Comments For Kids: April

In the month of April I was invited to see the wonderful work of three brilliant children from all different parts of the globe, ranging from America, to New Zealand, to Canada!

1. Collin, a 7th grader, wrote an informative piece about March Madness.

I commented and said, 

2. Cruz, a student in primary school from New Zealand wrote a persuasive piece about why children shouldn't be given money.

 I commented and said,

3. Keanan, a student from Canada, wrote a post about the his senses while encountering a Centaur.

 I commented and said,

Blog Post #12

C4T #3 One Principal's Musings

One Principal's Musings is a blog written by Julie Vincentsen who is the principal at an Elementary school in Massachusetts.

Summary 1:
Capturing Struggling Readers is a post about using audio books to help students who are struggling to read books that their peers are reading easily. Principal Vincentsen suggests websites such as:

• Audible.com 
• $15/month
• 1 download per month
• Bookshare.org
• Free!
• Read-along text
• Learningally.org
• $99/annualy
• Great for students with dyslexia

Comment 1: 

Justine Spicciani
Mar 30, 2015 @ 01:58:02

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Principal Vincensten,

My name is Justine Spicciani, and like many students above me, I also am in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama.

I appreciate your suggestion of audio books for struggling readers, I currently am tutoring an eight year old in 2nd grade who is a struggling reader and I hope to incorporate audio books into his reading time.

Thanks so much for sharing,

Your Friend Justine
http://spiccianijustineedm310.blogspot.com/

Summary 2: Thank You Dr. King is a post written in honor of Doctor Martain Luther King Jr., as a reminder of how far we have come as a society and espeically in education. Julie wrote this email to parents at her school to share the powerful legacy of Dr. King and to remind us to be grateful for this opportunity to be able to share a classroom full of beautiful people from all tyoes of backgrounds. 

Comment 2:

Justine Spicciani
Apr 12, 2015 @ 19:39:57

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Thank you Principal Vincentsen for this reminder of how great Dr. King’s influence was to us. It is almost scary, yet breathtaking that the separation appeal was made only 58 years ago. But I am happy to know we have come such a long way since that time. Thanks again for sharing.

Blog Post #11

This week I had the privilege to learn from a few outstanding individuals.

The first, Brian Crosby, a teacher at Agnes Risley Elementary shares about how he runs his classroom in his lecture Back to the Future. The majority of Mr. Crosby's 4th graders have English as a second language, but Mr. Crosby does not let that minor fact hold them back from becoming avid learners in his classroom. There are many things that we can learn from Brian Crosby about Teaching and learning; 

• Teaching involves...
• Helping children become independent learners.
• Including technology like laptops, wiki's, Flickr to keep students up to date.
• Creating projects that spark creativity, for example the balloon project that Mr Crosby did.
• Encouraging creative writing/ looking at something with a different perspective, like when the students wrote stories from the point of view of the balloon.
• Finding ways that motivate students whether it be through blog view counts or using the word "butt" while talking about a balloon's anatomy. 
• Learning Involves
• Actively searching for answers, independently.
• Outreaching to other parts of the country, to learn about different communities.

Paul Anderson is a science teacher who uses the Blended Learning Cycle to teach his students. The essence of blended learning is a process of meshing together information found on the Internet and information found in the students textbook. A teaching tool that Mr. Anderson uses during his science lessons that I would also like to include in my classroom is;

• The five "E"'s 
• Start with an Engaging Question.
• Explore the possibilities, answers, predictions
• Explain what and how.
• Expand on the subject and teach a friend about it.
• QUIVERS - an acronym he uses to teach.
• Question- start with a hook or phenomenon
• Investigate
• Video- students watch independently
• Elaborate- students find a deeper solution
• Review- students re-evaluate material
• Summary Quiz- students take a quiz to internalize material.

Mark Church is an elementary school teacher who uses the method of group learning. In the trailer for his book Making Thinking Visible, he explains how he transitioned into teaching his students about the origin of human society. 

• The teaching method he used was...
• He started the students out in small groups
• He had the students construct a headline about the subject without being taught anything about the different theories of human  beginnings.
• He involved an audience by posting the students headlines on the bulletin board.
• He taught about the subject
• The students learned about the subject
• The students created new headlines after being more knowledgeable about the subject
• The students reflected on how the headlines changed.

Sam Pane, a 5th grade teacher from Nebraska invites us into his classroom while his class learns how to become Super Digital Citizens. The objective of the activity Mr. Pane created was for the students to create a comic strip that included their new made up superhero and themselves as the main characters and the conflict was to do with safety online. 

• What I've Learned about Teaching through Mr. Pane...
• Speak with enthusiasm & excitement.
• Start with an inspiring quote that the students might be familar with, and also applies to the lesson: "With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility.
• Have students sit at circular tables to encourage group learning & active participation.
• Turn the lesson into something that invovles the students.
• Have students take selfies (everyone loves selfies).
• Have students "whisper share" to keep noise level down.
• Have students go through a "gallery walk" to view other students work.
• Have students share their creation with the class.

Al Wandler, Melanie Delorme and Lona Froshaug all jointly teach one classroom full of high-school-aged children they each indivudally are in charge of seperate subjects including History, English and Technology but they combine the lesson so that it incorportates all subjects without segmenting them into time slots.

• Through this teaching lesson, I've learned...
• It seems this combining of subjects works very well in the classroom
• Time restraints arent an issue
• Opportunity and time to go deeper into lessons
• Creates proud students
• Teachers are able to go beyond the circulum
• Teachers LOVE IT!

The last video was from Roosevelt Elementary where the teachers use project based learning to teach. They define PBL as learning that goes in-depth into a topic, focuses on real-world subjects and does all this through muliple resources.

• What I've leaned about teaching this way is
• It's great because it invovles real-world teaching
• Students are more likely to become active memebers of the community
• Gives students ownership
• Students learn 21st century skills
• Students learn life skills like cooperation and communication
• Parents 
• Prepares students for their future careers.

Comments For Kids: March

In the month of March I viewed two students blog posts in Mrs. Maslowski's class.

1. Harsh wrote a reflection on preparing and taking the PLAN test.

I commented and said, 

2. Danyale wrote about her first impression when reading The 12th Night,

I commented and said, 

Comments For Kids: February

For the month of February I viewed two students blog posts from Mr. Boylen's 7th grade literature class. The assignment was to write about a book that the students recently read and to summarize it but leave questions unanswered so that the readers are left wanting to read the book. I also viewed a student's blog from Ms. Leatherwood's class, where the assignment was to write about overcoming a fear.

1. Destiny B. wrote a great summary about The Prohet of Yonwood.

I commented and said,



2.  Keagan M. wrote about Between Shades of Grey.



I commented and said, 

3. Olivia wrote a beautiful piece about overcoming a fear of hers, 

I commented and said, 

Blog Post #10

Almost 2,000 miles away in Moose Jaw, Canada lives Kathy Cassidy, an innovative kindergarten teacher. This week we were invited to see a glimpse of the wonderful things Ms. Cassidy is doing with her students. Some technology that Ms. Cassidy has incorporated into the classroom are;

• Blogs- The students each have a blog in which they write in at least once a week.
• Wikis- The students use this web resource to learn about things. ex). Traditions, Rituals.
• Videos- The students make videos with a small group.
• Skype- The students skype their reading buddies, and also other experts.
• Nintendo DS- The students use games to help them learn.

Ms. Cassidy is definitely a prime example of an educator who has taken technology and is using it to her advantage to help her students learn. She says "kids and technology go hand-in-hand" and therefore it is not benefiting children when you ask them to "unplug" themselves while in the classroom.

Some of the technological ideas that I would consider using in my future classroom that Ms. Cassidy currently uses are:

• Blogs- I love the idea of children using their creative skills and expression to write freely on a blog weekly. I could see that the blogs were fun for the children and they especially loved that people from all over the world commented and viewed their work.

• Videos- I also think having children invest time and their ideas into a project such as a video will help them learn to work together with their peers and therefore this technology is a great idea for the classroom.

• Skype- In my elementary experience I remember having pen pals in another state and I remember how thrilling it was to write and receive letters from these fellow students. I think what Ms. Cassidy has done with the reading buddies is a 21st century equivalent to pen-pals and I think this global outreach is very crucial to a child's development and understanding of the world. 

It seems as though Ms. Cassidy has had few to no problems that she has encountered while incorporating technology in the classroom. The only problems that I think should be of concern in my future classroom is safety, Ms. Cassidy mentioned she instructed the students not to click on the flashy sidebars that advertise all sorts of things while using their educational games but it is inevitable that students will sometimes break the rules and therefore I think by the time I am using computers with my students we will be using a blocker that prevents PG-13 things from popping up or even being accessible.

It is clear that there are endless benfits of using Ms. Cassidy's techniques in the classroom. As I have observed it seems the students are:

• More Engaged.

• Excited to Learn

• Motivated

• HAPPY!