Blog Tips and Tricks #8: Time Savers with Pre-made URLs & GDOCs as a Medium

I tried to upload quizzes from online math books and found some quicker ways to accomplish the task after several frustrating attempts. With Blogger you will find outside mediums to be your friend. HTML friends include "notepad," not MS Word and this video highlights Google Docs as your friend to quick copy-and-paste several links with attached URL's to your blog.

FlipCon2013

Flipped Learning Podcasts

Podcast 1:
http://archive.org/details/Episode1AaronSams

Podcast 2:
http://archive.org/details/FlnPodcastEpisode2BrianBennett

Podcast 3:
http://archive.org/details/Episode3RamseyMusallam

Flipped Learning

AACE and EDMEDIA 2012: Denver

Flipped Classrooms & 21st Century Resources on Prezi

A Reflection on Today

There are a few things to keep in mind after today. Be sure to document all the lessons you learned today so you will not forget them over the summer. That was part of the point in having a Flip camera. The other part was for you to begin documenting as much of your class as possible so that you may extend your differentiated classroom. These videos can be used as part of your scavenger hunts, as we discussed, as well may be added to your blogs tutorials and lesson archive. When a student forgets a concept or you just want to refer to it later you will always have it to pull. Not to mention students will have access to them from their homes.

With this in mind I encourage all to share their videos on their blogs so we may learn more from them. Also, I encourage those of you who did not watch Mr. Falcon's tutorial videos to do so. He has valuable information for the beginner cameraman. His lessons will make your videos more professional, more enjoyable and can be applied immediately.
http://979falcon.blogspot.com/

Remember that if students learn in an outdoor environment through tactile measures the information they have learned is more likely to become imprinted into their brain. Then during lessons they will have greater recall when you mention aspects of both the concept and the lesson. Videos, pictures, audio, any other technology you can add to these experiences is only a plus and will enhance your lesson's impact! The more that students "Pull" information from apps and their surrounding environment, the more impacting it is. The more you "Push" the information through lectures in the classroom, the less impacting your lessons will be.

I encourage you to build, build, build over the summer! The most frustrating thing for faculty around you, the students and the administration is when in-services take place and no one takes those jewels of information and explores them fully. You will only know if something works and is valuable to your classroom through practice. You have all summer to practice and build. I plead with you, do not come back in August without buckets full of ideas and games, lessons, activities already built to be used in your 2012-2013 lessons! Your knowledge and creativity is too great not to share; don't sit on your hands.

Another frustrating aspect and I encourage you to fight this in tomorrow's in-service is when teachers are not open and are not willing to try. When other's share their ideas you will only get out of their lessons what you put into them. Remember and reflect on the discouragement you feel when students are not open to your lessons and take away nothing leaving your classroom.

Continue to learn! Continue to share! You will find the information for events for tomorrow on Mr. Arias' blog if you have not checked it already:
http://arias-slamnscience.blogspot.com/

My Favorite Flipped Classroom Video

I really love this video because it made me watch again and again. It was as if Katie was not in control of the video, but drove the message. I think very highly of her and am pleased to see her step back and process how to send messages through her creative lens; she inspires me! I want to take on this style of learning. I hope you will come with me, because I need supporters and people to bounce ideas off of. I like this video so much and want to encourage you so much to look into it that I will post the same post three days in a row. I hope you are inspired!

Flipped Classroom: Cool Vid!

I really love this video because it made me watch again and again. It was as if Katie was not in control of the video, but drove the message. I think very highly of her and am pleased to see her step back and process how to send messages through her creative lens; she inspires me! I want to take on this style of learning. I hope you will come with me, because I need supporters and people to bounce ideas off of. I like this video so much and want to encourage you so much to look into it that I will post the same post three days in a row. I hope you are inspired!

Flipped Classrooms 4

So how do you manage a classroom of disruptions? Entertain, engage, love, care and follow this example:

A Flipped Classroom: Revision

If you were paying attention you might have noticed I already posted this once, however, I added the wrong video. I have since gone back and corrected the mistake. But for all those that don't have time to go back and check those things I am reposting the blog today so you will receive the post in your feeder. I hope you enjoy the video; I know I do!

I have been researching "Flipped Classroom" and believe it may solve many of my problems in the classroom. Our 10th Grade teaching strategies are showing declining scores and I want to amp up and get "hands on," "dirty hands." I want to help the students with their work and see what they can do themselves up close. I can no longer rely on parental support, especially at the high school level. Parents claim to either not know the content or just don't have the patience, know how and time to spend with students. Its kind of sad, but I understand; especially for my classroom, where they are all struggling just to get to school due to life's struggles. Hopefully my tactics next year will remediate problems for me, for them and for their parents. Hopefully next year we will see change and better results.

Here is a video on what and why I need a flipped classroom:

Flipped Classrooms 3

I am excited because I have been talking with fellow teachers and the principal and vice principal about "Flipped Classrooms." They are where I initially heard of the idea and now find it popping up everywhere.  I like this teacher explaining recourse with the idea because she is honest and reserved (something I can relate with) . Take in her ideas and words, not her nervous tics. I love her vids and ideas!

Flipped Classrooms 2

Next year I want to "flip" my classroom. If you watched the first video from the previous post you know what this means. I have been researching how to best and most effectively do this and I have definitely appreciated this teachers videos. Enjoy!

Flipped Classroom

I have been researching "Flipped Classroom" and believe it may solve many of my problems in the classroom. Our 10th Grade teaching strategies are showing declining scores and I want to amp up and get "hands on," "dirty hands." I want to help the students with their work and see what they can do themselves up close. I can no longer rely on parental support, especially at the high school level. Parents claim to either not know the content or just don't have the patience, know how and time to spend with students. Its kind of sad, but I understand; especially for my classroom, where they are all struggling just to get to school due to life's struggles. Hopefully my tactics next year will remediate problems for me, for them and for their parents. Hopefully next year we will see change and better results.

Here is a video on what and why I need a flipped classroom:

Website Recommendation of the Day: Learner's TV

Would you like to learn nearly anything and be given tons of videos to learn that trade, school subject, whatever? That's right, you will learn anything and everything.

http://www.learnerstv.com/

Website Recommendation of the Day: Alternative Website Tools

15 Web Alternatives to Popular Desktop Software

http://web.appstorm.net/roundups/15-web-alternatives-to-popular-desktop-software/ 

Math Site Recommendation of the Day: Homeschool Math

If you subscribe via email you get even more than what is on the site, something to think about and for all ages. 

                                   http://www.homeschoolmath.net/online/problem_solving.php

You can find more as well by taking off each part with a "backslash." For instance, see what you get from just
                      
                                                       http://www.homeschoolmath.net

Website Recommendation of the Day: bit.ly

bit.ly - a URL shortening website. If you want to share as a teacher websites for others to view you may give them the direct URL or in an easier fashion the shortened version. This website will help you do that.

visual.ly- this website will aid in your presentations and strengthen your arguments via visual data representation and has inspirational ideas for all. Isn't visual just better, smoother, easier? I have to give a shout out to our VP Mr. Murphy for first introducing me to the visual representations, which succinctly show what I am thinking. It reminds me a lot of the roundtable I attended with Mr. Mortis and Ms. Ramos at the last education conference describing how people may learn more quickly through graphic novels. Our question was, "Is retention higher through this method?" The answer is likely not longterm for some and if you ask others they'll say it is because they remember seeing the picture, which triggers the memory of the entire concept. State dependency?!

Website Recommendation of the Day: SMS TOOLS

Mr. Murphy and I did our first Roundtable presentation today and it was very successful. Believe it or not, none of our viewers were from the USA, instead they were from Canada, Nigeria and the Arab Emirates. They somehow found us in the program and were kind enough to join us as we discussed the mission of the school, how we believe students want to learn based on our collection of data from their responses to surveys. I hope one day all of our teachers will present their own ideas and grow, Grow, GROW! During the presentation I realized how fortunate we really are as teachers with what we have as teaching resources at our school. I hope also that these resources are used to their fullest in order for each student to get what they need from education, remain engaged and learn, as well so WE grow and become better teachers.

Here you will find links to the SMS programs we highlighted and our presentation (thanks Ms. Parker for finding a lot of these sites for us to explore!).

http://bit.ly/whoSdS (AACE SMS Presentation)

http://cel.ly/
http://studyboost.com/
http://remind101.com/
http://www.polleverywhere.com/
http://scvngr.com/

Cool Interactive Website

I found an Interactive website today at lunch and was able to use it in class today as part of my introduction to probability. I continued to explore it and think you could greatly benefit from this site. It is set up for any grade level, works for teachers with and without whiteboards, has lesson plans, recommendations for follow up, links for student follow up and is always accessible online.

The site: http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/

If you want to just dive in go choose "Activities" on the main page.

You're sure to find activities from all levels.

You may also choose "Standards" from the main homepage and choose the TEKS or associated standards for your state, then your grade level and activities.

 

CHOICE: STANDARDS

ONCE YOU CHOOSE YOUR STANDARDS, SUBJECT AND GRADE LEVEL:

 YOU MUST CHOOSE YOUR LESSON:

THEN YOU MAY CLICK ON THE LESSON ITSELF, FOR THIS TUTORIAL, "ANGLES."

THIS WILL OPEN UP A NUMBER OF THINGS INCLUDING THE ABSTRACT, OBJECTIVES, STANDARDS, REALLY AN ENTIRE TEACHER LESSON PLAN. YEAH!

EVEN A VOCABULARY RESOURCE FOR YOU AND YOUR STUDENTS TO REFER TO:

THE BEST PART!!! THE INTERACTIVE ACTIVITY (NOTICE THE TAB I AM IN) !!!!

IF YOU OR YOUR STUDENTS NEED IT THERE IS ALSO A "HELP" TAB.

FROM THERE YOU CAN ALSO CLICK ON THE "LEANER" TAB OR MAKE THE "LEARNER" TAB ONE OF YOUR PAGES OR RESOURCEFUL LINKS ON YOU BLOG.

HERE ARE THE GAMES I USED TO TEACH PROBABILITY TODAY (ALSO NOTICE THE EASITEACH TAB RUNNING ALONGSIDE IT; VERY COMPATIBLE!):

Motivational Speech of the Day.

I believe we are teachers in a position of technological shift. We need to learn so many technologies, yet be wary of which may become obsolete or unnecessary. It is hard to decide which programs and software are worth investing our time to learn, but we are the “Deciders.” We pick and choose for now which programs will be used in the classroom and many of our decisions are based on our students practices. Which do they use and which do we choose? Which companies, which software will highlight and successfully achieve student growth in education and do it the way we want to teach? Stay ahead of the game and don’t fall behind. Learn, Learn, LEARN the technology. It will pay off, don’t be afraid to use it!

If teachers could embrace the changes in student communication they could harness student interest in the technology and lead the way in how those devices are being used. In previous experiences during school years and in-service meetings I have found that the number one reason for not utilizing technology inside the classroom is because teachers do not understand it and fear it. They do not understand how to use the growing number of technological devices and software, nor are quick to invest time in learning them. There is also a feeling of helplessness, that “they don’t know what they don’t know.” Often teachers remain idle and frustrated with students when confronted with inappropriate computer or cell phone use, where as they should be quick to embrace, learn and guide students on more productive uses for those and other devices in the classroom. Stay ahead of the game and don’t fall behind. Learn, Learn, LEARN the technology. It will pay off, don’t be afraid to use it!