Week 3...Digital Storytelling

I have fallen in love with Animoto, this site is a great resource and I will use this for every presentation I do. This site allows the user to create a very unique presentation/movie using their own videos or pictures or by using the images and videos they have stored on their website. I am growing to love digital storytelling now and I am able to step outside of my closed box. I am learning about several new techniques that allow me to tell a story without it being boring or dull.

Week 2...digital storytelling...

I found the voice thread aspect of our lesson to be very interesting. I think using this tool will allow students and even teachers to create a document using their own words (or voice that is..lol). I can appreciate this tool because it does not take away the imagination but adds emotion to the story. Using this tool allows the listener to understand clearly how the author may feel through the tone of his voice as the words are spoken. I am still hesitant in the effectiveness of digital storytelling but this tool has sparked an interest in me that makes me want to continue my research even further.

Wondering what digital storytelling is all about...

As the first week of class ended I had a small idea of what the next six weeks would entail, however I was still unsure on how effective digital storytelling would be. I was raised to read and tell stories with words and pictures tend still away from the imagination. So after 30 plus years as a avid reader/storyteller I am not quite sure how effective digital storytelling will be for me. However, with the technology changes that occur within our society I feel like this generation may not agree with my old ways of thinking. Pictures, graphics, and videos help to inspire learning and interests with the young generation of today. I worry about this because I feel they may loose their creative thinking and imagination when the picture is already painted for them. Just a few thoughts...I may grow to love this change in reading and storytelling.

Another class has ended..week 6 CED 525

As another class ends I feel like I have grown academically within my teaching career. The thing I take with me that I find to be the most relevant is the learning techniques that apply advanced organizers to improve the classroom experience. I also found the unit on cues, questions, and hypothesis to be a very useful technique that allows student engagement rather than the daily teacher lecture. I will take these two techniques and apply them to daily lesson plans, which I feel will encourage student learning and academic growth. I appreciate each tool and technique learned during these past 6 weeks and I look forward to growing further in my teaching career!

Hypothesizing...

I must admit I love this concept and it makes a great tool in presenting new material to the students. Most students are not allowed the freedom to critical think about a new subject when it is introduced. I like to start a new unit with a moment of critical thinking and allowing the student to present these thoughts so that together we can come to a correct solution. In math most students are told to follow the steps to solve an equation but what we fail to do is to teach them why we are following these steps and where they are derived from. However, in hypothesizing the students and I are able to build these steps by testing the guesses against the problems and in turn they develop a theory of why we solve equations the way we do. I absolutely love this tool and I hope most teachers will adapt this technique into their own lesson plans.

Homework and Practice

As all students know, homework is that dreaded topic we all know and hate to discuss, it can be time consuming and difficult to complete if the student does not find it relevant. Homework should be a way to help students develop and apply the material they been learning in the classroom. Homework is simply a tool for practicing new material and maintain prior knowledge. In some cases it can become a tiresome routine that will not benefit the student because the homework can become irrelevant when it is designed to engage the student. Timely homework assignments tend to disengage the learner and as a result there is no actual benefit of the assignment because there is no active learning going on. The teacher has to discover ways that can allow the student to practice the material in a timely effective method, which may include assigning a daily homework task that is short yet effective which allows them to use their own creative thinking to conclude the task at hand. In the case of the middle school math teacher, it can be productive to assign a 20 problem assignment that covers each area including accessing prior knowledge to keep each method fresh in their minds. This task can be time consuming for the teacher, however the benefits of configuring an assignment that will allow the students to complete without losing focus will allow them the practice needed to master a subject.

CEDO 525 Week 3 Reflection

The purpose of asking students to learn through cues, questions, and advanced organizers is to build higher level thinking and allowing the students to develop their own thought on the subject based on what they know about the subject.
I can think of a time that I asked students to build a KWL chart to analyze their overall growth on a subject and I was pleased with the results because they maintained this chart for the entire unit. The students were able to visually identify their growth on this subject. This task went well because the students were involved in identifying their individual educational growth.
I can not think of a time that I asked students to build advanced organizers and I was not pleased with the results. Each time I use these tools I am very pleased with the results. Technologies that I can use to help students build knowledge are any online tools that allow students to build concept maps, graphic organizers, and any word processing program. There are several questions I have about using technology within my classroom for building a successful program that incorporates advanced organizers as well initiating cues and prompts for classroom discussion.