Trends and Issues

 Trend: Mobile Phones in the Classroom

• Summarize trend

 We are headed into the 2020's coming up here soon. With the internet becoming accessible to everyone in 1994, and cellular phones becoming more abundant starting in about 2002 our world has been moving at a very fast pace. Smart phones are everywhere and many students have them with them at school. The latest task has been finding a way to use these phones and other mobile devices productively in the classroom. One teacher in particular has some tips that make allowing the students to use their devices easier on everyone. He points out that encouraging the students to have their devices out makes it more obvious if they are using them when they are not supposed to be. There is also a way to limit access for some students who are having difficulty staying on the app they are supposed to be on for those younger. iPads have a function called guided access in which the teacher can turn this on and set a password for it and the student can not go on any other app than the one the teacher locks it on. This is just a few of many ways to try and include but limit the technology access in your classroom.

• Are you interested in this particular topic ?

 This topic is very high on my reading list. It is a good thing to be able to adapt with the times and move forward. Having students learn to guide themselves on their devices in order to stay on track is also good practice for the future. I know from personal experience, always being told no just made me want to do it more. When my professors in college though did not have a problem with me having my phone out I did not feel the need to use it as much.

• How does this trend affect your particular level/major?  Are you excited about it?  Are you skeptical?  Are there groups who would/wouldn't benefit from this?

 This trend effects my major and level only slightly. Typically at the elementary level kids do not have smart phones that their parents let them bring to school yet. There are the school issued devices sometimes like iPads and netbooks but many security measures are taken care of by the district technology administration. I feel like the securities put in place work 90% of the time to keep the students on track and focused on their work. Typically most groups I think will benefit from using more mobile technology in the classroom. My only concern is that with so much mobile technology, the form of long hand and simple writing and reading skills will decrease. There are so many ways students can have things read to them now that reading will not seem as important. There are also speech to text apps that will cause students to not feel the need to write or even type as much anymore. The group that I think would be hurt the most by the constant use would be those in 3rd grade and under. The students need to learn how to do things first before they can proceed to build on those basic skills with the technology.


Issue: Fair Use

• What is this? 

Fair Use is a type of exception to copy rights. Using only a portion of something that is copyrighted can be done for use of teaching, news casting, scholarship, criticism, and  research. There is not a set amount of something that can be limited for fair use.  The point of the exception through fair use is to make the knowledge and form of ideas can be shared and learned from in limited use.

• One statistic regarding this issue:

 Each case is handled separately so the limit of how much of something that has been copyrighted is different every time.

• A teaching resource you could potentially use in the classroom:

This website has a great video for teachers to watch and comes with the form in it so you can recreate the experience with your students. 
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/film-festival-copyright-fair-use

Tech X-tra

I'm sitting here looking at different technology pieces that could help students in the classroom and I just keep finding more and more! I was only supposed to focus on students with learning disabilities but I found so many amazing tools to help out students with other struggles too!

There is a braille keyboard and printer that is amazing. If I have have a student who has a sight difficulty and reads braille I would definitely recommend these!

I was looking for different ways to teach for students with short attention spans and difficulty staying focused when I ran into Littlebits. These are amazing pieces of technology that are used like legos but work as a new invention. The website is filled with different lesson plans that can be used in EVERY subject!

I simply had to post about these two things since I won't be doing my project on them. I wanted to share though because I think many students could benefit from their use!

Online Resources

• Name/Title of the resource: Investigating Local Ecosystems
• URL: http://sciencenetlinks.com/lessons/investigating-local-ecosystems/
• How you found it: searched "ecosystems" on the Science net links website
• How you might use it in your final project: This has many questions that would be good to use in order to get y students interested in the topic of ecosystems. The questions can help them figure out what an ecosystem is and what is in one.
• What standards does the resource address:3-LS4-3 Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.

• Name/Title of the resource: Vocabulary Dominos
• URL: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Vocabulary-Dominoes-Environment-Unit-61965
• How you found it: I searched "ecosystems" on Teachers pay teachers
• How you might use it in your final project: These cards would work as a great study tool for students to use while learning the vocabulary for the ecosystem unit. They can work on their own or in partners in order to hone in their defining and linking skills.
• What standards does the resource address: 3-LS2-1 Construct an argument that some animals form groups that help members survive.

• Name/Title of the resource: New Report Available on Ecosystems and Climate Change
• URL: http://www.esa.org/esablog/ecology-in-the-news/news-events/new-report-available-on-ecosystems-and-climate-change/
• How you found it: While searching for blogs for my PLN I found this environmental blog and decided it would be a good place to find a scientific entry about ecosystems.
• How you might use it in your final project: I would use this as a factual reference as to what can happen when the climate in an ecosystem changes.
• What standards does the resource address: 3-LS4-4  Make a claim about the merit of a solution to a problem caused when the environment changes and the types of plants and animals that live there may change.

Reflection of Myths

What was surprising and did you dismiss any myths before reading these? 

The most surprising myth was the one explaining how a teacher can not observe engagement. It seems odd that if a student is participating and wanting to do the activity that they would not be engaged in it. I had dismisses the different types of learners a couple years ago. Yes, people learn in different ways but no one can learn everything through only one method. Imagine someone who could only see things in order to learn. How are they supposed to learn about wind, magnets, or gravity? The person would have to use a different learning technique to learn. All of the articles have sound reasoning behind them.

 Do you believe all of these articles are true and had your professors ever mention using any of these methods?

I see no reason to doubt the findings of them. Many things change and opinions of different kinds of learners is just one things that gets relabeled every few years. My professors and cooperating teacher all emphasized that using different techniques is beneficial for teaching students. They never mentioned how a student can only learn one was because he/she was a kinesthetic learner. The importance of teaching is to find the best way to teach students so they get the most out of the lessons. 

What are you going to do?

I am going to continue using different methods of teaching to figure out what is best for my students and their learning. Having students come up with their own way to learn a topic can be helpful because then they are trying different ways by themselves. This allows for more options to be gone through for the student to find the most beneficial technique in their learning. 

 If someone were to try and force you to use these methods, how would you convince them against using them?

In order to persuade the decision maker, I would find articles just like these. I would type up a reflection and summary of the articles and ensure to cite each source. Decisions like this typically must go through a board of education not simply the principal. I would ensure to attend any meetings and voice my opinion and support it with facts from studies found on academic databases.

Here are some articles about some common myths in education. The next post will be a reflection of these articles.

Education Learning Styles Debunked
Reframing the Mind


People Remember... 10% 20%

Are Your Students Engaged? Don't be so sure

Future Use

     This blog as well as others can be used to keep students updated on assignments, current topics, and get them interested in new topics. A blog can be very helpful when it comes to trying to get students to pay more attention to subjects. Now a days so many people are plugged in and hooked up with computers that if they don't have access to documents online they would be at a loss as to what to do.

     One way I want to use this blog this summer is to post strategies I have found that I want to use in my classroom this fall. I will be teaching in a first grade classroom and I want to be able to keep track of all of the information I find. I'm hoping that by using a blog I will be able to help myself stay organized as well as share my ideas and the ideas I find with other teachers.

     In my classroom I want to make sure I have a blog that I can split up and have a feed for each different subject. I want to be able to post interesting things for my students to learn from and cool videos to watch to keep them interested in whatever topic we are focusing on that week.

     On the English section I want to have a book of the week post and have small posts that branch off into related ideas or topics that the book focuses on. In a math section there will be a simple math problem of the day. There will also be a complicated story problem of the week for the students to try to solve. These problems will involve situations in our classroom with the students' names. On a social studies page there will be a country of the week. There will be a different fact posted each day about the country for students to learn more about the world rather than just our country. There will be a science page that will have simulators posted for dissections, study apps for vocabulary and a multitude of scientific articles from national geographic and other sites about current science topics.

     Using a blog in this method creates choice for the students. You could give them the assignment of picking one thing off of each section of the blog to read/solve/do each night and this lets them decide what is most important to them. If students have a choice in their learning they are more likely to want to do it and partake in activities related to class.

As Told By Ginger Character Analyzation

        Ginger is your typical teenage girl who is trying to get through junior high school. She goes about finding out who are her friends and who are her enemies. There are a couple characters in this show that Ginger learns are both in the same.

      Ginger goes about her life trying to go from the school geeks to being popular with her close friends. She records all that happens in her diary at home. Due to her habit of writing she is best at English in school. There is one point where she writes poetry and presents it in front of the class. Her writing hits home for many of the students and makes her efforts stand out.

     Ginger is focused on her classes but also engages in many social activities. She has seemed to find a good balance when it comes to both academics and social life. Her home life is one of any middle class family. She has been raised mostly by her divorced mother with her younger brother. Her father lives not terribly far away but id not heard from often. Ginger gets a view point of how the other half lives when Courtney invites her over for a sleep over. Courtney's family is very rich and owns a mansion. Ginger doesn't feel she needs everything that Courtney has and even has a good influence on Courtney. With Ginger's life being so simple Courtney actually tones down her life to be similar to Ginger's. Here is a clip of how influential Ginger can be on Courtney with out her even knowing it.

     Ginger also partakes in being a camp counselor at a summer camp near by. She shows her versatility of her skills out in the woods and coping with many personal emotions as well as helping the campers with their issues.

     If Ginger were in my classroom I would enough to try and challenge her. She seems bored in some of her classes. I feel, based on her other activities she could push herself to develop her writing even more. I would want to sit down and talk with her about her writing and see what she wanted to improve upon and find different techniques to use. One technique in particular would be to have her write out a short skit that would involve a few members of the class in order to visualize her writing and see it come to life. I feel like this could be beneficial to many of the students to try.

     Ginger is definitely college ready. She shows her passions in life and sticks to her duties prescribed. She wants to do so much and I feel like she would succeed in a faster paced environment.