I found this image while browsing the internet on my lunch break today. It stood out to me because I am in an EPSY 400 class which focuses on working with differences and diversity. After viewing this image I thought what does it mean to learn differently?
Our role as classroom teachers is to meet the needs of all of our students and in Gwen Keith's words "all means all". This means we need to develop and understand how to meet the needs of all of our learners while being as inclusive as possible.
I would be interested in hearing some of your stories you may of had dealing with a child who has an exceptionality or disability. How did you meet their needs? Please share :)
Watching this video shows that you can use technology in the classroom at any grade! This also reveals the benefits to implementing technology for students and parents. What are some of your thoughts?
After watching the session with Liz Klob I learned a lot about incorporating mobile phones into the classroom. One of the ideas in Liz's presentation that I really liked and would use in a classroom was Qr Codes. I will be interning in a kindergarten classroom and majority of the students do have IPad's . Teachers can also book out IPads and use them for their class. So the kindergarten's can use their ipads for a ton of different activities especially QR Codes. Also parents can use their smart phones to see what their children are learning, or can do different activities at home.
I would use QR Codes in my kindergarten classroom to:
Advertise school events or classroom announcements
Use the QR Codes as a scavenger hunt game where students can search the classroom/school to answer a question or clue
Here you can do a ton of cool things with QR Codes like change the colour of your QR Code for different events.
As I got to thinking of different activities to do with the kindergarten class I found the blog Technology in Early Childhood. In this blog kindergarten teachers post different activities young children can do using technology. There was a link to QR Codes for kindergarten classrooms where there are a ton a different activities and bar codes to use in the classroom. Such as counting games, activity sheets or sliders to help young children match words to texts.
As I begin to think about what I will be expected to teach when I have a classroom of my own I do become worried. In regards to implementing practices such as standardize testing. The notion of standardize testing fosters higher percentages/performances in all subject areas. Yet in Finland they have the highest scores and do not believe in standardize testing.
What are some of your thoughts?
I found these two images very interesting. All these words go through my mind as I think about what it means to become a new teacher. What words or thoughts come to your mind as you think about becoming a new teacher?
Image found on: http://timetoteachworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/teaching.jpg
Image found on: http://mathsse2011.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/how-become-a-good-teacher/
For the second part of this task I decided to complete question #1 by creating one story using two different tools.
I found it quite difficult finding a tool that would work for me. However after some time of trying a ton of different tools I found Bubblr. I find cites with a ton of stuff every where very distracting and hard to use. I liked Bubblr because there is minimal things on the cite, making it very easy to use. There are a ton of examples to click on and visual cues to help you figure out what to do. One challenge with the site would be the font is very small, making it challenging to see what you are writing.
Using this cite would be very easy to implement in the classroom. I could see many students loving the comic book style of the story, especially students who struggle with reading. You could definitely use the cite as an introduction to story writing.
The next tool I used for the story was on Flicktion. I did not find it as easy to use as Bubblr and I probably wouldn't use it again. I did like the idea of the cite, to post one picture and write a story on one imagine. In the classroom I would use this activity as a lesson to teach children to write engaging stories based on one picture. Maybe if I had some help utilizing the cite it could have been more beneficial to me, however using it on my own did pose a challenge for me.
For this weeks tech task we were allowed to explore the nature of story telling. I have always loved telling stories and having stories told to me. In regards to this, I decided to take part in question 2.
Using Five Card Stories was surprisingly easy. I am always apprehensive to try new tech tasks because I struggle using new technology, especially online! Yet five card was easy to use, fun and something I will definitely use in the future. Everything was very easy to find and the pictures were incredible.
If I had to point out a challenge with using the website I would have to say saving your story might pose as a challenge for some students. To save your story you have to write a security code and the letters are very close together and may be difficult for some people to read. Other than that this was a great source and I saved it as one of my favourites.
As a future educator I would definitely use this website in my classroom. I believe this would be a great activity for any grade. This is a great way to introduce the processes of story making/telling. As well as teaching young children the fundamental tools of literature when matching/adding pictures to texts.
