Personalizing Learning

Edutopia gives a list of ten ways to personalize learning for students using technology. I think this is one of the big strengths of technology- to be able to tailor the lessons and the work o each student using thing that will grab them and help them immerse themselves in the lesson. Reading and writing about things like these strategies helps me become more excited about diving back into another school year. I hope I'm able to find a place to each next year so I don't miss out on using so many of the new strategies we found out about during this class!

ISTE

I have been reading a ton of stuff about the ISTE conference in San Diego this year. It sounds like it would be an awesome conference to attend. ISTE is the international society for technology education. I am laid off this year so I'm obviously not flying to San Diego to attend this conference but I think it would be awesome to try to attend in the future. I think gathering to see what so many other educators had to say would be a great way to expend your teaching strategies. I am making it a goal of mine to attend a tech conference next year locally. I know that I will see when they come up by watching the nerdy teacher on twitter.

Best Teacher Practice

The Nerdy Teacher wrote a blog entry about best teacher practices and how he thinks that there is really no such thing as one best practice because so much depends on the way the students in your own classroom learn. I think this makes a lot of sense. Why would someone who works with students totally different than mine know better than I do about how to teach them? I think it makes a lot of sense that we have to do what we know to be best for our own students.

Teacher's are Too Big to Fail?

In the nerdy teachers recent blog entry "Too Big to Fail" he asks the question of whether teachers are too big to fail. If it's possible for us to continue to try new things and do things that might now work out the first time in order to improve our overall skills as a teacher for the benefit of future students. This reminds me of all the issues going on with our schools now and it probably hit home because I found out yesterday that my school will be closing next year. I don't know what my alternative students will do now that their school is slipping away. It makes me sad to think about them not having a place of their own next year. For that matter I don't know where I will be next year. I guess when I read that blog entry title it made me think immediately that apparently schools aren't too big to fail because they are falling down all over the place.

The Un-Grade

The blog entry "Not Grading is Awful" was an interesting read. The teacher was talking about her class and how much more work it was to not use traditional grades. She was talking about having to struggle to assign grades to students who were in a constant revision of their work in order to improve upon it. That doesn't fit well into a world where every single thing the students do has to be documented and evaluated and then input into a gradebook. I think it's very brave of her to launch off onto this quest to try something new, different, and probably difficult.

Blogging Isn't Necessary

In the educationrethink article "It's OK if Teachers Don't Blog" the author talked about how he didn't feel like it was required for teachers to use blogging websites. He made the point that we would not expect every teacher to use the same thing or software and what works for some might not work for others, so why should we be shoving all teachers into the blog world if that's not what they're into. We should allow teachers to express themselves in the way they are most comfortable! This makes a lot of sense. We differentiate for students all the time. Why shouldn't we differentiate for our teachers?

The Best Peeps on Pinterest

The readwriteweb article about the top twenty Pinterest personalities was cool. I was able to find a few people to follow who look like they will be sweet. I have found that I am really interested in Pinterest lately. I have been able to find a lot of great ideas for food to make and have actually made it and loved it! I am also using it to find neat things for my daughter’s birthday which is coming up soon. I think things like Pinterest are great ways to include technology in your everyday life. I am interested to see how it evolves and to find if there is a way to use it in my classroom!

Make Smart Choices

In the edutopia article about helping kids make better choices they bring up some really good points. The author says that maybe the best way to let kids learn to make good choices is by practicing! I think this makes a lot of sense. If we are hovering around and constantly telling them what to do for every decision they make they will not be able to develop the skills to make good decisions themselves. Part of the issue is that some students have parents that are so involved they won’t allow their child to fail. I think we all need to remember that failure is one of the best ways to learn. You don’t really learn anything by doing something perfectly. That is probably a lesson we could all remember.

Help Each Other!

The edutopia article about the schools in Shanghai was very interesting. It explained how they were able to improve the performance of underperforming schools by pairing the lower school with a high performing one. The teachers from the better performing school would work with the other teachers and help them understand what they needed to do to improve. Instead of the teachers just having a single meeting, they would work together to develop lesson plans and the mentor teacher would observe the lessons being taught. It provided a lot of support for the teachers needing to improve. I feel like this would be a way better idea than leaving the underperforming schools to their own devices or taking them over financially. I think the assistance is what we need to give teachers because probably those who are not effective aren’t doing so because they don’t want to be, and they would probably benefit.

What Happens to Your Facebook When You Die?

The article "Social Media is Changing How We Die and Mourn" is a really interesting read. I hadn't thought about the notion much before reading this. I've seen a few people post of their friends walls after they passed and left comments. It seems to almost act as a memorial. I am interested to see how this continues with people who have grown up with social media all their lives.

Where to Look?

Nick Provenzano's article on Edutopia, accessed here, is a great resource for teacher resources. It lists a few different sites that he uses to find answers to questions that people ask him. He starts with Google which doesn't surprise me because that is a pretty logical place to start. He talks about not needing to hold all the ideas and information in your head because this resource is always at your fingertips which is a good point. The other things he lists though are really helpful. I will absolutely be using the list when I start to lesson plan fro next year. There are a lot of things to keep in mind for the next school year that will make my lessons even better!

Standardized Testing and PBL

The article from edutopia about standardized testing and PBL was meant to give tips to teachers about utilizing PBL while still maintaining their prep for standardized testing. I think this is a great idea. Instead of waiting until after testing, teachers should just tailor their projects to work within whatever constraints their testing schedule puts on them. I have been doing a lot of reading about using PBL in the classroom and think this would be a great thing to try next year.