Podcast Reflection #11: NPR Education; 1) School Budget ABCs: Ads Plus Bus Equal Cash 2) Pressure Mounts To Ax Teacher Seniority Rules 3) The Way You Learned Math Is So Old School 4) Miami's Education Success Story

 The first part of the podcast discusses advertising on the sides of buses. From the information presented in the podcast I would not be comfortable taking a side on the issue. From the teaching standpoint I can see where the extra money from the advertisements would be an excellent help to fund the school and activities. It would be helpful but I am always hesitant for big businesses to get involved with funding because I feel like they would use that leverage in some ways. But other than that the podcast mentioned that the students cannot remember what are on the sides of the buses so, currently, it is not affecting them. I am hoping for more studies in various areas of the country to be done. Besides the advertising on the bus issue this podcast discussed the issues of mathematics. Many parents are figuring out that they are not able to help their children in math anymore because of the way math is being taught. This is not a good scenario for the student or the parent. This has happened due to the fact of the creation of calculators that do the arithmetic for you. Students know how to use calculators very well but struggle with the paper and pencil method. This latter method is not widely used anymore and has become somewhat obsolete in the real world. A mathematician that was on the show said that the math taught now is not so much memorization as it was before but an understanding of the number system, but still advocates for students learning their multiplication tables as we did in the old days. From his perspective, the best way to do this is to memorize it rhetorically. I agree with this statement because it becomes very hard for students to do all the processing of numbers in their head and it is easier to memorize it like we would memorize spelling of words. It is hard to say what is the best method when things in the past have worked, but new developments are working well for some students also. I think we should have a combination of old and new techniques so the students who understand one way can use one methods and others can use different methods.

Picture Credit: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/28/earlyshow/living/ConsumerWatch/main1167398.shtml 

Podcast, Website & Blog Mid-term Critiques

Part 1: Podcasts

The two students podcasts that I listened to had a few interesting websites that I have never heard of before. My favorite has to be searchypants though. Besides having a name that you can giggle at, the benefits of this site are numerous. It would allow me to create my own personal search engine and finds for my students so they do not find sites that are not valid. Many students have issues telling the difference between factual sites and nonfactual sites. This is a big problem and this site would help eliminate that problem in my classroom. It is also great in the way that parents would feel more comfortable knowing all of the information was created by the teacher. The other site I was jazzed about was http://math.com. The tutoring, lesson plans, and games would be very helpful in my classroom. Games are a great way to relate the subject matter to a thing that most every kid does on a weekly basis. I was very glad my classmates found these sites so I am able to use them in the classroom.

Part 2: Website/Blog

I was very intrigued to see the difference between the different website creators being used. Google’s websites are a little more basic and do not seem as pizzazzy as wix’s website creator, but they each have their benefits. Google’s website creator seems easy to upload multiple different videos and projects the only thing I do not enjoy about it is the fact that it doesn’t divide up the posts nicely. I personally like the different pages or areas for projects instead of everything being bunched on one page. I really like the wix creator and have been using it. It allows for a variety of different backgrounds and clip art to jazz up the website. I enjoyed my classmates explanations of their projects and will be taking this example and adding explanations to my website.

I am very glad that we did peer reviews because it allowed me to improve my website and find new resources for when I begin to teach.

Comics in My Classroom

ToonDoo  

Comics are an excellent project that could be used for a variety of subjects in a classroom. I personally think it would be very interesting for my students to create a comic strip about elements. These elements would have their own personality relating to the traits they exhibit in our lives. It would help the students to relate content with something they understand well, different personalities. I already try to create this connection between elements and the different traits with different personalities while tutoring and have received positive feedback. I also think comics would allow the budding artists in the classroom to better enjoy the subject matter. It is very difficult for students to listen to lectures all the time and comics would be a great way to change up the lesson plans. It would also be a great alternative assignment for a worksheet. I am very excited to test out this comic idea in my classroom and see if the students enjoyed it as much as I did.

Podcast Reflection #10: Tech Chick Tips: Stuff we forgot to share

Tech Chick Tips

Free wikis are very very helpful in the classroom. It allows for collaboration between the students and teacher. It is easy for students to collaborate online through wikis to create projects. I have used this free technology in one of my anthropology courses and it greatly helped with project. It allowed us to be online together without having to figure out the best time for everybody to meet. This leads to the next site these lovely ladies talked about. http://typewith.me. This site is very similar to google docs. It allows users to pick different colors to type in and allows multiple people to be logged into the document at once. The main and important difference is that this site does not require an email address or login to edit the pages. This is very helpful because creating numerous email addresses for students becomes a chore. It also has a time sliding feature that allows you to view the documents progress from the beginning to end. The last site I will talk about is one that the Smithsonian is helping to run. It is an online game that is using environmental disasters to help students use the scientific method and collect samples to solve the mystery. I really love this concept as a science teacher and also love the fact that the students would be able to receive help from some scientists from all around the world. I think it is super cool. Tech Chick tips has done it once again.

Podcast Reflection #9: Salman Khan Let’s use video to reinvent education

 Salman Khan: Let’s use video to reinvent education

I am a big fan of TED talks let along Khan academy. I have personally used this site to help with my multiple mathematics courses and chemistry courses. I completely agree with the idea of students/learners can go back and view the videos when they forget a certain subject matter. I do believe many people do not ask questions when they fill as if they are already supposed to know the material. It makes it more comfortable to ask for help, which is crucial to understanding. The idea of flipping the classroom where the students watch the lecture for homework and do the homework in the classroom is wonderful. Like Mr. Khan said it does allow the students to use these videos at their own pace. This allows the student to ask valuable questions in the classroom and develop more personal relationships with their instructors. Besides being a wonderful tool to flip the classroom, the idea of having a check to make sure the students understand the concept before moving on. This idea of having the 10 questions until you have mastered the concept is wonderful to help the students understand the concept instead of maybe not knowing a certain part of the lesson and having the class move on. It builds on the basics that you have mastered and continues on. It is fantastic. I want to use this program in my classroom. I am very excited because I will be able to do more hands on learning and experiments with my students when integrating this technology into the classroom. It also will allow me to help the students with the specific parts that they are struggling with and not spend time on the subjects they understand and probably boring them going over material they already know. I cannot stress enough how important the person-to-person contact is when learning. The students greatly benefit from it and the classroom is enriched. I am all raves about this and hope the Khan academy gets used in many classrooms and that learners/students know about this resource and use it to aid in their learning and development. 

Classroom 2.0

Classroom 2.0

This site has so much to offer educators. While perusing through the website I found many different groups that would be very helpful to a new teacher. There is a professional development group, groups and posts about subject matter, and also many forums for different computers used in the classroom. All of these things make life a little easier for a beginning teacher. One thing I really like was the science area. One teacher posted about a game called Nano Legends where students learn about cells and the bodies reaction to foreign bodies. It allows students to learn about cells while having an interesting game to play. I also enjoy that there is a group for new comers into the Classroom 2.0 website. This site has many different helpful groups that can help take you step by step through technology processes. This is great because many teachers do not have the extra time to teach themselves how to learn a specific site. Besides these great groups Classroom 2.0 also has a wiki. It offers things such as free workshops, live conversations, and community resources. All of these can be utilized in a classroom and are very important to any teacher, not just beginning teachers. This site has much to offer and even after exploring the site for a long while there are still many more resources on the site that I did not get to visit. This depth of resources makes Classroom 2.0 a wonderful tool for any teacher.

EduTecher

eduTecher

This site offers a plethora of different resources for every subject area taught in schools. Because I am in the science field I decided to take a look around at some of the sites listed on this site that caught my eye. These sites are

Extreme Science
This site is extremely interesting, not only because it is about science, but because it has 6 different areas of the science right on the website. So students who are interested in astronomy could look at the website along with students interested in geology. This site would be very helpful for studying planets, earthquakes, and geology. I would use this site for students to create a paragraph write up about their favorite subject and then have them create that object/subject in an art project to be displayed in the room. I believe it would be fun and interesting for the young budding scientists in my classroom.

Chemical Elements
This site is exactly what it title says. It is all of the chemical elements in their home place, the periodic table. I really like this site because it gives tons of information on the elements, more so than you find in an ordinary text book. It would be very interesting to have students search through the elements and then create a venn diagram that compares and contrasts the 2 elements they choose. This will allow them to see the relationships between elements in the same groups and periods.

Google Body Browser 
This site is excellent for exploring the bodies muscles, brain, skeleton, and organs. It is very easy to use and understand. You can click on the left side bar to get to any of the fore mentioned categories. Also, you can click on the body to see what the certain area or body part is named. This is especially beneficial to students who are talking anatomy and physiology in secondary education. I believe it would greatly aide the studying of the human body. A very simple assignment would be handing out a worksheet to the students and having them click on each of the categories and the different body parts to become accustomed with the site.


All in all eduTecher is a very interesting site. Several fantastic resources are offered but sometimes it is hard to scroll through all the different subject areas and it takes time. But other than that I give the site a thumbs up.

Kan-ed Reflection

 Kan-ed

The Kan-Ed website is a fantastic resource for teachers and students. I remember using it in my high school, but I never knew how many wonderful tools were on this website. As a high school student I only used the library resources from this site, now as a future educator I see a plethora of resources on this site. I am only going to discuss a few due to the fact that this could become a very long blog post if I did not shorten the list. The first, and my favorite tool, is the online tutoring service provided by Kan-Ed. This is simply amazing because many students have questions on their homework at home and many parents are not able to help their children. The children also might be shy to ask their questions in class, but asking these questions in the privacy of their own home is more comfortable. Besides these reasons it is excellent because it allows the students who have been sick to make up their work in a less rushed manner. The other resource I really like was the Thinkfinity resource from Verison. This source has thousands of worksheets that are very easy to find, review, and use for the classroom. These worksheets also vary in activities and plans so it adds a variety to your lesson plans. I will be utilizing this tool in my classroom several times. All in all I really liked the site. I love that the website format is easy to change and that students can also use it. To me it is a very great website for both teachers and students.

Podcast Reflection #8: Learning Matters, Are small arts high schools the answer?

 Learning Matters

This podcast discusses a small arts high school in the Bronx. It is very interesting to hear about this school due to the fact that they do not have tryouts to be in the school. All kids are welcome and are exposed to the arts that they might not have exposed to before. This school was started because of the dismal graduation rates in other schools. They now have a graduation of 83%, which is wonderful. Along with the principal of this school, I believe that size does matter in graduation rates. The smaller the school the more personal care the students get.  The teachers, administration, and students are a very entwined community and each student feels as if they have connections. It is the personalization of small schools that create this atmosphere where students want to graduate. This 83% graduation rate is not always typical of small New York schools. Many of the small schools in New York only have a 50-60% graduation rate compared to the larger schools 40-50% graduation rate. These statistics surprised me because I always have thought of many small schools having much higher graduation rates than that, but the 10-20% difference does mean many more students graduate.

Podcast Reflection #7: K-12 Online Conference, Engaging our Youngest Minds

K-12 Online Conference

Angela Maiers stated that passion is one of the most important aspects of teaching. I completely agree with this statement. I believe that when teachers have a passion for what they are teaching this inspires students to be passionate about a subject they deeply care about. This passion allows for perseverance and tenacious in school. This needs to be apparent in school because it will create an enriched environment for their learning. Having passion allows students to integrate technology with this passion. They would be able to publish their ideas online and create a much more engaged learning system. Technology should not be the way we engage students, because students already are engaged in what they enjoy. We teachers need to notice this and help these students to find technology that suits these needs.

Podcast Reflection #6: NPR 2-17-2011 Stories: Science Diction

 NPR: Education Podcast

This podcast brought me mixed emotions. When the mayor of L.A. was talking about removing the ability to obtain tenure from the teachers, he started to rile my emotions. Some of his statements made believe he thinks poor scores and issues in the school district are solely the teachers’ fault. This did not sit well with me. Although, I agreed with his statement about teachers, parents, and communities needing to come together to be innovative and remove the impediments of education. When parents and the community become involved in education I believe it makes the school district much better. Blank was another person interviewed. She was a former educator and had great ideas on how to improve the way teachers receive tenure while still protecting the teacher and improving on student issues. Her point addressing the issue of reviewing teachers was very correct. She stated that teachers should be peer reviewed instead of a principal stopping by a classroom every once in a while. I think this would be a great way to be reviewed because current teachers would know what works the best and could give many helpful hints on how to improve the way you teach. I highly recommend checking out this podcast

Fun with Text Reflection: Wordle/Tagxedo

Wordle

Tagxedo

Creating word clouds could be a fun simple way for students to complete projects in my classroom. I am planning on being a science educator, which means dealing with many environmental issues. I could have my students create these word clouds for various environmental aspects such as carbon dioxide usage, water, and elements. It would allow the student to do research on an area of study while creating something that is fast, simple, and pretty. I think word clouds are an excellent resource on the Internet and will be very interesting to use in my classroom. This is one I created about math and science.

Animoto in my Classroom Reflection

Animoto

Finally!!! A super simple way for students to create interesting videos. I am very excited to use this website in my classroom. It puts an end to the boring, same transitions slide-show and creates an interesting presentation. There are so many possibilities for using this video technology in my classroom. Students could create short videos explaining properties about elements, sharing simple math techniques with each other through these videos, and I could combine students’ art work or writings into an interesting video they would enjoy. Animoto opens up so many possibilities in the classroom and I am thankful this technology has been created. Here is an example of an amazing video created about the civil rights. It is short simple yet breath taking. 

Podcast Reflection #5: Driving Questions, School as a "Life Practice" with Ginger Lewman

Driving Questions

 It is always interesting to hear the different viewpoints of teachers. Ginger Lewmans interview was especially interesting to me because she had many great thoughts. I especially liked her quote “If schools are supposed to prepare students for the real world then why aren’t they mimicking the real world?” This is a great point and I think teachers and future teachers should always be thinking about how to relate the information to the real world. This is the best way for students to keep interest in a subject. Another great point mentioned was that teachers and students are learning together. I forget about the teachers learning experience in a school. We are always very focused on talking about how to help the children learn, but forget we learn from the students also. This is important especially with all of the new technology that the students will use. I might not be able to figure out the information but some of the students might and because of this they might be teaching me how to use it. This podcast was full of many “aha” moments.