Podcast Reflection #11: Musical Expression throughout the Curriculum

Teachers TV is a website that provides a number of videos about new ideas or events taking place in schools. On this website, I came across a series called Sharing Your Great Practice which chronicles a different school in England each week and gives you a look into exciting things that are happening at that particular school. In Musical Expression throughout the Curriculum, viewers get a look into Bayards Hill Primary School where students are getting the opportunity to receive special weekly music lessons which are linked with the curriculum students are learning in their particular classroom. Therefore, students are getting the opportunity to learn an instrument and express themselves creatively while still focusing on the core subject areas at the same time. After beginning this program, Bayards Hill has improved attendance records as well as overall student achievement, including those with special needs. This cross-curricular approach seems very beneficial because of the connection researchers have found between music and student achievement. Moreover, learning the core curriculum becomes a bit more fun and exciting for students when different methods are used for teaching the material.

Podcast Reflection #10: Large schools claim it's 'not their fault'

On this episode of Learning Matters, Amanda Thieroff explores the issue of large school underperformance. While many large schools are being closed because they are not performing high enough, the result is not always positive. As large schools are closed, smaller schools are being overcrowded because they do not have the ability to reject "over the counter" students who are coming from closed schools. Moreover, this overcrowding is leading to schools with one-third of the school population having special needs, causing great amounts of burn-out among educators and the school community. Therefore, it leads one to question if the decision to simply close large underperforming schools is the most effective option. Finally, after seeing these not so positive results,  one would think school officials would explore more options to support the large schools and help them find ways to meet the yearly expectations. Although I do not have the answer to this dilemma, I certainly look forward to seeing what happens and hope for the best.

Comics In My Classroom

When beginning to think about lesson planning, it is always stressed that unless students are engaged and attentive to the material being taught, not much will be accomplished. Therefore, comics are becoming very popular in classrooms today as they are very effective at engaging students and helping them comprehend stories. Aside from grasping student attention, comics are very effective tools for struggling readers because they are not extremely text-heavy and they have illustrations which correspond to the little text there is. Also, comics are useful in teaching retelling, which is a concept students continually struggle with especially when it comes time for assessments. Finally, comics really encourage creativity among students which sometimes gets left behind in classrooms with the heavy emphasis on assessments. As the use of comics in the classroom gains attention, more and more resources are becoming available to teach educators about the use of these texts as well as to help teachers incorporate these texts into their core curriculum. To learn more, Comics in the Classroom: 101 Tips, Tools, and Resources for Teachers would be a great place to start. Also, there is a great list of tools for creating comics on the Technology Keys Wiki.

Podcast, Website & Blog Mid-term Critiques

After completing the mid-term critiques, I am part relieved, part panicked that the semester is already half over. Even though we have only completed the first half, I have already learned a ton of cool tools and resources that I can use in my classroom. One of them which applies to the mid-term critiques is the form creator in Google Docs. I had never used this tool before, and after learning a few tricks to make the form creation easier I really found it to be a huge help in evaluating websites and blogs of my peers. I specifically liked that you could create questions in different formats, making it easier for me to organize the critique and make sure I included everything in the critique that needed to be included. The only thing I have left to figure out is how to view the submitted responses in a different format than a lengthy spreadsheet.

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

In this episode of TED Talks, Salman Khan discusses the creation of his educational website Khan Academy. Salman Khan began posting videos to YouTube as a way to assist his young family members grasp mathematical concepts they were learning in school. However, because he received such a great response about the videos from both his family and other people who used the videos, he began the Khan Academy. On this website, educators and learners can find thousands of videos in various subjects to learn important curricular concepts. After pondering the response he received, Mr. Khan has suggested the possibility of teachers reversing the typical instructional approach and replacing traditional lectures with these online videos. In this method, students would be assigned certain videos to view prior to the class period freeing up valuable instructional time for practice and critical thinking activities that lead to deeper understanding. As a result, the student becomes familiar with the important content before class and then has time to practice and demonstrate understanding with the teacher who can assist with any questions and provide extra instruction if needed. While I had never considered this method before, I would like to see it in practice because I believe it could be an effective way to make students more comfortable with learning, especially when it comes to more challenging material.

Podcast Reflection #8: "Learning In Hand #22: Educational Apps"

I am slowly becoming hooked to the Learning In Hand podcast, partially because I am dying to get an iPad and partially because I am trying to stay up-to-date with tools I will likely face in the classroom. In episode 22, Tony highlights specific apps he has found beneficial to education, which is very helpful considering the vast amount of apps in existence. First, IEar.org is a place where educators can find reviews for educational apps done by other educators themselves. On Recess Duty, there is a list created by a teacher of the 99 iPod touch apps this individual used in their own classroom. iDevBooks is a great place to find educational apps specifically for mathematics. Next, StoryKit is an app students can use to create their own storybooks with sound and share them with others. In science, iCell is a great app for students to get a visualization of different types of cells. In addition, Tony recommended following him on Twitter for updates on app sales, as well as Twapper Keeper which logs every #edapp tweet so educators can find even more app recommendations.

Podcast Reflection #7: "Learning In Hand #24: Project Based Learning"

The 24th episode of Tony Vincent's Learning In Hand discusses project based learning. According to Tony, project based learning focuses on driving questions, and requires students to deeply explore a topic and share their thoughts with classmates. In creating these projects, it is important to set parameters and rubrics which are created by both the students and the teacher. Tony clearly believes in the benefit of using handhelds, such as iPods and iPads, in the classroom because they are readily available to his students and they allow students to plan, research, and presentation. In the planning stage, he highlights the Popplet and Ideasketch apps. For research, Tony recommended Atomic web browser and Side by Side app. Finally, he discusses the ways these popular handhelds can be used to present projects related to the curriculum. He specifically highlights an app called SonicPics which enables students to create videos on their handhelds. In these videos, the app allows students to sync narration with any selected images and share the finished product through email and YouTube. From what I saw during the demo video Tony created, the process looked very similar to creating a video on GarageBand. While SonicPics costs money to download, there is a free alternative called Storyrobe which serves a similar purpose. To edit and modify elements in the videos, he recommends apps such as Adobe Photoshop Express, Comic Touch, Easy Chart and Quick Chart. After viewing this episode, I am very convinced that handhelds can be very helpful in fostering creativity and promoting student learning.

Classroom 2.0

Classroom 2.0 is a social networking site for teachers at all levels of experience. As such, after registering teachers gain access to their own page on the site as well as the opportunity to introduce themselves to everyone else on the site using the introductory page. In the forum, teachers can create new posts or respond to other posts made by their peers regarding different topics in education. From what I discovered, the forum is a great place to seek advice regarding lesson plans or resources as well as gain advice from people offering cool new tools they have found or may be using in their own classroom. Moreover, you can subscribe to the RSS feed of the forum and receive updates whenever members of Classroom 2.0 post to that space. Another very useful resource on Classroom 2.0 which can be found under the "Media" tab is the Classroom 2.0 LIVE podcast series. This series just happens to be on Professor Kuhn's list of best teacher podcasts. Finally, it is very easy to find what you are looking for by using the tags on the left side of the page, making Classroom 2.0 an even better resource for all educators.

EduTeacher

EduTeacher is a great website for finding hundreds of online resources for educators in a very efficient manner. On the left side of the "links" page, you can narrow your search by the subject area you are looking for, as well as professional development and teacher tools. What makes the search even more helpful is the option to narrow results by the grade levels you are interested in. In the search, all relevant resources are listed by their website title and is followed by a short description of the tool itself. The first resource I found which I could definitely use in the classroom is Book Wink. This website has been recognized by the Association of Library Service to Children, and was designed to inspire elementary school children to read. First, students can search book recommendations with a short synopsis of each according to their grade level. In addition, the website provides a new video each month about a different topic which students can find similar titles to. They also have a podcast which sends updates to subscribers about the latest book recommendations and posted videos. The next site I am really excited to use is eFieldTrips. This resource allows teachers to register their class for a virtual field trip to one of many destinations, ask questions to an expert following the virtual trip, and also participate in a live chat following their experience. Third, elgg is a website which allows teachers to create social networking sites which their students can participate in. The major benefit of this site as opposed to other options is that it is closed to uninvited users, making it a safe environment for students to network about their educational experiences. Finally, while I'm not convinced this site is all that practical for classroom use, blurb is a very cool site which allows you to upload photos or whatever you choose and create your own book.

Kan-Ed

Kan-Ed is a great place to find several tools and resources for educators in the state of Kansas.Unfortunately, there is not public access to many of the tools on the website making the subscription very valuable to us as pre-service teachers. As we all know, school funding is very limited and many times teachers have the responsibility of stocking their classroom with everything they will need to teach effective lessons. I am very excited to explore the Grant Wrangler tool on the homepage because I think this might be a great way to get extra financial assistance when setting up classrooms and providing students with great tools to assist their daily learning. Next, as we dive into the task of lesson planning, the Kansas Education Resource Center is a great place to become familiar with. The best thing about this tool is that it provides educators with lesson plans sorted by grade level which also happen to be pre-aligned with the standards for that grade level. There are also certain plans and resources which link to Thinkfinity, which was created by Verizon to provide even more resources for educators and students alike. On this website, the resources are organized with the user in mind. For instance, resources for teachers can be found under the tab "In the Classroom" or "Professional Development" depending on what you are looking for. Also, there are specific resources for students as well as parents or other family members under the tab "At Home & AfterSchool." Aside from these great examples, Kan-Ed has many other exceptional resources and tools available on its homepage which are worth exploring more.