Where Have I Been

WOW, it seems like I have been away for an entire semester. I feel like a real slacker. It won't be long for the stress to get crankin up as the semester is winding down. I am supposed to be blogging about video and have no idea what to write about as I missed class last week. I know the importance of story boarding and scripting, so I am sure they play a significant part of what we did during class last week. I am in a fantastic group and sure they will bring me up to speed quickly. I am glad this is the final semester, because if it was the first semester, I do not see myself completing the course. I am beyond overwhelmed.

Podcasts

Podcasts, what a fantastic use of classroom and student time. What an incredible way to get students deeply involved into the curriculum, participate in assessment, and organize an authentic solution to an authentic problem. With the need for factual information, the design of a script, the organization of ones message, and the actual finished podcast, students have wonderful opportunities to express what they know in a non traditional assessment that is entertaining to themselves, classmates and all that take part. The need to assist young children in putting a podcast together can, and more than likely will, be seen as excessive work, time consuming, and non constructive for the purpose of assessing students understanding of curriculum. In this time of meeting national and state standards, podcasts can be seen as over the top non educational activities that benefit none and have little effect on learning. Personally I do not see it that way and hopefully administration will quit wrapping their heads around numbers that have little to do with what children have learned and their ability productively put their learning to use. The creation of a podcast is certainly an authentic activity that takes what students have learned and use that knowlege and information to inform others in a creative and authentic way. Here here to podcasts.

Wiki is all knowing

Wiki's, pretty cool. Although most people I talk to have few good things to say about them in terms of their reliability and accuracy, I have learned that they seem to be pretty spot on, accurate, and reliable. Last week I added to my first wiki concerning crickets. It felt pretty cool adding to the web. I think kids will feel the same way. I look forward to using wiki's in my science and social studies classes. I am a little unsure of how to get them going and where to begin, but looking forward to getting it going. Although quite limited, my experience with wiki's have been very positive and beneficial. Regardless of what you look up on the net, it seems there is a related wiki to assist in gaining information. It is fascinating that there seems to be some information on about anything out there. Fascinating.

Blogs, who are they for?

Reading about blogging and thinking about blogging has made me wonder who is really using blogs. Until I began this ITs program I had little knowlege about blogging and I am sure many other people not involved in professional occupations are as ignorant as I was, and to some degree still am. As popular as blogging has become, it seems to target a specific population of the net. As a result of blogging being new to me, I would not know where to begin to expose myself to other blogs on the net. I think those individuals involved in certain occupations, activities, political groups, etc. blog a great deal as they are common practice for that population. I have friends in law enforcement, sales, and the manual labor arena that have certainly heard of blogs, but find no relevance to them. It makes me wonder what can be done to make blogging more popular to the entire net population rather than the select groups that find blogging valuable and entertaining. Could exposure to blogging in our schools open those doors to broaden the use of blogs in today's cyber space?

Todd as a Leader

Well, here we are, final semester, 14 weeks left. I am in awe. So much t0 wrap my head around. I wasn't designed to think this hard. That is why I teach 2nd grade. My brother says they won't let me teach anything beyond 2nd grade as I am not smart enough. Hopefully I will graduate this May and show him.

Anyway, thinking about leadership this semester, after a brief email conversation with my mentor, got me a little depressed. After responding to questions about me as a leader and being a risk taker kind of got me to thinking. Since No Child Left Behind and the whole AYP thing, I have found myself being less and less of a creative teacher and overall leader in my school. Many of the cool units I created and implemented in past years have fallen to the side as they don't directly correlate to 2nd grade SOL's. In the whole scope of the units, all of the SOL's were met, but not directly each day. Volunteering for extra curricular activities dwindled away to nothing and my visibility at evening school functions has all but disappeared. Scratching my head and watching my final few hairs fall to the ground, I couldn't help but wonder why my involvement has diminished. What I came up with was the amount of time spent coaching as well as the huge amount of time spent working on my Masters Program has greatly impacted my time spent participating in school activities. I also feel No Child Left Behind has negatively impacted what has made me the teacher I am (or was a few years ago). Creative and motivational activities are no longer designed as they do not seem to fit into the facts driven demands of passing the SOL's. It makes me wonder if we are actually making things worse for our students in our attempt at getting them to PASS THE TEST. What have our students really LEARNED. All will be seen I guess.

Alright I am getting off track a bit. Anyway I am hoping that my efforts to increase my activity in my school will greatly improve as my Masters Program comes to a close and my time can be spent in a variety of school activities and programs.

Money project

Well I just looked over my blogs and realized I am one short, YIKES. Well I guess there is a reason for everything. We have been ending our money unit for the past week and the students have to complete their final money project by Friday. Students were given the following amounts of money: $20.00 bill, $10.00 bill, 2 $5.oo bills, and 5 $1.00 bills, 12 quarters, 12 dimes, 12 nickels, and 12 pennies (copies). The coins were only to be used for showing the change they received back, not for their totals prior to going shopping. They were given a list of products from a ficticous grocery store with their prices. Students were required to organize three meals and pay for each seperately. Displays of the products they purchased, their prices and totals for each meal were required to be on the final poster. They had to design a large poster showing the products they purchased, the cash they gave the cashier, and the change they got back. They had to do this for each meal. They had to show their wallet at the start of the project and their wallet at the end of the project. They had to design the poster in a way that would show what was done for each meal and how their money was spent. Last years projects were fantastic and I am looking forward to seeing this years. Kids can be very creative when given the chance.

Ironic

This has nothing to do with designing, but found it ironic. This morning I had a conference with a parent over the likely retention of his son. Although I think his parenting skills are a contributing factor to his son's lack of academic success, he blamed his child's decreasing grades on his excess time spent playing video games and watching tv. Hearing this made me chuckle, but also begs me to ask him why he allows his student to involve himself in these activities if he feels they are detrimental to his son's education. I told him that games can be valuable to his education if played for the right reasons and if monitored by adults. We went into a big discussion about problem solving, sharp critical thinking, personal involvement and communication with the game and its charcters........ Anyway I think by the end of the conference the father began to realize that his son's classroom efforts and his own reluctance to keep up with his child's education daily were two main factors in his child's failing marks. Before taking this cohort, I honestly do not know how I would have responded to that fathers statements about videogames and his son's failing grades. I am sure I would have agreed to much of what he said.

Just thought it was kind of appropriate to bring this up.

Roller Coaster Tycoon

The frustration continues. I have spent a few hours on Roller Coaster Tycoon and am still losing money. I haven't been able to get anyone to use the rides and food/drink stations I have opened. I put walkways to them, but keep getting messages that people cannot get to them. Not good. I guess I am going to have to go down to the kiddie level for a while and get some experience working with the tools.Like Gee says, a good video game allows learners opportunities to learn at their own pace throughout the game. As one master a level they gain the skills needed to attempt the next level I cannot get going on the first level, so I guess I need to drop down to the juvenile level (sandbox I believe it is). I like the idea of similations and see great value to classrooms, but convincing administration will never happen.

On another note. I started having my students design a super hero that they thought would be invincible. They took many different steps in designing the hero's powers, weaknesses, and weapons. They then had to describe their appearance. When the final designing is complete, they will then write a story putting the super hero to action. I think I might have them later design an arch enemy and take the writing and designing to a different level. Stay tuned.

Designing Website

Well, the designing has begun. I am finding out that I am doing more than I need to for my website. I certainly chose a theme (sort of) that turned out to be far more difficult than it needed to be. By choosing the wood signs I have found myself using my paint tools for each portion of my website, rather than just the main banner and background. By doing so I guess I am learning more than I probably would have doing it using tables and basic text links. I like the looks of my site, however it doesn't really represent myself or anything else for that matter. I like old and old looking things and simply felt the wood and stone wall looked pretty cool. I originally wanted to use Diamond plating, but couldn't really make it work.

By using so many images, I am having a hard time organizing the links and images on the background in the exact places I want them. It has taken a huge amount of time pixelating back and forth to get items where I want them. So far I am happy with the looks of the site, and am hoping its construction will get a little easier as I learn how to design it.

Follow up from Animal classification activity

Well we finally finished the actual designing and organizing of our animal classifications using Inspiration. WOW, very comical. Some just had informtion all over the page indicating little knowlege of classification knowlege. Most were able to take their organized information and design some form of understandable finished product. A couple did a fantastic job, were very creative, and informative. I think with more use of the tools, the students will create better products each time. They had little experience with Inspiration, and many just wanted to be finished with the project. Others were simply frustrated in not being able to put things where they wantd it. Some actually got angry. Most found the activity enjoyable and learned a great deal from it. Very funny to sit back and watch their minds design.

Students as Designers (animal classification)

As a result of the learning going on in my cohort as well as my classroom, I decided to quiz my at on their knowlege of different animal classifications. I first reviewed many characteristics of different animals with my class and put those classifications onto sheets of paper. I also put the names of different animals on sheets of paper. The names of animal groups were also put onto sheets of paper for students to manipulate. Students were asked to figure out how all of these sheets of paper could be put together to inform others as to animal characteristics, names, and actual pictures of animals. This afternoon, as a class, we put the organizing into action. It was important for students to figure out, on their own, what needed to go where. As this week progresses, students will use Inspiration to design an Animal Classification Web to display their knowlege of animal classification. They will need to figure out how make the presentation educational as well as appealing to the readers eye. They will also need to include examples of each animal in their sections of the web.

I don't know if this is a good example of student design, but I am trying to get them to think about organizing information in an appealing educational way that includes text and visual graphics.

Stay tuned.

Forgot about the Internet

Thinking only about personally communicating with others as far as telecommunications and lesson design is concerned, my last blog was a little out of line. I definitely confused telecommunications and communications. I did not see the connection of using the Internet as a telecommunications tool. Not only is the Internet a telecommunications tool, but it is a widely used tool that if used creatively will have profound positive educational outcomes. Shame on me for my ignorance.

Telecommunications and 7 year olds

I am really struggling coming up with a lesson to use telecommunications with my 2nd graders. Very difficult figuring out a way to use telecommunications as the learning tool for such young students. I am kind of not really sold on telecommunications being at all effective with any elementary aged students. I guess time will tell.

Well a week after my lesson and it went very well. Eight year olds needed much assistance with the website as they have little experience with websites, but they were able to come up with accurate lists and made some choices for a new infielder for the Nationals. I enjoyed the interaction the kids had with the site and their enthusiasm with the end result.

Lesson 1

Well, I did my Washington Nationals lesson last week. It went pretty well. The kids could not believe I knew someone that worked with the Nationals. They had so many questions. I felt terrible stretching my tall tale with them. The lesson went great. We did not finish it as it extends over a few days, but the kids were so pumped and excited to get to work on it. I am anxious to see how they respond over the next couple of days with the lesson. I am waiting for the parents to start asking me to get autographs for them.

Google Earth

Keeping with the whole authentic problem thing, I couldn't really think of anything authentic to introduce the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains to my class with. I had some ideas, but really nothing I could use as few of my students have really ever been out of the immediate area. The only thing I could think of was using Google Earth for them to adventure through the two mountain regions. Using the smart board we were able to really get a great perspective of the two ranges. Students were able to interact with the site by zooming in and out as well as traveling in all directions within the mountains. There were several pictures linked to areas on Google Earth that provided images of the actual mountains. Students were easily able to compare the two ranges. Not only were we able to identify the location of both ranges, but students were able to gain an appreciation for the terrain. I may now be able to incorporate some authentic problems to go along with these mountain ranges for different curricular area.

Authentic problems

I have been trying to incorporate more authentic problems as I am introducing and carrying out my lessons. I have found students to be more responsive and motivated to what the lesson was all about, I am yet to see results in assessments, but it should all come to light very soon. Stay tuned.

Making it real

I designed a lesson today for a large group of my lower math students involving place value. The past few days I have found a group of students that were just not comprehending the place value blocks. While continuing the lesson the next day (today), I used familiar objects like pennies and dimes to represent tens and ones. I also used small noodles and large noodles as well. Students were able to associate the the differentiated materials with the standard materials used for identifying and associating tens and ones. By the end of the lesson my lower the majority of my lower achieving students were able to positively use tens and ones blocks to assist them with place value. More differentiating will be needed to help those not getting it. Live what you learn, learn what you live.

witnessing others approach to design

As a result of mandatory LEARN model in planning team lessons, It has been interesting to see how my colleagues approach their designing of their plans. As a team we are required to keep a collection of LEARN plans. We write them as we make plans for our classroom lessons. We then share the plans during our weekly collaboration meetings. It is kind of interesting to see what is important to the different teachers and their style of teaching in their LEARN lessons.

Comparing Design to the LEARN model of planning

I am looking forward to making the correlation to what I am learning in my Instructional Design Cohort to the LEARN approach to lesson planning. I am anxious to discover how what I recently learned in class (Lesson Designing Strategy) will shape my approach to organizing the over arching planning of 2nd grade curriculum. As our school's 2nd grade team leader, I look forward to sharing design strategy techniques that I will learn with my colleagues and our school's commitment to implementing the LEARN model to classroom lesson planning .