The Stem video was great, and like Nisrin, it was nice to see technology in action with instructors who are well versed in it’s use.  I would be lying if I said I was anywhere near proficient with the technology we have been presented with and it is a flaw I must improve.

STEM in the Classroom

I really enjoyed this video. It was very interesting to see all the STEM being incorporated in schools, and the stuff the students are capable of doing is amazing. There was one scene in which a student coded with the sphero and was able to maneuver it through an obstacle course. When we tried in class, we could barely figure out how to get the sphero to light up and move in one direction, let alone complete an obstacle course. Great incorporation of technology in the classroom!

Mrs. Jones finds the strength of all the students in her classroom. She is very passionate and creative which gives her the joy for what she does. She does training's for other teachers and listens to them and encourages to try new techniques in the classroom. She has built strong relationships with her students as well as with other teachers which makes her a positive role model and a great leader. She encourages other teachers to speak of for what they need in order to improve education for their students and to invest into having technology in the classroom. She has had students who did not know how to read or speak English and she has made a difference in these students lives. She is flexible in the way she allows her students to learn by moving around in the classroom. She shows her students by working together and collaborating with each other. you it will help you become a great engineer, scientist, and artist. These are very helpful skills that every teacher should try.

I  can see why Teacher Abby   Mowry was selected as the teacher of the year. This teacher has built a strong relationship with her students, colleagues, and the community. She has motivated her students to problem-solve real problems that can help their community. She has taught her students to work as a  team and use hands-on-activities. She has taught her students how to create a measuring tool for the pools by using 3D printing and other technology in the classroom. The most amazing part for me to hear is that she is teaching them how to advertise their creations. She has connected the community or what i would consider investors to see the students creations, this is amazing. She has given these students life skills that will enhance their possibilities to get a job in engineering or in technology. Teacher Abby deserves this award for all her effort, enthusiasm and dedication to her students, colleagues, and community. This shows me that being a passionate and dedicated teacher goes along away and makes a positive impact on students learning.

I really enjoyed seeing the video on blended learning. I was amazed on how they were able to see everyone on the screen and interact face to face in a large group setting and then moved on to do smaller groups. The information shared in the video are very important for my future teaching skills. I can see were the teacher becomes the coach to teach the students how to navigate the system. I also see it's beneficial with the students who are absent because they can go over the lesson due to everything being saved online. On the second video  future learning i agree that is more beneficial for students starting from kindergarten to start doing real life problems that will help them for ever. I was amazed to hear how young students created their own  app such as the domestic app and the no bullying app.  I agree that students should be empowered to be using their imagination and creativity to be successful and confident that they can change the world.

I really enjoyed the blended learning video that focused on how it is the best of both worlds when teachers take the time obtain technology and "learn as you go".  We are all going to have to find the best methods for each individual teacher to bring technology and blended learning into their classroom.  Blended learning is now just in its' infancy and is only going to occupy more of the classroom in the coming years.  Both the teacher and the student have to buy in to the inevitable.

Blended Learning

Blended learning has taken off in the recent years because of the rise in the technology that is available, technology that can be used to enhance learning in the classroom. Schools can help support the move towards blended learning by exposing teachers to the technology that is available and helping them learn how to best implement the technology. After teachers have had practice using the new technology, they should slowly start implementing this technology to ease students into it. Teachers can improve their teaching based on experiences and implement more technology as they become more knowledgeable and students become more comfortable with it. I agree with Kelly Walsh that blended learning should not be a means to move towards fully online learning. Positive peer interaction and collaboration is an important skill that students need to learn, and they learn this when they have the opportunity to be in a face-to-face classroom.

7 Perks of Technology Done Right

The Apple and ConnectED initiative to bring technology and support to undeserved schools was an effective and very beneficial venture. The initiative's goal was to promote a more personalized and student-centered educational experience. It provided iPads for all students and an iPad and MacBook for every teacher. A study following this initiative found 7 benefits, including boosted engagement and confidence in using technology. Teachers should see this as encouragement to implement technology in their own classrooms. Although these schools received the items for free, teachers can also find ways to get funded to supply their own tech in their classrooms, just as we discussed in class with Ms. Martinez.

Brent I agree with you and knowing your families will help avoid landmines like that.
their are also a lot of other creative ways to use seating and/or standing in your classes.
Some really good examples that I have seen besides the video is yoga balls and wiggle while you work. these are perfectly safe for children. It will take you a few years to work on your class and you will reach an equilibrium of seating in your class. I once walked into a first grade class that had no seats in it just stations and students would sit on the rug during whole group instruction and then move to a center of their choice. For my self I have found that a hybrid of seating at desks and sitting on the rug gave students the best of both worlds.

     After reading "Flexible Seating Elevates Student Engagement", I see some benefits as well as a number of concerns.  First is the benefit of allowing access to different options for students to be comfortable in the classroom.  The blog states that children's grades go up, chances for collaboration and communication is also increase and helps with critical thinking.  I feel that making seating options from crates in your backyard is dangerous as it can very well end up with the teacher being sued or facing disciplinary action in today's litigious scholastic environment if the seat/bench that is created fails and hurts a student.  We should make sure that we know the answers to the following questions prior to any purchases.  What do we do with the desks/tables and chairs that are being replaced?  Is there enough storage space available at the school to hold the discarded tables/desk and chairs?  Are my principal and school district on board with changing the classroom seating styles?
     With any new idea, we should also look to the law of unintended consequences to make sure that actions (such as making your own classroom chairs or bench) are not going to hurt more than they help.  I want to give my students the best environment I can and will use my funds or donation sites like DonorChoose first before going to parents who are supporting their families.  I would like to see the school district become more involved with updating the classroom by petitioning the district and the union to look into tax free shelter's for monies teachers plan on investing into the classroom.     

At Albemarle school district, they have seen the students’ progress in education by allowing students to make choices on how they learn.  The teachers encourage collaboration and flexibility within the students and the classroom management.  I believe this strategy would help all students including children with learning disabilities, ADHD, and high achievers. I can see myself using these strategies in classroom management. What facilitates the students learning is that the classroom is made accessible for the students to learn in a comfortable way. Some students like to be laying in the floor while reading, others like to be standing while doing manipulative's, etc. For the students to feel more comfortable the furniture must be comfortable as well as movable. The student’s space should be adaptable, with plenty of space for the students to spread out.  Teachers should be more flexible on how students learn along as they are being safe. 

Monarch Butterfly

 This activity is a great one to get the entire school involved in. if your school either private or public will buy into a project based activity that the can follow the students throughout their elementary grades the students can use skills that they learned from preschool to fifth grade and apply these same skills to other aspects of their education. Student would have the opportunity to use the skills and knowlege they developed across different subjects areas.

This works because the children can do-hands-on experiences to do the research, information exchange from all over the world and collaboration between the students.  The teacher helps facilitate this to the students by providing the material and technology.  I liked that they had the opportunity to have the milkweed plants were the monarch butterfly leave their eggs. At my preschool, we would bring a plant inside the classroom where the students were able to see the caterpillar grow. We created a calendar to keep track of the caterpillar growth. We then saw the caterpillar start make its chrysalis, and finally, we were able to watch the monarch hatch from the chrysalis. Once the monarch was ready we took it out to the garden where we had more milkweed plants and let it fly.  It was a wonderful experience that the children were exposed too.  This activity can be done with any elementary age group.  After watching the video, I can see how I can expand this activity with other grades. I really enjoyed seeing the butterfly cards they received from Mexico.  I have recently seen a 9 minute video that is on YouTube: Visit El Rosario Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary in Mexico https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDqZdgtN28I  , I would use something like this to tie it into the curriculum.

I really enjoyed watching the video of the Hula to high Tech. I was amazed how well the children engaged with each other no matter what grade they were. I agree with the teacher that all the students should have the same opportunity to have access to technology not just the smart students. Its great how the students area learning life skills and techniques that can help them be success in different types of jobs. Most important how they are helping their community by doing the research of the river near their school.

ASCD: Brain-based Teaching in the digital age

When I was reading the article ASCD: Brain-based Teaching in the digital age I had to stop and copy the stages of brain development. I printed it out to put in my folder to keep as a reminder when I become a teacher.
As a pre-school teacher I was constantly being pressured by my parents and administrators to not just include technology but to push my students academically to work harder. Now that I the stages of brain development I can better plan my classes and curriculum using best practices in the digital age while maintaining or being cognizant or mindful that these are children wit brains that are still developing. I plan on having a challenging curriculum with a childs development just as important as their academic achievements. 

I read the ASCD: Brain-based Teaching in the digital age.  The reading was full of useful information.  I was most interested in the learning development stages for children.  I had mixed feelings about the removing stress from students section.  While I understand that children need to feel safe in the classroom I also believe that we should be exposing students to stress so that they are prepared to face adulthood and life.  Stress is constant for most adults and if they have not been exposed to stress when young then it is even more overwhelming due to their lack of experience.  Teaching is all about preparing students for their adult life and stress management in my opinion is one of the most important things to teach because employers don't care about your stress level, the work still needs to be done. 

Technology can play a major role in brain development of students if it is implemented in an effective way. As teachers, we must incorporate technology in meaningful ways that will tap into students interest, background knowledge, and past experiences. Technology also has to give students the freedom to figure out how to best solve a problem and if that method does not work, use problem solving techniques to arrive at a solution. When students are deeply engaged in a project or lesson, they are more likely to learn and remember the content. and technology plays an important role in this because it is hands on!

Hula to High Tech:

Hula to High Tech:

I enjoyed watching the video and was rather impressed with the magician teacher. He stated in the video that the students were having a crisis and panicking of the video not being qued up at the right point. The teacher pointed out the part of the learning process is to problem solve and so he let the students learn their way through the panic to solve the problem they were having. The other thing the teacher talked about was having all the students handle the the equipment and emphasized that if only the "smart"get to do the work they are the only ones learning and the other students would have a chance to learn the same stuff. 

I understand that it would be difficult to have all schools provide robotics as part of the school curriculum due to funding, but I believe if the teachers and schools want to do robotics they can accomplish it. They can get parents support, asking companies for donations, and fundraising. I believe schools should invest in robotics because you are teaching children how to problem solve, Investigate, design, and experiment which are categories for engineering, math, art, and science. Teachers will be helping student be prepared with life skills for the real world to obtaining a great job. The students who had the opportunities to be part of these robotics programs had a greater graduation rate. Students were motivated to created something they like which kept them motivated to complete high school and want to continue to college.  Therefore, I believe students should be giving the opportunities in school to experience robotics.

Hula to High Tech: Hawaiian Students Re-create History.

I enjoyed watching Hula to High Tech:  Hawaiian Students Re-create History.  I really was impressed with the reaction of the teacher when the students were having a full on panic trying to fix an error prior to airing their morning school show.  He sat back and did nothing which forced the students to figure out the problem themselves.  He allowed the students to work as a group without assistance in a high stress environment giving the students experience working under stress.  I also thought that the use of technology in these classes are very well done.  From the children looking at technology for the first time to the children's ancestry assignment.

After watching the video about Wake Forest Elementary School. I was amazed how all the teachers embraced technology and found ways to incorporate it into the curriculum. I have some experience with trying to incorporate iPads into my Pre-k classroom. I didn't have a problem with parents or the students but my fellow teachers acted like I was breaking some unwritten rule. I herd the kids were to young, they don't kneed iPads, and my all time favorite the kids get enough screen time at home. Im glade to see technology advancing students access to information and resources.

I liked this video.  I found it impressive that the class was with so much technology and support available for the student.  However, I have yet to be in a classroom with that level of technology and support (pretty sure about 99.99% of most school will not have access to NASA scientists and to the volume of teaching support in the classroom).  I would love to see that in every classroom as it is an amazing way to teach students and have them be active participants in the learning process.

After watching the video about Forest Lake Elementary School, I was amazed at the technology was incorporated into all classrooms on a daily basis. Most teachers that I've seen, incorporate technology for short periods of time per day or even per week, but this school incorporated technology in such meaningful ways and in all aspects of learning. One of the reasons the success rate is so high in Forest Lake Elementary is that the teachers all come together to discuss how to improve the learning for each student. It was evident that the teachers truly cared about their students and were dedicated to using technology to provide each student with the individual support they need. This differentiation of instruction is also another reason why the students are successful in school. They aren't limited to doing work or projects in only one way but instead are allowed the freedom to choose how to learn and demonstrate their knowledge. This video depicted how important technology is as a tool for education!

I would overcome my by learning and getting comfortable using it first. Getting familiar with the programs, apps, and then creating and implementing a task or activities myself. This way I can see what worked and see were my students would have trouble. By doing all of these steps I can then modify it so the children won’t struggle.  Then when I introduce the new technology I will walk them step-by-step. Have them do simple task to make sure they understood the procedure.

I really liked this video and saw the value of collaborative work thru multimedia projects.  The project in the video was absolutely amazing.  Giving the students the chance to work with real scientists is such an opportunity to feel that their work is important and interesting.  It also creates a chance for one or more of these students to be influenced to go into the sciences as a profession because of it.  The peer socialization of the group work is a key aspect of the project.  The students are learning socialization skills which unfortunately are not being met with the more isolationist parenting of today when children are not allowed to be outside by themselves socializing with their peers and learning the valuable socialization skills (problem solving, conflict resolution).  This makes group work at school all the more needed and valuable as it may be the only part of the day the kids are having face to face conversations with peers outside of a phone or tablet screen.  I'm not yet convinced about allowing student's to grade themselves, but I have no experience, so I hold out judgement on that idea as the teacher in the video did a lot of things that I wholeheartedly agree with and as skilled of a teacher as Mr. Dieckmann knows a lot more than I.

I may be repeating myself and if so I'm sorry. The Video demonstrates how best to use project based learning combining it with technology and experts in the field. The teacher acted more like a facilitator of the learning process than the "teacher" of the learning. The students were the teachers and specifically the drivers of the learning that was happening. Student came up with their own grading system or rubric but, at the end of the video the teacher was looking for specific learning process of the students. The teacher summed it pretty good when he talked about the students having to synthesize the information that they took in to come up with answers to Dr. Williams and formulate their responses to the conversations they were having with her. When the students demonstrated this ability then you know actual learning was happening. The fact that the students didn't have an actual wasp and substituted a bee was another example of process not product and in the real world you rarely have perfect situation and you have to be able to modify adapt or come up with a solution to get the job done.

The benefits that I noticed with the project based learning done at Clear View Charter Elementary were amazing. I noticed that the children were interested in bugs and did all the research with the guidance of the teacher and using technology. I noticed that this project-based learning was all inclusive to all children no matter if they were bilingual, typical or a typical,  and gifted.  I saw that the children were motivated, engaged, and answered questions by exploring. They are able to enhancing their vocabulary and social skills and collaborated with each other.  I can see all the benefits it provides to the children.  The only challenge I can see is how do you access the child’s learning to make sure he/she is meeting the common core standards?.

Project-Based Learning at Clear View Charter Elementary

It was interesting to watch the YouTube video about the 4th and 5th grade classes at Clear View Charter Elementary who worked over a video connection with scientists from local universities to study insects. This was a very hands-on technique and allowed students to go in depth and learn for themselves the parts of an insect. By doing this, the teacher, Jim Dieckmann, allowed his students to have a hands-on experience to find out what the scientific process is all about. By working hands-on, the students took an active role in their learning which will help them better retain the information. This project was also very collaborative, allowing students to work with each other, their teacher, as well as the scientists. By creating the multimedia report, the students were able to express their ideas and demonstrate what they’ve learned in a fun and interactive way. Mr. Dieckmann also used a very interesting technique of evaluating student achievement: he asked them to help him create their own standards for assessing the quality of their projects. By doing so, students not only self-evaluate, but they also get feedback from their peers and teachers. In doing so, they internalize the desire to improve their work to reach the standards they have placed for themselves. 

After viewing the video clips on Ms. Yollis site, i can understand how she gets her student to be motivated to learn in the classroom. She is teaching the student to be safe online, how to use proper grammar and spelling, learning and researching information about other cultures as well as providing step-by-step instruction visually and auditory. Her students get fast response when inquiring about another culture that is across the country.  Her students seem very happy to be creating their own blogs and motivated to continue blogging. I believe the way she is running her class she has including methods that all children can learn even if they are ELD, Children with IE P's, and Gifted. I can see my self using this in my classroom because i see the benefits it provides the students.

I thought that Mrs. Yollis' video "How to Write a Quality Comment" was a nice little video using the students in the classroom explaining the qualities of a good comment, which are as follows: 

1. Compliment the writer in a positive and specific way.  
2. Add new information to the conversation if the information has not already been discussed in the blog or its comments.
3. Make a connection -  Blog about your own experiences to make a connection to the writer.
4. End the comment with relevant questions which will help get the conversation going and spark more conversations.
5. Proofread your comment to make sure you have proper grammar.  Do not use more than one exclamation point.

The qualities of a good comment as told by theses students are all sensible.

After watching Mrs. Yollis' "Blogging in the Classroom", it made perfect sense to incorporate blogging into students' education.  Blogging is a relatively new communication platform which has become an intricate part of a student's life today.  Mrs. Yollis is very impressive in that she sees this change in communication in today's students and incorporates this technology in teaching her students, while allowing the children to also become fluent in the new technology. 

Ms. Yollis blogged her students which I though was great. I think the most important part of watching the videos was that Ms. Yollis goes on to explain in other Bloggs that she stresses to the parents before her class and at back to school night the importance of online safety and how she incorporates blogging into the classroom as another aspect of learning replacing traditional paper and pencil writing assignments. The children are learning so much more than just blogging and using the internet. the blogging is being graded traditionally and by their peers. The other part she explains is that it's not just a one week assignment that they may or may not fully understand. It's integrated into her class with student participating in all aspects of the blogging. Ms. Yollis showed the students on the rug holding up one or two fingers to score the response or comments by other students and explaining why that comment deserves the score they gave.

Ms. Yollis & the Importance of Blogging

Ms. Yollis stressed the importance of finding new and meaningful ways to engage and motivate her young students. Being in the profession for over 25 years, it was very important to her to stay up to date and continuously find new and innovating ways to reach her students. As a teacher, though your teaching style may remain the same, your students change with every year that passes (especially as new technology is being innovated), and it’s important to know how to reach your target audience and integrate curriculum in creative ways. Her classroom blog not only helped develop quality literacy skills in her students, but it also included parents which strengthened the home-school connection. With technology being a vital part of today’s world, she made a very good point that it takes longer than a one-week unit lesson to teach students how to be active, contributing members of an online community while practicing Internet safety and building a positive digital footprint. Her classroom blog allows her to continuously teach these skills while providing a safe, fun, and engaging platform for students to use.

Hey team, I hope you are all enjoying your weekend!

    Before this class, I knew little about blogging, had never done it, and hadn’t heard about blogging being incorporated as an educational tool. After seeing Ms. Yollis classroom blog, I recognize the multitude of benefits and enjoyment it brings to the classroom. One thing that stood out to me was how Ms. Yollis consistently blogged about the learning being done in the classroom through pictures of activities the students did, classroom visitors, short passages, and links. This can help students review class content and makes it possible for parents to become involved in their child’s education. I also loved how each student have their own personalized blog. The students are expected to compose well written blog posts to share with the class and other users worldwide, so not only are they practicing ELA skills, but are connecting to a larger audience in meaningful ways. I truly admire the way Ms. Yollis used blogging and would love to incorporate blogging in my future classroom. 

One thing I wonder is how or if it’s possible for blogging to be incorporated in the younger grades, such as Kinder or 1^st?