This quarter I am planning on using Quizlet for my government classes. I’m hoping that it will add an interactive element to studying to vocabulary for specific units.
I’m still investigating ways in which I can use it in class and monitor the progress of the students. My reservations are that the students won’t stay on task and that the activities will not be challenging enough to generate learning the material.
I will give an update on its use in my next entry.
This is more of an inquiry about the Districts movement towards eTextbooks:
The use of eTexts, especially at the high school level, seems to be a tech-based way to save money in the long run. Not more lost books, or the need for rebinds. I know that readers / iPads would be expensive to give to students… but you could have multiple books on ONE device. If you figure each textbook costs $70 and each student has 5 of those books. The student could carry $350 worth of textbooks on one device. Now the starting rate for an iPad is $400, so it may not be in range economically yet.
It seems to me that electronic texts is the trend even outside of education. EBooks have put places like Borders out of business… I really hope Lindbergh takes eTexts into serious consideration!
I came across a great app over the holidays that could have some relevancy in the classroom. The app is Flipboard and is a combination of Pinterest and news. It’s similar to a interactive/electronic magazine.
Flipboard provides the reader with electronic articles that are based around their interests. You can click on a category (such as news, politics, or sports) and get 10s of current articles that are updated every hour. It can also be linked to your twitter feed or facebook timeline.
It’s similar to Pinterest because it is very visual. In addition to headlines, its format utilizes the main picture to grab the reader.
The aesthetics of the app are also interesting. You can “flip” through the articles by dragging your finger vertically across the screen.
Flipboard my be used in the classroom for a research or organizing information. Have the kids organize information according to categories and put all relevant documents/research within those categories. It could be used at the end of a semester so kids have to categorize all of their notes according to visual units.
I’ve had mixed reviews with BYOD. I do allow kids to bring in their laptops to take notes; I believe a lot of kids can type faster than they write. And there are (obviously) a lot of benefits to using technology in the classroom. Unfortunately, I’ve experienced a few draw-backs; not only in the management of behavior when kids uses their own electronics, but also in the philosophy of BYOD in the public school setting.
I hope that we can eventually provide students with the technology that properly engages them in learning, and prepares them for careers of the future.
I’ve been using my twitter account a lot more recently. I now use it more for news than social interests. I’m still trying to think of a good way to use it in the classroom, versus personally or for a sports team. I’ve been following the boys basketball team for Lindbergh. Jason Wolfard does a great job at tweeting. He does just enough so you keep following but aren’t overwhelmed by inspirational quotes.
I also had a colleague (Pfeiffer!) show me a lesson where the student had to create a twitter feed for important people during that era in time. The students had to reference specific events and feelings of the Age of Absolutism. It turned out really well and I hope to use it in the future.
Props to Pfeif 🙂
I really enjoy using my ActiveInspire software and the flipcharts. I’ve only had time to plan one lesson, that I will use later this week. I will use a Jeopardy template to help my kids review for the US Constitution test.
Keith just fixed my pens so I can finally mess around with it more. Now I can have more than one person at the board, which will be more engaging.
I really enjoyed the video from Diana Laufenberg because it touches on an aspect of education that is so basic and yet often forgotten. Learning from one’s mistakes is a lesson that is often understood organically and from a very young age. I don’t ever remember a teacher forcing me to remember this rule, but it was a lesson instilled in me when I was a kid.
Face it: you’re going to mess up, all humans do. But, it’s what you do with your failures that makes you successful and achieve more goals. Do you give-up and keep repeating the same mistake over and over? Or do you take that failure, learn from it, and try new methods until you achieve your goal?
This directly relates to my first years teaching. Yeah, I’ve messed up (quite a bit, one may say). But, I am constantly learning from mistakes in order to be a better teacher: tweaking lessons, editing tests, re-wording directions. All with the goal of becoming a more effective teacher on the next go-round.
Now, this video also applies to students as well. I think the concept of failure is viewed differently depending on the type of student. For example, “accepting failure” for a student who is currently failing 4 out of 5 classes because they refuse to turn in work, won’t have the same impact as a kid that has all honors classes and a 3.5 GPA. I personally never want to have that conversation with an honors parent: “oh, it’s ok that they completely bombed this project, they’ll learn from this experience and do better next time”. Some parents have high (and often unrealistic) expectations for their kids, I don’t feel comfortable explaining to them that failure is ok.
I believe the concept of accepting and learning from mistakes is a great tool for education, and one that is often looked over. However, it definitely depends on the student…
I have recently started utilizing my twitter account (granted, my personal account) a lot more in the past month. I’ve started to follow more people especially related to news and other political content and I’ve posted a few pictures. With the election the past week, I started following important candidates in order to stay up-to-date with their campaigns. In addition, I have started following a few news outlets.
Very quickly, especially the day of the election, I realized I had made a few mistakes in my decisions on who to follow. First, my twitter account became inundated with (relatively) useless information. Second, I made the mistake of setting up some push notifications for different candidates. I quickly realized that every time that person was mentioned, I got a text message. In other words, when Shelia from Wisconsin voted for Obama and decided to tweet it, I got a text about it. Finally, some of the news outlets decided to double tweet the same stories. This just led to a lot of clutter and repetition on my feed.
Once I corrected these things, I really enjoyed that instantaneous nature of twitter. It made me feel “in the know” and “hip”. I will continue to search for more people to follow and attempt to post more tweets.
I have been trying to pin more articles and videos for work as well. I currently share a “work” board with Danielle Demarest on pinterest. I have yet to explore the new “secret” board feature, I think it will help in planning a few surprise parties in the future.
“What can students actually do with an iPad?
I found this article to be very helpful in explaining the many uses of the iPad in the classroom. I do not currently have an iPad, but would love to get my hands on one to explore it’s application to the Social Studies curriculum. I also believe that it would be a great topic for future professional (and technology) development.
One criticism of the article is that the example lessons seem to have very similar products from the students. By this I mean, the assessments are all project-based. I would like to know more about what the iPad can do beyond recording a video or making a poster/flyer.
In the future, I hope that the Lindbergh School District can provide these new technologies for its staff and students. By now, a majority of teachers know the basics of how to use a computer, iPad, or other electronic device… now we want the ability to use those items in the classroom with EVERY student. I understand the resources are tight, but in order to continue on as a leading school district in Missouri, we need make these items available to all of our students and staff all the time.
Signing up for twitter was the easy part; deciding who/what to follow was a bit more challenging. One thing is for sure, I am definitely more of a “consumer” of information that a “producer”.
I’ve had my twitter account for just over a year. And while I’ve tweeted about 5 times since then, it is a great way to stay up-to-date with things that I care about. Mostly, I follow friends and family members, especially ones that live in another state. I also follow comedians and other entertainers for a quick laugh.
For more educational purposes, I follow news stations and other political figures. It’s good to get a mix of local and national news. I also follow a few educators that focus on using technology in the classroom. However, I quickly realized that I should take caution when deciding who I follow. Some feeds are updated TOO often and just flood your feed with information that is not important or relevant. This is a major turn off for me as a “consumer” of info.
I’ve also attempted to set up a twitter account for the tract team. This would make it easier to get the word out about practice times, workouts, and meet results. Both athletes and parents can follow the Track twitter feed. Unfortunately, it has not been effective (yet!) because I didn’t update it regularly (again, I’m a more of a consumer). This year I plan on doing more with twitter and facebook to share information with the team. I’m hoping to get over my lazy consumer ways and start producing more information through social media.
Mrs. Lyons's Class 