Blog Post #12

Assistive Technology Articles
Assistive Technology Videos
Assistive Technology Presentation

C4T Teacher #3

I was given Tyler Rice's blog to comment on over these past couple of weeks, and his blog has not been updated recently. However, I did get a chance to read some of his previous postings and they were very interesting. The first blog post was titled "The curse of the standardized test". In his post he says that he has had to change his teaching methods to adapt to the new standard of testing. Something I found very interesting that he said was: "I have become a standards-driven, assessment focused teacher and it sucks. Sure I still avoid textbooks and worksheets like the plague. Yes, I still strive to bring hands-on, engaging, real-world learning to my students". So although the new methods of teaching has been introduced, he is still teaching the way he enjoys teaching and how he feels is effective. I think I can gain a lot from reading a blog like this because I can see the way things like "standardized tests" are actually affecting current teachers.

The second post that I commented on was about making time for one-on-one conversations. He listed the rewards for having these conversations and I found myself agreeing with him on all of these.

I learn more about each student as a person
I learn more about each student as a learner
I correct important misconceptions
I give valuable feedback to students about their learning
I receive valuable feedback from students about my teaching
I improve my relationships with the people whom I am privileged to teach
My reasons for loving teaching are reaffirmed

In my future classroom I hope to have strong relationships with each of my students, and I plan to do this by setting aside time for these important one-on-one conversations. I plan to teach a younger grade level. At that age teachers can be one of the most influential role models in their life's, and hopefully these important conversations can help my students grow even outside of the classroom.

Picture Link

Project #14 Part B Group 8

PBL Lesson Plan
PBL Calendar
PBL Rubric
PBL Checklist

Blog Post #11

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What can we learn about teaching and learning from these teachers?

This week I watched six different videos of teachers and their methods of teaching. Brian Crosby did a project where the students were able to send a ballon into space. They had multiple steps to complete throughout the project, but one of the most important parts in my opinion to this video was when the students had to post videos onto their blog about the project. The students would post the video, have multiple views, and become encouraged that other people were interested in what they were doing in the classroom. At the end of the video the students even skyped with a New Zealand class about the project they performed because another class wanted to do something similar but did not know how. This not only aloud the students to show something they were proud of, but also gave them exposure to another culture. The second video I watched was by Paul Anderson and his steps for the Blended Learning Cycle. The Blended Learning Cycle had six different steps: QUestion, Investigate, Video, Elaboration, Review, Summary quiz. One important things that he said was that there is "power in numbers", and this is very true with PBL. The students working together in small groups allows for the expansion of ideas being put forth towards a project. The third was a video based off of a book called Make Thinking Visible. This was giving an example of how learning can be brought to life in the classroom. How it worked was the students read a little bit about a book and then were formed into small groups to create a headline about this book. The headline was a short few words drawn onto a long piece of paper. The students then presented their headline to the class, and once everyone was finished presenting the headlines were displayed throughout the room. This gave the students the chance to display their creativity, and also learn about their classmates viewpoints about the book. The fourth video was from Sam Pane and his "building a comic" project. This project seemed very interesting to me, and is something that I could see potentially trying to incorporate in my classroom. The teacher opened the lesson with a quote from spiderman. They were learning about how to be a good citizen on the internet. What they meant by being a good citizen is someone who chooses to act safely and respectfully online. The students were each asked to create a superhero through this superhero builder website. Once the superhero was built then they were asked to make a storyline about how their superhero taught a citzen (themselves) to be safe on the internet. Once the project was completed they did a "gallery walk" inside the classroom and walked aroung the room looking at other students completed work. A project like this deals with real life lessons, as well as age appropriate material to keep them engaged. The fifth video was about a classroom which they started incorporating PBL by combining a History and English class. The class counted for 3 credit hours and aloud for a longer period of time to teach in the classroom. Combining classrooms like this is not only beneficial for the students, but the number of possibilities in the classroom also increases for the teacher. Teachers who are trying new learning styles like this and documenting them for others to see is really helpful to see what worked as well as what did not. Finally the sixth video was of Roosevelt Elementary and their incorporation of PBL. They have their students working in groups on a project for a longer amount of time. The benefits are greater in depth learning, the ability to make decisions are their own, learning real world skills, learning to work collaboratively, as well as positive student interaction. In this elementary school they are teaching the students to work and present these projects to the class at a young age. This was something that I thought was important personally. My biggest fear throughout school has been public speaking, and I think by exposing children to this life skill at a younger age will allow them to grow more comfortable with this task.

Project #12 Part A

C4K October

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This month for my C4K I was assigned to 4 different students blogs from all over the world. These students names were Heaven, Sarah, Sami, and Amber. Each of these students had very different blogs. Heaven shared a blog that answered the question: "If you could change something, what would it be?". She replied by saying she would not change anything but her hair because she likes for it to be long. Sarah was expressing about how she felt that students who are behaving badly should be punished by losing their recess privledges. She stated that students enjoy recess and in order to learn from their bad behavior that they should be punished by having something they enjoy taken away from them. Sami wrote a very imaginative story. The story was about a little boy who went downstairs in the middle of the night because he was hungry. He smelled something awesome, but it turned out to be a brussel sprout. The imagination and creativity he involved in this post really shined through. Finally Amber, she was posting about how they learned how to use a compass in her class. She showed images of a map they were learning to read with the coordinates in the picture. All of these blogs had different topics, but it was interesting to see their creativity, imagination, and intelligence being applied in posting these. I replied with encouraging words to let them know I enjoyed reading their blog posts. I think it is important to give positive reinforcement to students posting on blogs. Posting blogs can be a scary thing for some students due to fear of rejection to their posts. Everyone likes to hear nice things about the work that they have put forth, and I hope to comment positively to help with that.

Blog Post #10

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Ms. Cassidy teaches in a way that uses technology often, and she believes strongly that the technology is not going away but will continue to grow. I agree with this statement. Technology has grown so much even over the last few years. In her classroom she has a class blog that she uses with her students, a webpage they can visit to find different educational links, they skype with other people from around the world, etc,. In my future classroom I think that an important tool for me to use as I have mentioned before will be my class blog. I think that a class blog is a good way to keep everyone linked together and be able to collaboratively learn from eachother. An interesting way that Ms. Cassidy uses technology is through a blogging buddy. Each student is assigned to another older student from a different school to comment on their blogs. The students get excited that someoone is comenting on their blogs, and it gives them an opportunity to build a relationship with students outside of their own school. I find this to be beneficial for many reasons but most importantly by hearing how the students get excited that someone viewed their post. If the students are excited about something then that makes the learning process better for everyone.

A big concern for using technology in the classroom is often "How do we keep our children safe". Ms. Cassidy tells her students not to ever post their nastname, only your first. She also tells the students that when they post pictures not to refer directly to who is in the picture. These are great ways of keeping the identity of the students safe. Another concern is keeping what they see monitored. The internet allows you to access anything you want, and this is a priveledge that students should learn not to abuse. In my old school at St. Pauls, we all started using our own laptops in the classroom starting in the 6th grade. It was required that we brought our laptops to class every day. The way that they monitored what sites we were visiting was by blocking innapropriate websites. When I was in school there was a game called "Bubble Trouble", and my friends and I loved to play this game. The administration heard of this game that we were all playing (that was not educational), and immediately blocked the website at school. Similar websites were blocked that were not considered to be educational at the time like Facebook and Twitter. I would be curious to know if they still have Facebook blocked for students. I think that Facebook could be beneficial if used correctly. One way of using Facebook could be to have a group page set up for the students in your class. This could be used for the teacher to post reminders, and for students to juist interact with one another outside of the classroom. There are going to be complications with any new technology being introduced, but I think that there are ways to fix everything.