the lesson. This will not only teach them science but provide them a health snack.

Podcasts

Coming from a background without any computer knowledge, I had no idea what a podcast was until I enrolled in this class. At first I was pretty nervous about performing for one for the world to see but after actual viewing a few, I feel much more confident and comfortable in producing one. I do not know if I will appear as a pro but I will put my best into this project.

I viewed MacBreak Weekly by Alex Lindsay. Lindsay explains the advantages of using Tubemogul to unload and track you online media. I find this podcast to be fairly boring. The next one I viewed was This Week in Photography by Andrew Darlo which discussed the many ways to utilize photography. I found this podcast very interesting because I enjoy taking pictures of people and the ideas he gave on printing styles would be very helpful for my develop. I could relate to some of the things he mentioned from my photograpy class in high school which I absolutely loved!

SmartBoard Lessons Podcast Episode 146 by Ben Hazzard and Joan Badger described the clouds and their formations. This would be helpful to view before teaching a lesson about clouds to your students in your class. One thing I liked about the way they developed their lessons is that, they always defined words within their lessons they felt were important for interpretation of the lessons. My favorite podcast viewing was from an elementary school in Arlington, VA. The students at Jamestown Elementary used pocasting in creative way. One of them was an audio recording of their second graders. They gave a speech on their understanding of the responsibilities of the students, their teacher, their parents and themselves. They did a great job.

The last one I viewed was from Jamestown Elementary School as well. Their first grade teacher scanned the children’s art work on the computer. She then had her students to display a story about their piece of art work as it was viewed. I bet these students were so proud of the way this teacher displayed their artwork for the world to view with a mini story to go along with it. Jamestown School Podcast #17 is a viewing of Mrs. Weaver's class performing their version of Cinderella. I enjoyed this one also, it gave me an idea for my classroom.

Click here to view some podcasts

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture was very entertaining and motivational. All college students need to hear his speech; it covered all the highlights and struggles of life. I learned many things throughout his speech that will encourage me to never give up, remember where you came from to appreciate where you're going, and "we can not change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." There were so many inspirational things mentioned in this video. The things I learned to help assist my students in their endeavors were always providing them with high expectations, sale a fun-filled education, and believe in my students.

When Pausch said "never give up", I felt he was talking directly to me. I have been so stressed out lately and needed a boost. His speech made one thing very clear, "don't complain, just work harder". He said "be good at something, makes you valuable." I believe I will be a great teacher. I like to help others, I self-reflect, and I want to enable my childhood dreams as well as others. He mentioned it is great to have childhood dreams; "childhood dreams are unlimited." We, prospective teachers, need to understand that we will become "dream keepers". It is our duty to instill in our students the fundamental basics and "power of enthusiasm" for education and life skills.

We, as educators must learn to continuously believe in our students. Our students are good at something; it's up to us to found out what that something is. We must make school an essential learning environment as well as fun. Who says education has to be boring? Our children believe we will provide a quality education, so lets give to them. When the students do well, make sure you display their work for the world to see. Provide the students with freedom to be creative and responsive.

We must be patient, helpful, and loyally dedicated. "Loyalty is a two-way street." If you provide your students with effective teaching, they with produce effective grades. Focus on your students’ education and not your career or your paycheck. If teaching becomes to challenging always know help is a good thing. "Brick walls are there for a reason, to stop those who don't really want it bad enough." I will adhere to all the advice from this video, I know it will make me a better person all around.

International School Blogs

Sriwittayapaknam School in Thailand ulitilizies their blogs for all communication within the school, preschool through 12th grade. They use it for academic requirements, posting school assignments, personal introduction videos of students, broadcasting school activities, ect. This blog is very in depth. I think everyone should check it out. I did.

Central Butte School located in Saskatchewan, Canada, created a blogging to provide Central Bulter School's community an opportunity to stay in touch with school activities and develops in education in their community. The school offers a core academic program enhanced by a progressive, technology-driven distance education program. The Bulldogs have a proud tradition of community involvement, athletics and fine arts.

U.S. School Blogs

In 2005 at Pinellas Park Elementary School in St. Petersburg, Florida, a fifth grade teacher came up with a solution to assist in communicating with his student's parents about the students' daily assignments and announcements. Fred Roemer is his name. Roemer noticed that his students were not constructively discussing anything with their parents involving school. He decided to create a class Website.
Roemer's students would write about what they learned each day in an online Web journal. "Blogs have long been popular among teenagers and young adults, who often use them at home as virtual diaries and write about their personal lives." Roemer figured the students would probably enjoy blogging about academic subjects as well and to his surprise, he was right. All the students created individual blog which they could check and receive assignments. They could all comment and question their teacher about any homework assignment. Parents reap the benefits from this project too. Parents are able to login and check announcements, their child's grades, and even take a virtual peek inside their child's classroom.
Blogs can help parents stay involved, teachers be more responsive and students develop a sense of community, all while enhancing classroom lessons, Roemer said. However, teacher-run blogs can also be instructive about the use of technology.

In 2003, some of the teachers in Goochland County Schools began publishing their blog systems. In 2005, Goochland's schools launched a division-wide intiative for teacher blogging. That same year, they introduced student blogging behind their network. For the 2008-09 school year, they will take another leap ahead with "Teacher Blogs 2.0." You can find links to each teacher's blog by grade level and subject area listed on each school's website. The school in this distinct I chose to view was Goochland High School. They utilize their blogging program in the same manner as Pinellas Park Elementary School.

About ACCESS

The Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators, and Students Statewide (ACCESS) plan is an excellent idea. In a few years if you don't know how to access a computer you will be behind, not only in school, but in society. The world is evolving around Computer Technology. In order to be prepare, ACCESS is going to be very helpful learning tool. As I mentioned before, I am computer illiterate. Any help to assist me in blending computers into my cirriculum is a good thing. This will provide a high quality teaching style to my students and actually enhance their computer skills.

From my understanding of ACCESS, it provides remediation and supplemental supplies to assist Alabama certified teachers. Certifying these teachers in dual and advanced courses will in deed help the students. Access also provides additional online computer courses for teachers to complete in their spare time. Engaging this computer courses will introduce multimedia and technology tools to enhance instruction. It would be much better to teach a lesson from a power point instead of the "old fashion" way, writing on the chalk board.

Alabama Learning Exchange (ALEX)

Alabama Learning Exchange (ALEX) is a very good resource for Alabama teachers. ALEX provides all the nessecities you would need to become an effective teacher. ALEX allows teachers to view various courses of studies and professional learning styles to enhance classroom cirriculums. Teachers can gain useful information for excellent classroom management. This website provides educational activities and helpful lesson plans. This is a great idea for prospective teachers.

I will definely utilize ALEX for many projects and lesson plans in my classroom. My daughter is currently in the first grade. We can use various activities shown under ALEX for her to practice at home or even get ahead in her studies. Before entering into Elementary Education, I did not know there were so many tools and resources to implement. I am learning so much just by surfing the web. Surfing the web is something new to me. I don't have a computer at home so my computer priviledges are pretty limited.