Project 15- Project 12B

Blog Post #11 NOLA

The driving question for this blog post was, "What can we learn about teaching and learning from these teachers?"

The first video was Back to the Future, by Brian Crosby. His video was about a project that he did with his students that integrated technology in many ways. He felt that curriculum has been narrowed over the years and that it is keeping students from having real life experiences. The main idea of his project was to send a balloon up into the air. His class did some reading and activities with pressure to get the project started. This got his students excited. He was able to get his students to incorporate various types of technology into his project. They embedded videos into their blogs, wrote about the science behind their experiments, learned to make wiki pages, used their class Flikr account to write stories about what it would be like to be the balloon, used free online software to design book covers, illustrated their stories with Flikr photos, did more work with their blogs, and made trading cards using free online software. Mr.Crosby also had his students write "high hopes," for their community, their school,and the world. Their blogs got many views which inspired them to ask other people from all over the world to write their own "high hopes." This taught the children to develop their own learning networks. The class also used google maps to track their balloon as it went into the air. By putting all of their work on their blogs, the class got to show off their work to other students. They are doing language intense activities which encourage them to read/write, to learn content, to clarify and share, and to tell a story. These activities encourage them to be creative, want feedback, articulate orally, connect globally/aware globally, want authentic audiences, and remember the science.

The second video was the Blended Learning Cycle by Paul Anderson. He turned his classroom into a video game. He moved from teacher-centered learning environments to one focused on students. He said the biggest obstacle he encountered was trying to get his students to learn independently. He designed each level of the video game around a blended learning cycle. He believes in the power of learning and questioning. He described blended learning as taking the compelling parts of learning: online, mobile, classroom learning and just blending them together in the classroom and using that technology in a powerful way. He said the five E’s of the Learning Cycle were engage, explore, expand, and explain all of which revolve around evaluation. He had a unique way of combining these methods with his quivars. Quivars stands for question, investigation/inquiry, video, elaboration, review, and summary Quiz. He uses the question part of this process as a hook to get his students interested. Next comes the students investigating by examining what is happening- you let the students experiment. You then use a video which frees you up for other things because the students can watch it independently. Elaboration comes when the students read about what they are doing or make diagrams for it. Then they review. He meets individually or with small groups and asks them questions to check their understanding. They can’t go onto the summary quiz until the teacher is sure they know what they are talking about. The quiz tests them on what they know and if they don’t know it, then they go back. He doesn’t think you’ve learned something until you can explain it to someone else. After they go through about five learning cycles, they have a unit test. The students do all the grading, but the teacher asks really good probing questions.

The third video was Making Thinking Visible by Mark Church. He had his students work in small groups to have a discussion about a video they watched. He wanted them to come up with a headline for what their unit was all about. He asked them to think about how their ideas/thinking were extended. He then wanted them to think about the challenge or the puzzle with the topic in general. He asked them to search for human origins. One of the students described his question as, "How could we sum up everything we have been talking about in just a phrase?" Every group had to have a couple of words to say behind their headline. Once they did their final project, he was going to ask them what the headline is now. He was doing this to get his students thinking how the story has changed and how their thinking has changed.

The fourth video was Building Comics by Sam Pane. He was teaching his students how to figure out what information websites might be after. He asked his students, “What kind of power does the internet give us?” He told them to be specific. They had a class discussion about this. He told his students that a digital citizen is a person who chooses to act safely, respectfully, and with responsibility whenever you are online. He then asked them to build a comic about their digital superhero. His class used a website which allowed them to do this. He showed his class how to make a superhero for about five minutes, and then let them do it themselves. He matched the lesson up with English language standards. The students are able to create a narrative between themselves and the superhero in order to put together a complete story. This project gave the students a sense of ownership. The students were able to analyze the situation that they were in and analyze the text structure of the comic book in order to build a complete narrative. He had his students take what he called a, “gallery walk.” This was his way of having them peer review. The children were very eager to share their comics with the class. The english language standards in his project were to write narratives to develop imagined experiences or events, analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to text, ask and answer questions.

The fifth video was Project Based Learning by Dean Shareski. In this video, three teachers worked together to combine history, English, and information processing and embedded the principles of project based learning to create a unique learning experience for students. Project based learning helps to create engaged learners with deeper understanding. The teachers had to convince their administration that what they wanted to do with the students could really be beneficial for them. The kids use technology as a tool to bring the content to life in their classes. Their idea gave them the luxury of time: time to blend ideas into content, time to go deeper into learning, and time to provide quality feedback for students. They are able to give students multiple perspectives. The students love the projects and enjoy doing them.

The sixth video was Roosevelt Elementary's PBL Program. The video described project based learning as in depth learning that integrates thematic instruction based on real-world problems using research based projects and presentations. Project based learning helps to take away the fear of public speaking because children get used to it at an early age. They like to have the students make a lot of decisions on their own to create in themselves a sense of power. The teachers put trust in their students and give them ownership of their work which makes the students accountable. Students learn to work independently, cooperatively, how to solve problems, how to communicate with each other, and to support each other. It also helps children to learn in different ways because it incorporates many different intelligences and learning styles.

What we learned from these videos was that teaching with technology can be done in many different ways. These videos showed us that projects should encourage learning from students and that technology can be used to make classroom projects fun for students. These videos really showed us the diversity among techniques for project based learning, but with the same consensus that it is something we should all try with out own classrooms. We all enjoyed getting to see how experiments worked out for these teachers in their own classrooms and hope that we can someday develop such amazing projects as these.

Project 12A

Blog Post #10

While watching Sir Ken Robinson's video Bring on the learning revolution I agreed with a lot of his points and found his public speaking very entertaining. He had a sarcastic type of humor that is very funny. I think he is a brilliant man and has several great ideas about future education. He compared fast food restaurants to the near by specialized sit down restaurants. All of the fast food restaurants are generic and all taste similar. All of the other restaurants like local steak houses are specialized and all are different from one to another and have their own flavor and style. Sir Ken Robinson's point was that education needs to change away from the same one size fits all education. I think that everyone has something that they are good at doing or have a passion for doing. The man he talked to that said he always wanted to be a fireman had a great story. No career profession choice is better than another everyone is different. Sir Ken Robinson made a statement that I really agree with. He said that not everyone needs to go to college. Sir Ken Robinson seems like a brilliant man with great ideas on education and I think a lot can be learned from him.

Blog Post #9

While watching the video Little Kids.... Big Potential I learned what Mrs. Cassidy's students do and what they have learned. Mrs. Cassidy's students have a blog similar to the blog we have in EDM 310. Her students know to not hurt others feelings in there blog post or comments to other students. The kids in the video said that they are always positive in there comments to others. We are taught the same way in EDM 310 and I believe being positive is an important way of communication. There are a couple of techniques that I will take from Mrs. Cassidy's video Interview With Kathy Cassidy Part 1. Her students have an individual blog and a class blog. My class will also have a class blog and an individual blog. There are many benefits of having blogs for my students and class as a whole. My major is Physical Education. While teaching the weather may be bad outside while we are supposed to be doing an outdoor activity. If I have a class blog, I can put a post up before class about instructions of what to expect for the upcoming class session. The topic of PLN's were brought up by Dr. Strange. I have already started to get my PLN going in education. Dr. Strange mentioned that he did not have a twitter before. He made a deal to try it and see how it was. He said the his life has not been the same since he started using it. He also stated that he met Mrs. Cassidy through twitter. Mrs. Cassidy also talked about protecting the students, and protecting them from what they can see. She said that her students never put their last name on their work on the internet or none of there personal information. Something that can be done to protect them while at school is something such as a website blocker, blocking the inappropriate sites. A number of things can be learned from Mrs. Cassidy's interview. The video's were very helpful.

Project #14

In this lesson plan I intend to show my students proper throwing form, introduce them to peer editing, and improve their ipad and imovie skills. On my first day I will show them youtube videos of how to properly throw. Day two I will give the children pointers and tips on their stance and also describe to them the proper steps of throwing a ball. The third day the children will be given the opportunity to practice what they have learned the past couple of days. On the fourth day the students will get into small groups and video each other throwing a ball. On the last day the students will get into their groups and critique each others videos.

Project #9

Blog Post #8-What Are 21st Century Learning and Communicating Tools?

Every job done in the world has tools that are used to make a job easier. For a person in construction an important tool would be a hammer. In education for many years the most important tools to use was a pencil and paper. But with the evolution of technology there are more important tools of teaching now. There are also different ways of teaching also. The method of flipping a classroom has become an effective way to be a successful teacher. I would like to implement this into my style of teaching when I become an educator. Youtube/education will be my most important tool in my teaching career. I am a physical education major. Tons of sports skills, tips, drills, etc. can be found on youtube. I can get my children to start an upcoming activity at home by assigning them videos to watch on youtube. This can get my class one step ahead. If the students come in prepared knowing the rules to a sport or activity more time can be spent on actually playing the game, rather than me explaining the rules half of the class period. While watching why I flipped my classroom I learned some reasons why flipping a classroom is effective. She explains that she has a couple different groups of students. The main group is busy with the task and listening. The gifted children that are ahead of the others and are bored with the task. The last group are the children that are lost and are frustrated that they can not keep up. Flipping the classroom allows the children to come to class all on the same page and spend time doing the activity in class.

C4T Summary #2

While visiting Mr. Jones blog jonesytheteacher I commented on two blog post of his. Both of them were great topics that I was really interested in. The first blog post was titled "Emulator? Or Assimilator?". The emphasis was on whether you should copy a style of teaching and learning, or whether you should use the method of assimilation. The method of assimilation is done by taking a method of teaching and adding your own twist on it. Me and Mr. Jones both agreed that the best way would be to use your own method of the teaching, and not to just copy something.



The second blog post I commented on was my favorite of the two. It was a topic on how you can use a GoPro camera in your Physical education class. I think this is a great idea and I will probably use it in my own physical education class and on my sports teams. This is a way to use technology in Physical Education. Using a GoPro camera gives a view of what an athlete sees during the action of the sport. Football teams all across the United States are attaching them to players helmets to improve there performance and see what that player sees during the play. He also had a video of his PE student using the GoPro camera during a rugby game. I believe it was strapped to his chest. A players game can be improved by critiquing there methods during the game. The videos can also be used for enjoyment of the players to remember an exciting moment during competition.

Project #13

C4K Summary

While visiting Sierra Brown's blog she talked about how her book story was erased. She apologized for not having a book report up for her last post. She talked about the difficulties she was having. She said her project had been erased.

Student #3 talked about her experience with other students. She talked about other people irritating her more than usual when she is having a bad day. She seemed to be having a bad experince with other students or was having a bad day at the time.



The second student I commented on talked about her trip to the zoo. She talked about eating something while she was the visiting the zoo. A lemur came up to her and attempted to steal her food. She talks about her dad saving the day and protecting her and her food. Her blog profile was named Candice The Great.

The first student I commented on talked about their family. They went into detail how close they are to their other siblings. They also talked about their pets in the blog post also.

Blog Post #7

While watching Randy Pausch's Last Lecture I was very entertained. There were many life lessons to learn from his journey in his career. He started of with talking about dreaming. Dreams he wanted to achieve as a child. Some of those dreams were achieved, like going into zero gravity. There was one dream that was not achieved. He wanted to become an NFL (National Football League) football player but came up short on this dream. Dr. Pausch said that he learned the most from not achieving this goal. In life you are going to fail at something, no one is perfect. What you do when your knocked down makes you the person you are. Responding to failure and adversity is very important to being successful in any career.



Dr. Pausch also talked about his teaching at Carnegie Mellon. He said that in his class that was for students achieving a masters that the only assignments that he assigned was group assignments only. Working with others is so crucial in the job environment. While working in the education field you are working with others everyday of your career. It is key that you are easy to work with, and that you get along with others well. In Dr. Pausch's class the students are rated on there working skills in the group. Dr. Pausch and the students in the class rate each other on there group working performance. Dr. Pausch also liked teaching students in a way that is fun and teaches the student a skill at the same time. He called this method the "head fake". I think the head fake method of teaching is very effective and I plan to use it when i become a teacher.