Blog post 19: Using video for teaching and learning

http://ed.ted.com/on/HD6kgNma

In this assignment for the week using videos for teaching and learning, was a great eye opener.  I did not know about this new tech tool!!! It is virtually cutting teachers work by facilitating lessons about many different subjects and contents.  This is so handy to have as a teacher resource because students need to be exposed to many forms of instructional materials so that they can relate to the new information.  Video is a strong influence with students because it engages students attention instead of just reading off the textbook.

The videos have subtitles where students can be reading off or can be in different languages in which case I would use the Spanish subtitles for the ELL students.  Students can answer the questions you assign and have the video next in the screen where they can stop,  listen and watch the video again for the information needed to answer the questions the teacher has assigned for the assignment.  The discussion board is handy too so that students can use their higher order thinking capacities to participate in the classrooms discussion about the video lesson and share among themselves about their perspectives about the video and assignments.

I would use the TED-Ed videos in the following ways:  First, as a teacher I would use this video technology in my 5th grade classroom to introduce what is going to be my final project subject matter of Social Studies.  I would add as many connecting links about the timeline to introduce the students with different eras of history.  The link above is related to the 13 Original Colonies where students will be exposed to different video links about the colonies and there would be small assignments about the videos that I would create to specifically help the students with their own year long project.   Second, students could also look up other videos about the time in history we would be working on so that they can have several  different informational references.  Third, the students could also add video links into their assignments to make their presentations more appealing.  There are many educational channels but this one on TED-Ed is made specifically for teachers with lessons already created or if needed a teacher can just flip the video lesson to accommodate the plans the teacher has in mind.  I particularly like the aspect that a teacher can add their own questions in the THINK section of the lesson plan by adding up to 15 questions for the students to answer.  In the Dig Deeper and the Discuss section of the plans a teacher can include open ended questions where the students would have to answer in a written narrative format about the lesson and gives the teacher the opportunity to really find out if the students really understood the lesson or if we need to adjust our form of re-teaching it.  This TED-Ed video lessons is a wonderful resource for new teachers who have a hard time trying to come up with different forms to engage students in their learning.   I am definitely going to use this in my everyday teaching.

Blog 18 using Google photos

Using Google photos is an awesome technology addition to the classroom.  I had not experienced building a photo album before.  I thought it would be hard but it was not very difficult.  I would like to use this photo feature in the classroom with my 5th grade students so that they can create a video documentary of their 5th grade experience.  We would start taking pictures starting at the first day of school.  Students would start saving and uploading their own pictures and adding text to the album reminding them about the events around the picture.  Students would create a biography about their year long activities and special occasions.  At the end of the year they would be able to share their photo albums with their family and especially their friends.  The students would see how much they have changed and matured at the end of the year.  I myself would keep my own album of everyone and my favorite pictures as a whole class.  At my campus we are very big on dressing up for Dr. Suess birthday, for career days, for NFL jersey day, for Halloween and every other chance we can wear fun attire.  I would also include other campus staff so that students can remember everyone on our campus.  That would be so cool to watch a few years later.  Up until 4 years ago, I had done the yearbook for my campus for the past 15 years and I really miss those experiences.

Another educational activity would be a Science photo album.  Students would find pictures of the subject matter we are working on and build an album for that subject.  The albums would include pictures of such items as landforms so that students could keep real life pictures of what a real canyon, delta, glacier, or valley really looks like.  This would really help connect students to their learning and students would be able to study off their albums.  Students would also be able to create slides with their vocabulary words and add photos or pictures associated with the science words/vocabulary.

I think I would also do a Social Studies project with my students.  They would be able to create a photo timeline of an important characters in History.  Maybe students could select to create a photo timeline of Martin Luther King's life and present to their fellow classmates.  Students would share their photo findings with the whole class so that everyone can see their characters documentary.  This photo technology would be very helpful for  students to learn and help to prepare them for middle school so that they can include photos in powerpoints or create a photo diaries of themselves they can share.  Google photos is a really cool and I am planning to use it to store all my photos and share with my family the albums created.

Blog 17 Google photos link

This is the link to a photo album I created about baby pictures and how fast children grow up.
https://goo.gl/photos/3PwacumEEGzskpBG6

Bertha Gonzalez

Blog Post 16: Self Directed Learning

I found this article to have a dramatic statistic that is  affecting our public schools.  According to the this article 500,000 for our Mexican descent students are leaving our U.S. public schools and returning to Mexico with their families.  The students returning are U.S. citizens who have grown up in the states and do not even speak Spanish.  The families are returning because the families source of income has moved or ended and now they must return to Mexico.  Unfortunate the Mexican schools have no clue about how to handle the influx of U.S. born children who do not even speak Spanish and their government is trying to integrate them back into the mainstream of their culture but now this students are being discriminated because they've returned back from the U. S. and do not know the native language.  Teachers in Mexico are not equipped to communicate with these children and now their goal is to transition the children as quickly as possible to be Spanish fluent.
This scenario is affecting our school community as closely as our own campuses.  At my campus our demographics show that our turn around for students who leave our campus is about 18% of our population.  When the students leave our campus and new students arrive we have to start at square one to bring them up to slowly integrate them into our dual program.  At least in the the U.S. we work with the student's native language but in Mexico the government is having a difficult time with this group of students.

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/11/13/498271392/invisible-children-raised-in-the-u-s-now-struggling-in-mexico

http://gettingsmart.com/2016/11/6-reasons-google-classroom-great-tool/

This article targets 6 Reasons Why Google Classroom is a Great Tool For Teachers
Students are growing up with 21st century technology use and so they must be exposed to to be able to compete with the world's job market.  The article emphasizes that students must be able to work online not only in their learning but also with their homework load.  Students must be able to access materials and resources online and be familiarized with different browsers used.  This online classroom has some teacher benefits which cut down on paperwork since assignments can be turned in and graded online.  Students are working on a live document that saves automatically and the excuse of not finding or loosing work will no longer be a believable one.  Student's use of technology is greatly engaging for students and they become more involved in their own learning.  Teachers can also monitor group projects and see their groups cooperating towards one common goal.  This article is very informative and a good source of reference to start our own Google Classroom assignments.

Blog Post 15: LiveBinders: Bertha Gonzalez

My binder is an array of different tools I have found on Pinterest.
http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=2114448

LiveBinders for teaching is a different take on the perspective about organization and filing important and relevant information.  One of the ways I would use the LiveBinder is to organize some charts I have on Pintrest  but are in no particular order and in different boards.  The binder I created and will help me organize different subjects into the different tabs.  There I will have all the charts, graphs and activities under one tab or expand into more tabs about the same subject but different assignments.  I was also able to create a tab for my ELL students with all their assignments under that tab which I can easily access without having to be fumbling with all the big binders with all the copies I have on my shelves.  I can then bring up on the overhead project where students can all see and work in their Interactive Notebooks.  Assignments for different subjects can be stored in different binders and this would eliminate the need to keep paper copies.

Another way I would use the LiveBinder is organize all the charts and graphic organizers for my 5th graders to have access to and so they will be able to use for their assignments especially in Reading where we can do up to two organizers a day.  The tabs are easily accessible and with a description of what is in the tab students will be able to locate easily.  Students would be able to move from tab to tab where the different graphic organizers are located along with teachers notes about what is expected for the assignment.  Students would also be able to look at a reference section where I would add information about the lesson I had just presented in case the students feel they missed some important information and want to see what I had just covered.  This would also be beneficial to any students who were absent and now needed to do make up work.  All the assignments and notes about the lecture would be in the reference section for students to look up.

I think that the best way I would maximize the use of LiveBinders would be to organize all the data we are given about our class.  We are constantly breaking down data about students, assignments and other demographics that I could create a binder for each category.  One binder would be about student's data to include test scores for each student and grades for each grading period.  I would separate the tabs into each 9 period weeks so that I can keep track of all the students assignments and grades.  This would mean that I could cut down on paper copies and maybe even eliminate filing cabinets with all the paper files.  LiveBinders is a great way to cut down on paper clutter and help us organize so we can have easy access to many of the files that we would otherwise not be able to get a hold of when we are at home.  With LiveBinders we can have access to all the important information  whenever we want to access it because it is through the use of technology.  Our binders could also be shared with others and that would be helpful for teachers to share with their grade levels and can even  be used as a teacher's personal portfolio with all the documentation an administration would want to see as evidence of work performance.

Blog post 14: Final lesson ideas

The lesson I would like to propose as a final for this web class would be for the subject area of Social Studies for the 5th grade.  The concentration of Math, Science and Reading during the schooldays is more overpowering than that of the area of Social Studies and for this reason I would like to do an intensive year long project with 5th graders with the focus on the timeline of lessons of a year long Social Studies units addressed during the class.  I know it is late in this school year to start this project now, so I would use it at the beginning of the next school year. I have noticed that students enjoy Social Studies and are not very familiar with its contents until addressed in class.  But with the time restraints and since Social Studies isn't a testing subject, it is just skimmed to address only minimum content knowledge. 

 

In this year long project I would address all the TEKS to start with the beginning of the year lessons.  I will present the research project at the beginning of the school year and assign teams with 3 students on each team. The project would use the web tools of Blogger where students will write their findings and present as a Prezi presentation at the end of the year.  Blogger will serve as an individual communication tool used only between team members and where I can monitor their progress and entries.  A list of important activities or events that I want to be touched upon will serve as a indication of what students should address.  Students would take notes about the Social Studies lessons addressed during the day and start collaborating with their team members of how they want the information presented on their Prezi presentation early in the school year as assignments are covered in class.  There will be a time limit on the Prezi presentations so that students can address only the most important aspects of the Social Studies timeline they want to present.  

In order to monitor progress and students assessments I would compile a timeline of different entries that will be required to be done by a specific time of the year so that students will be working and collaborating on the project during the whole year and not wait until the end of the year and try to backtrack all the information covered in class.  I would require photos, quotes, maps, and other online  Internet resources that students might need to do on their own.   Students would be able to use campus resources such as guidance from librarian or even computer technology teacher that can guide them about finding information or input about how to import pictures or other graphics.  

I know this project seems intense and will require effort and commitment from the students but at the end I feel the students will have a clear understanding of everything they learned through out the school year and they can keep their Prezi presentation as a valuable resource of what they learned in Social Studies in their 5th grade class.

Blog post 13: Helping a teacher use wikis

The scenario Jane is facing can be a challenging one with 6th graders. One of the problems that I could see Jane encountered was the problem about collaboration.   The problem about collaboration with their group members  can be a result of the maybe the students being too young to fully understand the dynamics of working as a member of team.  Students need to be fully aware that their entries about their research paper affects the whole team.  The responsibility should not just fall on just one team member.  Collaboration is about everyone contributing to the assignment and taking responsibility for their contribution.  Jane should be very clear with the students that she is able to monitor each student's individuals entries and speak to the group and clarifying misconceptions about assignment entries.  Maybe the students who were not collaborating thought they were getting away with mooching off another classmate's commitment.  On the other hand, group/team projects can be a personal challenge to that student who wants to really get a good grade on the research paper and does not want to rely on the other's partners lack of commitment and responsibility and would rather do the entire work of the team to ensure a good grade for him/herself.  In this case Jane should acknowledge the work each member of team has brought to the paper and grade each student according to their input on the project.
Another problem that I could see Jane also encountered was about the team members respecting each others entries and contributions to the assignments.   Jane needs to make the team members aware that the wikis is not about changing each others entries but adding to and enhancing each others contributions to the assignment. Maybe students can meet and discuss changes to the entries of other classmates and with agreement of the student who wrote the entry go back and edit the section that would need revision.  That way emotions do not take the best of everyone involved and no one gets surprised or upset about changes done to their entries.  I know that the whole purpose of the wikis is to work and edit at the comfort of each others home and schedule, but team/group projects do require a commitment to maybe meet face to face once in a while to agree on specifics about the assignment and its content.  Being honest about each others additions or deletions should be done tactfully and with the highest regard to each other feelings.  Here is like where students can find information about the etiquette when editing some one's entries.  http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/26237/editing-others-posts-general-etiquette?noredirect=1&lq=1.
A third problem that I feel was obvious with Jane's assignment was the fact that students were embedding information directly from other websites with no significant informational value. Maybe Jane should of added a list of websites where students could find reliable information about the topic of hydrology.  This way students were aware to concentrate their research on the websites specifically on the subject.   The following website would of been a good source of information for students to start looking up about hydrology.  Maybe a link like this one would set the team on the right path to their research paper: https://ce103.edublogs.org/project-ideas-and-resources/.  Jane needs to make sure that students understand that they have to reference all the sources they are using in the research paper by adding a reference page at the end of the paper to acknowledge all the sources that they found and used information from.  This link might be used by students to show them how to reference a source of information:
 http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2010/11/how-to-cite-something-you-found-on-a-website-in-apa-style.html.  This might be a little too much for a 6th grader to understand the full implications on not giving credit to the information source but can give them an idea of not just to copy and paste items thinking no one would ever find out.
 Jane has a good concept about using technology wikis in the science class, with just a few adjustments to her assignment, I'm sure her students would benefit tremendously from this type of science research.