The first time I remember seeing PowerPoint used in the
classroom was in a college marketing class. The professor was a former high
school teacher, and was hands-down the BEST teacher I had during my entire
undergraduate career; here’s to you, Mr. Dennis Smith! Mesmerized, I diligently
took notes as the special effects twinkled and spun onto the screen. I couldn’t
wait to get my own classroom! Then, slowly, one by one, my other teachers began
utilizing it in their classrooms. It
became more about the presentation than the content. I remember the muffled
groans that came from the students in the classroom while I was completing
student teaching. Right before my eyes, PowerPoint became something that they
dreaded; it was overkill. It had been used and abused for far too long. No
longer did they view the special effects as innovative and fun; they were
considered to be cheesy and lame. See, that’s the thing about being a teacher
in a technology driven world: we’re performers. We’re expected to have a show
worthy of an awards ceremony. Thanks to constant bombardment of technology, our
students need us to pull a rabbit out of a hat with each concept we teach. And,
particularly within the middle school classroom, your students have to view
your presentation as cool or they won’t have that buy-in feeling that we need.
The first website I reviewed was the PowerPoint article from
Teach-nology entitled, “What’s all the Hype?” I think it did a great job of
explaining my feelings about PowerPoint: it’s a great tool to use, but you have
to be careful not to overdo it. The website provides a brief history on how
PowerPoint came to be used within the educational setting, a list of reasons to
use it in your classroom (spellcheck!), and some helpful links on how to get
started using it (just in case you’re one of the three people who have been
hiding under a rock for the past decade and have no experience with it). This
resource could very easily be used in a school setting. Not only does it have
tutorials, but also it provides links to what the writers view as the best
teacher’s websites, tips for classroom management, and lesson plans. I would
definitely recommend this resource to other educators as it has so many helpful
links beyond the provided basic information about PowerPoint. I can see this
being beneficial for anyone in the educational world.
Next, I viewed the article from the Professional Speakers
Guild, “Using Computer Presentation Programs Effectively.” I agree with
everything from this article, and I think it is a great read. I would
definitely recommend it to other teachers. In fact, I shared it with my student
observer from WKU, and she is going to pass it along to her teachers as well. I
think it summarizes the general thoughts of PowerPoint very well. Students (and
adults) are tired of it when it is used as the presentation. There are five
tips given by this website. They are: 1. Add, don’t detract. 2. Don’t distract.
3. Know your stuff. 4. Know your medium. 5. Stay home. I LOVED the comment
about staying home. I have tried to drill this into my students’ heads when
they are preparing for speeches. You can’t put your entire lesson on the
slides, or you are essentially rendering yourself useless.
I also viewed Comic Life and iSpeech. We’re going to start with iSpeech, which is a
speech recognition and text-to-speak program. I instantly thought of hundreds
of uses for this program within the classroom. We have a very low population of
ELL/ESL students, but for them, this would be amazing! It would also be a great
tool to use for students who are learning phonics (there are different dialects
that you can select) or those students taking a foreign language; I know that I
could have really used this when I was taking Spanish! I think it is a very
easy website to use. You simply type in the text that you want to be said,
select the voice you want used, and it reads your text aloud. Comic Life is
something that I can’t wait to utilize in my classroom. I actually added it to
my Christmas wish list! At only $19.99 for the latest version of this program,
it’s a great bargain! If you haven’t heard of it, you need to check it out
immediately! Basically, students write their own comic books by uploading
photos and adding text. As Superman’s mom (seriously, my kid wears a cape every
single day of the week. Every shirt he owns has the “S” logo on it and a
detachable red cape), I can’t wait to get my hands on this program! One of the
things that it said under the educational tab is that educators need to pass on
digital writing to their students. Comic Life is compared to a “word processor”
of the digital graphic writing world, which I think is very true. How students
write and what mediums they use in their writing should look very different
than how we were taught to write and what mediums we used in our writing. One
of the things I liked most about this program was that it had tons of examples
and ideas for any content. Comic Life can take the most boring content (misplaced
modifiers, anyone?) and make it student friendly and exciting. There are so
many ways to utilize this for differentiation, and I can’t even imagine how
excited our curriculum coordinator would be to see a program review including
Comic Life! I think this product would be great for any teacher, in any
classroom, in any school!
Voice Thread is going to change the educational world! It
works like a cloud application, similar to DropBox. It turns a virtual
classroom into a learning experience similar to that of a live classroom. You
simply upload each of the medium used within your lesson to your Voice Thread,
and then students can access them (even if they don’t have access to the
specific program like PowerPoint) in one spot. It works kind of like a YouTube
video. The students can then log in to their MyVoice page and interact via
comments, videos, audio, etc. Students can interact with one another even if
they aren’t online at the same time via Voice Thread. I keep going back to my
dreams of having a flipped classroom. I think this would be a wonderful tool to
utilize in that context. I would recommend this to any teacher. It could be
very helpful for independent learning and students who are absent or struggling
with content. Lower-level students could really benefit from having access to
this site as well. The only drawback I see is that students who don’t have
access to the Internet at home wouldn’t be able to use it, but teachers could
provide those students with in-class time to access it. At $80 a year for 50
student accounts, it is a little expensive, but I could see that the benefits
would easily outweigh the cost. I could also see this being utilized at the
district level for professional development and staff training. I would
recommend this to any teacher. I think, like Comic Life, it could be beneficial
for any student.
Scribblar is an online interactive whiteboard. It has many
price points ranging from free to $39 a month. If you have a Skype account, you
can interact with people through that account. It is truly collaborative in
that students can interact with one another in live time. This means that a
student in China can virtually connect with students in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
It works very much like ActivInspire, only there is a chat window and audio
feed. The example video shows an online learning space with a teacher in
Sydney. The students are discussing genotypes. The teachers collaborate with
one another in a co-teaching environment.
In that example, the students all have access to the whiteboard from
their laptops, and they can control the pen as well. I think it is very similar
to our whiteboards used in class; they are recorded so that those who are
absent or need to review the content can access it at a later date. The only difference
is that the students can write on the board (think 5h grade long division
blackboard races!), which changes the dynamic from teacher led to student led.
I think this is a great resource to use in the classroom. I can see that this
is where technology is heading. I can see schools utilizing this to outsource
certain subjects. For example, if the school is very weak in math, it would be
very easy to gain access to an outstanding teacher’s classroom. Instead of just
watching videos of his/her lectures on YouTube, Scribblar would make it easy
for students to become active participants in his/her classroom! Possibly,
teachers could become more like college professors in that one teacher teaches
all of the 7th grade students in the district via online programs
like Scribblar. It would really pave the way for those “best practices”
teachers to excel and dominate the profession! Storybird is another great
resource. Students utilize the gorgeous images as a springboard for their
writing. It takes the concept of creative writing to a whole new level, and
enables virtual sharing and creates an online community of feedback and praise
for student success. It’s free, and it
is very easy to use. I can see it being used in any grade from about 3rd
up to college level. I would definitely recommend it to language arts and
history teachers. I can see this taking the place of the vlog in the online diary/journal
world. This is another great way to incorporate art and complete the
requirements for a program review. I can’t wait to utilize Storybird in my own
classroom!
The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives website reminds me of Cool Math Games, only it is actually related to math and learning (Cool Math seems to just be a place to play "fun" games without actually learning anything). I spent much more time than I care to admit playing a few of the algebra games for middle school. I will be sharing this with the math teachers in my building, as I am sure they can utilize it in their classrooms. I think it's a great way to incorporate technology into instruction. I can see it being used for the students who are early finishers or master a concept before you are ready to move on with the whole group. It's also great for adults; there is a very basic loan calculator. I used it to see how much extra I will be able to "snowball" into my student loan payment once my son is in kindergarten next year (there should be a disclaimer about the price of daycare during pre-marriage classes). It's a free website, and students can access it from home. There's even a language arts connections with a probability game relating to Hamlet. They really do think of everything, don't they?
I also reviewed TED.com. TED, or Technology, Entertainment, Design, is a non-profit aimed at providing access to an unlimited variety of topics. There are videos on virtually every subject you can possibly think of, and it is a great way to gather information about a particular topic or interest. We were told to explore something of which we were interested. I am always looking for ways to inspire my students, so I clicked on the TED Under 20 link, which features young innovators. Instantly, I saw a video about pancreatic cancer. My father-in-law was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer in 2010. It was just over 3 weeks later that he lost his life due to this silent killer. To see Jack Andraka, a 15-year-old teenager speak in front of thousands of people with such poise and knowledge was inspiring. His sensor is very promising in changing the world cancer, but it doesn't stop there. Other diseases can be detected by utilizing the same method just by adjusting the proteins used (I'm a language arts teacher, so this is all completely over my head!). I was so inspired to see his video, and to think about how my students would react to someone so close to their own age. Next, I viewed a live performance by Johnny, Robbie, and Tommy Mizzone, three brothers from New Jersey (the state that brought us Snooki) who each play the banjo, fiddle, and guitar (respectively) in a way that rivals Flatt and Scruggs. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents as a child, and I have a HUGE passion for bluegrass music. There's always one student who shares that love, and together, we secure the "least cool" award. Ha! Anyway, if you're one of the very few people who love bluegrass music, you should listen to the Sleepy Man Banjo Boys. Even if it's not your cup of tea, they are sure to inspire the music lovers of your class. Next, I watched a video found under TED-Ed, entitled, "The Five Major World Religions." It's an 11 minute video that provides a brief overview of the most popular faiths of the world: Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. There are several activities that can be used to incorporate higher-level thinking after viewing this video. I like to think of it as Brain Pop for middle/high school students. There are links to "Think" where you answer multiple choice and short answer questions, "Dig Deeper" where you can go more in-depth on each of the religions, and "Discuss" where you can take part in online discussions pertaining to the topic. There are several similar lessons under the TED-Ed relating to varying contents, many with great accompanying lessons just like the video I reviewed. I also watched a video with Sir Ken Robinson. He is one of my favorite public speakers ever. I always say that he is on my dinner party list; the game where you imagine that you are having a dinner party and can invite any 10 people in the history of the world and they HAVE to come. Well, he is ALWAYS on my list. So is Vince Vaughn, but we will discuss that another day. I was unaware of TED, but now that I know about it, I will definitely be using it in my classroom. I think that this website is a great resource for anyone in education. I could see TED being used in the flipped classroom model by sending students to watch the videos at home and discuss their content together.
One of our assignments for this week was to create a PowerPoint lesson to utilize within the classroom. I have made so many of them, that I typically just recycle and tweak what I have to meet the needs of each group of students (why reinvent the wheel?). One of my favorites is on character traits. It talks about dynamic and static characters, round and flat characters, protagonists, antagonists, as well as specific traits and how writers might demonstrate those traits. I embedded images of popular TV and book characters to demonstrate each of the concepts. It isn't anything high-tech; the only "sound" on it is a few short audio clips of popular music from the movies (like Claire de Lune for Twilight, and the sound of an arrow leaving a bow for Katniss Everdeen). It's something that the students love because I took the time to find characters they love. There is even an image of Snooki and JWoww (which always opens the door for a "Life Lesson with Mrs. Gray" on the importance of wearing pants in public). The part I am the most proud about is that I incorporated things that they love. I could have just as easily had them get out their textbooks and look at characters from the stories in there, but I wanted to relate it to their lives. When I do it next year, I will have to update my characters (currently, I don't have anyone from The Walking Dead). I think my students love it. It's actually one of their favorite lessons. It never fails that the students in the first few classes tell their friends about it, so by 5th period, they enter the room asking, "Are we going to get to learn about Sheldon Cooper today?" I think it's a great example of how we have to be entertainers.
The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives website reminds me of Cool Math Games, only it is actually related to math and learning (Cool Math seems to just be a place to play "fun" games without actually learning anything). I spent much more time than I care to admit playing a few of the algebra games for middle school. I will be sharing this with the math teachers in my building, as I am sure they can utilize it in their classrooms. I think it's a great way to incorporate technology into instruction. I can see it being used for the students who are early finishers or master a concept before you are ready to move on with the whole group. It's also great for adults; there is a very basic loan calculator. I used it to see how much extra I will be able to "snowball" into my student loan payment once my son is in kindergarten next year (there should be a disclaimer about the price of daycare during pre-marriage classes). It's a free website, and students can access it from home. There's even a language arts connections with a probability game relating to Hamlet. They really do think of everything, don't they?
I also reviewed TED.com. TED, or Technology, Entertainment, Design, is a non-profit aimed at providing access to an unlimited variety of topics. There are videos on virtually every subject you can possibly think of, and it is a great way to gather information about a particular topic or interest. We were told to explore something of which we were interested. I am always looking for ways to inspire my students, so I clicked on the TED Under 20 link, which features young innovators. Instantly, I saw a video about pancreatic cancer. My father-in-law was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer in 2010. It was just over 3 weeks later that he lost his life due to this silent killer. To see Jack Andraka, a 15-year-old teenager speak in front of thousands of people with such poise and knowledge was inspiring. His sensor is very promising in changing the world cancer, but it doesn't stop there. Other diseases can be detected by utilizing the same method just by adjusting the proteins used (I'm a language arts teacher, so this is all completely over my head!). I was so inspired to see his video, and to think about how my students would react to someone so close to their own age. Next, I viewed a live performance by Johnny, Robbie, and Tommy Mizzone, three brothers from New Jersey (the state that brought us Snooki) who each play the banjo, fiddle, and guitar (respectively) in a way that rivals Flatt and Scruggs. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents as a child, and I have a HUGE passion for bluegrass music. There's always one student who shares that love, and together, we secure the "least cool" award. Ha! Anyway, if you're one of the very few people who love bluegrass music, you should listen to the Sleepy Man Banjo Boys. Even if it's not your cup of tea, they are sure to inspire the music lovers of your class. Next, I watched a video found under TED-Ed, entitled, "The Five Major World Religions." It's an 11 minute video that provides a brief overview of the most popular faiths of the world: Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. There are several activities that can be used to incorporate higher-level thinking after viewing this video. I like to think of it as Brain Pop for middle/high school students. There are links to "Think" where you answer multiple choice and short answer questions, "Dig Deeper" where you can go more in-depth on each of the religions, and "Discuss" where you can take part in online discussions pertaining to the topic. There are several similar lessons under the TED-Ed relating to varying contents, many with great accompanying lessons just like the video I reviewed. I also watched a video with Sir Ken Robinson. He is one of my favorite public speakers ever. I always say that he is on my dinner party list; the game where you imagine that you are having a dinner party and can invite any 10 people in the history of the world and they HAVE to come. Well, he is ALWAYS on my list. So is Vince Vaughn, but we will discuss that another day. I was unaware of TED, but now that I know about it, I will definitely be using it in my classroom. I think that this website is a great resource for anyone in education. I could see TED being used in the flipped classroom model by sending students to watch the videos at home and discuss their content together.
One of our assignments for this week was to create a PowerPoint lesson to utilize within the classroom. I have made so many of them, that I typically just recycle and tweak what I have to meet the needs of each group of students (why reinvent the wheel?). One of my favorites is on character traits. It talks about dynamic and static characters, round and flat characters, protagonists, antagonists, as well as specific traits and how writers might demonstrate those traits. I embedded images of popular TV and book characters to demonstrate each of the concepts. It isn't anything high-tech; the only "sound" on it is a few short audio clips of popular music from the movies (like Claire de Lune for Twilight, and the sound of an arrow leaving a bow for Katniss Everdeen). It's something that the students love because I took the time to find characters they love. There is even an image of Snooki and JWoww (which always opens the door for a "Life Lesson with Mrs. Gray" on the importance of wearing pants in public). The part I am the most proud about is that I incorporated things that they love. I could have just as easily had them get out their textbooks and look at characters from the stories in there, but I wanted to relate it to their lives. When I do it next year, I will have to update my characters (currently, I don't have anyone from The Walking Dead). I think my students love it. It's actually one of their favorite lessons. It never fails that the students in the first few classes tell their friends about it, so by 5th period, they enter the room asking, "Are we going to get to learn about Sheldon Cooper today?" I think it's a great example of how we have to be entertainers.
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