Blog Post 7: How Do We All Become Learners?

Part One: How am I doing?

      Hello, readers! This past week, I have had the privilege of watching many videos and learning from them. You can learn from them too! They are all below with some information on them and a few opinions of my own. When I think about how classrooms are focusing on Project-Based Learning, I get super excited! I think technology is extremely important in education. I use to not think this way. Especially since I'm going to be a high school math teacher. I use to not see the relevance of PBL with math in high school. It has always made sense with elementary students, but I was worried I wouldn't know what to do. However, I also found out that is okay. I will always be learning, and I have a long journey ahead of me to prepare me for when I get to that point. I have a personal learning network to build, and I'm sure there are plenty of experienced educators I can learn from! I plan on engaging my students fully with technology in a PBL emphasizing classroom!
      I think my main strength is that I WANT to be a lifelong learner. Even though I haven't experienced all of the things below, I am willing to learn it even if that means my students would be teaching me! My main weaknesses are the fact that I haven't used most of these programs before and I'm not sure how I can incorporate a lot of technology in the teaching of math. The importance is not what my weaknesses are, it is how I approach them. I will succeed, and no weakness will stand in my way. There are a few things I need to do before I graduate and begin my career in education. I need to learn more programs. I know that I will not be able to learn all of them, and I also know that there will be new, cooler programs available by the time I start teaching. However, I think it is important to go ahead and learn as much as I can from the ones that are currently available. I think the knowledge of them will help me learn the new ones that come out! I also need to build up my personal learning network! If there are teachers all around the world that want to help other teachers, I would be silly to not take them up on their offer!

Part Two: What did I learn?

How to make an audio QR Code by Michele Bennett

      This video taught me how to make an audio QR-Code. First, you have to create your recording. Then after you save the recording, it will generate a URL for you to copy. Now it is time to create your QR-Code. You will paste your URL into the box then click create! This is pretty neat. I can see how this can be helpful!

iPad Reading Center with Ginger Tuck uploaded by Michele Bennett
      In this video, Ginger Tuck explained one of her reading centers. After she explained it, she had one of her students demonstrate. With this center, her students record themselves while they're reading. After they finish a reading, they listen to the recording and follow along to see if they see any mistakes that they might have made. Ginger Tuck says that this is extremely helpful and fun. Her students enjoy it, and she can walk around the room and help other students while the students working on this center help themselves.

Poplet with Ginger Tuck uploaded by Michele Bennett
      This video explained Poplet. It is a free app that you can download. Ginger Tuck uses them as another center in her classroom. Basically, the children take a picture of an image in a book, and write a sentence about it. They usually write the same sentence that is under the image in the book. The children do this 5-8 times and it creates an image web on a page. This helps them with reading and their typing skills. I think this is amazing! I'm thinking about downloading it for my daughters. I didn't start learning how to type in school until I was in the 8th grade!

AVL and Kindergarten Students with Ginger Tuck uploaded by Michele Bennett
      This video is talking about the Alabama Virtual Library. The students use AVL to research a word that pertains to their lesson. There are pictures and information. The information is given by video or audio along with words. Then they use the worksheet they have to draw a picture, and the next time they use the center they write a sentence to go along with the picture. I think an interesting thing about this video is that the teacher learned from her students. She didn't originally have the students writing the sentences, but then she noticed them doing it anyways. Then she added it to that particular center.

Tammy Shirley Discovery Education Board Builder Moon Project uploaded by Michele Bennett
      In this video, Tammy Shirley talks about how they worked on a PBL on the moon by using Discovery Education Board Builder. They started with a video, and then the students collected facts about the moon. Now it is time to use Board Builder! The students sign in and begin setting up that particular board. They get to choose the background, title, images/videos, and facts. Then one of her students showed a little more detail on how to add images, and she told us the information she put on her board about the moon. Then they got to write a story about their adventure on the moon. The student shared her story with us on this video. This video is super cute! This is probably because there is a little girl that is explaining things.

Mrs.Tassin 2nd Grade students share Board Builder Project and Mrs.Tassin students share Board Builder Project uploaded by Michele Bennett
      On the first video, there were two boy students that introducing themselves and went over their board that they created for whales. One of the students then explained how to find and upload an image to the board. On the second video, there were a group of three girls. The girls go over their board for The Haven. They are collecting money for The Haven, too. Then they talked about their resources. They used Word Hippo to expand their vocabulary, and they used the new words on their board. I think it's really awesome that children are having so much fun with PBL. I wonder if using Word Hippo is required or if they just chose to use it. With the way education is working today, it wouldn't surprise me if they just chose to use technology to learn new words for projects!

Using iMovie and the Alabama Virtual Library in Kindergarten by John Hadley Strange
      This video is a conversation between Dr. Strange from University of South Alabama, Elizabeth Davis from Daphne Elementary, and Michele Bennett from Gulf Shores Elementary. First, Michele Bennett talks about kindergarten students using iMovie. She is amazed at how the students are able to use iMovie to make book trailers. She talks about how the students use iMovie. She is super excited about how the children get so deep into the technology. They learn to edit and all sorts of things! Second, Elizabeth Davis talks about Alabama Virtual Library. This is amazing on teaching students how to do basic searches. The results are also tailored to kindergarten. By the way, using Alabama Virtual Library is free! I'm definitely going to use this for my first grader at home! That would be super amazing! I'm sure that would help her in many ways!

We All Become Learners by John Hadley Strange
      This is another conversation with the same people as my previous link. The start of this video by saying that in the experience of using technology in the classroom leads to everyone learning and everyone teaching. This includes teachers and students, and I'm pretty sure that we could add in parents. They start to talk about different apps that are free for their students. They talk about Padlet, and this is actually something that we've personally used in our EDM310 class. I personally find it very useful and interesting. I bet even my high school students would enjoy using this! Then Michele Bennett was taught how to do something on it by a student. She also mentions that it is important to just teach the mechanics of different programs so that the students can delve into it and learn the rest of it. The main take away from this video is the title of it. "We all become learners."

Thanks for reading my blog,
Jennifer L. Cole