Blog Post 19: Video Sharing /TED Lesson

TED Lesson: https://ed.ted.com/on/H4TNxGwd

Lesson: The objective of this lesson is to provide students an introduction to trigonometric functions.

Subject: Mathematics Algebra II

Grade: High School

YouTube provides a platform for teachers to find and create videos for students to reinforce their learning anywhere at any time. YouTube has become a powerful online tool for users to learn from educational videos created by users including teachers from around the world. Another great thing about YouTube is that is a free resource to add to lessons, homework and extra credit opportunity for students to do. As a free resource, YouTube allows users to find educational videos that are engaging, interesting for students to connect with other educators and learners. The main advantage of using YouTube is students can directly interact with the source of the material by posting comments and asking questions. Students can have watch videos on lessons topics ranged from Trigonometric Functions, learning a new language to History in Religion in Art as long as they have internet access. It creates a unique opportunity for teachers to use this online tool as a teaching aide in the classroom. There are great YouTube channels that give students access to good education content in less than ten minutes. These lessons are introduced to students in a short amount of time and add insight information to lessons to continue expanding on the topic. Teachers can bring alive a lesson by using video to explain complex topics. However, it is extremely important to understand that a video can never replace a teacher’s lesson in class. YouTube videos should be used as a complement that supports the lesson presented to students.

There are three ways to integrate digital education videos for students use: 

1.There are channels that give students engaged lessons by making connections to media and pop culture. Students are more likely to remember what they are learning by watching videos recommended by the teacher in case they are confused as they are solving homework. Ted Ed lessons is an incredible source for teachers to create questions to engage students with the video lesson. Teachers can check students’ understanding of the lesson, refer to other resources and have an open discussion over the material. It is important for teachers to find videos with a less than ten minutes of length to keep students’ attention.

2.For an English class, teachers can use trailer videos to introduce the books. Teachers can use short clips of the play (Example: Romeo and Juliet) to go along with the book as students are reading. It can also be integrated into literature circles for students to show classmates videos to hook them to read the chapter. Teachers can call on students to ask inference questions, make predictions as a way to make students accountable and responsible for their learning.

3. The flipped classroom is something that school districts are adopting in their schools for their core subjects as Mathematics and English. It allows students to learn at their own pace, but they must have access to a device with Internet access. Teachers can create their own videos for lectures and they can also use other videos as complementary resources. Students are expected to watch the videos prior to coming to class and take notes during the video. Then students come to class to do homework in class, ask questions and teachers have a one-to-one with students.     

Blog post 18

Using Google Photos for teaching and learning

In an educational setting, Google Photos can provide students and teachers visual representations of what they are learning in class. There are only a few things to do in order to successfully integrate this online tool for students use. First, students must have a google account to be able to upload photos and videos to their account. One of the incredible features is for users to store, organize and create animations from photos. As a new user of this image hosting services, I am impressed about using Google Photos for my personal and professional social media use in the future. It is a good option to work across all platforms where I can easily have access to all my photos for sharing with others. It is a quick and easy way to organize and manage photos in one platform. Google Photos can benefit teachers and students because it provides a place for everyone to show visual representations. One of the main benefits of using Google Photos is that it offers unlimited storage for free. Then Google Photos gives users the option to share albums and provides options to choose to secure users’ privacy. This online tool can create collages, animations, search for people or things. Another feature is the having a personalized photo assistant that can put together slide shows, collages, and animations. However, I can also edit the photos and create my own animations from my images. It is truly how convenient Google Photos can be for teachers to use in the classroom.

There are three main applications for using Google Photos in the classroom:

1.      Grade level: Elementary-Middle school - Subject: Reading and Writing

a.      Teachers can have a “Photo of the Day” warm up activity for students at the beginning of the class period. Students need to think about who is this person/ people? What is the story behind this person/people? It allows students to develop their creative writing skills and truly explore their own creativity. It can be a less structured approach to typical writing exercises because students write what they want to write in their journals. Students are more likely to enjoy writing and develop their own voices. In addition, there are tons of places for teachers to find incredible pictures such as Humans of New York, Word Press Photo, NASA, even fashion blogs such as the Sartorialist.

b.      Google Photo assignments: Teacher can upload images and students can make comments on the album about their impressions. Students can also take pictures uploaded to this online tool and write a story that connects to the images.

2.      Grade level: Middle School

a.      Google Photos gives teachers the tools to create a shared album with parents and post it on the Edmodo, blog, teacher website for parents to see what are students learning in the classroom.

3.      Grade level: English – Subject: English

a.      For this activity, students will have about seven weeks to create this semester project using Google Photos. There are two general ideas for this project: Students can either showcase what they have done (significant moments, events, school activities, etc.) and learn in class during the semester or it can be a “This is all about me” where students share who they are, likes-dislikes, hobbies, family, and goals for their future. It is up to the teacher to choose between these two options. Students can also write a one-page essay about their learning experience or an autobiographical essay. Students must include about fifteen to twenty pictures in their collages. Students have to present to class their final project and share their collage link to the teacher.

Blog post 17: Google Photos assignment

                                                                                                                                                                           

The Next Week

J loves the winter season, especially holidays as Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve.The season festivities are everywhere, people’s clothes, food, shops, advertisement, decoration, etc. Therefore, she must have to prepare to celebrate these festivities and truly enjoy her break next week. 

Shared Album

Blog Post: Feedly articles

For this assignment, I read two articles from different educational blogs. The first article entitled, Personalized Learning with a Plan of Action by Stephanie Shaw published at GettingSmart.com blog. The article is about how Ms. Shaw; a fourth-grade teacher successfully find a way to implement personalized learning in her classroom.  Ms. Shaw’s situation is similar to what many teachers are living right now, trying to find a way to integrate technology into lesson plans when school districts are providing MacBook, iPads, or laptops to all students. Ms. Shaw uses Google Sheets as a data tracker for students to enter their own grades and identify their strong and weak skills. Based on this data tracker then Ms. Shaw can review and analyze what students need remediation and start planning. I think that this strategy is great for students because they can reflect on what they need to work on and take ownership of their learning progress. Lastly, Ms. Shaw creates a table for each skill that she needs to re-taught in different ways such as videos, online tutorials, and re-assessments. She also works with small groups during class periods.  This article includes videos for teachers to use Google Docs and examples of the tables for each skill. Overall, I like Ms. Shaw’s strategies to create personalized learning opportunities for all students. Students are able to work on the skills that they acquire to continue learning. Students feel responsible and accountable for their learning. The second article is entitled, Six Techniques for Building Reading Skills- in Any Subject written by Susan Barber and published in Edutopia. The article analyzes the importance of teaching techniques to build strong reading skills in school. The author suggests to readers some ways teachers can integrate reading skills in lessons across all subject areas. Some of these strategies include asking questions, categorizing information, making personal connections with the text. Teachers should encourage students to read with a pencil in their hands in order to write their questions as they read. Teachers can also provide students time for students to choose books from the classroom library. It is a simple yet effective way to improve student’ reading skills. These books can be from different genres and reading levels for all students. Taking the time to let students read and then having an open discussion as a way to engage students in the reading but also the content.

 

Article 1 Personalized Learning

Article 2 Building Reading Skills

Blog Post 15: Part 2 Using LiveBinders for teaching and learning

There are three ways that I can use Live Binders in the classroom with students and for professional development during a school year.

1.      LiveBinders provides an incredible way to organize all the online sources and ideas for planning a lesson. This online tool creates a place to store all electronic sources including pdf files, websites, newspaper articles, videos, documents, etc. Teachers can create binders where they can share with students and colleagues their binders. As result LiveBinders are useful to foster collaboration across grade levels creating an opportunity for teachers to learn from one another and see how instruction progress across grades in the same subject. This leads to teachers knowing what strategies can be constructive to better prepare students for the next grade, especially for struggling learners. If teachers can openly share their LiveBinders, then teachers can see how similar or different their lesson structure is incorporating to the curriculum standards, TEKS, for students. LiveBinders also provide teachers ways to explore more possibilities on how to teach strategies based on collect resources that teachers are successfully implementing in their classrooms.

2.      Another way to use a LiveBinder for teaching can be creating one for parents to use at home. This binder can be posted on the class blog or website for parents to access anytime. The purpose of this binder is for parents to know what type of learning is occurring in school. They can also know about school and community programs and services for families. This binder can also include the school mission, vision and shared values that parents can reinforce with children. It is important for parents to know about the culture of the school and how teachers are teaching students how to become responsible, successfully learns with exemplary characters. If teachers and parents hold themselves accountable and responsible for modeling consistent shared values and ethics, then students can better behave and achieve outstanding results. 

1.      Digital Binders Lesson Idea

a.      Grade level: Middle School

b.      Subject: Math

c.      What students will do: LiveBinders are awesome for creating a library of resources for students to use. The binders must have at least five tabs where each of these tabs includes tons of information. For example, mobile apps for phones, iPad for student reference to use. Students can have access to the classroom procedures, online netiquette, study guides, final reviews to prepare for upcoming assessments. Teachers can upload rubrics for specific math projects such as student-led mini lesson where all students select a word math problem. They present and teach the class how they are able to solve it in two ways using their math strategies. The math LiveBinders can include  tabs for math formulas, interactive manipulatives, and videos for students to reinforce their learning at home.

Blog 15 Part I: Live Binders Assignment 

My first Live Binder is about Thanksgiving Celebration. Link:    Thanksgiving Celebration

Blog Post 14: Final Lesson Ideas

Final Project

 A subject, grade level, and lesson topic. Explain why you want to focus on this lesson.

The subjects for my final project are English Language Arts because developing strong reading skills are necessary for students to succeed in reading, writing and language for not only English but for other subjects. My project is focused on middle school students, specifically 7^th and 8th-grade levels. There are three main topics that I am still deciding to do for my final project: reading comprehension, expository texts and literature genre such as non-fiction or media literature. I think that these three topics are interesting to teach students, especially media literature since students can improve their skills to analyze media and be critical thinkers of media. Some of the things that I want to include in my lesson are a picture book, games, videos, interactive notebooks and online tools. There are four online tools that I really enjoy using for lesson plans, these tools are Evernote, Prezi, Pinterest, and Edmodo. These online tools provide students opportunities to create videos, share their notes for group projects, reflective on their learning, analyze book characters. For example, Evernote provides students a tool to create digital portfolios to keep their notes and have access everywhere on any device. One of the great features Evernote provides many ways to foster collaboration for students to work in groups. Prezi is a fun and interactive ways to make presentations for students about the lesson topic. Since I learn about Prezi, I think that this format is incredible and visually engaging. Edmodo is one of my favorites social learning platforms for students and teachers to use. It allows students to send messages, classroom discussions, create quizzes and manage progress and keep in contact with parents. The last online tool is Pinterest and students can create boards to make their group work visual and they can add resources, images for their presentations, etc. 

Blog post 13: Helping a teacher use wikis

Background:

Jane is a teacher with ten years of teaching experience. She learned about Wiki from her colleagues and she decided to integrate it into her science classroom. Students had been using Wiki for their hydrology research. As students started writing their questions and worked on their research, Jane noticed some problems. Unfortunately, students were not collaborating in their groups, research was lacking content, they were plagiarizing information, or they were not editing each other work. Jane had been struggling to find solutions these problems.

Scenario- Problems:

After reading about Jane’s case, there are many problems in Jane’s science class when students are using Wiki. It is important to recognize that many teachers are open to merging their lessons with technology. However, teachers could face some obstacles when introducing new online tools to students.  I recognized that there are three main problems that Jane must address before students could continue with their research project.                                                                                     First, Jane did not provide students with a detailed rubric on how to edit and conduct their group research on hydrology. Then students were placed in groups without having a clear goal about why they are using Wiki. Next, Jane did not have clear instructions on how her students should be using Wiki or how they should be contributing to their research. 

Solutions:

1 Jane needs to provide students with a clear rubric where students can equally contribute to their research report. One way can be explaining the assessment rubric for this project, which can be divided into the following criteria: cooperation, research, presentation, organization, and member responsibility. Jane can set group members roles for students to have equal responsibility, groups can post a role distribution table to avoid any disagreements in the group.The ultimate goal is for Jane to promote a culture of collaboration using a wiki for her classmates. 

2 A wiki fosters collaboration and learning because users can share information. It is an online tool that is perfect for Jane’s science research assignment. However, students do not understand their responsibilities and expectations when using a wiki. Jane needs to model to students’ good netiquette. She can do wiki activities for students to do where she can develop her science class wiki etiquette when posting, writing and sharing their findings. As result, Jane can create a wiki community where students feel that they belong to a wiki learning community. It is important for students to have an open collaboration in their research groups in order to develop a sense of ownership on their research.

3 Jane can also allow student peer assessments to make students feel accountable and encourage to actively participate in their research. Jane can provide students computer lab time so everyone has an opportunity to contribute and meet specific deadlines.  Overall Jane must monitor group projects to check if all students are contributing to the group work and understanding the importance of studying hydrology.

In the end, Jane could follow these solutions to solve the problems that she had been encountered through the students’ group project. Despite all the problems, Jane took the initiative to allow students to begin using technology.

3 links:

https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/wikis/

https://teaching.unsw.edu.au/assessing-wikis#

http://www.utc.edu/walker-center-teaching-learning/teaching-resources/group-projects.php

Week 10: Using Twitter for teaching and learning

Section I: Learning from hashtags

Hashtag: #Learnerexperience

Sources:

 https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/self-directed-learning-benefit-student

https://medium.com/bright/the-web-we-need-to-give-students-311d97713713#.ab52rqrcb

I am interested in learning more about how teachers can find ways to expand students’ learning and skill in the classroom. I like the #learnerexperience because it provides me with articles, ideas and meaningful information to connect with other educators about this topic. As I follow the timeline and tweets that appear in the search results, I find some sources to better understand all about this educational hashtag. The first article is titled, “How Self-Directed Learning Can Benefit Every Student” written by the Global Digital Citizen Foundation and it provides teachers tips on the understand the importance for students to take ownership of their learning. Some ways for teachers to create opportunities for self-directed learning is knowing that students can have negative mindsets (they think that they are not self-motivated, they are not smart or the type of students to do this, etc.) that prevents students’ independence learning. Teachers need to recognize these negative mindsets and learn how they can change these negative mindsets to growth mindsets. For example, the article suggests that motivation is not increased by rewards instead it is more about three real internal motivations known as the intrinsic motivations. These motivations can be divided into three categories: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. The article also mentions if students perceive themselves as not talented or smart enough then teachers can help students change this perception by teaching students that failures are only transition points and intelligence is not fixed. Therefore, teachers need to let students be in control of their paths and let out expectations in order to allow students determine their own successes and evaluate their learning. Another article titled, The Web We Need to Giving Students” written by Audrey Watters for Bright: Innovation in Education, explains how society wants to regulate students’ privacy online and restrict data. However, there are other alternatives for protecting students’ online identities and have access to their personal data. One alternative is for schools to provide students and teachers their web domains. Domains provide users control over their work, data and have access to their digital portfolios. If students have their own domain, then they take their learning portfolio until they graduate high school and move on their careers. Overall it is a great idea because students need to acquire their digital skills and be responsible for their own digital identity. 

Section II: Three Ideas for using Twitter for teaching and learning

Grade level: Middle school

Subject area: English/Reading 

What students will do:

Using Twitter for teaching and learning can encourage students’ participation and engagement in lessons. Twitter can be a great online tool for students to join class discussions, projects and finding information. There are three main objectives to use twitter in the classroom. First, students can use create Twitter accounts in order to fully participate in class discussion. Many times students are reluctant to participate because they are shy or they do not want to be noticed by others. This is especially when working with middle school students in a large class. Therefore, students can be encouraged to tweet comments, questions about the lesson using their laptops or iPods in class. Teachers can respond in real-time to students’ questions and concerns students have during class time. Another idea to integrate Twitter into a lesson plan about fact and opinion. Teachers can tweet statements and students must reply to identify between facts and opinion. Another alternative can be using the books from literature circles, students must tweet to the class statements where opinions can be found. The last activity can be tweeting newspapers articles to students to distinguish factual and opinions parts of the article. A good activity can be a Twitter scavenger hunt where students can analyze tweets from politicians and students decide which are opinions and facts. The main objective for the lesson and use of Twitter is for students to recognize that what is printed, found on social media, or aired on TV is not all facts. They must understand the difference between facts and opinions should be a skill not only use for testing but a skill useful throughout their lives. Overall Twitter is a valuable tool useful for education where students and teachers have a public forum to connect their learning to what is happening in the world. 

Edmodo: An Online Education Tool for a Learning Community 

I learned about Edmodo when I was required to create a student account for two of my undergraduate courses. I thought that Edmodo provided a great source for teachers to create a forum for students to active learners. I knew how to use Edmodo as a student, not as a teacher integrating Edmodo for a class. I did not know about the many features this app provides to teachers. Students can access Edmodo though the school computers, personal laptops, and free app to know the latest news and assignments for their classes. One great option was allowing parents to have access to the classes because it could contribute to creating a good relationship with parents. They should be aware of their students'' progress and what students had been learning at school. Overall, I enjoyed using this tool and benefits of this app. After I read the two articles recommended in my web tool course and my past experiences using Edmodo, I could share three ideas for using this educational tool in the classroom. 

Grade Level: 8th grade

Subject Area: Social Studies 

What students can do with Edmodo:

1. Weekly reflections, students are expected to reply to all posts, especially reflections because students only have to write three reflections per week. Students must write at least 2 paragraphs before the deadline. The idea for weekly reflections allows students to realize what they did right and what they need to change. Students feel motivated to learn and analyze their learning process about concepts, ideas and class activities. The weekly reflections provide teachers with students' feedback and keep/integrate new teaching technologies and strategies.

2. Quizzes, it is great to have the option to create quizzes for students to take in class. Although I encounter some problems when creating quizzes, I like that all quizzes are saved as a collection for teachers to reuse or edit for other classes. It is the tool that enables teachers for assessing formative and summative students' knowledge. I like that I do not have to grade by hand and quizzes are organized in a grade book. Even if students can use their notes or book, they need to know the material prior to taking the test because teachers have the option to set the amount of time for quizzes. Overall Edmodo quizzes are a paperless option for teachers to assess students' progress and students get feedback on what they do not know or they must study more before unit tests. 

3. Essays, Edmodo allows students to upload documents. One activity for students using Edmodo is Literature Circles. Teachers create reading groups where students can share their thoughts and discuss what they read in school and at home. Students must provide text evidence and page numbers to support their opinions in the group. Literacy circles represent an opportunity for students to engage in reflection through reading and responding to literature. Students must share  their work based on their roles ( illustrator,summarizer, discussion director, and literary luminary)  prior to having an in-class reading discussion.

Week 8: Blog post 9: Create a Prezi presentation 

My Prezi Presentation: 

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