iBook Summary

The Athens group made an iBook documenting our time in EDM310. We showcased our bigger projects, such as book trailers and Smartboard lessons. Each of us added our individual work - one blog post and ten pictures that we felt described us. The iBook had a Disney theme that tied our "Once Upon a Time in EDM310" idea together. To finish up our book, we recorded ourselves discussing how we will use technology in our future classrooms and we wrote a collective blog post weighing the pros and cons of technology in education. Overall I feel that our iBook represented us well and gave a glimpse of all the hard work we have done this semester.

Final Reflection

C4T #4

Brian Cosby, an upper elementary teacher and STEM facilitator in Nevada, blogs about innovative teaching and learning. In his post, With all the talk about how much we value teachers, and especially great teachers... he talks about how athletes and pop stars are world renown, but teachers are rarely recognized by the media. He makes valid points about the importance everyone puts on "education" but then no one acknowledges the teachers who give students that education. Although I agree with Crosby and feel like teachers are taken for granted, I know the same holds true for nurses and firefighters. Somewhere there is a teacher who finally got through to an at-risk student and helped them get to college and that teacher will never make the headline news. Somewhere there is a nurse who literally saved someones life, and that nurse doesn't get a cover story either. It is sad that these positive, real life stories are not publicized.

Unleash the Learning Power of Blogs By Actually Using Them Consistently! talks about the effectiveness of blogging in the classroom when used on a regular basis. Cosby compares blogging to an exercise machine, it only works if you use it. I really feel like blogging will be one of the most useful tools I take away from this semester. Using them as online writing portfolios for an English class will not only motivate students to improve their work, it will also make it easier to track the progress of each individual student, rather than having to keep up with every writing assignment turned in on paper.

Post 13

Project based learning and technology are not used as much when teaching English/Language Arts. In high school especially, the focus is on reading and responding to literature in essay form. What are some tools/methods/ideas that could be used to bring technology and projects (other than essays) into an English classroom?



Two very effective projects that were done in EDM310 could be transferred to a high school English class. Creating a book trailer via iMovie and creating a virtual book via iBook Author are two great ideas for mixing up the mundane in a literature based class. Students could create book trailers of their summer reading assignments as opposed to only testing and writing essays about them. Virtual books could be used not only for practice with poetry, grammar, and other technical purposes but also as a sort of community service project-students could be required to create iBooks for younger children.
My favorite education app of all time, EduCreations, could be used in an English classroom to make reviewing conventions a little more interesting. The class could be broken into groups and each group given a lesson on conventions to teach (commonly confused words, fragments and run-ons, commas, letter writing, etc.). Each group would create their lesson using EduCreations and then teach the class. This would require students to research their topic and make sure they were teaching it write, come up with creative ways to make it interesting, and understand the material well enough to explain it to others. Reviewing conventions is a necessary evil in high school English classrooms, so I may as well take advantage of it as an opportunity to get students engaged and build a friendly, comfortable, team-based environment.

Post 12

As a teacher, one will most likely at some point have a student with some sort of disability. Whether it be physical such as blindness or mental such as Attention Deficit Disorder, there are many assistive technologies available to help. As a prospective English teacher, I can see difficulties with reading presenting a problem in my future. Luckily, there are software programs that allow computers to read text aloud. Narrator for Windows and Text-to-Speech for Apple will read the text on a screen. This is optimal for students who either cannot see or focus on a computer screen well.
There are several assistive technology applications for the iPad available via the Apple App Store. One that really stuck out to me was iCommunicate. It lets you design visual schedules, storyboards, communication boards, routines, flash cards, choice boards, and speech cards. This can be especially helpful for students with Autism. One characteristic of Autism is needing a strict, unchanging schedule. iCommunicate allows you to create these schedules and could be very useful in keeping the classroom together.
Assistive Technology can be something as complex as an augmentative communication system but it can also be as simple as categorizing using different colored paper. The most important thing to remember is to tailor your methods to your students. Every child has different needs and as a teacher you must be willing to work on different strategies and helping those with disabilities.

C4K April

Antonia writes about her team going to the aquatic center and taking swimming lessons. She likes to swim because it is good for her health and is a fun hobby. Antonia likes the different types of strokes they learn at the lessons. She really enjoys swimming!


Noah from Pt England School did his Term 1 2014 Chromebook Reflection. He enjoyed using Chromebook because he could learn faster than with pencil and paper, but he didn't like how the wireless internet sometimes went out. Noah found Math Whizz most interesting and he had an awesome term overall!

Project 12 Part B

Group Athens presents a Smartboard lesson.

Project #15

My project based learning plan, Rewriting the Story, can be found here.

C4T #3

Andrea Hernandez is a Google Certified teacher in Jacksonville, Florida. She writes a blog called EdTech Workshop. Her post 5 Things I Wish Everyone Understood About Educational Technology was really beneficial to me. I always talk about the importance of face-to-face contact and communication skills and Hernandez points out that there must be a balance between this and technology. She makes the statement, "The students in my 4th/5th 1:1 iPad class do not need lessons on using their iPads. They are faster and more adept than I am at using most of the apps. However, they are young and still have a lot of learning to do when it comes to using these devices in a balanced, useful way. They have a lot to learn to become literate users of these powerful tools." My students will be using technology whether I like it or not, so the best I can do is teach them how to use it effectively and responsibly.

Hernandez uses a 1:1 iPad program with her language arts classes. In her blog post, Personalized Learning in a 1:1 Classroom, gives a tour of her inbox and shows a glimpse of what her students are doing in the classroom. They are creatively taking initiative and responsibility for their own learning. Her students email her with questions and drafts of their work. Hernandez uses the technology for personalized learning. With the 1:1 iPad program, she is able to asses and assist each child individually. She makes the statement, "We read. We write. We edit. We discuss. We think. We reflect. We create. Why would this look identical in a group of unique individuals?"

Teaching Interview

Post #11

Blog Post #11
Athens group blog post via Google Slides.

C4K Summary March

In Ms. She's class, they are learning to write explaination storys. Here Te-Manea explains why she wears a hat. She wears a hat to keep from getting too hot and to look pretty!

David from Ms. Walter's class made a Google Slide presentation of a pirate map. View his presentation here. He uses a map and gives directions for the pirate to follow to get to the treasure. David gave great directions telling whether to go north, south, east, or west and how many blocks to go.

Mohammed in Mrs. Clark's class wrote a blog post about a species of snakes found in Australia. You can read his post here. Mohammed gives us a lot of interesting information about the Taipan snake, although his favorite type of snake is the Anaconda. He likes Anacondas because they are so big.

Post #10

Sir Ken Robinson spoke on bringing on the learning revolution. Education must be revolutionized, not just modified. We have the tools of technology and the access to instant infinite information and we must use it in education. Just because it hasn't been used before doesn't mean we can't use it now. As educators, we must rise with the occasion and work with the circumstances of this century, not the last century. I think a lot of times when I think of myself teaching, I envision situations similar to those in which I was taught. The reality is, my classroom will be totally different because the situation has completely changed. I will have to use technology that my teachers could have never dreamed of.
Robinson's other main point is individuality. Each child is different and they cannot be taught the same way. We as educators have to learn to help each individual student learn. Teachers can make or break a child's dream so it's important that we encourage each of our students to do what makes them happy. You can't force all children to grow up and be doctors. It takes all kinds of people doing all kinds of things and it is our job as teachers to encourage and enable our students to do whatever it is they dream of.

Post #9

Little Kids... Big Potential is all about Ms. Cassidy's first grade class and how they use technology. The students seem to really enjoy working with blogs, wikis, and using other tools online to learn and share their work. I have had a hard time imagining how I will use technology in a high school English classroom, but this video has me convinced that students want to show their work off and receive feedback from others. Ms. Cassidy raises the question, "Why would they want to write something with pencil and paper for me to see when they can write it on their blogs for anyone to see?" Students may be more apt to work harder and put forth their best effort if they are submitting their work to an online writing portfolio. These blogs could include all major essays as well as literature reviews. Basically any work that can be done on paper can be done on a blog to create incentive to try harder. One problem with this may be the accessibility of computers and internet connections. In my area, there are not devices in every classroom and it would be hard to schedule enough classes in the library or labs where enough computers are available. Although we assume that students have enough access to a computer to print out the occasional paper, we cannot assume that they have enough access to be making multiple blog posts a week. That being said, if it is possible to create a class blog of "online writing portfolios" I think it has the potential to be very beneficial in a high school classroom.

Project #14

My project based learning plans can be found here.

Post #8

There are countless 21st Century learning and communicating tools. Twitter, Facebook, and Skype are all great ways to communicate. Sites like Quizlet and Flashcard Machine allow you to make virtual flashcards that save paper and are accessible from anywhere. One of my favorite online learning tools is Educreations.

Educreations is a database of instructional videos uploaded from people around the world. You can browse videos by school subject or search a specific topic. Not only can you find tutorials here, you can create them. The free app is available for download on your browser or iPad. Videos explaining basically any lesson can be created, such as this video on literary theme: Theme. This can be used by teachers as an alternative to powerpoint slides or as a tool when flipping the classroom. Ashley Cross used Educreations in her classroom to allow students to create their own video lessons. This is probably my favorite use of the technology because I feel like having students teach the lesson is an extremely effective way of assessing their knowledge. They can only teach if they truly understand. Also, students will engage in the subject while using the technology to create instructional videos. Watch Mrs. Cross's students' Educreation videos here.

Project #9

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C4T Summary #2

Bill Genereux, an Associate Professor of Computer Systems Technology at Kansas State University at Salina, writes a blog about intertwining technology with the arts and education. In his post, Pineapples don't have sleeves, He discusses the problem of poorly written questions in standardized testing. The questions are ambiguous and often confusing to the students they are supposed to be geared towards. The problem here is not only the questions, but the tests themselves. He mentioned reviewing a practice standardized test that his daughter did in class and talked about one of the ineffective questions. I am more concerned with the fact that teachers must take valuable learning time to teach students how to pass standardized tests.

Don't Know How really hit home for me. Genereux addresses not attempting new things because you don't know how. I have had problems in the past with this solely because of pride. I don't want to be wrong, so if I don't know how to do something I'll probably avoid it. Obviously this is a problem I am trying to overcome. I have to constantly remind myself, "What's the worst that could happen?", and try new things. He talks about computer technology and how it is always evolving, making it necessary to learn as you go. As educators, we cannot be afraid of not knowing. We have to use the tools we have to find out!

Project #13

The Art From Renaissance Project

The Art From Renaissance Project is a two-part project geared towards 9th grade World History. Students are broken into groups and required to create and present a slideshow about a particular Renaissance artist using iCurio and Google Drive. By giving each group a different artist, the whole class receives in-depth information, more so than if a brief overview of each artist had been given from a textbook. Then the class will attempt "The Michealangeo Project" where paper is taped to the bottom of tables and students lie on their backs to dra, recreating the painting of the Sistine Chapel. This gives students a better idea of how difficult it was and how incredible the work really is.

Post #7

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

Pausch's lecture is by far my favorite thing we have been assigned. I really enjoyed hearing his stories and his views on different aspects of life. He talks about teaching and learning and shows how project based learning has been effective. Seeing how his small project exploded into a huge, university-wide event gave me a better idea of how important it is to allow students to use their creativeness to learn.

In his last lecture before his death, he divulges his methods of teaching at Carnegie-Mellon. He began a class called Building Virtual Worlds in which fifty students were broken into groups of four and completed five projects dealing with virtual reality. Not fully knowing what to expect from his students, Pausch was blown away with their performance on the first project. This teaches us to never underestimate our students and shows that when we give freedom of creativity, students will almost always surprise us. Another important point from this particular story is that when Pausch didn't know what to do, he called his mentor. It is so important to have those with more experience to call on and ask for advice. This goes along with building a personal learning network like we have discussed earlier. Randy makes the statement, "Get a feedback loop and listen to it." In order to teach more effectively, we must get feedback from students, parents, and our own peers.

The reoccurring theme in randy Pausch's last lecture is the "head fake." A head fake is where you accomplish an underlying goal through working at another goal on the surface. He used this method repeatedly in his own teaching and it is the basis of the Alice Project. The Alice Project teaches students how to program while they think they are just creating animation and playing interactive games. Teaching students something hard by having fun is an extraordinary concept and should be employed in every classroom. As teachers, we can get students much more engaged and excited about difficult concepts and projects.

Randy talks about learning from your students. When you allow freedom of creativity, you will not always get what you expect and you may not always get what you want. Pausch says, "experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted." This statement holds true in the classroom. If a project doesn't work as well as planned, learn from it and make changes. As teachers in a project based learning environment, we must be flexible and willing to improve our methods based on our students.

C4K Summary February

Zachary from MN wrote a blog post entitled If Someone Gave Me a Million Dollars. He said he would buy hockey gear, a Lamborghini and a big garage, and then donate the rest of his money to charity. I've never been to a hockey game but it seems like a really fun sport. I suggested that Zachary could find a charity that had something to do with hockey, then he would be donating money to help others play his favorite sport.

Shelly from Mrs. Bayer's class wrote a blog post about her best friend, Minhal, moving to Saudi Arabia. Minhal is leaving :( She talked about all the great memories they have and mentioned that there should be a book written about their friendship. It's crazy that I was assigned this blogger because I can completely relate! I told Shelly about when my best friend moved in the eighth grade. We actually made a friendship book so we would always remember how close we were in middle school. I saw her five years later and we went through our book and laughed about all the silly things we said. I told Shelly that it is easy to keep in touch with old friends through email and other social media.

Liliah from Mrs. Miller's high school English class wrote a blog post about treating other people with respect. Her This I Believe Essay was about "judging a book by it's cover," or assuming things about people when you do not know their personal situations. I think it is really important to promote Liliah's way of thinking especially in a school setting. As a high school teacher, I will stress consideration for others to my students in an effort to reduce conflict.

Book Trailer

Post #6

A PLN, or personal learning network, is where you find inspiration, ideas, and assistance. Your PLN is made up of people, programs, applications, and any other tools you use to improve your work. PLNs are especially useful for teachers. We are educators but we are also learners, and we must constantly learn to improve our methods and build upon our lessons for our students. Personal learning networks are a great way to keep up with new technology and techniques to bring into the classroom.

Forming PLNs is as easy as following other educators on Twitter and Facebook. This gives you a world-wide interactive information base. You can interact with others who are teaching the same material or having similar issues in the classroom. There is no limit to connecting with technology. There are hundreds of programs that can lead you to thousands of people. The knowledge base created is infinite. I think it is also really important to build your personal learning network on a local level. By meeting people in your area, you create a contact list that can help you with virtually anything. My cousin was an elementary school teacher in Tennessee and she knew each of her students' parents on a personal level. One dad built her furniture while another had connections with a NFL team and was able to get professional football players in her classroom reading books to her students. With a close-knit local network, anything is possible.

As an English teacher, I will always be looking for new projects to bring life to literature. My PLN will include fellow educators as well as authors and publishers. I began my PLN by logging into twitter, searching "high school English teacher" and was able to connect with several tech-savvy educators, even some Google certified teachers. On a more personal level, my cousin, Ashley Cross, is an amazing resource for all things digital in the classroom. Other first-additions to my PLN will be current and former educators of mine. Who better to call on for help than those who inspired me to teach in the first place?

My Sentence Videos

My Sentence Is...

My Passion Is...

Post #5

In Project Based Learning Part 1, Anthony Capps makes the point that project based learning is a method of learning as opposed to using projects to show what has been learned. This was very interesting to me because in my grade school experience, projects were always done after a lesson. I feel like students will be much more engaged doing projects in order to learn. Capps also talks about how he is able to meet state standards with these projects which is a big concern in classrooms.

iCurio Anthony 070113 taught me about iCurio and how it can be used in the classroom. iCurio is a curated search engine program that allows students to search for information and organize it into drives. iCurio keeps internet searching safe because all information available on it has been reviewed and deemed appropriate for the particular grade level. iCurio eliminates the concern for inappropriate content in web searching and makes project based learning a lot more feasible.

Discovery Ed is a resource that has videos on endless science and social studies topics. In Discovery Ed Anthony070113, Capps talks about the importance of videos in student retention. Students are able to search topics that interest them and find specific videos that give them more information than a general grade-level teacher could. I think Discovery Ed would be a great tool to keep students engaged and excited about learning.

In the video, Additional Thought About Lessons Anthony 070113, Capps talks about the four layers of a lesson. When planning lessons, it is important to plan it on a yearly, unit, weekly, and daily perspective. I think this is very important to ensure that you stay on track with your lessons and that your projects serve their purpose as effectively as possible.

C4T Summary #1

Joe Bower is a Canadian teacher who focuses on non-traditional education and discounts the use of grades and testing in his blog, for the love of learning.

His post, I'm Learning About Project Based Learing, gives a list of things that need to become more prevalent in schools and another list of things that need to become less prevalent. There is a need to shift towards active learning and comprehension as apposed to short-term memorization. Bower got the lists from Methods that Matter by Harvey Daniels and Marilyn Bizar. It seems like a it would be a great read and helpful when brainstorming ideas on how to transform classrooms from testing centers to learning centers.

Does this tell us more about the student or the teacher? is discussing the comical test above. Whether the test is real or created to be funny, Bower uses it to make a strong point. As teachers, we ask the wrong questions. Boring questions that simply ask for memorized answers do not promote understanding and comprehension of material. He suggests that as teachers we: allow students to ask as many questions as we do, have students share their new found knowledge with others as opposed to just turning it in, and utilize projects instead of fill-in-the-blank tests.

Post #4

To be effective teachers, we need to know what questions to ask and how to ask them. I think a major part of understanding how to do this is to remember what it was like to be students in grade school. I was very shy until my last few years of high school and I hardly ever volunteered to answer questions and I definitely dreaded being called on. In his article, The Right Way to Ask Questions, Ben Johnson hits on this type of avoidance and on the thoughts of students as questions are being asked. We have all been guilty of avoiding answering questions because we know someone else will. In a perfect world every student would learn when another answers a question, but in the real world, only a few students are paying attention if not directly engaged.

A common problem in classrooms is the "yes or no" question. It is important as educators to ensure that our students are answering why and how instead of just reciting facts. Memorization of true and false answers is the reason students have retention problems. If we help our students understand why we are asking the question and how we arrive at the answer, we help them truly learn the information. Joanne Chesley talks about asking these "open-ended questions" as opposed to "close-ended questions" in her video, Asking better questions in the classroom.

When asking questions, it should be our goal to get every student participating and understanding the material. In my opinion, a teacher should begin each class by reminding students that everyone will be expected to answer at least one question and maybe even offer participation or bonus points. By giving the students incentive to pay attention and asking open-ended questions, it will be easier to accurately gauge understanding.

Post #3

I feel like peer feedback is one of the most important concepts in education. It helps connect students in a classroom and gives them an opportunity to work as a team to accomplish their goals. That being said, there is definitely a right and a wrong way to critique peers. The video, What is Peer Editing?, teaches effective ways to edit such as making positive comments and constructive feedback. It does not help others if you give them empty praise, but critiquing someone's writing in a hurtful way is just as ineffective. It mentions several times that the most important thing to remember about peer editing is to stay positive.

The slideshow, Peer Edit with Perfection Tutorial, teaches three steps to guide peer editing. The first step is to compliment the work of your peer. This sets a positive tone and will generally make the original writer more responsive to what you have to say. Secondly, you must make suggestions about the work. Instead of just telling the writer how you think they should do it to make it better, positively suggest alternative ways of saying things. Lastly, you should make corrections to basic grammar, mechanics, and spelling. In the video, Writing Peer Review Top Ten Mistakes, several examples of bad peer reviews were given. If you just remember to give feedback that you would want to be given, peer reviewing is a great way to get involved in class. Reading over other students work may also help you reevaluate your own!

Post #2

The central message of the Sir Dancealot video was clearly an example of ineffective teaching techniques. While power point slides and notes may be appropriate occasionally for some subjects, it is absurd to expect students to learn a physical activity like dancing through this method. To learn any activity or concept, one must practice. The author proves his point by showing the students confused during the final when they were expected to perform tasks they had never practiced. It is impossible effectively teach a dance class by only lecturing. Not only was it hard to explain the steps and demonstrate from behind the desk, but the students became uninterested quickly because they were not engaged in the learning process. I agree and think that the idea of this video can be applied in all subjects, not just a physical activity like dancing. If you do not engage your students and allow them to participate and practice, they will not be interested and will have a difficult time mastering any concepts, from multiplication tables to effective essay writing to the structure and function of a plant cell.

The Teaching in the 21st Century video, Kevin Roberts makes several strong points suggesting that the future of teaching will be solely based on technology. With the increasing availability of technology to students,they are able to find out almost anything from the internet. Our job as teachers will be to guide students on how to search for information effectively. We will no longer be their source of knowledge. I agree with this but I also believe the role of teachers is still very important because even though a student may be able to read information on a screen, it will not always be easy to practice that information. An example of this was shown in the first video, Sir Dancealot. The students were capable of looking up the steps and moves of the dance on the internet, but they were not able to perform the dance without practice and personal instruction. This personalized attention is important in every subject, especially English. Students cannot learn to write an essay from an online tutorial. I agree that technology is becoming more and more vital in the education of children, but I do not think it will ever be appropriate to totally discount the importance of teaching in person.

I like the idea of The Networked Student video. Drexler shows how students are able to find information online and share it with other students around the world. In moderation, this is a good learning technique. However, I do not feel that all learning should be done online. I am of the opinion that students should still have to read books and turn in hard copy projects and handwritten assignments. I think allowing students some time to search the web, write blogs, comment on posts, and communicate with others about their opinion is a good thing to be used as a reward or to gain student interest and increase involvement. Even with using the internet to find information, teachers are still necessary to show students how to search effectively and find credible source, as well as ensuring that all work done online is appropriate. I do believe that opening the technology door this wide allows many issues such as plagiarism and the availability of inappropriate materials.

Davis understands the necessity of varying teaching styles to ensure each student is receiving an effective education. She uses technology to help students who do not learn well with pencil and paper. One technique I found especially interesting was allowing students to teach the class information that they have found on the internet. I think this is a great concept because students must really understand the material if they are to teach it to the rest of the class. I feel like it also gives students some control in the classroom which promotes interest and involvement.

I think Flipping the Classroom is a great method of teaching. It would be especially useful as an English teacher because instead of spending class time lecturing grammar rules, students could watch lectures at home and then practice with fun exercises in the classroom. In high school I spent a lot of time in classes that were all lecture and then assigned a lot of homework as a result. I think students would be more inclined to watch videos and gain a basic understanding of the material than they would spending hours doing problems or exercises at home. Flipping the classroom seems like an effective way of managing time in and out of the classroom and continuing the learning process at home without having to assign homework that more than likely would not get done. The more time spent in the classroom applying concepts and learning hands-on, the more engaged students will be.

Post #1

I have honestly heard nothing about EDM310 except for what I read on ratemyprofessor.com. I do not usually trust comments put on the website because it is so easy to post negative feedback that may not necessarily be true, especially if a student received a poor grade or disagreed with a professor on a personal level. Being relatively new in the College of Education, I did not know anyone who had already taken the course.

The only fear I have of EDM310 is fear of the unknown. I know I am capable of doing well if I work hard, but it is frightening going into a class having no idea what it is about. I am concerned because I don't consider myself to be tech-savvy and I tend to be timid with things I do not understand. However, since this is a required class, I cannot drop it just because I get scared of not succeeding.

EDM310 is very different from any course I've ever taken. I have never worked with blogs or really any computer programs in an education setting except for a basic computer skills class. Another major difference is the amount of work and time this class will require. I am not the world's best student when it comes to studying and I have, for the most part, been able to coast through school my entire life. From what I can tell, this class will be more about actually learning and retaining skills that I will use in my career unlike previous courses such as Biology.

The most difficult thing about EDM310 for me personally will be time management. In the past I have been a procrastinator and a master of "last minute." I knew as soon as I began to read the syllabus that this would be the course to change my evil ways. I understand that I really will not be able to do these projects last minute and that this class will take a lot more time than I have previously allocated to homework. The only way for me to address this issue is to stay ahead on my assignments and not allow myself to get behind or even "cut it close." I tend to use work as an excuse, so I need to manage my work and personal schedule around this class as if it were my main source of income. It will definitely take some adjusting but I feel confident that I will be successful.

I foresee having many technical questions throughout the semester. I plan on taking advantage of the lab times to get help as well as working with other students. I am really enjoying writing blog posts so far and I am looking forward to seeing what I can do in EDM310.

Practice Post

My name is Jessica Joanne Garris and I will be twenty years old on January 23. I have lived in Mobile my whole life. I lived in the same house for eighteen years, but I am currently living in an apartment with one of my best friends from high school. I graduated from Baker in 2012 and I was an Azalea Trail Maid. I am now a Crewmate for the USS Alabama. My favorite hobbies are riding horses and being at the beach. I came to USA because I am very family-oriented and I did not want to move far away from my home. I am a Secondary Education/English major.

My family is the most important thing in my life. My brother, Ben, is thirteen years old and plays football. Being seven years apart, we tried to kill each other most of the time when we were younger; now that only happens occasionally. I am closer to my mom than I am to anyone. She is always right about everything and she knows me inside and out. My daddy is the strongest, most hard-working man I have ever met in my life. He has led our family in a loving way and taught me to be just as stubborn and independent as he is. I am also really close with my grandparents. My grandmother is the best cook in the world and I probably would have starved a long time ago if it were not for her. I'm grateful to have been raised by a wonderful group of people that continue to influence my life every day.

I am going into education because honestly I've known I would be a teacher since I was old enough to be in school. When I started college I convinced myself I wanted to go in the medical field and went pre-physical therapy. I went from that to Professional Health Sciences and from that Radiologic Sciences. The problem was that I hate science. I could not find a passion anywhere in medicine. I worked as a Supplemental Instructor for Statistics this past semester and while working with other students helping them understand a difficult concept, it hit me that I wanted to be helping students understand for the rest of my life. I want to teach in high school because I feel like it is a defining time in students' life. My English teachers in high school had an incredible impact on the person I am today and I want to be that person for other people.

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