aneven teacher

As a first-time user of the Google classroom, I am already enjoying some of its features. First it was very easy to set up. Even adding other classrooms to follow and students is a breeze. I even liked how Alice Keeler suggested creating an announcement for the students to introduce themselves before she added them. This was so that as soon as they went into the Google classroom, they would be able to interact with it. Additionally, you can add assignments and tests/quizzes too. The best part is that you can set it up so that Google will automatically grade the tests/quizzes and assignments to give the teacher back time to be with students. Also, it is easy to have the Google classroom changed because every time the classroom is created it has a folder that connects right to Google drive to make access of saved files easy to get to, through the folder short cut on every page of the classroom. Finally, you can also privately message students, return their work, and question right on t...

There is a Twitter and a tweet. I have very recently come back to Twitter for this education technology course and I certainly have mixed reviews. First, I really disliked having to be forced to have and consistently connect to public social media. However, I do have to admit that there are many ways to make Twitter a more personal and less invasive tool to connect with other teachers. As I continue to scroll through my Twitter homepage, I am consistently seeing positive ways to improve my school’s culture and atmosphere. There are also great tools being shared for individual classrooms too. Eric Curtis, a fellow Twitterer on my PLN, even shared a great website to get free education games and activities for students.   Moreover, I did follow many of the recommended teachers and education staff provided at first but through scrolling and “trolling” Twitter I have found more educators to follow based on similar philosophies or contents they are uploading to Twitter. I can say t...

A flipped classroom is a great way to change the rules and expectations of a standard classroom. I loved how the flipped classroom allows the students to learn at their own pace. So, with a flipped classroom the students would first learn on their own then apply and work on problems at school. Besides being able to learn at their own pace, students also benefit because they are easily able to contribute to the learning process in class. Even the teacher gets more face time with the flipped classroom because they are not in front of the entire class answering and directly talking to the students who open engage. Instead the teacher gets to come around to the groups who are already helping each other and give additional help to students who need help. Overall, I feel that the greatest benefit of a flipped classroom is that the teacher becomes a learning coach instead of a presenter which gives the students more time with the teacher aiding rather than just relaying information. As ...

Digital storytelling was a great topic to read about. As a future educator I can definitely relate to using story telling to get students to retain information. I aid in functional preschool, so, the best way to convey a meaningful message is to incorporate it into a story. For example, to teach our students colors we use the book Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See ? The students use the visual picture along with the spoken story to memorize the colors of each animal. Further, as a student myself, I often find that I do a much better job remembering a story rather that just being given a lecture to remember. The article, The Art of Digital Storytelling states that, storytelling is an experience that increases both the authors and listeners communication. I think that if more educators used their own personal stories of using the information being provided would better the students comprehension of the information. In theory it would be more comprehensible to put the informati...

I was very interested and even played around with the Google Sheets translations. I think that this is a great tool for ELL especially when the parents are learning English as a second language. I think parents would benefit from information being provided to them on how to use a program like this in their home. I feel that by using a program like this in school and then at home with an ELL student helps them to learn the language but also helps the parents too. This will help parents to learn the language and may even enforce the family to work on their homework together with their student since in many cultures I have learned that parent involvement in school is not always very important. I also think that I could learn from my ELL students and about their culture by using the Google Sheets for them to add in words that they use all the time. If they feel empowered and advanced enough to add words to be translated they may even feel enjoyment in the learning process of the language...

The information that I read about on Twitter, was on topics relating to special education. One teacher posted about reward star boards. The star boards have a first and a then page with two pictures of the students schedule. At the bottom is a place for five stars for the student to earn or have taken away. Many comments were personal about usage of these boards or similar ones the other tweeters have made. Then, people said it was great, keep your mind open, ect. to encourage other educators in teaching their students.