Blog Post #16 Final Reflection

Part 1:

Honestly, I wouldn't change my blog post #1 very much after going through this class. I do still plan on using pencils, crayons, and paper a lot. I do plan on using technology more than I originally thought. I am going to be a elementary special education teacher and I thought there is no way those kids are going to be able to comprehend the technology the way a normal elementary class would. I went and visited a special education class and changed my mind. The teacher started the class every morning with the SMARTboard. The screen had the day of the week, a calender and different choices of weather. Each student got to get up and pick what day it was, what the date was, and what the weather was like outside. Next they would have to match the different colored socks or put outfits together. She used the SMARTboard to teach them everyday things that would help them in life. I thought that it was a really awesome idea to teach them something that they will use for the rest of their lives. I have learned a lot more to do with the SMARTboards than what I did with them in school and I will definitely use them a lot more than I thought I would.

Part 2:

Blog Post 15

With today’s technologies helping special needs students achieve so much more than in the past. The assistive technologies allow students with disabilities to participate in the learning activities and curriculum. In the video Assistive Technologies for Vision and Hearing impaired Children we see students learning using assistive technologies. The students read a book that uses words like “Zoom” to describe the sound a boat makes. This allows hearing impaired students to imagine what a boat really sounds like. We also see a blind student reading a book written in Braille. These are only two of the more simple assistive technologies available. These simple tools allow students to interact with their classmates and learning environment. With the ever advancing technology world we as teachers should always stay knowledgeable on the tools available to us. Also to ensure that the student is receiving the best possible learning experience a thorough assessment of the student’s abilities should be done to know where they are struggling.

        The video about the MountBatton, we learn about a system that is used to help enhance learning for the visually impaired. This system allows students to write Braille and hear what they are writing as they are typing it. This allows students to learn Braille while also staying involved in the classroom discussions and group work. Another way to enhance a student that has learning disabilities to participate in class is to teach the other students how to work with the student. For example, a visually impaired student may be more willing to participate in peer reviews if they know their paper will be read by a peer and not the teacher. So teaching the other students how to read basic Braille may help strengthen the learning environment. When planning lesson plans involving these assistive tools it is important to combine multiple tools to allow the student a single tool will not meet all the needs of your student. While researching assistive tools we found the website EnablingDevices which is a website that sells devices for all disabilities. This site is a very good site to have. It shows you what tools are out there and what tools you could need for your students with disabilities. The most important aspect of helping a student with disabilities achieve their goal is to work together, with the students parents and other administrators to guarantee that your student is achieving their goals.

blog post 15 c and d

Learning mathematics can be tough for anyone, but for blind students, it can be a challenging task, in learning math.  In the video, Teaching Math to the Blind Professor Art Karshmer, who is a professor at University of San Francisco School of Management, introduces a  tool he has created  for blind students. This tool  uses blocks and a grid. His device  lays out simple math problems to more advanced math problems using small blocks. On the front, there is  braille  and visible numbers. In the video, he demonstrates that the blind student will use a barcode scanner, on the blocks. The device reads the number back to the student. The student places the block on the grid to set up the math problem. The math problem is laid out on the touch bed. Professor Art Karshmer shows how the problem is laid out the way a sighted person would put it on paper. A blind person can rub their finger across the problem and read it. Now, a  blind student is able to work on a two-dimensional problem. By using this program, it will help educate young blind students. It can cover areas like: basic Math and the beginning Algebra.

After watching Professor Art Karshmer video, we did further research on  math tools for blind students. We found information on a blind woman named Sheila Schneider. She majored in sculpture at the School of Art Design. Under the supervision of  Deana McDonagh, a professor of Industrial Design. Sheila Schneider has created six small hand held sculptures that have mathematical equations written in Braille. The math equations will be written in Nemeth Code, a form of Braille used with math and scientific symbols. This tool will be used to help students with visual impairments that will help them to learn math.

It is great that there are assistive technology available for the blind. In the video, iPad usage for the blind  Wesley Majerus who is an Access Specialist for the National Federation for the Blind. In the video,  Mr. Majerus  demonstrations how blind people can use different apps with an iPad. The iPad has a voiceover that tells him, which programs he is opening. The voiceover helps him to navigate around the home screen. There is an app that can read a book aloud. He expresses that it is very liberating to buy and read books. This tool, is a great assistive technology device that can help blind people.

Having a great time teaching mom what her deaf/blind child is learning on the iPad is great video of a teacher teaching a mom how to use the voice features on the iPad. They run their fingers across the screen and it reads what app their finger is on. To choose the app they double tap anywhere on the screen. It also has a few different kinds of keyboards including one where you run your finger across the keyboard and then hold down the letter you want to use.

SMARTboard Project #12b

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Blog Post #12

In the video, How to escape education’s death valley Ken Robinson talks about . He makes a comment that who ever thought of the title “No child left behind” understood irony because the program left millions of children behind. The United States spends more on education that other countries but yet still has a 60% dropout rate. He believes that America is going in the wrong direction. He talks about 3 principles for education. The first is that humans are naturally different and diverse. He talks about how no two kids are alike. He goes on to say that 10% of children in America are diagnosed with some time of ADD. He says that most children are not suffering from a physiological condition, they are suffering from childhood. Children learn best when the curriculum is broad and can celebrate their different talents that just one. The second priciple is curiosity. When a child’s curiosity is sparked, they will go and learn themselves with no push. He goes on and says that children are natural learners. Curiosity is the engine in education. He says that the main point of education is learning. He talks about how you can be doing something but not be engaged in it. He applies that theory to teachers. Someone can be participating in the act teaching but no real teaching going on. The third principle is the human life is creative. We create our own lives. One of the points of education is to awake the power of creativity. He talks about how Finland has high test scores and such. He says that the reason they do is because they individualize teaching and learning. By doing this, they don’t have a dropout rate. They realize that you have to spark student interest and support the teachers. He says that education is not in the government, it’s in the classroom. Teachers know what needs to be done. Education is a human system not a mechanical one. The schools should not be command and control, but should be climate control. If you change the climate or atmosphere, possibilities are endless.

Savanah Moore

In the video Changing Education Paradigms, Ken Robinson talks about the changes being made around the world in public education. He explains how there are two reasons for these changes. The first being economics and the second being cultural. He asks how we educate our children to take our place in the economy. He also asks how we educate our children so that they have a source of cultural identity.  He starts his explanation by saying we are trying to meet the future by doing what they did in the past. I really agree with this quote, and think it is a very strong and representational quote of today’s society. This type of thinking is alienating many kids who do not understand why they need to be in school, because the education system was created for a different generation.

Robinson believes there are two types of education abilities which are economic and intellectual. The academic are considered the smart people who go on to get higher education degrees and the intellectual are the non-smart people, who struggled in school or could not afford to go on to get higher education and who are judged for it. Robinson states how he thinks this has caused chaos. Robinson goes on to say that the non-smart people have had to suffer the ADHD “epidemic.” He believes that we are penalizing our students with drugs because they are distracted by all the technologies of today. He states how we are getting our children through education by anaesthetizing them, or deadening their senses. I really liked what Robinson says when he states that we “should not be putting our students to sleep, we should be waking them up.” This is a great statement, because many students are bored and uninterested in school today.

Robinson explains how school’s today are similar to a factory line, and if we want our students to succeed we need to change from the factory line mentality. Robinson ends his lecture talking about divergent learning and shows a study that was done on a group of students starting in kindergarten through 9th or 10th grade. This study showed how the students’ ability for divergent thinking or creativity deteriorates as the students grow and go through school. He explains how the students’ have gone through years of school being told there is only one answer and that collaboration is bad. Robinson ends saying that in order to change the way our students learn we must think differently about human capacity and not split education into sections. I really liked the final quote he uses “Great learning happens in groups.” This quote goes right along with project based learning, and collaboration in groups.

Jacquelyne Mckiernan

I really enjoyed watching Sir Ken Robinson’s video titled, The Importance of Creativity.  Sir Ken Robinson talk is about why creativity is important. He is very funny and engaging. He started his speech by saying that students starting kindergarten this year will retire in 2065. Robinson explains that, we do not know what the world would look like the in next five years, but we are to educate and prepare students for the future. He shares that creativity should be treated the same as literacy. He had a great quote, “If you are not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with anything original.”  He speaks about today in education; we are stigmatizing mistakes. In the education system,  a mistake is the worst thing you can do. Robinson explains, that the education system has the same hierarchy of subjects, Mathematics and Languages, Humanities and then the Arts.  Under the Arts, there is another hierarchy Art and Music are given a higher status than Drama and Dance. In schools, there is not a class that teaches dance everyday to students, like Math is taught to students. During his talk, Mr. Robinson included a quote from Picasso, “ All children are born artists, the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.” Robinson says that educator’s task is to educate the whole being so, that they can face the future I really liked Sir Ken Robinson’s story of Gillian,  who became a dancer because ADHD had not been invented  yet. The school wrote her parents because they thought she had a learning disability. Gillian went to see a specialist. The specialist turned the radio on, and the girl began to dance. She was a dancer. The specialist recommendation was to take her to a dance school.  It turned out that he was right. She found other people just like her; people who could not sit still. She became a ballet dancer and a professional choreographer. Today, in schools too many children are mislabeled. I really enjoyed watching Sir Ken Robinson’s video. I learned that the arts should be held in the same hierarchy of content areas. It is important to create an education system that nurtures creativity not destroy it.

Shernaye James

C4K for October

Nick

Nick talked about how in the book he was reading, the dog, Butterscotch, was a great dog. He also goes on to say that Penny (a character in the book) will be getting more attention.

Aljes

Aljes's post is all about his field trip to Yamnuska. He talks about many diffrent kinds of plants in his post. He shares about moss, lichen, and fungus. Aljes gives facts and a picture of the plant for each.

Monty

Monty talks all sbout the Proboscis monkey. He shares diffrent things about the monkeies like the fact that it has a big nose to help attract a mate. He also includes a picture to help the reader know what he is talking about.

Norah

Norah's post is abut what the story "Out of my Mind" is teaching her. The story is full of life lessons on not giving up and following your deams. 

Project #12 - SMARTboard project

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Blog Post #9

Brian Crosby’s video TEDxDenver Ed is a really great video. I loved his presentation on the students. Seeing how excited the students were with the balloon experiment and watching them continue to grow in excitement as the project grew. The students began with a small synthetic audience, and then as there blogs gained notice their audience grew and grew. I loved how Mr.Crosby allowed his student to grow as self-learners and encouraged them to want to learn on their own. Mr.Crosby also provided his students with the chance to talk to students around the world. The balloon project became so widespread that the students’ blogs were being viewed by hundreds of students, teachers, and even some scientists who were amazed by the work these young students were doing.
One class in New Zealand wanted to do the balloon experiment but their teacher did not know how to do it. So the students in Mr.Crosby’s class studied the language and skyped the students in New Zealand and presented the experiment to them. This gave the students the chance to learn and to shine because these other students were looking up to them and their work. Mr. Crosby included a student name Celeste. She was undergoing chemo. Mr. Crosby used Skype. So, Celeste is now included into everyday learning. Brian Crosby is a great example of a 21st century teacher. He uses every kind of technology available to him and his students to enhance their learning. Mr. Crosby showed how encouraging the students to want to learn can promote higher level learning and provide students who have been labeled because of their home life the chance to succeed.

In the Blended Learning Cycle video, Paul Andersen explains his methods on blended learning. He breaks it down into 6 parts: Question, Investigation, Video, Elaboration, Review, and Summary Quiz. In Question, Mr. Andersen poses a question to interest the students. He uses Euler's Disk as an example for his class. When the disk is spun on a mirror, it continues to spin until stopped. This grabs the students attention and they want to know why it does that. In Investigation, you experiment and see what happens. Mr. Andersen gives his students the Euler's disk and tells them to spin it on other surfaces to see what happens. In Video, Mr. Andersen has podcasted the instructions so that the students can do it independently instead of in a whole group lecture. Elaboration is where the students get into explaining why the disk spins the way it does. It involves the physics, making graphs, etc. In review, Mr. Andersen meets with small groups to ask questions and answer questions to make sure they understand the material. The last step is the Summary Quiz. Each student takes the quiz to see how much they learned. If they don’t understand then they go back and go through all the parts again.

In the video, Making Thinking Visible, it features sixth- grade teacher Mark Church. He teaches at the International School Amsterdam. He had his students work in groups, to discuss a video, from the previous day. The topic was The Early Human Beginnings the Origins of Human Society. The students work in groups and come up with a headline, from what they had been learning about. The students headlines were then hung on the bulletin board. Later on, when the students are doing their final project. After finishing their final project, students were told to think about what their headline is now. The students are to decide whether their thinking has changed. I like students working in small groups because I feel it helps keep students engaged. Personally, I like working in groups, because you can hear the thoughts of someone else. They can maybe better verbalize what you are trying to say. Furthermore, working in groups can help give you a better understanding of a topic. I like being able to reflect on my work, which I did not have in school. I feel that encouraging students to reflect is great thing to teach to your students. Visible Thinking is a research-based approach to teaching thinking; it develops students’ thinking and communicates the idea more effectively. Also, at the same time deepens their understanding of the topics they are studying. Visible Thinking is based on different practices such as thinking routines, small sets of questions, students sharing their ideas, having a discussion and reflecting. After watching this video,we agree with Mr. Church’s approach to teaching and learning. Watching this video encourages us as future teachers to experiment with other types of learning.
Written by: Shernaye James, Jaquelyne McKiernan, and Savanah Moore

C4T #2

I have been reading Beth Still's blog over the last few weeks. I have really enjoyed reading her posts! The first post of her's that I read was No Potty For You. She talks about how she thought that she had a perfect bathroom pass plan; only 2 each quarter. She soon realized that it wasn't a very good plan. She says that she has figured out that you don't make rules based on a few students. Just because 2 or 3 students went to the bathroom way too much doesn't mean you punish everyone when they have to use the bathroom. I shared with her my expirence with the teacher who would give you extra points for every bathroom pass you didn't use in the semester. Her second post was about a website called Diigo. She talks about how useful for sharing lessons and material with fellow teachers. It's pretty much Pinterest for teachers! I think it is great because it helps put all of your ideas in one place instead of them being all over and gives your fellow teachers to comment what they think.

Blog Post #8

My group and I found many different educational tools that could be very useful. Some of the resources we found are Learnzillion, WatchKnowLearn, neok12, Diigo, and TeacherTube. These are just a few of the many resources available to teachers in the 21st century.

LearnZillion is a website that provides high-quality instructional videos for grades 3-9. The lessons centered around Common Core standards in Math. LearnZillion provides assessment and progress reporting. Teachers can select a lesson for students to review and track their student’s progress, on the topic. LearnZillion is a free site. Teachers need to sign up first. You can search by grade level, topic, or standard. The way LearnZillion will be used, is by assigning videos for students to watch. After watching the assigned video, students will complete practice activities and quizzes. The benefits are: students can practice and review videos to help them understand the content, that they are learning. LearnZillion is great because it helps in providing high-quality instructional content, for each individual student’s needs. Written by: Shernaye James

Diigo is a site that I found through one of my C4T assignments. I had never heard of it before but after it was mentioned in the post I decided to look into it. Diigo is a site that allows you to save information and share articles. With Diigo you and those you shared the article with are able to highlight and put notes on articles, allowing communication right there on the article. This site also allows you to create groups. The groups could be organized by grade level, subject or certain staff members. When you share an article with the group only they are able to view and comment on the article. The articles are saved and stored until they are needed. Diigo is great for when you find teaching resources and would like to share them, and with it being free it could be possible to create a class account that the students are able to use for group projects. Written by: Jacquelyne McKiernan

Teachertube is a great website I use at work. At most schools, youtube is blocked when using the internet, so when teachers wanted to show their class a video about what they were learning they couldn’t! Teachertube was created so that teachers could enhance their students learning by showing them videos about the things they are learning on a safe website. It contains tons of educational videos that are appropriate for the classroom. At work, I use Teachertube when tutoring kids. Sometimes hearing the information another way in a video, helps the student understand better. Teachertube is also useful for me! The way kids are taught to do math is completely different from the way I was taught so it is useful for me to go on there and learn the new methods of learning! Written by: Savanah Moore

Podcast Project #9

C4K - September

Bubba

Bubba starts out his blog asking "Have you ever been sitting in a stand at four in the morning in thirty degrees?" He then starts to talk about how it feels to sit there with the clod air running through your lungs trying to be as quiet as possible waiting for a deer to cross your path. When Bubba sees a deer he doesn't see a cute animal, he sees supper. Bubba's step dad got him into hunting about the age of six. Bubba says he likes to go hunting to be by himself and think about life. In my comment, I told him about my hunting experiences. 

Rocky

Rocky's blog was about his Waitangi trip. On his trip he finds out that Hone Heke a maori Chief of Ngapuhi is his Tupuna! He is so excited that he made connections with his Tupuna and his Whaea. When I first read Rocky's post I thought it was a lot of typing errors (tupuna, whaea, etc) but when I re-read it I realized that they were Native American terms.

Leona

Leona's blog is all about her dog, Rilee! Rilee is a golden retriever. Leona picked her out in 2009 and picked her name. She says it is not always fun having a dog because she has to clean up after her, fee her, and be annoyed by her 24/7. Leona says that it is all worth it though because when she gets off the bus after school, she knows that Rilee will always be waiting her! In my comment, I told Leona about my dog Molly.

Blog Post #7

Video 1

In the video Project Based Learning Part Anthony Capps discusses his use of Project based learning in his 3rd grade class. Anthony gives a really good point when he says that the projects should not be just in class. He explains that they should involve a real audience and include the community; this encourages the students to do better work and to really care about their project. Anthony also talks about using project based learning as a teaching tool rather than just an accessory to your lesson. He gives an example of having his students write letters to the governor Jo Bonner about women fighting in combat. This project was content driven and met reading, writing and social studies standards. The project also was community driven and the students were able to learn information from their community. I really enjoyed listening to Anthony Capps talk about his experiences in a classroom, and it is really neat to see what we learn in EDM310 in a classroom.

Video 2

In the second half of Project Based Learning Anthony discussed how not all projects have a great outcome. Anthony gives an example of how his class was studying Afghanistan and learning about the culture. Anthony explains how one of his parents who had served in Afghanistan did not want their child to do the project, and they wanted to keep their child sheltered from that culture. This example is really important because it shows how that not all projects are going to be an absolute success, Anthony's students learned a lot from this project and they had excellent reviews. I really loved when Anthony said "create an opportunity for your students to go beyond what you expect." I think this is a great quote to live by when it comes to creating activities for your students, allowing them to learn and go above and beyond is a great way to motivate them for higher learning.

Video 3

In this video title iCurio Anthony Capps moves on from his discussion of Project Based Learning to iCurio. Anthony explains how he uses iCurio to help his students become organized and teach them virtual organization, and to keep track of all of their notes and information. I really enjoyed learning more about iCurio, Anthony explains how iCurio is very kid friendly and blocks out sites that are inappropriate for kids. I found the historical figures feature to be very interesting, and how you can search with categories. I feel this could be very useful in my future classroom, when my students need to do a research project or assignment.

Video 4

In the video Discovery Education we learn about the site Discovery Education. In this video Anthony uses the quote "If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video must be worth a million" I agree with this quote, and also in the use of Discovery Ed. I really liked Anthony's example with studying plants and using Discovery Ed to enhance the study and viewing pictures and videos about the plants

Written by: Shernaye James, Jacquelyne mckiernan, Savanah Moore

Video 5

In the video, The Anthony - Strange Tips for Teachers Part 1 Dr. Strange and Anthony Capps give tips to future educators. These tips covered key topics, that any new teacher should think about. The first thing that Dr. Strange and Anthony suggested, is to really be interested, in learning yourself. Anthony says that work, is not separate from play, in teaching. He says teachers learn the craft of teaching, in their free time. Another tip that was suggested, is to be flexible. Anthony emphasizes the importance of keeping students engaged. He encourages the listener, to have a goal of 100 percent engagement. Anthony also says that it is important, to include information the students care about. Lastly, Anthony discusses the importance of reflection, revising and sharing. As a future educator, these are great tips to use and remember.

Written by: Shernaye James

Video 6

I really agree with everything Anthony said in the video Use Tech Don't Teach It. Gradually adding in the technology and focusing on one specific tool at a time is a great way to help the students understand how to use them. Anthony uses the term scaffolding as a way to describe how he uses technology and introduces it into his classroom. This means that he adds on each week, he uses the example of starting with a research tools, and then having them use the video tool and by week three his students were able to do research videos where they are recording the information that they researched. I really enjoyed watching this video and learning from Anthony about different ways to use technology.

Written by: Jacquelyne Mckiernan

Video 7

In the video Additional Thoughts About Lessons Anthony made some very good points on how there are four tiers in lesson planning; the school year, the unit, weekly, and daily. You start with everything you need to cover in the whole school year. Then you break it down into units, which would be about 6 weeks long. By the end of the unit the students should be able to do X in that subject. When looking at your unit, you should divide the lessons into weeks. For example if our unit is plants, week one may be all about what is in the dirt and what needs to be in the dirt for something to grow, week two could be focusing on the roots, week three could focus on the stem and leaves, and so on. At the end of the unit  the students should know all about plants; how they work, what they need to survive, etc. Your weeks then need to be divided into days.

The days to week act just like the weeks to unit. On Friday, your students should know X about that subject. If we continue with the plant unit, in week three the students should know all about stems and leaves and their functions. So Monday the students should learn where the stem and leaves are on the plant, Tuesday they can learn why the stem is important, etc. On Friday, the students should know all about stems and leaves. My biggest fear about teaching is not having enough time to cover all of the material well enough that the kids understand it, but I think that this tier lesson plan idea will help.

Written by: Savanah Moore

Project #13 Lesson Plan #1

For our collaborative assignment, Jacquelyne McKiernan, Shernaye James and I created a lesson plan for 2nd grade students. The title of our lesson plan is Hurricane Charting. This is the overview of our lesson plan. At the end of the week the students will be tested on their knowledge of hurricanes.

Project #3

Blog Assignment #4

I absolutely loved 1st Graders Create Own Read Along Book! I have always enjoyed listening to people that really get into character when they read stories! I feel that children especially do this because they have greater imaginations than adults. I've never thought on recording students while reading the different parts in a book. I feel that recording them and letting them listen to it can help many ways. It pushes them to practice at becoming better readers and lets them creative with the voices they use for their character.
I really enjoyed listening to the podcast of Vacation Under the Volcano in Podcasting with First Grade! I grew up reading the Magic Tree House books and I love hearing 1st graders read them! They sound like they are really enjoying it! She says in her blog that her shy students began coming out of their shell and being more confident. I love that this activity didn't only help them with reading better but also gave them more confidence to express themselves to their class mates!

The kids enthusiasm in the Flat Stanley Podacast just flew out of my computer speakers! I loved that the whole class got involved and not just a few students! Having the students come up with a script of their own journey as "Flat Stanley" was a great idea!