Comments for Teacher #2 - Rotating

Post #5

The pegeek blog posted about a new technology that allows individual real-time heart rates to be displayed on an iPad or on any screen that is connected to Apple TV.  An example video was available showing senior males in a gym running while their heart rates were being displayed on a large screen hanging on the gym wall. The heart rate monitors were connected to an iPad via bluetooth and an application was set up with student information populated to individual monitors.  The iPad could connect to the screen hanging on the wall because it had Apple TV.  Anything displayed on the iPad would display on the big screen.
I responded by introducing myself and that as a fitness enthusiast, I was intrigued by this technology and immediately thought of the spin classes at our gym on our work site. Our classes are usually less than 10 people so this would not be terribly expensive to launch. It would be nice to look up on a wall mounted monitor to see my real time heart rate instead of getting the customary 10 second count at check points. I also sad that since I am also a math teacher I thought of the collaboration this could inspire between PE and math teachers. There are so many things we can do with these numbers in a math class! I ended by asking what the response from his students was and how often he used them.

Post #6

The Jenny's Learning Journey posted about a student taking her picture while she was working with another student. The surprise for her was not only was she not aware the student was taking a photo but she was unaware the student knew HOW to take a photo. Jenny was impressed that her student used knowledge that she had gained to create something new. This also reminded her of a time when another student recorded her voice while she was teaching and that we are always being watched.
I responded by introducing myself and thanked her for sharing her love of learning with her students. Tatiana had done a great job and I am impressed at her use of technology with such a young group of students. The picture showed how much she loved what she did.

Post #7

The Education Rethink post was all about the font Comic Sans. I was enthralled with the author's description of the childishness and quirkiness of the font and how it has managed to become popular. He decided that he should embrace the font after all. He ended his post with "April Fools". And I was caught up in his game! 
I am a graduate student in an education media class. I was assigned to respond to your blog this week and what a great surprise! I love a good April Fool's joke. You had me on the hook, only because I never used the font myself. In my humble opinion, it didn't look professional enough! Thanks for the smile today.

Post #8

The author of the blog, WMChamberlain wrote about how he is working with his students on their note taking skills. He even had some personal discoveries after watching two videos. His discoveries were:
1) Note taking is a life skill.
2) Note taking is an act of learning.
3) Note taking should help with big ideas or concepts, not emphasizing facts. If you model note taking as a way to record facts you are doing it wrong.
4) Note taking is personal.
The author stressed his own need to model note taking keeping in mind these four things. "Instead of modeling learning, it is about time I model authentic learning."

I introduced myself and replied: I enjoyed this post on note taking. I learned early in high school that I could not remember anything from class unless I wrote it down while I was listening. I guess I am one of the fortunate students. I was able to hone these skills in college and yes, it is a very personal skill! I invented my own shorthand, but had I used the techniques listed in the first video, it wouldn't have been necessary. This is a very important topic to teach students. It can make their lives so much easier! Thank you for the post. The videos were a great visual.