Blowing Up The Gradebook?

I really like the idea that students are continuously being less and less successful. Certain concepts come much easier to some students than others, and because of this you are “smarter” in some classes than others. When the truth is that you simply understand one thing better than another. Students are required to take specific classes, do specific assignments, and learn specific things. If we give the choice of what to learn back to the students, they will be more willing and excited to learn what needs to be learned. Students should be allowed to have the ability to use the amount of time that they need in order that they are able to fully understand the concept they need to be learning.

This is the issue with homework and due dates. Some students don’t have as much time at home to do homework or assignments, while simultaneously some students need much more time to understand an assignment or a concept in order to do well. Many students have learned the art of what they like to call “BSing it” this means that the “game” the education system is playing right now is simply teaching students how to pretend they understand something, not truly understand it.

This idea of changing the way that education looks is a good one. We can see that it is successful because it is tailored to each student. A student feels as though they are controlling their success and the game. Instead of walking into a game where all a student can do is lose, students are walking into a game where it is completely their choice as to if they win and how they win; and because of this, students will learn.

Annotated Youtube Playlist

YouTube is a widely used tool in our day and age. For teachers to find a way to turn YouTube from simply a mode of entertainment to an actual educational tool allows for teachers to have an even wider variety of resources at their disposal. However, while there are a lot of different resources on YouTube specifically made for education, there is a vast number of videos not made for educational purposes. What an annotated YouTube playlist does is it allows for you to use videos not specifically created with the purpose of education, and explain them in a video of your own. The great asset to this is that it allows for a much wider variety of resources to be used because you're no longer only able to use videos that are intended for educational purposes. Technology has opened a new ability for teachers to have more resources at their fingertips. This annotated YouTube playlist allows for even more resources to be used. It is simply another way that technology is helping create a bigger world to teachers as they try to allow for their students to learn.


https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSg5ywAlMUqsG3Vm4gpiGjC8jVylLEQgu

Realm of Creativity or Succubus of Dread

I think that the idea that teachers control the atmosphere in a room. This is an important truth that many teachers forget. I also thought it was interesting that having a vision for a classroom is part of being prepared. To be prepared you must know what you desire for your classroom. I also liked the idea that you need to share your vision and future goals with others. The vision that you have for your students should be so exciting to you that you can't help but tell others. We as teachers need to have such passion and excitement for our classrooms that it's impossible to ever have a classroom that is a succubus of dread.

Socrative

I really liked this program. It allows for teachers to see how their students are grasping concepts one question at a time (teacher led) or allow for students to go at their own pace (student led). I really liked being able to create a test with True/False, multiple choice, and short answers in the same test. I really think that this program allows for the most ways and options for a teacher who is wanting to create a test for their students. I also like that you can get your results emailed to you or you can download them. This way you honestly are able to create quizzes that teachers can grade and look over instead of just more "survey like" quizzes.

Rhythm games

I played a game called Rhythm Fireworks 2. This game is very interesting. This game requires that you take in information and act on it quickly. For this game, you have to observe two different aspects of these arrows (color and direction) while reacting on it quickly. This allows for students to gain more observation skills and creates better reflexes. After playing this game I played another game called Up Beat. This game was a game where you had a 7 key piano in front of you and each key was associated with a key on the keyboard. They then had different boxes come towards the keys and you would strike the key once the box was over a colored piece. It eventually had different combinations as well. This once again helps students work on their reflexes as well as observation skills.

Rhythm Fireworks 2: http://www.kongregate.com/games/coolio_niato/rhythm-fireworks-2
Up Beat: http://www.miniclip.com/games/up-beat/en/#t-sd

Spreadsheets

I decided to evaluate the State Economy Chart for 7th grade. The project had students research a state's economy, write these percentages, and then create  a pie chart. The students did it all in Excel, they then presented it to their classroom.

This activity basically is about teaching students to take information and, using  Excel, create a chart that makes this information easy for an audience to comprehend. My discipline area is history. History has a lot of numbers, especially when it comes to things like wars or battles, you could ask for students to find some statistics and create a graph on Excel for it. This still allows for the students to gain the skills in using Excel that the activity is created to gain, it simply uses different numbers and allows for the students to use different graphs if they so desire. The great thing about this activity is that it is usable any time where you have multiple numbers. We simply change the graphs used and numbers, and everything else about the activity still works for almost every grade and/or discipline.

Are you smart or dumb?

After reading chapter 4 of "Guide to Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse OR The First Year of Teaching" I have come to an amazing realization about categorizing people as either smart or dumb. Smart and dumb are definitions placed on students based on if they do or do not learn the way classrooms teach. Each student learns in their own, unique way. To base our opinion of a student and their learning ability on if they're able to learn in a specific way is to disregard all of the "Albert Einsteins" in a class. We need to be able to adapt our teaching style and classroom to each student. We also need to ensure that we create an environment that excites students, allows them to learn, but also allows students to figure out how they best learn and use their unique learning style to their advantage. In this way, each student is able to be "smart" because they are creating a learning experience catered to who they are as a unique individual with a unique set of talents and abilities. Goodbye smart or dumb, hello smart AND unique.