Sunday, June 12, 2016

iClassroom

I have never been one of those people obsessed with the newest Apple product.  I didn't own an iPhone until last year and even after I got it I didn't use all of the features that make it so useful.  Then I decided to be a teacher and the program I signed up for required me to get an iPad.  


Soon after my program started I realized my Dell computer wasn't going to last through the school year and I was in need of an upgrade.  I weighed my options and decided on a Macbook Air.


I was acquiring quite a collection of Apple products and recently received an iWatch as a graduation gift for completing my teacher preparation program.










Now, I am lucky enough to start thinking about my own classroom for next year and I think I would like to use all of this newly acquired technology as an integral part of my classroom.  I am excited to use my watch as a timer without having to take out my phone.  I am excited to have the freedom of using different apps on my iPad while circulating the classroom and I can sync the iPad to my Macbook and use airplay to display my screen for the entire class to view.

I am currently considering purchasing an Apple TV for my classroom to complete the collection of Apple tools.  I am finishing up my training year in a classroom that has 1-1 iPads and an Apple TV would be great to display student screens to help facilitate a discussion.  This would make it easy to switch between videos and powerpoint slides.  The more I use these newly acquired Apple products the more I can see the uses for them in my own classroom.  I can't wait to learn how else I can use these great products to educate my students.

Second Life

Personally, I don't get it.  I tried exploring Second Life with an open mind and I'm not sure if it's the fact that I'm a little older or that I am just a person who prefers real life interactions but I found Second Life to be tedious.  I feel like it requires a lot of work to set up your life inside Second Life.  Selecting my avatar was simple, but once that was complete I couldn't really navigate the program.  I tried to look at different locations and I found the location search engine to be difficult.



Now that I have shared my personal thoughts of the program I would like to share my thoughts on why one would like to participate in Second Life.  I know that it can be difficult for some people to try out different personalities in real life and they feel much more comfortable sharing their thoughts and viewpoints through a virtual outlet.  Second Life creates a space for people to be who ever they want to be.  This could be a personality that they would never want to be in real life or it could be a personality that they would like to try out virtually before trying it in real life.  I can see the practicality of both, especially for young adolescents who are learning more about themselves everyday and are changing moment to moment.  

I have to admit that the graphics in Second Life were pretty cool.  I thought the different destinations that I could find on there were beautiful.
I thought it was cool that you could visit different places virtually, but when I had trouble navigating the program I thought I would research information about Second Life on the internet.  When I searched Second Life images on Google I saw some graphic pictures that were very inappropriate for young students.  It seemed like many people use Second Life to experiment with their sexual curiosities and I would hope that there is a filter for what users are exposed to.  As an adult I would be uncomfortable with some of the images I found on my google search.

Overall, I don't think that I would ever use Second Life, but I like to know that it exists and think it could be useful for some individuals.

Thursday, May 12, 2016

Classroom Management Plan

Personal Style and Philosophy


In my middle level math classroom I plan on creating a safe and supportive culture that supports the social development theory of Lev Vygotsky.  I truly believe that every student can achieve greatness when given the necesary tools to succeed.  While I am confident that I have many tools and strategies to provide for my students, I recognize the importance for them to learn from each other whenever possible.  It is essential for my students to have social interactions within their learning environment, especially at the young adolescent stage in their lives.  They are at a stage where they are learning that they have choices and preferences and they are constantly exploring their limits.  My rules and consequences will be clear and while I will have the final say in what my classroom rule are,  I will ask the students their input of what they think is important for them to have a safe and supportive culture to maximaize their growth.

Classroom Organization

The following is a visual representation of my ideal classroom:
In my ideal classroom, there are no individual student desks.  The four corners of the room are set up with kidney tables that are ideal for small group instruction and would maximize student-student interactions for learning.  Each center would be equipped with a white board to encourage collaboration and organize student ideas and understandings.  The teacher's desk is present mostly for logistics to have a place to keep my personal belongings and as a place to turn in work for grading and retrieve graded work.  The center of the room could be used for group meetings and also as a space for independent reading after classwork is completed.  I would love to start class each morning on the rug with a math talk where students can warm up their math muscles with a puzzle that they must talk through as a group.  There will be a word wall where all the academic vocabulary they have learned throughout the year is posted so when they are completing an Everybody Writes or participating in group discussions they have access to and are using the appropriate vocabulary.  There will be positive and motivational quotes posted throughout the wall space around the classroom to promote positive attitudes and interactions among students.  The area labeled as the "Writing Center" would also be used as a Manipulatives center that students can utilize for more hands on problem solving when necessary.  It is not labeled, but in front of the classroom library, there will be a smartboard where I could present power point slides and any other technology to enhance a lesson.  I would like the majority of my classroom to be student led small group instruction where my main role would be a facilitator of learning.  I would have a center that is dedicated to computers  where the students could have differentiated learning opportunities with Khan Academy or ST Math.  One of the centers would be dedicated to reteaching a previously taught lesson for students who did not master the objective on the day it was taught.  There would be a fluency center where students can practice skills previously learned.  There would also be a problem based learning center where students would have to use their problem solving skills to persevere through their assignment.

Classroom Routines, Procedures, and Transitions

I would give many of my students different roles to facilitate the procedures in our classroom.  I would have a student in charge of taking attendance daily (and an alternate in case that student is absent).  I would have a student assigned as the supplier where I would give a list of supplies necessary for the day's lesson and they will make sure the supplies are prepared before the lesson and properly stored after class.  I would have a technology director who is in charge of computer distribution and proper storage including ensuring every computer is plugged in to charge at the end of each day.  I would have a student in charge of checking in daily homework.  There would be a line leader to help facilitate classroom transitions.  There would be a great deal of focus at the beginning of the school year devoted to reviewing classroom procedures and rehearsing how these procedures and transitions are properly executed.
For example:  Transition out of Class:  I would queue the line leader and they would stand in the front of the class and hold up the number 1, this is the queue to get to a voice level 0.
Once the room is silent (at voice level 0) the line leader will hold up a number 2, this queues the students to stand up and push in their chairs.  Once every student is standing at a level 0 behind their chairs, the line leader will hold up 3 fingers, this queues the students to line up at the door in a girl line and boy line, at a level 0, with their hands to themselves.  If the class is unable to complete this transition according to those expectations, they will be asked to return to their seats and do it again until they can do it successfully, as instructed.  Since the classroom is focused on and set up for small group instruction and different learning centers, I will have a timer for each center and I will play music for 1 minute, indicating to students that it is time to finish up at their current station and transition to the next center.

Creating a Community of Learners and Motivating Students to Learn

I want the theme of my classroom to like an actual workshop with tools, toolboxes, and different items you would find in a handy man's garage.  This will set up the tone that the learning that occurs in this space is a work in progress that might need to be fixed, refined, or just cleaned up a bit.  I plan to wear a tool belt while teaching that holds a timer, a calculator, pencils and different items I may need for the day's lesson.  I want to convey the message that math skills are simply a series of tools that I will supply to them and they will need to practice using them.  I am hoping this creates a community where the students can learn from each other as well as from myself.  I do not want my students to be afraid of math and am hoping that this them could add in some engagement and motivation.  Also, since it will look like a workshop, this may be a good way to introduce some hands on, real world problems and we could have projects where the students can practice accurately measuring materials and build some models using the math skills we are learning in class.  As mentioned in the Classroom Organization section, the physical set up of the class is set up to promote a community of learners where the students will have opportunities to learn from each other.  I will constantly remind my students verbally as well as through posters in the room that it is essential that they always give their full effort.  Trying and inquiring are more important that providing a correct answer.

Resources and References


Guillaume, Andrea.  K-12 Classroom Teaching: A Primer for New Professionals (4th Edition)

Jensen, Eric; Snider, Carole.  Turnaround Tools for the Teenage Brain: Helping Underperforming Students Become Lifelong Learners

Powell, Sara.  (Pearson) Introduction to Middle Level Education Third Edition



Sunday, May 1, 2016

A Professional Learning Network on Twitter



If you asked me 9 months ago about anything having to do with Twitter, I would not have much to say.  I have to be honest when I say, not much has changed.  I know that a # with a string of letters after it will result in something "trending" if there are many people that add the same letters after that #.  I also know that if you want to "tweet" something to someone directly you could use the @ symbol followed by their twitter handle.  Beyond that, I have some more exploring to do to see how useful Twitter can be.

It took me a long time to figure out how to make a list on my Twitter Page, but once I did, it was easy to add people and groups to that group.  I am interested to see how I can use that list to help me learn about the education world.  I created my list by searching for #education and I believe the top tweets with that hashtag came up and I followed them.  Once I did that there were additional groups that were suggested to me to follow, and I sorted through those and followed the groups and people that seemed relevant to learning about education.  After that, I searched #edchats and found another group of pages I could follow.  Now, I can see that when I click on the list I created I could see all the tweets from those groups.  This should be helpful when I want to go into my Twitter feed and sort out what is currently happening in education.

I look forward to visiting this list periodically to see what is trending in the world of education.  I think I may get a better idea of what the Twitter world is all about.  I know one of the great things about Twitter is that it is current.  I know people like to follow breaking news on Twitter and you can see what people are talking about around the world by following what is trending.  I think it is cool that you can sort out topics and see what is trending in the world of education.  Instead of searching for specific hashtags, I can now look at my list and see what those in my Professional Learning Network are talking about regarding educational trends and innovations.

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Wolfram-Alpha:Computational Knowledge Engine

I recently took a Middle Level Math Methods class and the instructor shared this website with us.  I had heard of it before but never spent much time with it.  When I tutored higher level math, some of my students would use this website to check their answers.  They were able to type in a complicated calculus problem and Wolfram-Alpha could evaluate the integral for you.  I thought that was so cool!  I hadn't realized all the other great information Wolfram-Alpha could provide. Below is a list of categories Wolfram-Alpha has organized their info into:

You can click on any of the above categories to see some of the information you can search for within this site.  It is pretty cool to see the computational information that is attached to all of these different categories.  I could see this website being great for an inquiry based learning unit.  I may try to incorporate this website into a unit on statistics and probability in my 8th grade classroom.  You can type just about anything into the search bar and Wolfram-Alpha will return some number that are attached to what you typed in.  For example, if I wanted my students to learn more about their community, I could type in "Austin neighborhood, Chicago" and Wolfram-Alpha will tell me the size of the neighborhood in square miles and population.  It will tell you the time and temperature in Austin and it has a link to the wikipedia page about the Austin neighborhood.
I think students would have a lot of fun navigating through this site and collecting data on different subjects that interest them. 

Saturday, March 19, 2016

SmartBoards vs Dry Erase Boards

At the beginning of the school year I was so excited to be placed in a classroom with an interactive SmartBoard.  I thought the possibilities were endless in how I could enhance student engagement and instruction with this wonderful tool.  We could display our power point presentations on the SmartBoard and there would be no bulky projector blocking the views of any of my students.  During our Geometry unit on transformations of figures I was able to construct images and use the interactive features to model how a figure could be translated, rotated, or reflected.  I was able to "grab" the figures on the screen and move them and the students could see how the images moved along with them.  Then students were able to get up out of their seats and move the figures as they explained what was happening with the figures and their images.  The students were often eager and excited to use the SmartBoard when it was part of a lesson.

Unfortunately, I have discovered that I am more comfortable with modeling problems with the regular dry erase board.  I have had some issues with the technology not functioning properly during class and a video I planned to show won't load or my cords are not connecting properly to communicate the information from my computer to the SmartBoard.  The dry erase board is reliable, all I need is a marker that is not dried out and an eraser.  Even without an eraser I can make it work.  I have partially abandoned the glorious technology of the SmartBoard and tend to use the dry erase board more frequently.

Ultimately, I am glad that I have access to both tools and my classroom is set up in a way that I can seamlessly use both of the boards during the same lesson.  I do need to commit to learning more about the capabilities of the SmartBoard so I can work smarter and not harder when delivering content to the students.  I would love to hear others' thoughts on which tool is better, does anyone else have a preference or would you use both as well?


I have found the following resources to help me learn more about what my SmartBoard can do for me:
http://baileybunch6.blogspot.com/p/lets-get-smart.html 

http://teacherslovesmartboards.com/smart_board_tips_and_tricks/

https://www.pinterest.com/Sisterteachers/smart-board/

Sunday, March 6, 2016

Angry Birds and Parabolas

This past week I was charged with the task of finding a challenge for our students who have exhibited mastery of their grade level content and help fill some gaps they may have when transitioning into high school.  I sat down with my 8 students and asked them what topics they had heard of and were curious about.  They all said parabolas right away then listed topics in geometry like sin, cos, tan and soh cah toa. They mentioned box and whisker plots, scatter plots, and regression.

I thought about all of the topics they mentioned and what would be most important for them to know going into high school.  Geometry is covered during most student's sophomore years and freshman year focuses mainly on Algebra.  We would be covering statistics during our last quarter of the year so I knew I could introduce them to the different plots and regressions they asked about.

We all decided to investigate parabolas.

I wanted to set them up with a project that would be fun for them to investigate and asked them if they've ever heard of the game Angry Birds.  That got their attention.

I found a website that helps you understand how a quadratic equation graphs a parabola onto the coordinate grid using that trajectory of the Angry Birds

Angry Birds Training


It started off with Jedi training to model how the parabola can be stretched.


Then it shows how to identify the vertex from the equation.




After the students get some practice with manipulating the parabolas they are challenged with coming up with an equation to map the Angry Birds onto the correct trajectory.

I'm looking forward to investigating these advanced concepts with my Elite 8th Graders to help set them up for success in high school.

The students will use these websites to help practice these concepts and keep a journal of their experience throughout the investigation.