Blog Post 11

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

By watching these six videos I learned so many different things about teaching and learning.

In the first video, Brian Crosby's Back to the Future, he spoke about how students are disconnected and do not have a lot of passion in what they do. He showed his class and how he is very hands on with them and then instead of having just a normal boring multiple choice test, he has them blog about it. I think this is a good way to test your students because they would need to actually pay attention and learn to be able to write about it. If they were just going to have a a test they would just memorize the information and then forget it the next week. 

In the next video Blended Learning Cycle, Paul Anderson spoke about how he uses the Blended Learning Cycle. The Blended Learning Cycle puts online, classroom and mobile learning and integrates all of them together and then they use it to engage, explore, explain and expand. His method has six parts, question, investigation, video, elaboration, review and then a summary quiz. I think this is a good strategy because it gets the students to try and learn the material on their own instead of having it force fed to them.

In the next video Making Thinking Visible, it showed Mark Church's classroom. It showed the students discussing in groups about how human origins came to be and had them sum it up into one sentence. This is a good example of group work and critical thinking. 

In the next video Super Digital Citizen, Sam Pane discussed with his class how to be a good citizen on the internet. He had his class make a "digital super hero" and make a comic about how to be safe on the internet. This is a very cool idea. The students will get very excited and involved with creating their characters and it also gets a good message across.

In the next video Project Based Learning, it showed how they incorporated PBL in a high school classroom. They integrated technology with the history and English classes. They had each of the three teachers go around and give different feedback to their students and it also gave them more time with their class because they put all of the classes together.

Finally, in the video Roosevelt Elementary's PBL program it showed the class using Project Based Learning. They stated that you can really tell that the students understand the concepts they are learning because they are showing the information in the projects. They also stated that you should give the students different choices to choose from because every student learns differently. The students also learn public speaking skills and they learn to work together in groups. 

Project #12 Part A

C4K For October.

The most recent post I commented on was Katareina's post. She wrote a dictation on the importance of fitness and I commented that I agree that fitness is important and I commended her on embedding her picture she chose.

Next was Madison T's post. She wrote a very lengthy post on what do to when you are babysitting a child, I was very impressed with her writing skills at such a young age! I commented that her post was very informative and that she must babysit a lot.

Next was Maeve's post. He wrote about how he believes that children should not get recess taken away as a punishment and that their should be an alternative. I commented that I agree with his statements and that he had a lot of good ideas

And finally the first post I had was Jikerius's post. He wrote that he wanted to improve his class by getting iPads, having a tutoring class and being able to go get fast food for his favorite subject, lunch. I told him he had some interesting ideas on improving the school and that iPads also help with saving paper!

Source: smartick.es

Blog Post #10

What can we learn from Mrs. Cassidy?

This week I watched four different videos about Mrs. Kathy Cassidy's strategies in her classroom and I learned a lot from each one.

In the first video Little Kids....Big Potential I saw how she used blogs in her classroom in Canada. The children were so excited about people reading their posts! One student said it makes him want to write better when he knows that he has an audience, which makes me glad that we get to respond to students in our class! Blog posts are a great way for young students to improve their writing skills. The class also has it's own Wiki. This is a great way for students to look up exactly what they need for their projects and when they edit the Wikis the students are learning new information as well. I also liked how she used Skype to have guest speakers. It is hard to get guest speakers to come to your class but with Skype you can get anyone from around the world! 

In Mrs. Cassidy's Skype interview  I learned how she started with integrating technology in her classroom ten years ago with five computers and how she has a very good administration that supports her. She stated that parents are supportive as well because they can see what their child is doing and how they are doing in class. Mrs. Cassidy went on to talk about the importance of using technology and how we need to learn how to integrate it now while we are in college, which I completely agree with! We need to learn to accept these new technologies now so when we get are own classrooms later on, we will be prepared and we won't handicap out students.

In Part Two on the interview Mrs. Cassidy stated that we should start technology in the classroom with what you are interested in which I agree with. How are you supposed to get your kids excited about something that you do not care about? If you start them off with something you like, then you'll start the class off right! She also talked about how she uses Twitter to open up her Personal Learning Network. You can use Twitter to get to know different educators around the world.

In Part Three of the interview  She answered a lot of Dr. Strange's students questions and this goes back to how she uses Skype in her own classroom for her students. She stated that we need to start being more creative in the way we ask our students to present their work because they can look up simple answers on the internet, which is not a bad thing. They can use that information in a collaborative way and "piggy-back" off of it and learn new information at the same time. I also learned ways to keep students safe of the internet. She stated that you need to teach the students where to go and how to comment on each others blogs in a positive way. 

I enjoyed watching Mrs. Cassidy's videos. They were very informative and I learned a lot of useful information from it! 

Source: Pinterest.com

PBL Lesson Plan #2

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Blog Post #9

What Can Teachers and Students Teach Us About Project Based Learning? 

Project Based Learning is in my opinion one of the most effective ways to teach. However, it can be one of the most difficult to learn to teach. So, what can other educators as well as our students teach us about Project Based Learning?

In Seven Essentials for Project-Based Learning I learned a lot about what is most important to have in you PBL lesson plans. First, we need to pick a topic that the students will really want to get involved in and to start it off by showing a video or having a guest speaker to get them excited about it! Next we need a good, driving question that will prompt them in creating their projects. Next is the "voice and choice" of their projects. This lets the students know that their voice needs to be heard and they can choose to express themselves in any way they feel comfortable and then in the next step we need to make sure they learn to collaborate on their thoughts and ideas. Then each group will come up with questions for their own projects and be able to answer them and by doing this the revision process will be easier and then they finally have a finished project!

The video Project-Based Learning for Teachers is a great way to introduce and show teachers what PBL is and it gives a lot a resources to use!

In the article Ten Sites Supporting Digital Classroom Collaboration In Project Based Learning they listed a good deal of websites to use in PBL such as Google Docs and Skype. When I was reading this list I realized we use a lot of these technologies in EDM310!

In the article Project-Based Learning and Physical Education I learned that PBL can even be used in PE class, He even used the exact steps from Seven Essentials for Project-Based Learning!

Finally, in the video PBL: What motivates students today I learned first hand what motivates students to do well in school. A lot of the children said that it's because of the career they want to get into. I also learned the different reward systems the students teachers would use.

Group Project #9

Special Post

From the recent study by Zogby Analytics, there are some alarming statistics about smartphones. 87% of people said that there phone never leaves there side and 78% of people say they spend 2 or more hours per day using their smartphone. This will lead to students not being able to focus on their schoolwork because they are constantly wondering what is on there phones. Along with this, they will no longer want to socialize with each other because they just want to look at their phones.

However, I think students could use their smartphones and tablets for good in class. In the Zogby study it states that 91% of people say that having a camera on their smartphone is important and that every smartphone now has a camera. 

The students could use this in class by taking pictures on there smartphones of data they need for their projects and share them with the class. They could also take pictures of homework or class work so they do not forget what they need to do for the next class. 

Source: thedigitaldrew.com

Blog Post #8

What Can We Learn About Teaching and Learning From Randy Pausch?

Today I watched Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. I really enjoyed 

his lecture and his positive attitude even though he knew this was the last lecture he would ever give. It taught me so much about not only teaching, but learning as well. In his story about his days playing football, he talked about how his coach would correct him all day long and never let up and that this was a good thing because that means he did not give up on him. We should be like this with our future students. If we do not tell them what they are doing wrong, they will never get it right and grow from it. 

I also learned that you can never give up on your dreams. Randy Pausch completed every one of his childhood dreams because he never gave up and to quote him "Brick walls are there for a reason. Brick walls are not there to keep us out, they are there to show how badly we want something. They're there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough."

When he spoke about trying to become an Imagineer for Disney. He spoke about two men who he was trying to run his project by. He stated that both of the men said the same thing, but it was how they said it that made the difference. One just simply said "I don't know!" and the other one said "I don't have much information but please tell me more." This is the attitude we need to have as teachers. We need to constantly learn new things and not shut out new ideas.

I enjoyed his discussion of his Virtual Reality class, It was a great example of PBL! The whole class was doing a project every two weeks and having a new group for each one. This class seemed like it would of been awesome to be apart of. Teaching something while having fun is the best way to learn.

Finally, this lecture taught me how we learn from everyone. From our current teachers to our future students, we can learn from everyone. This lecture inspired me so much and I cannot wait for what the future has in store for me.

Source: en.wikipedia.org

C4T Summary - EdTech Workshop

I was assigned Andrea Hernandez's blog, EdTech Workshop. Her posts were very interesting to read

and gave me a lot of ideas for my future classroom. The first post I read by her was 3 Tips to Help 

You Survive as an Innovative Teacher. She wrote about how she recently saw the movie "Chef"

and how she realized how much it related to teaching. She states that "As a teacher, I want everyone

to be excited about my 'cooking.' Like the chef, I work hard to create fresh, innovative and delicious

learning opportunities for my students. Like the chef, I pour my heart and soul into my work and feel

devastated when the haters hate." She states we should stay strong by smiling more, connect with

other educators and to share your thoughts and feelings with others so you do not keep everything

bottled up inside. I commented that I loved that she used the chef as an analogy for teachers because

we need to have a wide variety on our "menus" because not all children will learn the same.

The second post I read was Daily 5: Implementation Checklist & Other Resources. She states that

the Daily Five method is being implemented at her school and how it helps with literacy and meets

the needs of every individual learner. She shared her Daily 5 Implementation Checklist which I

commented is a great way to stay on track with your class and to make sure each students is

learning what they are supposed to.

Source: pinnest.net

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