Blog Post #5

iSchool

I do not typically believe in a completely technological classroom, I feel that is causes distance between teacher and student and that the main goal of teaching in an Elementary school classroom is to teach life lessons(morals, manners, social skills etc etc.). However, this young man seemed to mesh the benefits of technology, with none of the pitfalls of losing human interactions. I found him to be intellectual and spot on with many of his examples. I loved how he showed how many of the apps we take for granted(or ignore) right now(notes, calender, and all the many calculators.) He really showed how it could make a real difference both financially and environmentally.

Virtual Choir
While, I'm not sure how this applies to education other than showing the the internet can effectively connect people, I did find this video to very entertaining. It was very impressive the way they worked together so well never having met.

Flip this house...classroom?
I found this video on a flipped classroom to both informative and interesting(as well as this one, but I preferred the first.)
I did find this would be a more effective tool in elementary classes. I love the idea of having the videos as supplemental learning, but I feel that only devoting 10% of class time to the teacher "teaching" is not a very plausible way to adequately teach. The internet is great and having the information available for remedial students to review before and after lessons is an excellent idea. I do not feel it should replace the actual teaching though.

Blog Post #4

This week our assignment was to view this blog and reflect on how it taught us lessons. In our blog post this week we were to write about how it showed us the many uses and benefits of pod casting in the classroom. Personally I feel that many of these benefits only would apply on upper level kids(or maybe at the most 4th and 5th year kids.) Too much of this being useful at that age relies on parent interaction and unfortunately its not a common occurrence any more.

But, in classrooms where the technology and parent involvement allows for it the uses of podcast are far reaching. It allows for teachers to provide supplemental lessons accessible at home this is beneficial to ill students or just anytime a student needs a little extra help.

CFT Overview

My C4T assigned blog was A Journey in TEFL I read two of the blogs on this post and commented on them both.
C4T #1 The first blog I read was Getting Ready to Go Back to School. I found this blog both entertaining and informative. This blog contained many different links to resources to help any teacher prepare for the first week of school. The one link I found the most interesting(and helpful to my future classroom) was one about ways to introduce yourself to your classroom and also ways to jump-start your kids introducing themselves 36 Ways to Get to Know Your New Class Being so recently a High School student, I found myself imagining how some of her intro techniques would have "gone over" and was surprised to realize how many of them would have worked. I saved this link to my computer for future use and also shared it on Twitter and Facebook for some of my "teacher friends".

C4T #2
The next blog I read was First Week of School In this blog the author wrote about her first week in school. I wrote a commenting telling her how although she wrote about the grades she teaches(upper high school) I still learned techniques, specifically the way she took things her students would be experiencing and applied that to her lessons. I really enjoyed reading things from this author and feel that adding her to my PLN will benefit both myself and my future students.

My Presentation. Project #5

This presentation will give you just a small amount of insight on the things that make up "me" and the things I find important in life. Enjoy <3

Blog Post #3

Peer Editing
I have been in both advanced creative writing courses and Journalism clubs throughout middle and high school. These opportunities made peer reviews(both giving and receiving) pretty common place. However, from the three resources that were made available to me, I learned a couple of new things

I feel that the most important thing that I learned was that in each peer review you need to maintain positivity while still being able to look at the paper with an objective lens. The students in the video showed how important it was to stay on track and also to look at your peer as a fellow writer not as a friend, the also took a funny approach to some of the most common errors and made it enjoyable to watch
From all three sources I learned how even if someone put full effort into a peer edit, if they lacked specific instructions, then the efforts were pointless.

Special Education; Technological Help!
The form of Special Education I feel interested in and drawn towards is the field of physical disabilities. The video we watch touches on one major physical disability that often gets over looked when compared to blindness and deafness, muteness.

The ability to speak is something so many of us take for granted. Both with the ability to type written messages and also(this was not in the video but it made me think) make those written messages into verbal messages through the technology of voice simulators can allow an entire group of students who are perfectly intelligent enough to survive schooling,communicate that intelligence!

Apple assists with Autism
I have to admit, I am a skeptic so when I first started watching this video and exploring this topic I assumed that like so many other things in this society this was a clever attempt to make parents with autistic children(desperate for learning options) have false hope and buy into this technology....I did a little research outside of this video and I have to say....I was wrong.

Children are using this technology invented to be a luxury item and in doing so they are losing so many of the handicaps that slow them down from the "regular kids". The video point out so many reasons why it worked but in my opinion the main reason the technology was so amazing is the IMMEDIATE positive(or negative) reinforcement. The children strive to hear the "BING" that means they guessed the number, letter or even planet right so not only do they stay focused but the auditory and visual repetition allows them to store it to memory without even trying to!

I can see so many ways the technology can be used and many, many different subjects it could be applied to. The one I chose was foreign language, this would of course be for any language as well, but the Ipad option would allow speaking, hearing and seeing the words all at once.

Ana Lomba’s Spanish for Kids [Ana Lomba Early Languages LLC, $3.99; fee intro title] is a collection of individual apps, each featuring a classic story designed to engage children and parents in learning Spanish together. The stories use voice-over by native-speaking actresses and include text in both Spanish and English to aid in comprehension.
This app would help not only in Spanish Language recognition but also in basic reading comprehension skills.

I found this tool to be a VERY interesting way to teach children to use introductory technology!

Wordle! :)