Flipped Classroom

Over the course of the last two weeks, I had the opportunity to carefully examine the research and information regarding the flipped classroom.  The basic premise is the idea of moving lecture out of the classroom and into the home to allow more time for meaningful engagement in the classroom.  The result of my research is the Voicethread that is attached to this post.  I hope that you will look at this new teaching approach with the same curiosity and intrigue that I did.  The Voicethread can be found here

Consider Using Storify in Your Classroom

I just came across this amazing Web 2.0 tool that will really redefine how stories are told.  The application is called Storify and it has amazinng implications for the classroom.  Imagine walking readers through a recipe or math problem step-by-step with directions and pictures.  Imagine taking a field trip, and telling the story of what happened in a particular place with words and pictures.  In addition, story telling and creation is very much part of the critical thinking involved with the new Common Core standards.  When students create their own stories, they feel a sense of empowerment because they can share what they know with other people and there is truly nothing more powerful than that. My Storify piece on a recent field trip to Jamestown Settlement, VA can be found here.

Module 1: Exceptional School Library Blogs

School librarians need to be on the lookout for a variety of ways to help support the students and communities that they serve. One of the ways that they can do this is through the creation of a blog. Blogs provide students, parents, and other interested individuals with a window into what is taking place in the school library at any given time. For the purpose of this assignment, I decided to visit the MHMS Daring School Library Blog, developed by Gwyneth Jones of Howard County, MD Schools; The Busy Librarian blog, developed by Matthew C. Winner, also of Howard County, MD Schools; and The True Adventures of a High School Librarian, developed by Nikki Robertson of Alabama. Each of these blogs provides valuable insight into school libraries and are also informative to students, teachers, and other librarians alike.

First, the MHMS Daring School Library Blog provides regularly updated information during the school year about events that are taking place in the media center. Some of the posts involve the use of instructional technologies, but other posts are about reading and literature. Many of her entries also include a touch of whimsy that is funny and amusing. One of the entries, Google+ Hangouts: Cool Conversations and BookTalks Without Borders, discusses the use of Skype and other technologies that are being used to communicate and develop a school partnership between Murray Hill Middle School and a school in Louisiana. When I see things like this my first thought is how amazing technologies like Skype really are, and my second thought is that blogs are also amazing tools that can help to facilitate networking and communication about different ideas with people in many different places. Another post on this blog, MHMS In Your Pocket, provides icons to scan that will take you directly to a variety of useful information, an orientation video that is both informative and humorous, and some introductory comments to parents to start off the new school year. There are also other important messages made through the blog presented in unconventional ways, which means you just have to check out the Now a very heartfelt message from Taylor Swift about overdue books blog post! This blog provides students with a great deal of information related to the media center and the things that can be accomplished using the resources of the media center. The nature of the entries and the number of people who follow and respond leads me to believe that this is a blog that achieves its purpose.

The Busy Librarian is maintained by another media specialist in the Howard County Public School System, but at the elementary level. One of the things that Matthew Winner does in this blog, which is somewhat unique, is interview a variety of authors of children’s books; he then posts the interviews to his online blog. What a great way to get kids excited about reading different books! It gives them such a unique insight into the people who wrote them and it is truly priceless! He also offers a lot of his own recommendations for books that students should read, which ensures that his blog is very focused on literature. For an example of one of his author interviews, check out Let’s Get Busy talking with author and illustrator Leeza Hernandez. One of his children’s book recommendation entries is Reading Highlights. YouTube videos, podcasts and other items are sprinkled throughout this blog. I could see students using a blog to highlight their creativity in this way as well. Just think what it would look like if students put their best digital work, written work, and reflections on a blog and a college admission officer saw it! It would be amazing public promotion and a very positive digital footprint. The quality of the entries and the number of responses that some of the entries receive is a sign that this is a very active blog that achieves its goal of promoting children’s literature.

Finally, The True Adventures of a High School Librarian seems to focus in a more general way on the many things taking place day-to-day on the Hoover High School campus in Hoover, AL. It surely serves as a positive digital footprint for the school and the media center on the campus. The entries tend to be more reflective in nature, but there are also some entries that focus on the use of technology to enhance the overall instructional program. The blog is nicely illustrated with pictures and YouTube videos as appropriate. One great example of a reflective entry on the blog, August 26 – 30, 2013 The Library @ HHS, focuses on the first week of school and includes text and a Flickr slide show. In addition, an entry entitled Blogging in Education-Answering ?’s about Who, What, When, Where, Why and How focuses on the many opportunities available for blogging in education. While this is an interesting blog, I think it would be nice if it had a little more media center focus, but at least it stays focused on the school community.

One of the things that I see through these blogs is that, while each one has a different focus, they each provide valuable information about the role that the school media center is playing in the context of the overall instructional program at their respective schools. This really helps the schools, as well as the media specialists themselves, to develop a positive digital footprint in the online community that is seen by billions of people around the world (Richardson, p. 16). Examining these blogs helps me to understand that blogs are an excellent way for students to showcase their creativity, reflectiveness, and vision for a wider audience. We have a true obligation as educators to find ways to allow students to take the lead in terms of establishing a positive digital footprint.

Module 1: Excellent Teacher Blogs

As a teacher, I often find myself looking for new ideas and ways to motivate my students. However, this quest for information did not usually go much further than colleagues in my building or friends of mine that are teachers. However, my Learning Technologies class at McDaniel College has opened my eyes to a new way to find out about new strategies and ideas through the world of blogging. Some of the blogs that I looked at include The Nerdy Teacher by Nicholas Provenzano, Ctrl Alt Teach by Catherine Horton Flippen, and Primary Tech by Katherine Morris.

The Nerdy Teacher posts new entries to his blog on an almost daily basis, and his material includes an eclectic mix of humor, reflections, and ideas for teachers. He is a teacher at the secondary level, which makes his ideas immediately relevant to me. Just reviewing the entries for the last few weeks, I came across a brilliant idea to provide students with an opportunity to work on a project of interest to them throughout the year. The entries 20% Time in My Classroom and Change Your Perspective highlight some of the challenges that must be addressed in order to give students a class period every Friday to work on a project that is of special interest to them and offers strategies that teachers can use to make the experience a success. In addition, his entry entitled Things I Will Not Be Missing in My Paperless Classroom opened my eyes to the potential of the use of Evernote in my own classroom, especially given the level of technology that I have available at my school. Just a few minutes on this blog gave me a lot of things to think about in terms of my own teaching strategies. Plus, all the folks that responded to the posts gave me some additional ideas to think about.

Ctrl Alt Teach is drenched in ideas for teachers that have a craving for technology integration, but it is not updated as regularly as the Nerdy Teacher. Catherine Horton Flippen is a high school teacher in Virginia, and she has a flair for creative uses of technology to support teaching and learning. She attends a variety of conferences so that she can keep her finger on the pulse of the latest technology innovations. One of her blog posts, It Exists: Interactive PowerPoint with Twitter, focuses on ways that you can take PowerPoint presentations from the days of old and make them much more engaging through the use of Twitter, which allows students to interact with the content throughout the presentation. Two other posts, Google Teacher Academy Chicago Application Video and 8 Ways to Introduce Second Life to Educators, highlight a variety of organizations and conference ideas for teachers that are looking for new ways and ideas to integrate technology into their classrooms and to facilitate their own professional development.

Primary Tech is also an amazing blog resource, and so many of the items that Katherine Morris has posted about over the last few weeks are directly related to topics that we have been learning about in this module. While it is not updated regularly (perhaps a post every 3 weeks), it offers a variety of articles about classroom blogging, as well as students and their digital footprints. One entry, 10 Tips for Introducing Blogging Into Your Classroom, provides teachers with useful strategies and ideas for implementing blogging as part of a class. In addition, Blogging and the Literacy Curriculum is an entry where the blogger reflects on her own experiences with bogging in the classroom, but also give readers some “food for thought” as they think about ways to implement blogging in their own classrooms. Last, but certainly not least, is the blog entry Teaching Children About Digital Footprints, which discusses ideas and provides links to resources that teachers can use to teach students about the importance of a positive digital footprint, which is often a difficult concept for many of our younger students to understand.

Interestingly, I only spent about 30 minutes or so looking at these blogs, yet the amount of ideas I took away was amazing. I am certain that I would not have thought about many of these ideas if I looked only within my existing professional networks. The best part about my blogging experience from a professional development angle is the fact that I was able to “combine the best of solitary reflection and social interaction” (“Eide Neurolearning Blog”). Not only was I able to read the thoughts of others about integrating technology into education and other important teaching strategies, but I also had the option to ask clarifying questions or make comments based on the feedback and comments of others that read the blog entry. In addition, I think that blogging should be the focus of PD at the school level. In PGCPS, we use Edmodo, which allows us to interact with each other about a variety of issues, but our community is limited to people in the building. However, if we were to use WordPress or another blogging interface, we can create a learning community where teachers recognize students “as participants in a grand conversation rather than as passive consumers of education. They will expect their contributions to be incorporated, with attribution, into the subject matter” (Windham, p. 18). We owe it to our students to participate in professional development opportunities that elevate our ability to incorporate technology in our classrooms. If blogging fosters and supports divergent thinking and interaction as Fernette and Brock Eide suggest, how can teachers say no to refining their craft and giving students the ability to discuss a wide range of issues? (“Eide Neurolearning Blog”).

Stepping Towards the Final Goal…

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to the blog that I am creating as part of my SLM 508 Learning Technologies class at McDaniel College. I plan to share information about what I learn in class, as well as practical applications of the use to technology to enhance the overall instructional program at all grtade levels. Please follow me and let me know what you think!