Blog Post #11

In Brian Crosby's video, Back to the Future, he gives us insight to what his students and himself do in the classroom. He talks about how his students are from low income households and that at the beginning of the semester he conducted a survey on how many of them knew their address, city, state, phone number, etc. The numbers weren't high at all. He then goes on to show you the blogs, PLN's and projects that these students did over the course of the year. The work that these students accomplished was astounding! He also shows you that he had a student with Leukemia that was unable to come to the classroom but through technology they were able to include her in their daily lessons right alongside her classmates! It speaks volumes that he took the time to make sure she was getting the same quality education that the other students were receiving. I think that it is amazing that he proved that it doesn't matter what each students background is, everyone has the potential to achieve greatness if they are provided with the right tools and motivation.

Mr. Paul Anderson's, Blended Learning Cycle, has six components: Question, Investigation/Inquiry, Videos, Elaboration, Review and Summary Quiz. Paul shows you what blended learning looks like. Blended learning mixes online, mobile and classroom together. There is also the learning cycle of the five E's which includes engaging, exploring, explaining, expanding, and evaluating. He mixed blended learning with the learning cycle to come up with the six components of the blended learning cycle. I think that his method is a great way to ensure that students stay on the right track with their learning. It seems to work well for him and I am going to keep this in mind when I have my own classroom!

Mark Church's video, Making Learning Visible, shows us the thinking process of students that are conducting a project. Church says "How has the story changed? How has their thinking changed from that moment in time when we had this talk?" It is always a good thing to track students progress so you can know what you need to work on and what needs to be fixed. It also is fun to know what their thinking process is throughout the whole project and not just at the beginning and end!

Sam Pane's video, Super Digital Citizen, pointed out that you should always try to make the projects about the students that way it is more interesting and they feel like they are actually a part of it. I love that he got his students to create comic books! They seemed to have fun with it and understood what they were learning. Not only do they know what not to do on the internet now, they can stop others from making those mistakes too.

Dean Shareski's video, Project Based Learning, tells you about three high school teachers that have blended their classes together and are using project based learning to teach the curriculum. They combined English, History, and Information Processing into one class that is longer than the average class. The English teacher, Melanie Delorme, points out that she likes that the blended class allows them to teach beyond just the curriculum. It helps the students learn more than what they would learn in an average classroom.

Roosevelt Elementary's PBL Program shows you that project-based learning is a self motivated way of learning. The students are a big part of the decision making process. This helps majorly since each student learns in their own way. Giving students ownership of their projects helps create motivation. PBL allows students to learn life skills outside of what is required for the curriculum. This video proves that if you incorporate public speaking at an early age then they will be more comfortable with it as they get older.