Project #12B

Project #15/12B

Blog Post #11

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 #12 A

Blog Post #10

What can we learn from Sir Ken Robinson?

Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution!

Mr. Robinson gives this speech about creating a shift from standardized schools to personal learning that creates an atmosphere where students natural talents can be brought out and used to their advantage. He began his lecture with presenting a climate crisis. There is a climate crisis in the environment but he mentioned a different one. A climate crisis resulting in human resources by making poor use of our talents. People are not using their natural talents or they may not even know what their talents are. There are people in this world who love what they do and enjoy life; while, on the other hand, there are other people who dislike what they do and only wait for the weekend so they may have a break. Educational systems around the world are being reformed, meaning, they are improving a broken model. The educational system should not be an evolution but rather than, at this point, be a REVolution. It seems as if life at an early age is preparing for college. Some people may not be fit for college, may not want to go, or may wait a while before going. So what about for those students? When they graduate high school they need to be prepared for the next step in their journey. Discovering and building their natural talent will help them succeed in life and most importantly be happy! Instead of the educational system being standardized, it needs to be customized to occupy every students needs. If you are doing something you love, then, many hours spent seems like a very short period of time. Vis versa, if you are doing something that is not enjoyable, then, the clock seems to goes by so much slower. This is very relate-able to how students feel about school. People are opting out of education because it is not interesting to them and they are not passionate about it. Mr. Robinson finished up his lecture with stating how we need to move the educational system to an agricultural atmosphere/environment. Farmers grow their crops and nourish them. They customize to their crops needs. This is the same with students. Revolutionizing the educational system to discovering, creating, and developing the students natural talents and customize the education to and for them. 

C4K for March

Week 1 & 2: The past 2 weeks I have been viewing 2 students blog posts. I had the privilege of viewing Gillian's and Alisha's blogger. Gillian discussed a story that was about his Christmas present one yer. Him and his family went to Walt Disney world and absolutely recommended that everyone go just to ride the The Tower of Terror. He had a wonderful time and it made him feel like a kid again (lol). Another students blog I was able to visit was Ms. Alisha. Her assignment was to read a book and make a video about what she learned. She did her video on "Harold the Giraffe". Harold was very smart and gave her useful information about her oxygen. She learned that her oxygen went to her lungs and brain to support her. I have her a little bit of advice by saying that she needed to listen to Mr. Harold because he sounded very smart Another great week of viewing young students blogs. Looking forward to next week as well!

Week3: This week I read Tyla-Marie's blog from New Zealand. I commented on two of her blog posts because they were very interesting. The first post I read was about her goals. Their assignment was to create a blog post about her personal goals of 2014 and her most proud moment of 2013. She wants to exceed in every aspect of her life in school. She wants to get better and over exceed her grade level in the areas of math, reading, and writing. She is very goal-oriented (in which I love because I AM TOO). I gave her some encouraging words that I hope she will follow throughout her life. My dad gave me this advice when I was young and it has stuck with me through life so far. They key to success starts with a good plan/goal. If you have a goal, write it down. If you do not write it down, you do not have a goal - you have a wish. The second blog post I commented on was the assignment in which she had to create a diary log entry that included her being in the time of the Boer war. She also had to create a picture that gave life to her text. I love this assignment because the students had to truly think about that time period and what people had to go through during that time. She created a wonderful post and picture. Below is the picture and diary entry that she created.

Week 4: This week I read a post created by Ashlee. She wrote a report about the missing Malaysia plane MH370. She updated her viewers about what is going on with the missing plane and what we are doing to find it. She gave a lot of detail in her blog post and she seemed very interested in news. I suggested that she may like news enough to go into news broadcasting or journalism. I believe if students have an interest in something at a young age, when teachers recognize it, they may want to suggest things they could do so that students can develop a goal or start thinking about what they would like to do in life after school. 

Blog Post #9

For this blog post, we were to watch Kathy Cassidy's interviews and personal videos where she recorded what goes on inside of her classroom. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the videos (as always) because the teachers give so much useful information to help us, as future teachers, later on.

In the video Little Kids.. Big Potential, Mrs. Cassidy recorded her class and showed us what the inside of her classroom looks like. She is a first grade teacher with very smart students. The students post their work online (using Blogger) so that the whole world can see. Other students, future teachers (college students), teachers, and parents are commenting on their work and giving feed back to the students. They are having online video conversations with professionals to be able to ask them questions and get useful and knowledgeable answers/feedback from an actual person.

In Interview with Kathy Cassidy part 1, she discusses how she came about to share what goes on inside her classroom; why she uploaded the original video of "Little Kids.. Big Potential". She discusses how her students and parents love and appreciate using blog. One very useful tool she mentioned in this interview was about using "class blog mister". Class blog mister keeps track of how many page views each students blog receives. Students are excited to view how many page views they have received because of the huge and diverse audience.

In Interview with Kathy Cassidy part 2, she discusses how twitter is useful for your PLN (personal learning network). Even though it takes time to find people who will be an asset to your PLN, it is very useful when you do. Others will upload useful links which you may stumble across that you may you want to try out, do further research about, or actually start using right away.


In Interview with Kathy Cassidy part 3, students from EDM310 at the University of South Alabama asked Kathy Cassidy questions, in which, she responded and gave advice about. Students asked questions about blogs, Facebook, protection of young students from outside world while online, and commenting on others blogs.

The videos provided by Kathy Cassidy are very beneficial to future students. One topic that truly stood out to me when watching the interviews was during interview 3. A students asking Kathy Cassidy about how to protect students from the outside world. They can range from spam, predators, etc. Her response to this concern was teaching the students how to use the internet and what to do on the internet. With today's technology so advanced, students need to know what to do in case they are confronted with a problem. This is useful not only in school but while at home as well.

Project #14

My lesson plan that I decided to create this week was "All about the Cell". I decided the best way to incorporate project-based learning was for the students to actually CREATE cells. They will build a real-life model of what a eukaryote and prokaryote cell looks like along with all of the components inside of them. The leading event and driving question is designed for the students to get motivated and interested in their project. If they know the differences in the cells and who and what are made up of those cells, then, they should be able to draw conclusions about what would happen if the cells come in contact with one another. This is a very open project so that they students may create their own ideas on how they would like to represent their cell.

My Project Overview from Buck Institute
http://www.scribd.com/doc/212787569/Project-Overview-PDF

My Project Calendar from Buck Institute
http://www.scribd.com/doc/212791145/Project-Calendar-PDF

My Essential Elements Checklist from Buck Institute
http://www.scribd.com/doc/212791876/Essential-Elements-Checklist-PDF

Video Book Project #9

Blog Post #8

Find some 21st Century Learning and Communicating Tools? Tell us about 

them. Tell us where we can find them. Give a thorough review of at least one of 

them.

After doing research, watching videos, getting other teachers opinions, I have come to the solution of using "Flipping the Classroom" with my future class. I am a Biology and Secondary Education major; therefore, I will be teaching high school science. I know, in all reality, not everyone is like myself and loves science and biology. By understanding this, I know that students who are not interested in the subject will not be interested in listening and taking notes from lectures. A huge part of Biology and any science is understanding definitions and what things mean/are. If I can flip the classroom to where they can do the lecture part of the lesson at home and take notes, then, while in class, do homework-like experiments and hands on learning, I think I will be able to grab more students attention. I would use this tool of "Flipping the Classroom" with the help of YouTube and Google docs. YouTube is a great source of entertainment and also learning. I would create a video for lessons and upload it to YouTube so that students (while at home) can watch and take notes as their lecture. Why this is useful, is not only taking away lecture in classroom for my time for project-based learning, but also so that they students may go back and re-watch the videos in case they needed too. Parents and also administrators would be able to view the videos and see what goes on inside of my classroom. By taking away lecture while in class, it opens up so much more time for hands-on projects that will help the students learn more efficiently. Katie Gimbar explains "Flipping the Classroom" in more detail and also with her own personal examples of how she uses this technique. She accepts questions from parents, other teachers, and administrators, and answers them with a YouTube video that is uploaded to her account for everyone to see. I highly suggest checking out her videos. Here is the link that will lead you to her videos. 

C4T #2

These past couple of weeks I have been following Joey Feit's blog. I have been reading, commenting, and learning about his teaching strategies and what he does as an educator. His first post that I read was "How I teach: Mike Doyle". Joey made a blog post about his interview with Mike Doyle. I learned a lot from Mike because we share some of the same qualities. He goes the extra mile with his students just like I do with everything I put my attention too. He gave many useful tools that he uses like Google Handouts, iMovie, Twitter, and Google Forms. I enjoyed getting to know what about what he does with his classes and the advice he gave. Passion and going the extra mile changes students lives daily and it is teachers like him who make a difference.

The second blog post I read was that of an announcement for an open discussion with a very interesting topic. Anyone can join the discussion and if you do post to leave a comment, your name and information will be used in an scientific study (unless you let them know that you do not want your name mentioned). The link to the blog to the information is here. The topic link that gives the reasoning behind the open discussion is here. The topic is what can PE teachers do to engage girls in their lessons and also why are they not engaged. If everyone gives a little information and their thoughts, maybe experts can find a solution to what teachers can do to increase girls learning about physical education. Me, being an athletic girl, I do not understand why in general girls are not interested in being physically fit and healthy. I will be attending the discussion today (March 10, 2014) to get further information and possibly contribute to the discussion. Even though I am a Biology and Secondary Education major, it is still useful information for everyone so that they may education friends, co-workers, girl-friends, etc, about physical education.

Project #13

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Blog Post #7

What can we learn about teaching and learning from Randy Pausch?

The above question was the leading discussion question for this weeks blog assignment. We were to watch Randy Pausch's Last Lecture. In the beginning of the video, he explains why he titled his speech with "...Last Lecture". Randy Pausch states that he has a cancerous tumor but will not be defeated by this terrible incident. I had to watch the video twice to gather my information about what I would talk about. The first time I watched this video, I did not think that there was any solid information for future teachers learn about teaching and learning but instead he was talking about life in general. After watching the video the second time, I began to understand more about what he was talking about. Two quotes that stuck out to me tremendously was, "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted," and "Be prepared because "luck" is where preparation meets opportunity." He also talked about showing gratitude, to not complain and just work harder, be good at something, in which, will make you valuable, get feedback and listen to it, and brick walls shows us our dedication. At the end of his lecture he states that everything he talked about was for his children. He wanted to leave some advice behind for them just in case he could not defeat his worst enemy. I love that he used his lecture to do that for his family, but the more I listened to it, I realized it actually did relate to help future teachers. Teachers are to instill these characteristics in their students to be successful in life. In one week, teachers will spend 35 hours with their students. That is plenty of enough time to build students character. I hope when I begin to teach I will be able to instill character, morals, and dedication in my students because that is what its really all about.