Topic 5: Engage me or Enrage me

So this guy had some great information, which I will discuss in a minute but first I want to say that he does not practice what he preached!  He did not engage his audience at all!!  He just stands up and lectures with a presentation that we can't see 3/4th's of the time.  He was not near as motivating as the Rushton guy or Caitlan teacher!  He could have done so many things to engage us, like the quiz site or had us play a game and feel the same motivation that he wants us to give our students.  I actually think the information he gives us is great and his lecture is an example of how boring it is to not be engaged!  Irony!!  Funny thing is that I was enraged that I could not see what his live audience was laughing about or what the "important" question was and how he did not engage us!  :)

Now to discuss the information he delivers in a boring way!  I think he brings up some great points!!  He sells us on using technology for the first 50 minutes and really only discusses video games for the last 20 minutes.  So I feel that the video games are just one of the engaging techniques that he feels we should use and he chose just this particular example of technology that students learn from.  He stated that "technology is the new literacy" and how true that is!  If we don't know technology then, we are illiterate in today's world!  He also brought up the fact that we don't necessarily have to master all of the technology because students already know how to use it!  Just have them do it and then teach the lessons of how to evaluate it and what is appropriate behavior.  This helped me to not be so overwhelmed with thinking I had to master all of the technology that as he said were coming and going so fast!  He said things that I already agree with about video games.  I always thought they were great tools for learning, solving problems, making effective decisions under stress, so many skills!!

So to sum it up, I loved the information he was lecturing about and I think he made some fantastic points BUT I really struggled to stay interested and focused on what hje was saying!  I was enraged more than I was engaged!  :)

Topic 4 Reaction

My reaction to the flipped classroom is all positive!!  I completely am sold!!  What a great way to let students pace themselves.  They can watch a teacher made video over and over if they need to or only once!  And when you flip the classroom, I love the idea of not just posting a lecture but starting a conversation about it on a backchannel or even a blog that the students can respond to the video and to each other.  I am definitely into using the socrative free tool also because that would be a great way to have students respond to a question and get immediate feedback as well as during class response from students!  Kids love technology and what a great way to get more time "in" the class with webtools used that students can connect to at home!

Topic 2 Assignment

I was leery of "blogging" for the fear of the unknown and also because of the ignorance of it's uses in the classroom.  After reading that article on Edublog assigned to us taking the web course, I am sold!!  It is so true that our students are so digital and do most of their communication with technology!  What better way to get their attention than a blog!  Another great point mentioned was that students would be more motivated to write if the audience is bigger than just the teacher.  Knowing that their peers will be able to see and interact would be a huge motivator to write.  Their writings would be more creative rather than just what they think the teacher wants to hear.   What a great way to turn in assignments along with the ability to access from anywhere to receive feedback!

Bloggers could be used in my High School Algebra class as an end of the chapter closure assignment.  Students could write a blog using all the vocabulary words explaining what the chapter was about.  It is always a good idea that the students understand and know the vocabulary.  It helps them speak the language of math!  I can definitely see that students would be way more willing to be creative with this assignment in a published blog than on paper assignment.  Triple win to incorporate literacy, technology, and mathematics!!