Edubloggers!

One of the Edubloggers I decided to respond to was Elena Aguila (http://www.edutopia.org/blog/what-i-wish-id-known-new-teacher-elena-aguilar ). Elena blogs as part of Edutopia’s collaborative blogging. She wrote a wonderful piece on a list of things she wished she knew as a new teacher (ding ding that’s most of us hehe.) The blog quickly caught my attention because if this was something that she would have liked to know then it must be important for me to know. As aquick summary here is the list of what she wished she knew:

1. This will get better

2. Always work from the heart

3. They will remember this about you

4. Be open to surprises

5. Find a coach

6. If you can’t find a coach …move.

She talked about how even though it might seem that things are at their worst, they will get better. She encourages new teachers not to be deterred by how complicated it might seem at first. She also emphasizes that teaching should come from the heart, students can see right through someone whose heart is not there while teaching. You make an impact on students, positive or negative. This is important to keep in mind as you build rapport with the students. IT is a lot better if students remember you as someone who positively affected their lives. Students are full of surprises and that’s one of the beauties of teaching, you get surprised by students in the most unexpected ways. Finally, she also emphasizes on the importance of finding a mentor, someone you can go to when you have questions or concerns, someone that can show you the ropes. She suggests that if you can’t find a good mentor, move! How can you develop in an environment with little to no support? I truly enjoyed reading her blog especially as an upcoming first year teacher!

The second edublogger I responded to was Christ Lehmann (http://practicaltheory.org/blog/2014/11/18/dont-make-presentation-day-the-worst-day/#comment-2515 ) Chris talked about one of my favorite topics, making presentation day not the worst day! With each group going up to present it might take the entire class period. Most students will be giving similar style presentations and I don’t know about the rest of you but I have a difficult time sitting still through long lectures. Instead, Chris offers other options with similar benefits to a presentation. HE suggest using Read-arounds. In Read-arounds studnets have to read at least 2 pieces of work form their peers and write a response.  He emphasizes the importance of classroom management while doing this. The secont option is Tech in Stations, this is where students at each station give a poster presentation and students can fill out exit tickets to assess them on what they learned from the poster session. The other alternative that caught my eye was the gallery walk. This is something we did in our SEL class when presenting our curriculum we had to come up with. It was a good way to not only display work but also engage learning. 

The Great World of Paddlet!

What has amazing organization and super friendly reminders? PADDLET! The wonderful Paddlet Team (Katie, Jeremy, Kelsey, and Jessica ) introduced the class to the greatness of Paddlet. The first thought that came to mind was, ok so we are going to learn how to organize our stuff in a website? The thing is, Paddlet is so much more than just an organizer, it’s another wonderful tool to have as a teacher. Paddlet can be used to store lessons, videos, quizzes and more. As Katie, Jeremy, and Kelsey walked us through the steps of creating a Paddlet I was thinking about different ways I can make use of this tool. Not to mention that the emails form the website are great! They tend to have a very welcoming message on them J coming back to how the 3 wonderful people walked us through the setting up process and the features of Paddlet, they were incredibly helpful. Katie, Jeremy and Kelsey walked us through the process of setting up our Paddlet account and they were all walking around and helping us to make sure that we had a positive experience with Paddlet. This was the first Tech Tools in Use we had and I have to say that they paved the road for the rest of us. Jeremy, Katie, and Kelsey did an amazing job at walking us through the main points of Paddlet and helping us create our own.

I created a Paddlet for one of the upcoming practice teach lessons I was about to implement in my placement (see picture below.) I created mine on protein folding and the different aspects of protein folding. I was inspired to create more units like this because of the organization and easy access, not to mention that it is very user friendly. I was able to use Paddlet to organize the ideas I had for future biology lessons. I also learned that Paddlet can be used as a collaboration center. For example, we made our own Paddlet example and the whole class posted theirs on a Paddled board, easy access for all! When we were looking at each other’s Paddlet, this made it so much easier to be able to look at everyone’s. This can be used in the classroom as a brainstorm activity.

 I am thinking of trying this with the honors biology students. They can work in groups to create a skit of the different phases of cell division. Then they will all post them in the class’ Paddlet board so that everyone can have access. We will not only review the videos as a class for review but individually, students will have access to the videos for future studying. This is only an example of what I was inspired to try in the classroom as a result form the presentation. I also saw another group make use of Paddlet during theit own Tech Tools in Use presentation. This further goes to show what a great collaboration and organizational tool this is! I look forward to implementing my ideas of using Paddlet in the classroom, will update when I do to reflect on how it turned out :)

Wise words from David Thenune...

         

    (Taken from David Theune's Blog)  

                  David Thenue gave a great presentation in our class about various topics in the classroom, I especially was struck by the use of technology in his classroom. When he first mentioned that he used video cameras in his classroom as part of projects, he had my attention! Now, when I was younger, I would avoid the public at all costs so this excitement about cameras might come as a shock to many who knew me back then. But what David was talking about was something different than sitting in front of the camera and being scared to death, no the way he presented this was about empowerment to the students. He mentioned how by only giving students 6 second on camera and they will surprise you, and the videos he showed us sure surprised me. He showed us some "6 second Shakespeare" videos that his class was involved in making. Students not only had to summarize the story in 6 seconds, they also had to be creative in doing so. In all the videos I saw, students were having fun while being engaged in learning! This didn't even involve students being on camera, their voices were heard but their faces didn't have to be on display, big win for the more shy student! This way students are not afraid to participate in class projects, they seemed more excited to participate than scared. Granted that when you have a teacher as excited as David, you are bound to be so yourself. I thought about how I could integrate this in my own classroom. I realized that if students could do "6 seconds of Shakespeare" then why not have "30 minute science?" I even talked about this with my mentor teacher. She thought it was a wonderful idea to have students summarize or even act out what they have learned in science. More specifically we talked about doing this with our photosynthesis lesson. Students were to make a 30 second skit on one of the 3 stages of photosynthesis! Students would have fun creating the skit as well as benefit from reviewing the material! This was super exciting for me for this will be the first time I would be using cameras (besides using it to record my lessons) in the classroom. Unfortunately there was not enough time to implement this plan in the class, but we have future plans on using a similar technique with the cell respiration lesson.

                              Another major point from David's presentation that I found interesting was the fact that he invites parents into his classroom. He talked about calling/emailing/smoke signaling his students' parents about the essay reading events he has in his classroom. Granted that not all parents will show, he still has some parents show to read students' essays.  He makes an effort to include parents in his classroom to showcase the hard work that students put into the assignment. This shows how great he cares about his students and the parents get to have a glimpse of the great work their student is doing in the classroom. This is something that I would love to implement in my future teaching, having a classroom in which parents are welcome to attend would be wonderful. As teachers, we must work alongside parents to ensure that the students are being given the support to thrive not only in the classroom but also outside of it. David talked about many other great ideas, such as making the charity essay a contest (who should we donate money to?) Students are not only entering a contest but they are also doing research in the process, they must use the claim, evidence, and reasoning, in their essay. They must be able to defend their claim and although students are doing work, they are interested and engaged because it relates to "real life."  I look forward to implementing some of David's practices in my own classroom!

To Tech or not to Tech?

"The most important thing that schools can do is not to use technology in the curriculum more, but use it more effectively"                                    -John G. Palfrey 

              A question that has been asked by many educators is, how wise and effective is it to use technology in the classroom? Is it a tool to further education or a distraction that halts education? How can we as educators assure that we use technology effectively? I was intrigued when we were asked to find out about technology in our placement. I was interested in finding out the different technology available for the students and staff. As important , how is technology being managed to optimize its usage?
             After a survey done at my placement I discovered that we had quite a bit of technology available. I learned that we had Chrome book carts that can be  borrowed for in class activities. The students also have a variety of computer labs they can use to get their work done. These computer labs can be reserved by teachers for class activities, woah! I began to wonder how was technology being managed at my school. I typed in different websites *drumroll please*  Students are not allowed to visit social media websites such as Facebook, even if students try to access them, they are blocked. Email websites such as google and yahoo are allowed to visit. I expected this since students are actually given their own google email by the district. The students are also not allowed to visit certain websites besides social mediam for example, they are not allowed to visit the Red Cross Website from the school's network among others. This is to help prevent distractions to students when they are in the computer lab or even if they are in their own devices, while using the school's wireless connections, they still have these restrictions. 
              How else is technology regulated at my placement? I n order to use computer labs, teachers must sign up online to use them. Aside form the computer labs, there is also the media room available for students. Students were able to go during study hour to the media center but that has recently changed. If students need to use a computer they must do so during lunch. I think this is restrictive to students because to some students, the only time that they can use a computer is at school. Some teachers do offer their room after school for students that need to type up a report for their class or need to do research. In my placement, there is a designated group of media specialist that not only advocate for technology use but they are also active in writing grants to fund this. At the beginning of the school year, teachers attended a professional development meeting in which different uses of technology was presented. In my placement, attendance and grades are all recorded online. Teachers are to take attendance at the beginning of each class and record it. This allows for the new attendance policy to be more efficient. Teachers are also encouraged to have a website in which students can access the class' information.
            Overall, students get a wide variety of technology at my placement. They are also being familiarized with technology since many will be using it daily in their future. For example, we have students in the honors biology and AP biology classes write up their lab reports. This involves students using excel to analyze their results. This allows the students to gain experience with excel and at the same time gain more experience in writing lab reports. Technology is well regulated at my placement and many measures are taken to ensure minimal distractions to students. I would like to see technology integrated in learning in my classroom, we have yet to use technology as a learning tool outside of the general uses of technology.