LAI 590

When thinking about our students and their level of engagement, we often only think about the direct instruction period. While that period of engagement is important, other ways of engagement exist. Podcasting is a great way to keep student's attention and also engage them in new ways of thinking and learning.  The Podcast I chose to learn more about is called Children's Fun Storytime. It is a Podcast that takes common children's books and records them into Podcasts. Students can listen to the Podcast on any device. The specific Podcast I chose to listen to is called "Peter Rabbit, By: Beatrix Potter". This is a common children's story that is also a part of my Language Arts curriculum.  When thinking in terms of my students and how I would use this to meet learning standards and goals, the possibilities are endless. I envision using Podcasts as a Learning Area during differentiated instruction. In one learning area, students would listen to the Podcas

I was really excited to be able to create my own TED-Ed lesson in this module. I have completed TED lessons for not only this class but also other classes and I really like doing them. The idea of using a video to teach a concept is really neat to me. For my own TED-Ed lesson, I chose to use Parts of a Plant as my main concept. My main science objective is: Students will be able to name the parts of a plant and briefly describe what they do through an interactive video lesson and mini-assessment. The science performance indicator is 3.1b. These are the standards currently being used in Buffalo Public Schools. The science curriculum is going to be revamped for younger grades in the coming years so these will change. As with all lessons I teach, English Language Arts standards are incredibly important. For this lesson, I chose to focus on L.K.1: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standards English grammar and usage when writing or speaking. This standard fits this activity be

The concept of a flipped classroom seems scary. Students doing the "lecture" portion at home and homework portion at school seems crazy, but it works. John Graney perfectly describes a flipped classroom setting in his article, Flipping Your EL Classroom: A Primer . He says "Learners gain control over their learning." I am a firm believer in that statement. When I first heard about the idea of a flipped classroom, I too, thought it was crazy and could never work. Once I was able to observe a flipped classroom in action though, I realized that by allowing students to do the "more cognitively demanding activities in class", the teacher was able to reach all students where they needed help most. It should not be assumed that students can go home and complete homework in a proficient manner. Not all students will be proficient. In my class, that statistic is closer to 25% proficiency at the end of a lesson. With a large ELL population, my students require more.

The more I delve into the world of social media and technology, the more I realize how much it can improve my classroom and also me as a teacher. At first, the thought of live tweeting from my Kindergarten classroom seemed silly. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that my students do amazing things throughout the day but often get no recognition for it. Twitter could serve as that form of recognition and also a way to share information about my classroom and our school. Alan November and Brian Mull perfectly define Twitter as being "an organizational structure that makes it an effective tool for connecting with students and others online". Both authors go on to discuss how the use of a hashtag has changed the world. Just the other day, I used twitter hashtags to find out more about an educational program my school is considering. I was greeted with several thousand tweets about the program, many of which contained articles attached. Not only was I able to

I was very skeptical about the idea of a Twitter chat. I was unsure of what it would be like to connect with educators around the globe all through Twitter. I chose to attend the #seesawchat on Thursday, September 28. My school does not use Seesaw but it is a program that some of my friends use in their districts and I was curious to learn more. Family connections are incredibly important and often hard to make when there is a language barrier. Seesaw allows families to connect with students through online portfolios, newsletters, daily photos and videos, and so much more. The Twitter chat that I attended was organized into different questions. The moderator posted the questions about 10 minutes apart so there was time to chat with the others in the chat. The first question asked where we were from and what grade we teach. It was so neat to see people joining in my halfway around the world and also people who lived close by to me. Seeing the different subjects people taught was also

When thinking about the Facebook filter bubble controversy, it instantly made me think about my own Facebook account. I have noticed that on my own account, many of the suggested articles and links, all have to do with things that I have previously clicked on or looked at. For example, I recently read articles on better ways to teach guided reading. I noticed that many of my suggested articles were about guided reading and education for a few weeks following. The idea that Facebook is "shaping my opinion" on things is scary. Pariser perfectly outlines this when he talks about the balance between "information vegetables, dessert, and junk food". When thinking in terms of my own Newsfeed, I have noticed that it is often filled with "information dessert and junk food". Many times, it is not my choice. I am an avid reader of the "information vegetables" but I do occasionally read articles considered "information junk food". For example, w