Flipped Classroom

Flipped classrooms are approaching mainstream status! The title of this article alone says much about where technology is taking education. Flipped classrooms invert the typical cycle of content acquisition. Students gain necessary knowledge before class and then the teacher guides students to actively apply that knowledge during class.

The article mentions that this concept has been around for years but is finally coming close to "mainstream." Not only are administrators more accepting of their teachers attempts at flipping their classrooms but teachers report much improvement in student engagement.

The article mentions how the flipped classroom very popular among middle and high-school classrooms and is now becoming more prominent in elementary-school classrooms. I can see how this can be more applicable for middle and high-school classrooms and a bit harder to implement in the elementary level.  Among other things, it would require clear expectations and procedures as well as much more parent involvement. 

I believe all the extra hard work is worth it. Flipping the classroom teaches students to take responsibility for their own learning at an early age. Not only that but it forces  parents to become more involved in what their children are learning as well as what they are learning. 

Knowing how well students are doing with the flipped classrooms in higher-education institutions I can only imagine how much more effective it will be in higher education once students are familiar with the process as well as used to taking learning into their own hands. I am completely sold on the idea of the flipped classroom.

 

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WebQuest Progress

For my WebQuest I chose to focus the students on about ten great American heroes of the past and some of the present. The American heroes I chose to focus on are:  Amelia Earhart, Martin, Luther King Jr. , Barack Obama, Sally Ride, Sitting Bull, Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Harriet Tubman, Alexander Graham Bell, Susan B. Anthony , and Abraham Lincoln. All heroes of the past who the students can relate to . I decided on these ten because they are made a huge difference not only for our country but for its people.  Learning about these then individuals will give the students a well rounded idea of what it is to be an American hero. 

So far I have managed to get all of the text on successfully on WebQuest. I do not think I need to make major changes as far as grammar and organization of the information but I do feel that I need to go back and maybe reconsider the task. I might have to change it to be a bit easier or extend it form one week to two weeks time to complete the task. I am not sure just yet if I will modify that.

In the introduction I mention that I would make available  a snippet of information for the students using a link that will take them straight to the information. I want them to choose a hero they really care to find more about. Also, I like the idea of making this information a click away. My plan is to see if I could link to just specific information rather than link to a web page that might get my students lost since they are in 2nd grade and might find it hard to browse and research in general. 

The only frustration I have with WebQuest is that it seems very outdated. I feel that it should be much easier to build a webpage now a days. Editing on WebQuest seems like it is going much slower than it should be. I also feel extremely limited in getting creative. I understand that there is a set format of what a WebQuest should have and how its organized but as far as making it more appealing, I'm finding it to be impossible.

Copyright

After reading the article, "The Educators' Lean and Mean No FAT Guide to Fair Use" I felt pretty confident in taking a quiz on the information. Soon after reading I took the CopyRight Quiz and completely bombed it. I received a score of 52%. Soon after reading the reason why my answer was wrong I saw where I failed to carefully read and pay attention to what the question was asking. 

Most of what I learned was stuff that I felt I had already known but only knew because of what I had overheard people say. I never really sat down to read on copyright laws. I was really surprised to learn that copyright laws were not criminal laws and actually fall under civil law. 

Also I found it interesting that the Sony was sued for representing the manufacturers of VCRs. It confirms that copyright laws were not just put in place for money. That brings me to the other thing I learned form this article. Since the purpose of copyright laws are mostly about benefiting society at large is a good thing for schools. 

They are not restricted so long as they follow guidelines that in my opinion are not so hard. As long as they use it in a place dedicated to instruction. Simply stated the article mentions to just keep away from using it for entertainment or reward.

As easy as this sounds, I have seen these laws be broken many, many times. I did not think anything of it until I realized that just like we teach and model morals, values, good citizenship, and other ethical issues we should be teaching and modeling this ethical issue. Only because this is one that they will encounter more than ever in the digital world they are growing up in.

Test your knowledge with Hall Davidson's Quiz

Digital Natives

The article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants by Marc Prensky was educative as well as revealing. I have to say that I enjoyed reading this article and agreed with every single component of this article. It broke down why the new generation of students do not suffer from short attention spans. These students actually choose to not pay attention to what is technically the old way of learning. A form of learning that is not suitable for their new way of thinking and learning. 

The article states that students have changed radically, so radically that they are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach. That statement alone is very telling. This new generation of children, which the article called Digital natives, have grown up surrounded by all types of technology from, computers, cell phones, video games and digital music. The article mentions that for this reason today's students think and process information differently. Teachers and all other adults who have not grown up with all types of technology are considered Digital Immigrants. These adults need to understand and accept the differences between the way they learned and the way this new generation learns. This new generation not only thinks differently but gathers, processes and organizes information differently. Teachers of today need to accept this and begin to consider this new way of learning and incorporate more interactivity in their lessons as well as digital game-based learning. The traditional way of teaching is no longer the ideal approach to teaching.

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Part 1, Part 2

WebQuest Project

Subject area and topic:

2nd Grade Social Studies- Heroes from long ago

Key Standards covered:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.2.2

Write informative/explanatory texts in which they introduce a topic, use facts and definitions to develop points, and provide a concluding statement or section.

Technology Standard

3. Research and Information Fluency
    Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate,
    and use information.

        

          C. Evaluate and select information sources and 

               digital tools based on the appropriateness to 

               specific tasks 

Final Product:

Students will use the short bio they have written on a hero from long ago and make a short bio using iMovie. 

Scoring PowerPoints

I believe this article was very thorough in giving great reasons for using power points to enhance learning as well as how they can be used to make sure they are more focused on the learning aspect and not just the design.  It also gave great  and how a power point is scored. 

Out of everything I did agree with I believe that a focus on speaking abilities is very important. Even a flawless power-point can have little effect with someone who dose not know how to deliver it. 

I disagreed with the percent of time it said should be left spent on the design of the powerpoint. It mentioned that 80% of the time should be spent on researching and 20% on presenting. I believe this would be dependent on the project. Also dependent on the objective of the lesson as well. The article went into great detail about how the design can impact the presentation overall. I think that it does deserve more time than suggested. At least for the first few lessons. Once students know how to create a powerful powerpoint then they can focus on more research based projects.

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Getting To Know You

At home I am creative. I really enjoy to paint as well as doing random crafts. Depending on my mood I will find something crafty to do. Sometimes it is making something out of clay or just scrapbooking. 

At school (work) I am very motivated. I am eager to work and gain more knowledge about my job.

When I am out and about I am recreational. I love to ride my bike or do anything active to pass the time. 

Something unique that I do is take my jeep out off-roading.