Friday, June 28, 2013
Blog Post 10
Randy Pausch's Last Lecture
Randy Pausch's last lecture is by far one of the most inspirational lecture's I've ever seen ever. In his video, he lectured about pursuing your dreams and never letting the "brick wall" stop you. He accomplished all of his dreams and paved the path to helping others see their dreams. He died six months after the lecture because of an illness, but we can all learn that life is short--go for your dreams! He empathizes that we have to live life with others, never be depressed, and be proud of what we can do and achieve.
What can teachers learn from him? What did he teach?
Teaching and learning are beneficial with one, simple phrase. Perseverance and willing to accept humility.
I say perseverance because when you work hard, results show. They won't show instantly, but they do show. Teachers can learn to put extensive effort in rubric and lesson plans. I learned very quickly that if a teacher seems lazy, then the students won't care either.
Main Lesson for Teaching: Randy says, "Teach something while they are learning something else."
How do you do that?
It's simple and like Project Based Learning(PBL). If we teachers decide to incorporate (PBL) into our classroom then we'd be teaching our students collaboration, citizenship, and skills they'll need their entire life.
I know when they do a group presentation on a project they are proving their knowledge on the subject, but they are also learning public speaking, linguistics and professionalism. In Dr. Strange's class we seem to be learning about blogging, but we are really learning to watch what we post on the internet, publication of work, networking, collaboration, and much more than I should explain on this specific assignment.
Main Lesson for Learning: Randy says, "Experience is what you get when you don't get what you wanted today."
I completely understood what he meant when he preached that.
Let me back up and explain that sometimes inspirational words of wisdom never make sense unless you experienced a sense of failure in pursing your dream.
In my experience from last year, an experience I'll never forget, I queried over sixty New York literary agents my favorite book. I thought it was a great book. It was 52,000 words and one of my best composed pieces compared to all the others I've done in all my eight years of writing. All sixty of the agents rejected my proposal(they reject 99% of proposals). I was frustrated, but I didn't let the brick wall stop me. Now I am still refurbishing the same book which is now 90,000+ words and it's better than before because I gained experience and learned from my mistakes. I'll be ready to try again before the end of the year because I work hard on it everyday.
Whether it's in the classroom or outside in the world, life experience teaches you everything even when you didn't get what you wanted. As far as learning is concerned, from Randy I learned that failure is very vital in the learning process. Without it I can't advance to get better.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Blog Post 8
Blended Learning Cycle
I watched Mr. Paul Andersen's Youtube video about the Blended Learning Cycle. Blended learning is a combination of learning with mobile phones, the internet, and being in a classroom. The learning cycle is consisted with engaging, exploring, expanding, and explaining with a posed question. All of this inspires the "blended learning cycle." Mr. Andersen claimed that he strayed from what he knew--the power of the question. One thing I can learn from him is letting the students be more in control of their learning.
Mr. Andersen began his class with an interesting phenomenon. For example, he presented a metallic disk that continuously spun a mirror and it didn't stop at all. When teaching with a posed question we have to be ready to do the following:
Investigate/inquire
Video
Elaborate
Review
Give a Summary quiz
We can learn that teaching is difficult because you have to entice the students. The best way to do that is to put effort in showing the students something new. I learned that I have to teach them in a fashion we'd like to learn in. Lecturing is boring and that's what I learned from Mr. Andersen's video. I wish I could've learned more from him, but some of the science stuff he said went over my head, and I had trouble understanding other things he said. I honestly wished it was a AP English teacher. Maybe I should recommend it to Dr. Strange.
Christopher Perry's Back to the Future
In the video, Back to the Future, Mr. Brian Crosby tells us about how he gets his class of multicultural and at risk students to learn using project based learning. He starts off by telling us about his class and how more than half of his students could not tell you what city they lived in, or what country they lived in. Then he goes on to tell us about how he uses technology to gain the interest of his class. In his class they have a ratio of 1:1 with laptops in the classroom. He uses these laptops to allow his students to connect all over the world with other students. All of his students have a blog and allows them to think out of the box a little bit. He then goes on to talk about a balloon project that they did. The students did several activities to prepare for the balloon launch. He requires them to blog about what they had to do and they also post videos from the activities that they did. They also had to create a wiki page, and stories about if they were the balloon. They have a class flickr account. The students also made stratocards with their high hopes that they wanted for their life. Finally, they sent up their balloon. They built their own payload to send up all their stuff.
I think that Mr. Crosby is a great teacher and is a great example of how PBL can motivate students to want to grasp a deeper knowledge of the material that they need to learn. What can I learn from this is that teaching is not about giving students "busy work" and hoping that they grasp all the concepts from that work. I think that teaching is about making the students learn for themselves and from their peers around them. I think by doing projects that allow students to be interactive with each other and other students around the world, gives the students more motivation to learn and want to know more about a subject. Sometimes learning can be boring and tough to do by yourself. But, if you incorporate others into that learning process then each person may gain a deeper knowledge into the material. Learning is not about tests and grades. Learning is about understanding the material and then being able to use that knowledge to perform in real world tasks. As educators we have to understand that not everybody learns at the same pace or at the same level, so we have to create a curriculum that adapts to every student so that the students can thrive and succeed later in life.
Tonya Murphy's Making Thinking Possible
I watched the video Making Thinking Visible. This is a video made by Mark Church. Church wants his students to engage in small groups to perform a certain task. His students watched a video and Mark Church wants the students to come up with a headline capturing what the search for human origin is about. The students get in their small groups discuss the project and write down their headline. Church explains that he is going to display the headlines in the classroom. After two weeks he wants to show the students how much their thinking has changed and progressed.
I think this is an awesome assignment for a couple of reasons. It challenges the students to work in a group and come to an agreement on the headline. The headline has to be one sentence, so it challenges them to think and be creative. Also, I think the idea of showing the children their progressive way of thinking is the best part. I think as teachers we should allow the student’s to see their progress. That would also be a way to know, as a teacher, if we are teaching students what they need to know. I believe that at the beginning of the semester the students should be given an assignment to show their starting point in the class. Then at the end of the semester give a similar assignment and show the students their progression.
I watched Mr. Paul Andersen's Youtube video about the Blended Learning Cycle. Blended learning is a combination of learning with mobile phones, the internet, and being in a classroom. The learning cycle is consisted with engaging, exploring, expanding, and explaining with a posed question. All of this inspires the "blended learning cycle." Mr. Andersen claimed that he strayed from what he knew--the power of the question. One thing I can learn from him is letting the students be more in control of their learning.
Mr. Andersen began his class with an interesting phenomenon. For example, he presented a metallic disk that continuously spun a mirror and it didn't stop at all. When teaching with a posed question we have to be ready to do the following:
Investigate/inquire
Video
Review
Give a Summary quiz
We can learn that teaching is difficult because you have to entice the students. The best way to do that is to put effort in showing the students something new. I learned that I have to teach them in a fashion we'd like to learn in. Lecturing is boring and that's what I learned from Mr. Andersen's video. I wish I could've learned more from him, but some of the science stuff he said went over my head, and I had trouble understanding other things he said. I honestly wished it was a AP English teacher. Maybe I should recommend it to Dr. Strange.
Christopher Perry's Back to the Future
In the video, Back to the Future, Mr. Brian Crosby tells us about how he gets his class of multicultural and at risk students to learn using project based learning. He starts off by telling us about his class and how more than half of his students could not tell you what city they lived in, or what country they lived in. Then he goes on to tell us about how he uses technology to gain the interest of his class. In his class they have a ratio of 1:1 with laptops in the classroom. He uses these laptops to allow his students to connect all over the world with other students. All of his students have a blog and allows them to think out of the box a little bit. He then goes on to talk about a balloon project that they did. The students did several activities to prepare for the balloon launch. He requires them to blog about what they had to do and they also post videos from the activities that they did. They also had to create a wiki page, and stories about if they were the balloon. They have a class flickr account. The students also made stratocards with their high hopes that they wanted for their life. Finally, they sent up their balloon. They built their own payload to send up all their stuff.
I think that Mr. Crosby is a great teacher and is a great example of how PBL can motivate students to want to grasp a deeper knowledge of the material that they need to learn. What can I learn from this is that teaching is not about giving students "busy work" and hoping that they grasp all the concepts from that work. I think that teaching is about making the students learn for themselves and from their peers around them. I think by doing projects that allow students to be interactive with each other and other students around the world, gives the students more motivation to learn and want to know more about a subject. Sometimes learning can be boring and tough to do by yourself. But, if you incorporate others into that learning process then each person may gain a deeper knowledge into the material. Learning is not about tests and grades. Learning is about understanding the material and then being able to use that knowledge to perform in real world tasks. As educators we have to understand that not everybody learns at the same pace or at the same level, so we have to create a curriculum that adapts to every student so that the students can thrive and succeed later in life.
Tonya Murphy's Making Thinking Possible
I watched the video Making Thinking Visible. This is a video made by Mark Church. Church wants his students to engage in small groups to perform a certain task. His students watched a video and Mark Church wants the students to come up with a headline capturing what the search for human origin is about. The students get in their small groups discuss the project and write down their headline. Church explains that he is going to display the headlines in the classroom. After two weeks he wants to show the students how much their thinking has changed and progressed.
I think this is an awesome assignment for a couple of reasons. It challenges the students to work in a group and come to an agreement on the headline. The headline has to be one sentence, so it challenges them to think and be creative. Also, I think the idea of showing the children their progressive way of thinking is the best part. I think as teachers we should allow the student’s to see their progress. That would also be a way to know, as a teacher, if we are teaching students what they need to know. I believe that at the beginning of the semester the students should be given an assignment to show their starting point in the class. Then at the end of the semester give a similar assignment and show the students their progression.
Friday, June 21, 2013
C4T# 2
Post One
I was assigned to read Denise Krebs's blog Dare to Care . Her June 9, 2013 post is called "Failure," and it was written to inspire you to believe that failure is good. Failure is the first attempt in learning and the last thing you should beat yourself over. Her post reminds you of that in case you forget. Resilient people that strive to learn from their failures, despite the stigma failure carries, are the one that reach success! I commented on her blog with this (I omitted my introduction) "I actually like to write novels in my spare time. When I get rejections from literary agents or criticism, I think of it as failure that will make a change. Failure is very important and hard to accept, but it makes us all better individuals if we handle it maturely and learn from them." I haven't received a reply yet, but I can't wait until I do.
Post Two
Today is June 21st and I logged onto my email to find a surprise reply from Ms. Krebs.
"Great example of writing and being rejected by publishers for a time. I love those stories about famous authors who did the same. Perseverance and grit will bring you through, like Dr. Seuss, whose To Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street was rejected dozens of times."
---Denise Krebs
Today I read her May 4th Top Ten Reasons I Teach post. I favored her number three "I want to leave a legacy" and her number nine "Rubbing elbows with our role models" because there is nothing more interesting than leaving a legacy that impacts young minds. Also, she wanted to make sure we knew what her number nine meant. We are not the children's role model. They are our role models. My response: "Thanks for making me realize that the children should be our role models. How else are we supposed to know how to teach them if we don’t let them inspire us? Thanks for checking out my blog. It really did make my day."
I enjoyed this C4T. Thanks Dr. Strange!
I was assigned to read Denise Krebs's blog Dare to Care . Her June 9, 2013 post is called "Failure," and it was written to inspire you to believe that failure is good. Failure is the first attempt in learning and the last thing you should beat yourself over. Her post reminds you of that in case you forget. Resilient people that strive to learn from their failures, despite the stigma failure carries, are the one that reach success! I commented on her blog with this (I omitted my introduction) "I actually like to write novels in my spare time. When I get rejections from literary agents or criticism, I think of it as failure that will make a change. Failure is very important and hard to accept, but it makes us all better individuals if we handle it maturely and learn from them." I haven't received a reply yet, but I can't wait until I do.
Post Two
Today is June 21st and I logged onto my email to find a surprise reply from Ms. Krebs.
"Great example of writing and being rejected by publishers for a time. I love those stories about famous authors who did the same. Perseverance and grit will bring you through, like Dr. Seuss, whose To Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street was rejected dozens of times."
---Denise Krebs
Today I read her May 4th Top Ten Reasons I Teach post. I favored her number three "I want to leave a legacy" and her number nine "Rubbing elbows with our role models" because there is nothing more interesting than leaving a legacy that impacts young minds. Also, she wanted to make sure we knew what her number nine meant. We are not the children's role model. They are our role models. My response: "Thanks for making me realize that the children should be our role models. How else are we supposed to know how to teach them if we don’t let them inspire us? Thanks for checking out my blog. It really did make my day."
I enjoyed this C4T. Thanks Dr. Strange!
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Blog Post 7
Assistive Technologies for Classrooms
In the video, Assistive Technologies for Vision and Hearing Impaired Children , the instructors gave their students the opportunity to identify, explore, investigate, question, and interact with their environment using customized learning.
- Text to speech
- Text telephones
- Cameras
- Screen magnifiers
- Interacting calculator
Another assistive tool is the Mountbatten, a technology for the blind that is designed for audio and tactile feedback. It can receive files from computers as well as save them to computers.
The assistive technology for the blind and hearing impaired reminded me that I have to teach English, a form of a communication class. When they write papers I can tell them to use Purdue Owl or Son of Citation Machine to check their works cited page. In Microsoft office there is spell/grammar check, and it will definitely help my students. Dictionaries and thesauruses come in handy too, but there is nothing better than a reference website to help my students know the literary jargon. Glossary of Literary Terms
For the seeing impaired students I can have computers that interact with them as they type. It can read to them what they are spelling.
My eleventh grade English teacher read our papers, found common mistakes, and posted them in a Powerpoint for the whole class to see each others' epic fails. When I passed his class I found out he did that to be slightly funny, but mostly to let us learn from each other mistakes. It actually worked. When I'm an English teacher I'll do the same and I'll need a laser pointer to present my students' out of place commas.
Citations: Newton Public Schools Website
Tonya Murphy's Assistive Technologies
The two most amazing forms of assistive technology I found were the FaceMouse and the Sip-and-Puff Systems. Both of these programs are for students that struggle with mobility. The FaceMouse uses the webcams as a computer mouse. Different movements of the head and different facial expressions will operate different commands on the computer. The Sip-and Puff Systems uses a student’s breath to operate a mouthstick which according to this site is similar to a joystick. I located this information on the website 8 Helpful Assistive Technology Tools for Your Classroom. If available, I would definitely use these programs in my classroom. This would give the students that feeling of independence of not having to rely on help all of the time.
I also watched the video on the ipad using voice over designed for the blind. This would be a very useful tool in the classroom. It would give the student a little bit of independence by being able to find things he/she may be looking for without having to get constant help. The ipad seemed hard to use. It wouldn’t do some of the things he was trying to show to the audience. This could have been because he was going too fast trying to get all the information covered in a short amount of time, but what he did cover seemed helpful. Audio books were available on the ipad which is a great tool because you can get the textbooks on an audiobook for the blind as well.
Christopher Perry's Assistive Technologies
Doing this assignment I had no idea what kind of technologies were out there to help with students and their disabilities. I found this assignment to be challenging, and difficult. So the only thing I could think of was to make a phone call to my mom, who is a math teacher at my old high school. I asked about some of the things that they might be using to help with these students. She told me about a few that they had in place and so that gave me an idea of where to start looking.
So I started my research and found that there are numerous technological devices, and apps to help with all kinds of disabilities. One that I found most interesting was a software called Mathtalk. In this software you can write out a problem using your voice and it will input it into the computer. Also this software makes the need for parents to write out these math problems null, if your child/student is blind. Also within this software, it allows the student to print their work in braille, so they can read it and check it to make sure there are no errors within their work. I just thought that this software was the neatest and interesting "new to me" tool to help those students that are blind. Within the website I found several demo videos explaining and showing how to do each different type of math problem that you may encounter. I would definitely like to use this tool if I was lucky enough to have a blind student in my class. I was fortunate to have a blind classmate when I was going to high school, and I was amazed at how her other developed senses allowed her to learn differently than the rest of the class. it might be difficult or more work to have a blind student, but I think that it would be very interesting to learn through his/her method. I want to teach high school math and with this software you can do several types of mathematical problems from, algebra to calculus and more. Click here to view examples of different problems, and commands using mathtalk.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Progress Report on PLN #1
What can I say? It's an interesting useful tool. I can access some of the apps I would need in English class like Purdue Owl (Citation Machine). Before I can make it to English class I have to know if it's going to rain. Bam! Weather Channel App! I also have my email apps, my banking app, and quick access to all of my social media spots.
During project nine, I can use Symbaloo to access all of the tools I might need during my podcast. For example, I have Google Plus, and I can easy record hangouts. When I refer back to my Symbaloo homepage, I can click on the Youtube app to visit my Video Manager in order to view the hangout. I am satified with it, but I can see the other tiles having more diverse buddies in the near future as I explore Symbaloo more.
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| My Symbaloo Homepage |
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| My Google Plus Hangout notifications after using Symbaloo |
During project nine, I can use Symbaloo to access all of the tools I might need during my podcast. For example, I have Google Plus, and I can easy record hangouts. When I refer back to my Symbaloo homepage, I can click on the Youtube app to visit my Video Manager in order to view the hangout. I am satified with it, but I can see the other tiles having more diverse buddies in the near future as I explore Symbaloo more.
Friday, June 14, 2013
Blog Post 6
What do I need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher?
In my first post I said, "my school would have litters and litters of independent learning kitties," so I want to experiment with that philosophy.
No, I do not literary want cats running wild in my school. Cats, in this reference, are a metaphor for curious students.They are also here to make you laugh.
Let's meet some of my students.
Chi from the anime "Chi's Sweet Home"
CLASS CLOWN
Youtube sensation Nyan Cat
DAYDREAMER
Random Clip Art Cat
THE SMART ONE
All aspiring teachers experienced the classroom setting as a mere student. We know the ins and outs of how it functions. The smart one answers all of the questions so the one who doesn't care about school can drool all over the desk. The class clown makes everyone laugh to stop the lesson while the daydreamer thinks about the mall. What wakes up the class?
A question?
You know, I was teacher once. I taught a litter of cats at a high school that doesn't exist. Let's see how my students reacted to questions I asked in the past while we were in the classroom.
February 2, 2005
Wednesday at 8:39 AM
Me: Today we compared and contrasted antagonist and protagonist. Do you understand the difference between them, class?
Silence.
Okay, so none of the students replied. Why not?
I learned questions like "do you understand?" and "doesn't that make sense?" don't challenge students' understanding. The student knows the answer should be yes whether they listened or not. Asking the student to explain why it makes sense is much more effective because their brain has to process the information they learned and generate a logical response.
Make sure your students don't regurgitate the lesson after you check for understanding. What I mean is, don't pose general questions.
Here's an example from last Thursday.
I just caught Chi snickering about the way my pants makes me look fat. Ignoring her I said this:
Me: The protagonist in the Fancy Feast commercial returned the canned food to the supermarket after the evil cat stole it. Doesn't that mean that the protagonist is good, Chi?
Chi: Yeah, he's good and he'd be better if he'd start you on a weight loss program.
Not only did the class laughing at me, but I asked a poor question where the answer was too obvious. I had to challenge my students. Also, I had to remember to call on others besides Chi to keep the class more alert in case it was their turn to answer a question next. I continued class remembering that.
One month ago, I made a classic teacher mistake. I asked a complex question and expected all my students to be able to answer it.
Me:It's Sunday and you have six feet of yarn left. How much does it cost to get a refund on the yarn if its the middle of August? By the way, Meow-Meow, the cat that lives by the mall, wants to come over and play at a quarter to six o' clock at night. How much Meow Mix do you have put in your food bowl if the train to Florida leaves forty-six minutes after two o'clock traveling seventy-six miles per hour?
Now my smart student has her paw in the air. She somehow knows the answer to my ridiculous question, but she doesn't know which question to answer because I asked more than one. The rest of my students are discouraged because the question was complicated.
The bell was about to ring and I haven't gotten any of my students interested in anything that day. I knew I had one more chance.
Me:Okay, what if the cafeteria decided to serve dry cat food instead of wet cat food(cats prefer wet food)? What actions should students take to get the wet food returned to the menu?
Chi: Prank the cafeteria workers until they make wet food again.
Nyan Cat:Is somebody planning to get rid of the wet food? I think we should start a petition.
Random Clip Art Cat:I suggest that we establish a committee that shares our same viewpoints. In response, we write a persuasive essay to the school board.
I asked the students to interact with each other and I was happy to see them interact with one another until a cat fight started...
As a teacher, it's important to be patient with students' responses and be thankful for the response. Avoid general questions and ask open ended questions that make the students think.
I learned one last thing. No teaching cats.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Blog Post 5
It's Story Time With Mrs. Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano's Podcast
Grab a teddy bear and get tucked into bed because this time Mrs. Tolisano's first grade class class will be concluding our evening with bedtime stories! This storytime is brought to you by Langwitches, a very creative blog centered around global learning, twenty-first century technology, literature, and digital storytelling.
Wait...Stanley was able to go anywhere after his sender paid a couple of dollars? I'm jealous! I have to pay several dollars just to put gas in my car, and he gets to explore the world for five dollars?!
Okay, so I'm probably telling this Flat Stanley story very badly, but Mrs. Tolisano's first grade class told it better in Langwitches's Flat Stanley Podcast. All of the students were flattened by their classroom's Smartboard like the way Stanley was flattened by the bulletin board. Mrs. Tolisano used sound effects to insinuate shrinking her students to be flat like Stanley. She sent her students away, asking them to describe their location. They used their senses and each student described their location. Storytime has gotten so much more fun because I heard stories about London, Antarctica, Alabama, space, Israel, Tokyo, and other places without even leaving my bed sheets.
Morale of the Story Number 1) I listened a podcast about English rules once and I must admit, sound matters. Sound effects like those in a movie or in a play create a mood. I should incorporate them into my podcast.
Now the next story for bedtime might put you to sleep because it wasn't in English.
In Listening-Comprehension-Podcasting, her second grade students learned Purim with their Jewish studies teacher and recorded it speaking Hebrew. The students performed skilfully, joyfully, and rhythmically. It kind of reminded me why I prefer to watch my anime in Japanese. Mrs. Tolisano emphasized that her projects are not centered around using Garageband, a recording tool. Her lesson was about writing a script, listening, comprehension, collaboration, and fluency in learning a new language. Her goal was to motivate students to create and be creative. By the way, you won't fall asleep because the way the young students performed was miraculous!
Morale of the Story Number 2) Music should be in every podcast. Without music, it's just bland voices and a message to get across. Like sound effects, music sets a mood and a tone.
In our last story, my personal favorite, Mrs.Tolisano's first grade class found out about another second grade class that recorded a story to create a podcast that went worldwide. Mrs. Tolisano allowed them to each take turns recording Vacation Under the Volcano (a Magic Tree House book). All of the students were enthusiastic in describing Pompeii and their story went worldwide!
Morale of the Story Number 3)
I need energetic seven-year-olds in my podcast. I'm just kidding.
No...I'm actually not kidding. I think those kids would blow my performance away.
In that case, I need an energetic, positive attitude for my podcast that matches my music and sound effects. Lastly and most importantly, I have to compose a valuable story that I have a passion for telling. That's what making podcast is all about!
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Friday, June 7, 2013
Blog Post 4
21st Century Tools Improving Learning and Technology
I have to start off by admitting that this assignment was slightly difficult for me. I'm pretty sure that I was making it harder than it is. Let me remind all of you that I want to be a high school English teacher. I am accustomed to English class being a critical thinking environment. Critical thinking has always been enough of a tool for me. This assignment made me realize that I need to expand my methods in using technology with my students. I like tools like Microsoft Office's PowerPoint and Smartboard are my lovely assistants when I teach English. They can be used when I interact with students simply because they are visuals.
I had to think harder. Hmm...what else could I use? I have to teach grammar and literature in an interesting manner.
After all, it's the best two subjects in the world! Between you and me, I honestly favor writing.
This assignment taught me to think more about what my students would like to work with and less about being extremely technical. I also learned to broaden my technology horizons.
I want my students to get comfortable with writing and reading because it's the two activities students dread. Even I dread it if the material is a snooze fest. The easiest way to get comfortable with writing/reading, in my opinion, is getting involved with your favorite genre.
Since iPads are becoming more popular in schools around the nation, I think the iPad can become a vital learning mechanism in my classroom if I use it in this way.
1) Initiate occasional group assignment in my lesson plan.
2) Compose a survey that tells me which genre each student likes and place them in groups according to the survey. (This assures that the students can somewhat get along with one another)
3) Make each group compose a short story or analyze a piece of literature using their iPad for note taking using one of my favorite apps: Evernote.
I've been using Evernote since 2011 after my husband introduced it to me. It's constantly updating with ways to be a more efficient app. I use it when I am away from my laptop by using my android app. Whether I'm thinking about a project, a paper, or my book I can always log in to my Evernote account and take notes instantly.
The notes can be as short or as long the students want them to be. They can also create several journals to keep their thoughts, class notes, and personal notes organized. Since I believe critical thinking is the primary tool in an English class I believe getting my students to install the Evernote app provokes the critical thinking since it forces them to translate their thoughts into words. Since it works though email they can email their group thoughts to me and I can evaluate their learning. In addition, they can use it outside of class if they like sitting on a hammock to meditate on their thoughts.
If you have a messy notebook and sticky notes lining the bottom of your purse/bookbag GET EVERNOTE! Here is a link on how to use it on the How to use Evernote on the iPad .
Revised
Tonya's Murphy's Post #4
Flipping the classroom is a way of enhancing learning. As a math teacher I find this tool very interesting. In Katie Gimbar's video, Why I flipped my classroom, she points out a very important fact concerning classroom learning. She points out that there are three learning types in the classroom: the "middle" group, the "high level" group and the "strugglers." The Middle group in her video is the students who are the average students who are keeping at the normal pace of the class. The "High Level" group are displayed in her video as the sleeping students because they are advanced and bored. The "strugglers" are the students who have no idea what is going on in class and cannot keep up. Flipping the classroom takes learning outside of the classroom and makes learning more of a self paced form of learning. The students who are struggling are able to watch the videos over and over again to try and understand what is going on. This also allows for the advanced students to be able to get ahead in class and push themselves and work at a higher pace. Also, I like how Gimbar set her classroom up in her diagram. She put the teacher in the center and the students, grouped according to learning classification, around her. This allows her to be able to get around to all the students and answer questions.
Christopher Perry's Post #4
Google Chromebook What's one machine that can keep all your documents, files, and friends all together and allows you to share them instantly and easily? It is built and designed like a MacBook, but is an eighth of the price. That would be the Samsung Google Chromebook. This computer comes automatically with built in apps that allow you to collaborate freely with your friends. It comes with Google drive for sharing documents, as well as Google Play for listening or downloading music, and has a built in photo editor and media player to watch your friend's movies or your own. The Chromebook allows you to keep all these apps in one place and will keep everything organized for you. Do you remember the days when you were looking for that document or file and you couldn't find it. Well no Chromebook easily will find it for you, and keep it stored right where you left it. Do you have multiple children, or adults needing the same computer? Well no problem with the Chromebook. You can have multiple users on this computer and have no problem with someone downloading unwanted apps onto your account. Viruses and other "nasties" are all taken care of with the state of the art virus protection plans. This state of the art computer is light only weighing 2.4 pounds, so you can take it anywhere and not be bogged down by weight of carrying a heavier laptop. You don't even have to carry your charger with you because the battery life on this computer is 6.5 hours. Do you have trouble remembering that website you always visit, not a problem for the Chromebook. Now this computer will start downloading that webpage you visit often as soon as you start typing in the url address. Tired of waiting on that slow boot-up time of your old computer. Well now with the new Chromebook, it boots up in less than ten seconds. Now I know you are asking yourself, "Where can I get one of these awesome machines?", and "How much is this new device going to set me back?" Actually they are very easy to find and do not cost that much at all compared to other computers and devices. You can find these computers by simply searching in google or you can go here. The costs of this machine is only $249. I think that this new innovative machine can be a really great investment in all classrooms and schools across the nation and the world. I think it is less expensive then buying bulky computers that take a lot of IT support. These computers allow you to minimize this support and the chrome operating system seamlessly updates and improves itself automatically, and with the available web-based management system allows the administrators to control the access to the different apps from the Chrome app store. There are thousands of apps to choose from and most of them are FREE! What better way to promote collaborative learning then giving students the power and the means to do it with. This machine allows you to talk and video chat with up to nine people at a time. Talk about making group projects easy. I would definitely want to use this device in my future classroom.
I have to start off by admitting that this assignment was slightly difficult for me. I'm pretty sure that I was making it harder than it is. Let me remind all of you that I want to be a high school English teacher. I am accustomed to English class being a critical thinking environment. Critical thinking has always been enough of a tool for me. This assignment made me realize that I need to expand my methods in using technology with my students. I like tools like Microsoft Office's PowerPoint and Smartboard are my lovely assistants when I teach English. They can be used when I interact with students simply because they are visuals.
I had to think harder. Hmm...what else could I use? I have to teach grammar and literature in an interesting manner.
After all, it's the best two subjects in the world! Between you and me, I honestly favor writing.
This assignment taught me to think more about what my students would like to work with and less about being extremely technical. I also learned to broaden my technology horizons.
I want my students to get comfortable with writing and reading because it's the two activities students dread. Even I dread it if the material is a snooze fest. The easiest way to get comfortable with writing/reading, in my opinion, is getting involved with your favorite genre.
Since iPads are becoming more popular in schools around the nation, I think the iPad can become a vital learning mechanism in my classroom if I use it in this way.
1) Initiate occasional group assignment in my lesson plan.
2) Compose a survey that tells me which genre each student likes and place them in groups according to the survey. (This assures that the students can somewhat get along with one another)
3) Make each group compose a short story or analyze a piece of literature using their iPad for note taking using one of my favorite apps: Evernote.
I've been using Evernote since 2011 after my husband introduced it to me. It's constantly updating with ways to be a more efficient app. I use it when I am away from my laptop by using my android app. Whether I'm thinking about a project, a paper, or my book I can always log in to my Evernote account and take notes instantly.
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| My notes for English papers |
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| Evernote Homescreen |
Revised
Tonya's Murphy's Post #4
Flipping the classroom is a way of enhancing learning. As a math teacher I find this tool very interesting. In Katie Gimbar's video, Why I flipped my classroom, she points out a very important fact concerning classroom learning. She points out that there are three learning types in the classroom: the "middle" group, the "high level" group and the "strugglers." The Middle group in her video is the students who are the average students who are keeping at the normal pace of the class. The "High Level" group are displayed in her video as the sleeping students because they are advanced and bored. The "strugglers" are the students who have no idea what is going on in class and cannot keep up. Flipping the classroom takes learning outside of the classroom and makes learning more of a self paced form of learning. The students who are struggling are able to watch the videos over and over again to try and understand what is going on. This also allows for the advanced students to be able to get ahead in class and push themselves and work at a higher pace. Also, I like how Gimbar set her classroom up in her diagram. She put the teacher in the center and the students, grouped according to learning classification, around her. This allows her to be able to get around to all the students and answer questions.
Christopher Perry's Post #4
Google Chromebook What's one machine that can keep all your documents, files, and friends all together and allows you to share them instantly and easily? It is built and designed like a MacBook, but is an eighth of the price. That would be the Samsung Google Chromebook. This computer comes automatically with built in apps that allow you to collaborate freely with your friends. It comes with Google drive for sharing documents, as well as Google Play for listening or downloading music, and has a built in photo editor and media player to watch your friend's movies or your own. The Chromebook allows you to keep all these apps in one place and will keep everything organized for you. Do you remember the days when you were looking for that document or file and you couldn't find it. Well no Chromebook easily will find it for you, and keep it stored right where you left it. Do you have multiple children, or adults needing the same computer? Well no problem with the Chromebook. You can have multiple users on this computer and have no problem with someone downloading unwanted apps onto your account. Viruses and other "nasties" are all taken care of with the state of the art virus protection plans. This state of the art computer is light only weighing 2.4 pounds, so you can take it anywhere and not be bogged down by weight of carrying a heavier laptop. You don't even have to carry your charger with you because the battery life on this computer is 6.5 hours. Do you have trouble remembering that website you always visit, not a problem for the Chromebook. Now this computer will start downloading that webpage you visit often as soon as you start typing in the url address. Tired of waiting on that slow boot-up time of your old computer. Well now with the new Chromebook, it boots up in less than ten seconds. Now I know you are asking yourself, "Where can I get one of these awesome machines?", and "How much is this new device going to set me back?" Actually they are very easy to find and do not cost that much at all compared to other computers and devices. You can find these computers by simply searching in google or you can go here. The costs of this machine is only $249. I think that this new innovative machine can be a really great investment in all classrooms and schools across the nation and the world. I think it is less expensive then buying bulky computers that take a lot of IT support. These computers allow you to minimize this support and the chrome operating system seamlessly updates and improves itself automatically, and with the available web-based management system allows the administrators to control the access to the different apps from the Chrome app store. There are thousands of apps to choose from and most of them are FREE! What better way to promote collaborative learning then giving students the power and the means to do it with. This machine allows you to talk and video chat with up to nine people at a time. Talk about making group projects easy. I would definitely want to use this device in my future classroom.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
C4T# 1
Post One
I was assigned to read a recent post from Becky Goerend's blog Live the Conversation. I read her March 29th post Turning it Over to Them--Success in Making . Goerend is making an effort to improve her class after discovering three major things students struggle with while in the classroom: staying on task, voice level, and showing respect towards others. She designed a rubric and an assessment for the children to use in order to interpret others' behavior. Her students are in control of interpreting everyone's behavior including their own.
Admiring that she promotes better classroom behavior, I told her that her project was time consuming but amazing. The students are our future leaders. Why not give them a little responsibility? She commented immediately with the news that she didn't finish her project because of maternal leave, but she did mention trying again next year with her new students. Awesome!
Post Two
Today I read a different post from Mrs. Goerend's blog. Since she didn't have a more recent post I decided to read her November 13th post The Checklist . She wanted her students to improve on self-evaluating their Narrative writing. According to her, the project isn't quite a one-hundred percent success but she did manage to see more quality writing and an improvement among her students. First she lets the student assess their work with the checklist (rubric) she created and then she grades it with the same checklist. Hmm...that's how you learn the honest students from the dishonest students.
Check out her checklist because it's something we could all use before we turn in an assignment to a professor. I told her that I could use her checklist on some of my personal writing. I also added that I wanted to use it in my classroom also!
I was assigned to read a recent post from Becky Goerend's blog Live the Conversation. I read her March 29th post Turning it Over to Them--Success in Making . Goerend is making an effort to improve her class after discovering three major things students struggle with while in the classroom: staying on task, voice level, and showing respect towards others. She designed a rubric and an assessment for the children to use in order to interpret others' behavior. Her students are in control of interpreting everyone's behavior including their own.
Admiring that she promotes better classroom behavior, I told her that her project was time consuming but amazing. The students are our future leaders. Why not give them a little responsibility? She commented immediately with the news that she didn't finish her project because of maternal leave, but she did mention trying again next year with her new students. Awesome!
Post Two
Today I read a different post from Mrs. Goerend's blog. Since she didn't have a more recent post I decided to read her November 13th post The Checklist . She wanted her students to improve on self-evaluating their Narrative writing. According to her, the project isn't quite a one-hundred percent success but she did manage to see more quality writing and an improvement among her students. First she lets the student assess their work with the checklist (rubric) she created and then she grades it with the same checklist. Hmm...that's how you learn the honest students from the dishonest students.
Check out her checklist because it's something we could all use before we turn in an assignment to a professor. I told her that I could use her checklist on some of my personal writing. I also added that I wanted to use it in my classroom also!
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Blog Post 3
How Can I Provide Meaningful Feedback To My Peers?
Part of my assignment this week was to read Paige Ellis's Blog Assignment #12 . Ellis's post focuses on doing adequate peer reviewing. She admits that constructive criticism is difficult and unappreciated. Communication is complicated to master also. In her post, she portrays the struggle of communication by showing us an email conversation that happened between her and Dr. Strange. Ellis wanted to know if she should publicly announce her fellow student's mistake, and Dr. Strange proposed that aspiring teachers have to practice criticizing students whether it's private or publicly in order to provoke learning . He also added that we should practice both approaches. Ellis learned from his advice and was able to peer review her fellow students.
The video Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes was indeed humorous. I can remember the actions of those children being reenacted in my English 101 class. This is a cute, funny video animated the mistakes made during peer review. We shouldn't be general, cruel, pushy, or sensitive during peer review.
Our fellow students depend on us to catch mistakes that they may overlook. It is easy to forget a comma just as it is easy to make an incorrect subject/verb agreement. If students allow themselves to have bad peer review habits then they won't recognize a bad peer review when they receive one.
What is peer review? According to the video What is Peer Review? Peer review involves evaluating and editing the work of someone else that is your age group. During the process, the editor should give compliments before handing out suggestions to improve the peer's work/writing. Word choice, grammar, organization, sentence fluency, topic, and correct punctuation and spelling make a difference in one's work.
I learned the same thing in the slideshow Peer Edit with Perfection . Compliments, suggestions, and corrections are key! The lesson I learned from that slide show is that I will encounter paragraphs as horrible as one that appear on both slides 8 and 12.
I want to teach high school English, so this particular assignment is very vital to my future career. I have to be patient if a student turns in a poorly written paper because that student might not have received proper training. My students in no time can be charismatic writers if they learn to maturely handle peer review.
Always remember how it feels to be critiqued. As an aspiring author, I like being critiqued. When I get published one day people will do it anyway, so I have to be prepared for it whether I want to hear it or not. Everybody should prepare for constructive or harsh criticism because it'll come whether you want it to or not.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Blog Post 2
Professor Dancealot Lectured More Than Danced
From experience, I can relate to those poor, drowsy students in Professor Dancealot. Last summer I signed up for drama at the University of South Alabama, and I didn't get what I expected. I thought I was going to be doing plays, but I really sat in a classroom for an hour and a half listening to lectures about people who performed many eons ago. We did get to act a few times, but I never really learned drama. Professor Dancealot made a classic mistake teachers tend to make--he lectured the students about dance without letting them actually dance. When the final exam came he expected the students to perform dance even though they learned nothing and never went to a dance studio. From what I saw, the students all failed. I'm not a fan of always blaming the teacher, but in cases where a concept can only be learned through performance, it's the teacher's fault if he/she doesn't encourage students to get up and learn. I think teachers shouldn't expect their students to learn without exposing them to the environment that they should learn.
The Networked Student
In the Networked Student Wendy Drexler used caricature to show a young college student aspiring to succeed in American Psychology. The college student's teacher never lectured, so how was he supposed to learn? Well, she believed in something called Connectivism, and she used her belief to encourage the class to gain their own education through a learning network.
The college student took control of his education's destiny through reaching out to other students via learning network. Through that learning network, he gathered tools he needed in order to succeed in American Psychology. His professor acted as a "Learning Architect" and improved his ability to communicate. I think that is wonderful because we all need somebody to push us in the right direction.
Why do we need a teacher?
We need teachers because teachers have a status that ordinary citizens don't have. Teachers are expected to have expertise in a specific field like English, math, science, or history. That's okay. Think about it. If somebody who bagged groceries told you he wanted you to join a learning network to become immersed with your education, you'd probably ignore him because he doesn't have the status that suggests he knows something success. It's the cold truth about this world. In most cases, we can't (and shouldn't) trust information from illegitimate sources. The college student in the video needed the professor because she was a reliable source to go to in case he needed extra help. We need teachers because knowledge will not be obtained and passed on without their hard work. It's the student's job to work also.
Revised
Tonya Murphy discussed Teaching in the 21st Century
Kevin Roberts sees the future filled with technology. I agree with the idea that teachers should be teaching their students about computers. The world is at your fingertips with computers, as long as you have the knowledge of how to find it. I believe that computers should be a must in schools today ,and not just the simple typing classes, but the basics of the internet. The world is going green; everything is becoming computerized. While all of the subjects (math, science, english, etc) are necessary, it will be hard to get a job without the knowledge of computers. Roberts also pointed out the fact that we need to engage our students, not just put a teacher in front of the classroom. The students need to have fun while learning. We need to allow them access to their phones in school as a learning tool. At the same time the school board cripples teachers in that aspect, because the principals will not allow phones on the premises. A technology class should be offered where cell phones are welcomed in at least that class.
Christopher Perry discussed Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts
Mrs. Vicky Davis is a great example of what we need from future generation teachers. She believes that if you give the students the tools and accessibility to look up information that they may not know they can find out for themselves. In one part of her lesson she told them to do a certain thing that she did not know how to do. She required them to look up how to preform the operation and then report back to her and teach the rest of the class and herself. This operation that she had them do was called terraforming. She also went on and connected her students to other students around the world in a global collaboration to work with students around the world. Those students coming from a rural community in southern Georgia are learning things that are a head of their time. Basically, what she is trying to say is that we as educators should not be trying to discourage the process of learning but taking away the most powerful tools that we have available today.
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