Luis un líder de la comunidad y la familia

This Edutopia video about a young man named Luis told the story of a very family and community minded high school student. Luis is active in several extracurricular activities, while also helping his immigrant family with household management.

Like many Luis is constantly surrounded by technology, but my most significant takeaway from this video was the many ways that Luis has used technology to help his family and better his community. By day Luis uses technology to help his parents manage the household by paying bills online, and also entertains his mother by finding her favorite telenovelas on youtube. By night Luis uses technology to help many different extracurricular groups. Luis is part of several! He is part of a peer mentor program called the "tech wizards." Within this group Luis works with other students to make educational videos that highlight different aspects of his community. Luis also teaches elementary school students how to program robots for an annual competition. I was also very impressed with the fact that Luis helps his city survey the health of the local trees, and was chosen to go to Chile to give an international presentation.

Luis's story was very inspiring to me as a future teacher. I plan to teach in my home state of Oklahoma. In Oklahoma there are several students like Luis who are second generation immigrants who speak a second language at home. Statistically these students do not do as well, and have a very high incompetion rate. I was inspired by Luis because he has overcome all the difficulties immigrants have, and has succeded on all levels.

WALT - We Are Learning Too

This K12 Online Conference video entitled A Peek for a Week - Inside a Kiwi Junior Classroom shows how a grade 2 teacher, Rachel Boyd, has integrated technology into her classroom.
I continue to be suprised at how many ways technology can be integrated into the classroom. Boyd has succesfully intigrated all of the subjects her students need to learn. One assignment shown described the writing process the students used to write stories of their own. Her students use YouTube.com videos for physical education. They also play math games online that compare their grades to other students around the world.

I really liked how the students were able to work with other students in another area of New Zealand through a shared wiki. I think sharing ideas with other students their own age is a wonderful learning tool and plan to integrate the idea into my own classroom.

The Changing Face of Technology

wr blogingbudys to day

This video “We Like Our Blogging Buddies: The Write Stuff with Blogging Mentors” tells about a study done by Patrick Lewis with the University of Regina. His Education major students blogged with first and second grader students in Kathy Cassidy's class. The students also communicated through Skype and met at the end of the semester.

Lewis found that there was a positive relationship for both the education students and the grade school students they were blogging with. The education students had more experience deciphering the made up spelling new language students use, while the grade school students had experience writing for an audience. The grade school students also learned quite a bit about punctuation.

los libros

My class survey was about my favorite hobby- reading books. I personally read a variety of genres and I was interested in which genres other students read.
The first question I asked was "Do you read books as a leisure activity?" Two of my readers responded with yes, and the third responded "When I have time."
The second question I asked was "What is your favorite book? Please tell why." One survey responder said their favorite book was Dear John. Another responder responded with a repsonse about a book called Texas Lucky: "This book is a romance but the characters are so stubborn that the impeding romance is so hillarious to follow! I also love this is takes place in a country setting." The third responder talked about their favorite series as a child, "My favorite would have to be Moreta from Anne Mccaffery's Pern series. I have fond memories of getting the series as a birthday gift when I was a child and my favorite character from the series was Moreta, the namesake of the book."
The third question on my survey was a list of genres to choose from. The first responder chose both Romance and Fiction. The second responder chose Romance, Western, Classic Literature, Fiction, and Non-Fiction. The third responder chose Text books, Sci-Fi, Fantasy. I thought it was interesting that only one of the students responded that they read textbooks.

Gluten free; Glutton worthy!

The most significant thing that I learned from making this video is how easy it was to make. I feel that making a video like this would be a useful tool in the classroom. I could create a link like this to visually explain point, or my students could create one as well. I made this video about making gluten free cupcakes because I come from a family with many food allergies. Many of my siblings are lactose intolerant, and my mom started a gluten free diet over a year ago. I very recently started learning how to eat gluten free. With today's pre-made foods it is hard to keep up with a diet if you have food allergies. I wanted to illustrate that it is possible to use pre-made and still make good diet choices.

Clever Cameron

This EduTopia video about a young man named Cameron has a lot of great ideas about how to incorporate technology in the classroom and school.

My most significant "takeway" from the video was the way in which the adults in Cameron's life understand that all they need to do is give him the supplies he needs, and let him go. Sometimes as an educator it is difficult to back away from "educating" and allow the student to soak information in on their own.

As a child I was homeschooled for most of my elementary and all of middle school years. My family used the "un-schooling" theory, which is basically a new name for John Dewey's Progressive Education Theory. Dewey's theory relates to the idea that learning should be child led. The child should choose what they want to learn, and in many ways how they want to learn it. I was very excited to see that the teacher's at Cameron's school were able to incorporate this very non-restrictive practice into the general classroom by referring to him, listening to his ideas, and incorprating them in the classroom.

I feel one of the greatest implications of this video is the fact that Progressive education can be incorporated into the general classroom. I hope that as an educator I will be able to back up and let my students learn as well as Cameron's educators have.