A real life conversation with John Finch

First of all, I loved that we were able to have a conversation with John instead of him lecturing to us! I thought it was great that we could all ask questions and speak freely.  What I remember most from our conversation on Thursday was the idea of how learning has changed. Because we now have so much access to technology, we are able to open our students minds to all new ways of seeing the world. We learn through real life tasks, experiencing and talking to other people about their experiences. I think that the internet and technology can be a huge tool for us in creating a learning experience that is student-centred and relevant (as long as the sites are not blocked haha).

Another thing that stood out of me was our conversation about student teaching and how some of us feel restricted by our environment. I would agree with that point, and I think it circles back to our reflections last week in the NING about FUD. I will be the first to admit that I am afraid to take a risk with a class when I know my advisor is going to be watching the lesson. I feel constrained by the "procedure" of lesson planning sometimes. I fear that the advisor might not appreciate me taking that risk in my lesson planning.  Typically, I select a lesson for them to see where the students are all sitting in their desks nicely and I am leading the conversation. This is not a realistic and productive classroom environment, and I am going to make a commitment to myself that I am going to take some risks in my final placement. This will mean trying out some of the new tools that we have learned about in this class: blogging, twitter, social networking, creating podcasts and videos. I am also going to try not to panic when my classroom is a little bit loud! Conversation means people are learning, and I have to remind myself of that!

Change is coming, and I'm jumping on the bandwagon of forward thinking teachers! Who is going to join me?

Flipped Classroom

In a flipped classroom, the content is delivered to students at home through videos posted on the internet.  While they are in class, students are working one on one with the teacher on assignments where they apply what they have learned the night before at home.
I have mixed feelings about this approach to education. First of all, let's start with the positives: students are responsible for their own learning, it prepares them for university, they can learn at their own pace, the teacher is able to answer student questions and assist with assignments, students have less work to do at home, it is a less stressful environment, and students can be learning at different paces. Here are the cons: students can't ask questions during the content delivery, some fall behind, it is a lot of extra work for the teacher to set up the lecture videos and to have students all working at different paces, what about students who lack time and resources to make this work?
Part of me thinks that these positives would outweigh any cons... but then I took some time to think about what my life was like when I was in high school.  I played a lot of sports growing up, and I was very involved in the community and in arts... there were nights that I would not get home until 10:00 or later because I had a hockey game out of town.  If I was unable to watch the lecture the night before, what would I do during the next class session? And I was a good student! I would be one of the ones that would watch the videos regardless of what time I got home.. but lots of my classmates wouldn't have! Is it practical to have some students watching videos during class while others are taking all of the teacher's attention? what about the kids that are shy? or unmotivated? or who do not have access to the internet to watch the videos at home? Would parents be supportive? I could see a teacher having to spend 30 minutes with one student who simply has a lot of questions and likes to be on top of things while the other 15 students slip through the cracks.

Let's face it, most of us that have five years of schooling and want to work as teachers are overachievers.  This model might have worked for us because we were/are the ones that do the extra work.  We take the time to learn on our own and we take responsibility for knowing the content.  Not everyone is like that! Think about the students that do not want to further their education after high school. We all know that students lie to us about what they have or have not done for homework. I am not knocking this idea of the flipped classroom. I think that it would work extremely well if you have a group of kids who LOVE learning and who are willing to make this work with the teacher. I'm just not sure how many classrooms will be like that... I'm open to considering other's ideas on this!!! Please convince me!!!

Glen Gatin Presentation

Gatin's presentation revolved around technology and changing learning theories. I thought that Glen's explanation of the "traditional" teaching style was excellent! He described the teacher as pouring information into students and then testing to see how much they had retained using a dip stick.  The image that I had in my mind about the cup and dip stick kept popping back into my head, and it made a lot of sense to me! The new way to do things involves co-operative learning and student-centred classrooms.  It is now the teacher's job to teach the kids how to teach themselves!
Students are most engaged when they are passionate about what they are doing, so we cannot ignore the informal learning that students do outside of the classroom. We have to get creative in finding ways to engage our students, and technology can be an excellent tool for creating engagement! Technology is always changing and we have to be flexible.  This class is a great place to start in finding tools to be flexible and effective in our classrooms.
On a side note, I loved the instant chat conversation that we had during the presentation. I thought this was an excellent tool, and something that I would love to use in my classroom at some point... i'm just not sure how yet! I am excited to see how the bring your own device theory plays out... the future looks very exciting to me!

Activating Websites

After our conversation this morning in Reading, Thinking, and Study Skills, I am wondering if anyone knows any useful websites/technology that would be useful for pre reading strategies? In particular, I would like to know of a website that creates crosswords or word searches. Any ideas?

Here are a few that I thought of:
~www.wordle.net for creating webs of vocabulary words
~www.glogster.com for creating a poster or KWL sheet online to show what you already know about a topic or to make a cover page for the new unit
~paint or SmartBoard for making a graphic organizer from a brainstorming session with your class to find out what they already know about a topic

The name of the game is... SHARING!

Its amazing how one hour can change your views. I will admit, I was feeling quite overwhelmed by the whole blogging and twitter thing... and I was beginning to think that no one would actually be reading my blog! I had even convinced myself that I would probably just delete my accounts after this class.  BUT, after listening to Dean speak on Thursday, I have done a complete turn around! What hit home the most for me was the concept of sharing. Its simple math, spend one weekend creating a lesson or unit and share it with six thousand people, or spend one weekend creating a lesson or unit and keep it all to yourself. When I considered it that way, I realized it was silly to keep everything to myself! My big lesson last week was that if you're going to teach, you should be able to share your work, because let's face it, two or more heads are always better than one! I am now committed to maintaining my blog and website so that I can share too. You never know what might be useful to someone else. So thank you Dean for taking me back to Kindergarten and reteaching me the "sharing" lesson.

www.freerice.com

I stumbled upon this website during my last student teaching placement.  This website is non profit and was created by the United Nations World Food Programme.  You visit this website and answer multiple choice questions arranged by school subject.  For each correct answer, ten grains of rice are donated to help end world hunger all over the world. This website is able to function because a sponsor's logo pops up for every questions, but I didn't find that it was distracting or annoying in any way.
My CT used www.freerice.com as a game at the end of a class.  Students were divided into two teams and took turns answering questions.  She kept track of points. This was a very basic use of the website, but it could also be used as a starting point or activating strategy to get students thinking about world hunger and humanitarian aid. They could do research into how non profit organizations work, and how they are funded. It could be useful for grade 7 S.S. when discussing NGO's and government funded organizations.  It would also be useful in a world issues class while studying world hunger.
You can also sign up for the website, and it will track your answers so you can see how much rice has been donated from your correct answers.  You can add students to your "classroom group" and track the entire class' progress. I could see this program being used the entire year, maybe to kill five or ten minutes at the end of a class. The bonus is that you can select your subject, and students answer progressively more difficult questions.  I would say it is a good "game" because students are still learning something while enjoying themselves.  Some kids will thrive on the competition of answering more questions correctly than their peers, but it doesn't have to be used in a competitive manner.
I don't really see any downside to the website, and I think it could be a useful tool in any classroom and for any subject! You and your students can feel good because you are doing something positive to end world hunger.
Seems like a win-win to me. Check it out!

My Inspiration / Better World Books

I feel like I should start with an explanation about what my blog will be about.  My brother recently started a new project in which he buys as little as possible new. He tries to buy products that are made locally and eats foods that are grown locally as much as possible.  For Christmas, we had to do extensive research into everything we bought for him and my nephew.  Any gifts we bought had to be used, made from organic products, or bought from a local producer! From him, I received goats milk soap made in Manitoba and organic fair trade tea from the Marquis project in BDN (both awesome products). We found my nephew used toys and books, and my brother received organic clothing and a certificate that I had bought a garden for a young mother in the developing world in his name. It was an interesting Christmas to say the least!
My brother is very stubborn, so I guess we all got tired of being questioned about the products we were buying and decided to give it a try and actually think about our habits. His conversion to being  "Green" has made me rethink some of my habits as a consumer, and a lot of my blog posts will be about environmental or social stewardship resources that I have found online. Social activism is not something I have had a chance to explore much, and it is something I would like to include in my social studies courses once i have a job!

www.betterworldbooks.com

I recently started using this website for ordering books online.  I have always been a reader, and I used to order all of my books from amazon.com. I heard about this website at a P.D. this past year, so I decided to check it out.  Turns out that for every book you order, the proceeds go towards literacy initiatives around the world.  This includes: restocking libraries, building schools in the developing world, and donating books to those that can't afford them. Most of the books are used and have been recycled by people/libraries/schools that no longer need them. Plus the shipping is all free and the prices are quite often cheaper than amazon.  Seems like a win-win situation to me, and something my brother can be proud of me for!
My first shipment is on its way and I can't wait to get my socially and environmentally conscious books. Check it out!