Special Assignment: Mr. McClung

In response to Dr. Strange's questions in our Special Assignment:
1. Mr. McClung is clearly passionate about technology, and finds incredible ways to implement that in his classroom. He uses his blog to share assignments, schedules, and instructions with students, parents, and teachers; but he does much more than that. He uses his blog to share with the world anything and everything he finds interesting, from music to news to fundraising.
2. He is clearly a very interactive, energetic, hands-on teacher. You can see that is the videos of his lesson as well as his blog. He makes himself available to his students and is driven by their success.
3. Rules one through five in Mr. McClung's list are pretty standard for any teacher. He goes into detail describing procedures to be used in the class, which I found very interesting. Some of them are a modification of an old elementary teacher's trick (clap twice if you can hear me), but the ones I really liked are that teach-ok and the gestures. He tests his students in real world ways to put what they know to practical use.
4. The first item under syllabus was a daily planner. It's important for students to learn how to stay organized and on time with their assignments. That's a lesson that will help them for the rest of their lives.
5. I would say that Mr. McClung's penalties for being late are similar to Dr. Strange's. In EDM 310, if you do your assignments on time, you'll probably be a hard worker and make a good grade. If you're late with most assignments but complete them, then you will probably make a B or C in both Mr. McClung's class and EDM 310. If you fail to do your assignments, you don't deserve to pass.
6. Mr. McClung wants to use his blog as a tool for resources and schedules for parents and students to view. He does a great job with it and I also want to implement a blog like this when I am a teacher. This would have been an amazing resource if my teachers had done this when I was in school.
7. The first link that I viewed was ConvinceMe.com. It is a site that lets viewers bring up any topic they choose and debate it. The goal is to try to convince other people to share your views. This could be a helpful tool for students because it would teacher them how to defend their ideas. The site also allows you to post evidence in an attempt to persuade other's opinion. This would teach students to research and be able to prove their case in order to make an argument. The second site I viewed was the Plagiarism Checker. This is a site that is provided by the University of Maryland. It is free and allows to teachers to simply copy and paste a students homework to see if it has been plagiarized. This is also something the teachers could share with students so that they can check themselves and make sure that haven't accidentally copied someone else. I will definitely be using this when I'm a teacher!
8. When you are incorporating technology into the classroom it is important to have guidelines set out to protect students. Mr. McClung did a great job laying down an adequate list to keep students safe. I really liked his idea of using a generic email address so that students are never at the risk of giving out their personal information.
9. The catagory that I reviewed for this assignment was Ark (Arkansas)History. The post I found most interesting was a recent video clip of different students. Mr. McClung assigned them to write down why they were proud to be from Arkansas. He then video taped a few selected students reading their response. One student said he was proud that Wal-Mart was founded in Arkansas, I didn't know that! At the bottom Mr. McClung lists that reasons that he loves his home state, he sure does sound proud of it!
10. I really like how Mr. McClung separates his posts into topics and then has a drop down box to select each topic. I know blogger can do something similar to this, and if I create a personal blog or a class blog this is definitely something I would try to add. It makes his blog look much more organized and makes searching for easy.
11. His blog is a hub of information conveniently located in one place. As I said before, he keeps it organized, shares assignments and schedules, and posts his personal findings. It must be incredibly useful for students and parents.
12. Mr. McClung's blogs is one of the most elaborate blogs I have seen. He is involved in several different areas at school, including teaching multiple subjects as well as coaching. He blog lets him put everything every student of his needs in one spot. I think that his understanding of technology as well as his passion to incorporate it into the classroom are the causes of this.
13. The only comment I can think to add is KEEP UP THE EXCELLENT WORK MR. McCLUNG!