C4T #3 Summary

Diane Krause was the teacher that I was assigned to for my #3 C4T. I enjoyed looking through he blog posts because she really had a lot of great technological tools, advice and experience that really go hand-in-hand with the things that we have been learning in EDM310.

The first blog post I commented on talked a lot about different websites and online tools. Mrs. Krause had several links to websites such as Computer Science Unplugged and Cord.org for Flappy Bird that are used for getting students excited about creating and using puzzles, coding, science, and technology in the classroom. I was really impressed with all of her resources. In my comment, I introduced myself and told her that her blog would make a great addition to my PLN (personal learning network). She had already mentioned the great advantages of using Symbaloo as a PLN organizer and I told her that I had already incorporated Symbaloo as my primary PLN organizer. I also mentioned how intimidating it could be using technology in the classroom, especially with younger children, but that her blog was very resourceful and had great websites that could help any teacher feel confident with technology in their classroom.

Her second blog post that I commented on was about the presentation program called Sway. Sway is a moder and simple way for students to present and share research and information. Mrs. Krause even shared some students' work using Sway, where they created a presentation about Newton's Laws and sports. Mrs. Krause compared using Sway to Gloster, Prezi, and OneNote all in one. The kid's presentations were really clean and moved so smoothly. So, I decided to go to the Sway website myself and see how it all works. I was really impressed. In my comment to this blog post, I told her how much I really liked Sway and all of its features, and how I would love to incorporate this tool into our big Project #16 lesson plan. In both of my comments I left her a link to my blog, and let Mrs. Krause know that I really enjoyed her blog, and I would love to share resources and tools with her anytime.

                This video shows us how creatively Sway can be used.

Blog Post #12

Our group decided to collectively create a google slides presentation that shows several types of assistive technologies for the deaf, blind, and other disabilities in students that need more attention in the classroom. We researched more assistive technologies after watching Teaching Mom What Her Deaf/Blind Child is Learning on the Ipad, Ipad Usage for the Blind and other videos assigned to us for this week's blog post.


                        

Project #14 Lesson Plan

For project 14, I found a great lesson plan on ALEX that is based on Alabama prehistoric Indian tribes. Students use technology to learn about Paleo, Archaic, and Woodland tribes and create their own music parody video based on their findings in their student journal and Venn Diagram.
Lesson Plan
Rubric
Venn Diagram and Podcast Sheet

Here is a link of a music parody video for this lesson plan that was done by students in Mrs. Reeces
 4th grade Alabama History class.

Blog Post #11

This week we watched several videos on project based learning that can help future educators see the benefits and excitement involving this type of learning.

In the first video, Brian Crosby discusses his ELL class at a Denver TEDx talk and the hot-air balloon science project that really got his whole classroom excited about using technology through project based learning. Crosby's class used wikis, blogs, and skype to interact with students across the globe to send their "high hopes" up with their air balloon after doing several in class experiments on what to expect from the balloon's journey. The class tracked the balloon on google during its flight into the air and also attached a camera to record the experiences of the balloon. Crosby also had his students write a narrative story about the balloon's journey from the perspective of the balloon. He was able to get his students excited about learning, all while incorporating writing and reading skills, science and physics, and also helping the students to sharpen their language skills through verbal communication via skype. This is a great example for how project based learning can get students excited about learning, but also how project based learning can create more meaningful and lasting learning experiences that relate to real world situations. The use of technology through this experiment shows how easily it is to share ideas and stay to connected to others, which in turn makes students more prideful and responsible for their work.

In the second video, Paul Anderson talks about the concept of blended learning. Blended learning combines the compelling parts of "classroom, online, and mobile learning in a powerful and useful way." Andersen uses an acronym "QUIVERS" which first starts with an engaging Question, then Investigating/Inquiry, then Video to incorporate technology and keep their attention, followed by Elaboration on the subject, Review of what was learned,then finishing with a Summary quiz. I think this is a great approach to a blended classroom because it incorporates each aspect of learning and also gives teachers a solid guideline to follow for every subject/problem. This way, students can use the guideline QUIVERS for their own purposes, maybe even asking their own questions, finding their own resources, and challenges others to learn new information.
The third video featured Mark Church and how his students worked in groups to create a headline that represented the mystery of the human origin. The kids were able to discuss and focus on what they interpreted to be the main idea around human beginnings. They were also able to share their headlines with the class and had a group discussion about how their headline related to the mystery of human beginnings. I really like Mark Church's approach to group work, it allows for in depth discussion and connection between students and their ideas.

The fourth video was by far my favorite approach to using technology and project based learning in the classroom. Sam Pane teaches his 5th grade class how to be a good digital citizen by using the internet wisely and carefully. He starts his lesson with a hook or an interesting question from Spider-man, "With great power, comes great responsibility." He then asks his class what kind of power does the internet give them. The students share their ideas and are then instructed to create their own digital super hero and comic strip that shows their digital hero saving the day by giving safe internet use instructions. The students were not only able to create their own customized super hero, but were also able to put themselves into the comic as the victim of an internet hazard. I loved his approach because Pane was not only able to engage and get his students interested in what they were learning, but he was teaching them how to use the internet safely by using technology that showcased his students individual creativity. His lesson plan incorporates all aspects of technology and project based learning all while keeping his students engaged and open for class discussion and sharing.

Students in Sam Pane's class creating their Super Digital Citizen.

The fifth video shows us a blended  Canadian classroom where three teachers teaching Literature, History, and Technology Processing, combine their efforts to give their students a more meaningful and project based learning experience. The students receive three credits for this one class but are able to have the time length of three classes combined. This allows the students and the teachers more time to look their projects and concepts on a more in-depth level. Students are able to perfect their work by putting more time into what they have created which almost always gives the students a sense of pride within their work. This learning approach has teachers and students motivated to go further into their studies and projects. Although unconventional, I feel like this learning style should be more widely practiced here in America.

The last video features Roosevelt Elementary School and how they have fully embraced project based learning.  This school has really focused on helping their community through project based learning. The students are collaborating on these projects and are becoming familiar with public speaking by presenting their projects and ideas. These projects are solving real-life problems in a real-life way, just like you would in the professional world. What I really liked about this video is that the students, teachers, parents, and really the whole community was able to come together to be supportive of this new learning approach at Roosevelt. It is so awesome to see other people excited about project based learning, not just the students. These students are changing their community through their learning experience! What an incredible opportunity for students, parents, and teachers alike.

I find it inspiring to see other schools from all over the country and even the world that are incorporating project based learning through technology. It seems overwhelming at times trying to make sense of all these projects and making them meet core standards. It gives me encouragement to know that there are other educators who are passionate about enriching students' learning experiences as much as I am. We can learn and be inspired by all of these stories in our quest to know and conquer project based learning in the classroom!

C4K #7 and Summary

For my C4K for weeks five, six, and seven, I had a little more trouble than I had before in my past C4K.  Not only did I include my week four C4K in my last summary, but I also had problems with a few of my author's blog posts. Nevertheless, I chose a few students from Mrs. Maslowski class blog that had some really great posts!

For my week five C4K, I chose to comment on Ariel's blog post that described her experience job shadowing at Saint Joseph Hospital near her home. Ariel wants to be a nurse one day and she was very excited to blog about her experience. Ariel said that she spent a lot of time with a cardiac nurse, seeing how they knew what drugs to administer to patients and even what technology is involved in keeping the hospital organized and functioning. I enjoyed reading about her experience at Saint Joseph hospital. In my comment, I introduced myself and told her that when I first started college, I was going to school to one day become an orthodontist. I asked Ariel if she was interested in any specific type of nursing, like cardiac, neonatal, or orthopedic nursing. I left a link to my blog and I am still waiting to hear from her.

For my week six C4K, I chose to comment on Melissa's blog post which was about her feelings toward standardized testing. As a future teacher, I am very passionate about the effects and outcomes of standardized testing so I was interested to see her opinion on the subject. Melissa feels very strongly that standardized testing does not determine your success as a student, or as a person in general. She had great word choice, as well as impeccable grammar and spelling throughout her post. Melissa stated that she had not been nervous during her standardized test, but that other people do get nervous during exams. I replied and told Melissa that I have extreme test anxiety and that it has really hindered my confidence and performance in the past. It was nice to see a student's view on standardized testing and it felt really great to hear an opinion that was so passionate and honest, like hers. What I loved about this post is that Melissa proudly stated her talents and knew that a test that existed on a simple piece of paper did not define her abilities and her intelligence.

For week six C4K, I commented on Jack's blog post about hitting a "dinger". I wasn't really sure
what a "dinger" was, but his context clues led me to believe that a "dinger" is similar to hitting a home run. Jack's post was very confident but he still needed some more information about baseball. In my comment, I let him know that he should add more information about "dingers" and the sport, just so his readers could get a better understanding of his post. Hopefully Jack will be able to add more details so it will give his post more length and more understanding by the reader.

I always enjoy C4K, because I am constantly amazed at the student's opinions and ideas in their post. I can't wait to see what my future students will write about and surprise me with in my future class blog.

Project #12a

Blog Post #10

This week we watched a three-part conversation between Dr. Strange and Kathy Cassidy discussing the benefits of using technology in the classroom and what techniques Mrs. Cassidy finds successful in her classroom. Mrs. Cassidy is a firm believer in teachers being technologically literate. She believes that "technology is here to stay" and that as teachers, we would be doing a disservice to our students by not using technology to collaborate on ideas, problems, and solve real world issues. One technique of Mrs. Cassidys that I would love to use in my future classroom is orchestrating a class blog. She believes that a class blog gives students the opportunity to broadcast their work. When students post any work online, it is made available to parents, peers, and other audiences for viewing. This not only increases the pride in the student's work, but also inspires the student to be able to see and know that there are other people reading what they have written or created. The student then becomes empowered to learn and find the right answers, rather than feeling limited by a teachers red grading pen. What I love about this technique is the fact that student's parents can go online at any time and view their child's progress. Instead of waiting for a meeting or a classroom visit to see their children's work, parents can take just a few seconds out of their day to go online, even at work, and see the amazing things that are happening in the classroom. Mrs. Cassidy even went so far as to send home a form that parents must sign giving consent for the students to post their work online, also including different ways that their child's identity will be protected. I feel like this is a great way to engage parents and students with technology, and now that I have been very dedicated to my class blog in EDM310, I can lead my future class blog with confidence. Not every teacher has the confidence to use technology in the classroom. Mrs. Cassidy believes that best way to feel confident about using technology and beginning to incorporate using it regularly is to find something that you are interested in and plug into it. Whether you are into taking pictures, watching videos, writing, reading or any other medium, there is an opportunity to get involved technologically. I think that many educators feel that technology is only useful for certain subjects such as social studies and science. I think it is our challenge to incorporate using technology in all subjects, even math and physical education. Mrs. Cassidy is a great example of teachers who indulge in using technology in an effective way in the classroom.  We need many more teachers like Mrs. Cassidy who can rise to the occasion of teaching and engaging our students through technology.