Hurricane Maine

I have to admit, prior to this class I was not a blogger nor had I ever read a blog.  I have thoroughly enjoyed keeping a diary about different subjects and reading fellow classmates blogs. I have loved, the no pressure feeling that comes along with blogging.  No APA or MLA to worry about, just your thoughts!  

This week, my mind was blown when we were given the task to read a few different edubloggers.  I ended up choosing Hurricane Maine because the blogger is a biology teacher which is what I hope to teach someday.  Her blog was full of super helpful links, ideas, and resources.  She even had a "how to use this blog" tab.  My favorite part about her blog was that she encouraged comments in order to have a conversation with you about certain topics.  

My favorite part about her blog were the descriptions of activities she has done with her classes, followed by links to helpful resources, and a rundown of what went good and what she would do differently next time.  For example, she dissected owl pellets with her students.  She introduced the activity and described what she did with her class.  She included links to how best to complete the activity along with worksheets and grading rubrics!  She then included what went well and how she would change the activity for the next year.  How helpful!  Especially for a first time teacher!

I look forward to researching some more biology edubloggers and getting ideas for my future classroom! 

http://hurricanemaine.blogspot.com/

Video Game Classroom-

What do kids love, crave, and dream about...

VIDEO GAMES!

When Rory gave us the task of creating a classroom that runs like you are playing a video game, my imagination immediately went to work.  I then started second guessing some of my ideas because i've never even run a regular classroom so how would I be able to design a class that could run like a video game?  After a couple of days of considering the idea I decided that maybe my ideas would be relevant because they are not clouded by the knowledge about students and their current lack of motivation.  Maybe they would be so far outside of the box they would be good!  Sooooo without further ado, here is my idea for a classroom that is like a virtual video game...

- Day one, students should pick a character that represents them (Mario, Luigi, Steve, Wolverine, etc...) (when kids play video games, they always choose a character to play with)

- There should be a big board in the class that represents the characters progress through the levels

- The big units will be divided into smaller levels with a boss (test/exam) at the end (kids love trying to beat the boss at the end of a level)

- The units should be arranged so students can move at their own pace (if they finish early, they get a bonus game or activity to complete)

- Teaching should be done using a variety of different techniques: group work, computer work, and independent work should be used evenly (this will help keep all different types of learners engaged) 

- Students will not be given grades, they will either beat the level or be faced with a try again (kids fail video games often but they try over and over until they beat the level, what if a failing grade is causing them to give up?  Maybe a try again, would cause them to keep trying until they beat it?)

- The teacher should act as a facilitator and help guide students through the levels (I think classrooms where teachers act as facilitators to help guide students learning are a lot more effective than classes in which the teacher acts as a dominator or conductor) 

I look forward to reading your questions or comments about my ideas :)

Minecraft Survival

Minecraft is a single or multiplayer computer, xbox, ipad, iphone, and ipod game/app.  "The object of the game is to find and mine diamond and other ores," Kal Lawrence, age 8.   

Things minecraft can teach you about:

*from the mind of an 8-year-old avid minecraft player

1. Landforms and bodies of water

2. How to make glass by cooking sand in a furnace

3. A lot about different ores (coal, diamond, iron, gold, redstone, lapis lazuli)

4. Not to be wasteful because you have to chop down trees to build your home

5. Planting saplings that grow into trees

6. Growing wheat and grass

7. If water hits lava it turns into obsidian 

8. If lava hits water it turns into cobblestone 

9. You can strike flint with metal and you will get fire

10. Diamond is extremely rare to find but sometimes found in close proximity to lava if you are lucky

11. Keeping inventory of your stuff 

12. How you get leather from killing a cow (poor cow)

13. You can shear a sheep for wool instead of killing it

14. Math - you need 8 pieces of leather for a tunic

15. How to craft things out of ores you have mined 

16. How to make music out of note blocks

17. How to make a mineshaft 

18. What you need to bake a cake

19. How you get milk from a cow

http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Minecraft_in_education

BYOD

"...if we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow..."

-John Dewey

Fight it or embrace it seems to be the debate when it comes to allowing students to bring their own cell phones, ipods, or tablets into the classroom.  I say, embrace it.  Let kids bring your own device (BYOD).  Kids are going to have their cell phones in their pockets, they are going to sneak them in your class, and they are going to secretly text their friends during class.  What if these technological devices were not forbid in school?  We know teenagers are drawn to the forbidden so why not allow cell phones, embrace them, and use them in positive ways in the class.

Students can be polled on their phones throughout class to see who is paying attention, what kids understand, or what they are confused about during the lecture.  

Teachers can send text message reminders to students about homework that is due the next day.

Students can record each other performing a lab in class that the teacher can grade after watching the video.

Students can get access and read ebooks on their devices in seconds.

Students can take pictures of images or text in a book that they may want to reference later.  

These are just a few of the reasons I think technological devices should be allowed in the classroom.  BYOD has the capability to revolutionize education!  

Times are changing and so should our teaching.  

Pin It!

This week we were given the task of becoming an expert on a web tool.  I was assigned Pinterest, and feel I have become quite the expert!  This was a great assignment because it forced you to learn the ins and outs of the assigned program.  I look forward to learning from my classmates tomorrow about the different webtools they have studied all week.

Below is the two page document I created in order to teach my group about Pinterest.

I really enjoyed this project and hope we have more like this in the future! 

Reading in the Classroom-

Today's class was eye opening for me.  When we were handed the article to read silently I was immediately irritated.  Really?!  He wants us to sit here and read!?  

My immediate thoughts - I have four readings for another class to do, I am starving, why does everybody keep flipping their papers so loudly, why is that kid clicking their pen, why do we have to do this?!  

The thought questions continued until I read the title four times and decided to get started.  By this point people were flipping again and I was trying to get started.  

My next few thoughts - Can I go sit in the hall?  I would be able to read this a lot quicker in the hall.  I can not concentrate and critically read this sitting here... I am hungry!  Okay, page one, here we go.  

I finally got started and sunk into a groove of reading.  I was able to tune out most of the background noise and skim the article.  Was I able to critically read and annotate?  No way.  At this point I just wanted to have an idea of what the article was about in case I got called on.

With a few minutes left in class, the teacher stopped us and explained to us the point of this exercise was to show how hard it is to read in class.  What do we ask middle and high school students to do daily?!  Read in class!  It was like one of those cartoons where a lightbulb goes off in my head.  Why do we do this?!  Clearly this is not the best way to get students to learn.  Then I started thinking, we aren's supposed to round robin read, we aren't supposed to call on people to read a lot, and today we learned its not very efficient to read silently in class.  Sooo.... how do we get students to read the text?  Are we supposed to assign it for homework?  Odds are that wont happen.  Maybe take them to the library and let them spread out and get comfy and read?  I am at a loss on this topic... 

"Learning is a process of enculturation.  Experience does not occur in a vacuum."

-John Dewey, 1938

These two sentences really resonated with me this week.  The first refers to learning by becoming immersed in the culture, values, and behaviors of whatever you are trying to gain knowledge about.   And the second is something I think should be hung up in every school across America!  Experience and learning do not occur (at least efficiently) by sitting in a classroom and staring at your teacher talk all day.  Students need to get out and experience life, nature, and their surroundings in order to really learn.  If your class is learning about plants, take them outside!  Let them feel the leaves and see them growing from the ground.  Let them plant seeds and watch them grow.  This is learning and this is something that will stick with them.  

John Dewey (1859-1952) was a man who was way ahead of his time when it came to his ideas about teaching in the classroom.  He went against the norms of his time (perhaps the norms that still exist today) by expressing his distaste for the "sage on stage" approach to teaching.  He believed students should "learn by doing" not learn by reading about it or learn by watching a movie about it but learn by getting out and experiencing.  His theory about teaching in the classroom made me think of the science teacher from the video we have viewed a couple of times in class.  Wouldn't he have loved her?!  I couldn't find that video to post but I did find these cuties experiencing science below, enjoy :) 

My Ideal Classroom

The first day of EDUC 504 proved to be very interesting!  I designed my own blog in a very short time and am now a blogger!  Who knew you could learn so much in such a short time?  I am looking forward to learning a lot more about the different types of technology I can use in my classroom next year.  

The above picture is how my classroom would look if I won the lottery :)  I would love for each of my students to have their very own iPad.  State of the art technology right at the tip of their fingers.  I would also like there to be HD screens at each table and an HD screen at the front of the room.  As a scientist, these screens would prove invaluable when looking at slides and trying to differentiate between cells.  I also want a top of the line microscope for each student!  

A very interesting question was asked in class today-

 "How do we teach the 21st century learner?" 

Technology!  I made it through years of intense schooling by watching youtube videos and reading wikipedia.  How does the neural tube form?  Youtube can show you in two minutes!  How does HIV replicate in your body?  Three minutes on youtube and you will know!  What is the insertion of the flexor digitorum profundus?  A quick ten second google search and wikipedia read later and you know it's the distal phalanges!  For me, reading about all of these processes and topics in a textbook was grueling and tiresome but watching an animated video or being able to quickly search for something was a lot easier and saved me a lot of time.  

Quick experiment:

Pretend you are a biology student and you have a test tomorrow on HIV replication.

This link is a description of the process in an online textbook.

http://www.learner.org/courses/biology/textbook/hiv/hiv_4.html

The link below is an animated five minute video of the process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO8MP3wMvqg

Which was easier, quicker, and more stimulating?  

I look forward to reading your comments below :)