Blog Post #6

Asking the right questions

   Good questions are needed for project based learning, make students interact, and improve students learning. In the The Right Way to Ask Questions post, the author explains the right way to question students. Many teachers fail to realize that when asking if students understand the material and their response is yes, that the student may not realize that they do not understand the material.

What are the right questions?

• Do not ask more than one question at a time.
• Open-ended Questions. These questions can have multiple answers and will get the class to interact.
• Closed-ended questions. These questions are are basic questions that requires students to recall information.
• Ask divergent questions. These questions include, "imagine...", "suppose...", or "what if?"

Responding to Questions

• Take a few moments to let students think about a answer and pick on a random student to answer.
• Have a response that keeps students thinking. 
• Show interests in their answers, either right or wrong.

Asking the right questions can go a long way! 

Project #8 Book Trailer

Project #7

Blog Post #5

Blog Post #4

Why Podcasts? How do we do a podcast?


      Podcasting is a great way to teach students. A few of my professors have used podcasts for there lectures so I know the basics of them. One thing I did not know was that podcasts could be played on a MP3 player. For this assignment we had to watch at least 3 videos concerning podcast. The  first video I watched was 1st Graders Create Their Own Read-Along Audiobook. First grade students created their own audio book. Each student was given an a character. They recorded their book and put it with a podcast. The kids were engaged and excited to be a part of the assignment and hear themselves out loud. I like how excited the kids were!

The second podcast was Podcast Collection. It states what a podcast is and how to use it effectively in a classroom. It explains how easy and cheap podcasting can be. Only three things are required which includes a computer, microphone, and software. It gives tips on how to be successful in using podcast inside of the classroom.  Which include giving them a variety of topics to chose from. It also gives an example on how to schedule podcasting into a class period.

The last video The Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom  by Joe Dale gives tips on how podcasts can benefit students. It goes into details on how students in this generation are able to relate to podcast because it deals with technology. Podcast can be used for children who become sick and miss class. Parents can see and hear what their children are doing in school.

Project #4 C4T

 The teachers blog I had to comment on was Eva Buyuksimkesyan titled A Journey in TEEL. I really enjoyed reading her blog. She is a English teacher and has been teaching for 20 years. Her posts were very interesting and she seems like she really loves literature and teaching. I will continue to view her blog after this class, so informative!


Grammar Games ~ Time Clause Game

 Eva came up with the idea of a grammar game that will help students. This game deals with flash cards. You get two different colored flash cards such as yellow and orange. On the yellow cards you write activities and on the orange cards you write a conjunction used in a time clause. You divide the class in two and draw a tic-tac-toe grid on the board and play the game. 

My Response

 I think this is a great game especially for younger children. It will make them think and it sounds fun putting together different sentences. And also get kids to interact with classmates!





Creativity Technology

 This post was about a project that is going on in Kampala, Uganda called the The Daylight Project. This project consists of people in the community teaming up with an organization that helps provide a basic need in there homes which is lighting in a easy and natural way. The reason that many of these homes do not have electricity is due to maximizing privacy, security reasons, and to stop infestation of pests. The way this works is putting water and bleach into a plastic water bottle. Second, they cut a hole into a small piece of metal and place the bottle inside. They use silicone to keep the bottle in place then it is put on the roof of the house. The light coming from the bottle will distribute the house evenly. This is an inexpensive project and will help many people in Uganda. 

My Response

  I really enjoyed reading this post! It was really intriguing. It is so inspiring how something so simple can help so many people. I agree with you on your statement on how children are so materialistic these days when these people do not have basic electricity! The smile on their faces made me realize how good people have it here in the United States.

Project #3 Presentation

Blog Post #3

  Peer editing is working with someone your own age to help improve their work. Peer editing can be tough when you do not know how to do it correctly. However, peer editing is very simple.The video Peer Editing and slide show Tutorial Peer Editing explained the three main steps. These three steps include compliment, make suggestions, and corrections while staying positive. Compliments would include saying what you liked about the work such as the topic or something you thought was humorous. Suggestions can include the authors word choice or organization. Last, corrections to the paper would include spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
     

  Peer editing can go wrong when the person does not imply the three basic steps stated above. In the video Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes a class of 4th and 5th graders give many examples of peer editing the wrong way. One example is "Jean the Generalizer", who is someone who makes suggestions on what needs to be changed but does not go into details.  Another example is "Defensive Dave", which is someone who gets defensive when someone makes suggestions about their paper. Third example of a bad peer editor is "Mean Margaret", who is someone that is the opposite of staying positive in which they have negative comments or suggestions.

  When I had to peer review my partner Jennifer Hamrick's blog I chose to comment on hers privately. I chose this way because we used Google Docs which was the easiest way for use to correct our errors. Whenever we finished our post we would go onto Google Docs, see what our partner said needed to be corrected and would  revise our part. I really enjoyed her blog post. It was clear and straight to the point. I gave Jennifer compliments on what I like about her post. Second, I made suggestions on some things she might want to change or add. Last, I pointed out some minor punctuation errors.

  In conclusion, peer editing is quite simple. The steps are compliments, suggestions, and corrections while all staying positive. When someone is peer editing your paper you would like them to use these steps. In the end no one likes to work with "Mean Margaret" or "Defensive Dave".

Blog Post # 2

Mr. Dancealot 

The video Mr. Dancealot was a great example of “Burp-Back Education”.  Professor Dancealot states in the beginning of the class that the purpose of this class will be to teach the students basic steps to numerous ballroom dances and do to it in proper position.  Not once does Professor Dancealot engage his students with a physical learning of how to properly dance.  Professor Dancealot spent a lot of time filling his students with facts and when it came time for the final he expected them to just be able to dance.  Just because Professor Dancealot had slides and pictures to show how to do the dance, it wasn’t effective.  He still needed to have the class on the dance floor letting them work on the step and helping them to correct their mistakes and obtain proper dance position and steps.

Harness Your Student's Digital Smarts
By: Dominique Jones

The video I watched was titled  Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts. Vicki Davis is a technology teacher in a rural city in Georgia. Vicki states, “ when you have only paper, and only pencil then only certain types of children are going to succeed.” I agree with Vicki because  using pencil and paper students are more likely to get  “burp back” education. Using  technology makes you ask more questions.  Using technology can be more entertaining to students than a drawing on a chalkboard. You are engaging a child to learn something interesting rather than reciting information. Making students use technology will make them become a more independent learner. Students become better thinkers because they are more interested in learning because they are so intrigued in learning.  They are pushed into learning instead so there is not “burp back” education.

 

Davis’s main focus  is finding  out her students strengths and interests of her students. She still follows  the curriculum but she customizes it  to fit each group of students. Davis wants all of her students to become comfortable with all technology. She teaches them to  become a better learner, better at collaborating, and using blogs effectively. Even though  the students lived in a rural city, they were able to connect with other kids around the world.

Looking around on the Eutopia.org website where this video was posted,  I found out many things that stood out to me. The main focus of this website is to help educators inspire, be more creative, and engage students in the 21st century. I think this is a very helpful website that any teacher can use to help them with their teaching methods. I think it will help my future teaching methods.

Teaching in the 21st Century

By: Jennifer Hamrick

For my part of the group blog, I watched Teaching in the 21st Century. In the beginning of the video, Kenny Roberts states that “If teachers can only provide: content, facts, dates, formulas, research, theories, stories and information, then our role in the lives of students is obsolete…..”  I don’t believe this to be true.  It is not a hidden fact that technology is taking over in our world and now it is beginning to in the classrooms.  I believe that Kenny Roberts and I think along the same lines that vast amounts of information can be obtained through technology but it doesn’t necessarily teach someone how to physically do something.  Roberts poses the question “with all of this information available, should our curriculum be focused on facts and content or skills?” I don’t see why it needs to be or has to be one or the other.  In order to find and learn facts and content, you need the skills to find the information.  If I were to ask my students to tell me what major event occurred on August 29, 2005 which impacted the Gulf Coast, they would need to know the facts and content of what I am asking, which would be August 29, 2005 and the Gulf Coast but they would also need the skills to know how to look that information up. So as a teacher, I would be responsible for teaching them how to find facts and content through technology.  

I do think that Roberts is correct in the positions he expressed and as a future educator, my teaching style will be greatly affected.  One position that I liked most was that education needs to be engaging not entertaining.  Sitting my class in front of a Smartboard and showing them a video of someone counting is entertaining but if I have my class count or sing along with the video then I am engaging them and they are more likely to remember.  Having a child in my class operate the Smartboard or another form of electronics is still engaging them and teaching them.

In order to proceed and succeed in the future, children are going to have to be taught technology and taught through technology.  As an educator, it will be my responsibility to teach them all the possibilities that can come with using technology and it’s sources.