Final Blog Posting

This course has provide numerous learning opportunities throughout this semester. My favorite project that we completed was the ComicLife activity. I found that this was a great tool to use to present information on different grade levels. I teach 6th grade Social Studies and my curriculum is extremely difficult for this age group. Using a program such as ComicLife enabled me to take difficult information and transform that into something that 6th graders would be interested in viewing and still meet my learning objectives. All of my students gave positive feedback about the comicstrip that I created for this project. I will definitely use ComicLife again!
I also greatly enjoyed working with three of my classmates to complete the PBL project. Sometimes I feel like I am missing out on the interaction with my peers by completing coursework primarily through distance learning. This project provided a chance to work with classmates that doesn't always exist in an online learning atmosphere.
This class has consisted of alot of hard work, but I believe the benefits will prove to be well worth it.

PBL and Group Work

This project provided a great opportunity to collaborate with my fellow classmates. Each of my group members teaches a different grade/content area, so we each had a little different interpretation of what our approach to this project should be. I believe that our final project displays a little bit of each of our ideas. I had never used GoogleDocs before this project, and I must admit I was a little hesitant. Using Google was a good way to share immediate information with each group member--but the planning documents, where we were discussing ideas, quickly became cluttered and difficult to follow. This is an opinion that my other group members also shared. It was also difficult to work on a project that focused on a content area that I am not familiar with. At the middle school level, teachers become so engulfed in the content that we teach, that we are not familiar with what is going on in other content areas. Overall, I enjoyed working on this project--I had a great team! We were all willing to listen to each other's ideas and make sure that elements of everyone's ideas were included in our final project.
Using PBL activities can be a great teaching tool for teachers and provide students with valuable opportunities to learn using a different technique that they might be used to. PBL also provides students with an opportunity to investigate topics on their own which enables them to practice searching for accurate information.

Movies with Movie Maker

Movie Maker is a very user friendly tool. It is very easy to add photos/videos and arrange the order in which they are to be displayed. Movie Maker also allows for adding music and sound effects; there is a tab that lets the user select where to insert the sound. Unfortunately the version of Movie Maker that is available for Windows 7 does not provide a tool for recording within the program. This requires the user to use an outside program such as Audacity. Again, the Audacity program that is compatible with Windows 7 is still in the development stage, so getting the program to work properly was difficult.

Movie Maker can be used in numerous ways in an educational setting. It is a great tool for presenting information, as I did for this project. But, it could also be used by students as a way to present information.

PBL

This week's discussion about PBL provided many ideas about different types of projects can be created and ways to use those projects. A common theme throughout the discussion seemed to be the difficulty at different levels to have the number of teachers involved to successfully implement such large scale project. PBL projects can be a great teaching tool; and there are ways to successfully use PBL even with the challenge of scheduling. The unfortunate reality is that every teacher is so focused on making sure that their content is taught that it is just often too much to take on trying to integrate a project that involves so many people.

VoiceThread...

There are numerous ways that a program such as Voice Thread can be intregrated into a classroom. It can be used to create presentations, or in my case, recorded instructions for a project. Creating a Voice Thread was relatively easy; there is a catch to publishing the finished product so that everyone can view it. I believe that this tool may be better suited for older students that are more familiar with internet use and interactive tools. I can't imagine young students being able to go through the process of recording or typing responses.

Using ComicLife

This was my first experience with ComicLife, so I really wasn't sure what to expect. I immediatley realized the potential uses of the program. I created a comic strip based on European exploration, which is a unit that I just finished teaching. My plans are to use the comics that I created as a review tool before our first 9 weeks exams; I told my students what my plans are and they are very excited that we are going to try something new. I have to admit that I was a little excited about the possibilities of this program while I was working on the project. I am certified to teach high school students, so I am constantly looking for resources that are more appropriate for 6th graders. I can only hope that the lesson I have planned is as beneficial to my students as I am anticipating it to be.

Problem Based Learning

Problem based learning is a teaching concept that emphasizes the student role in education. By working to apply real world solutions/ideas to teaching standards, students are able to gain a greater level of understanding. When I first started teaching I was a little hesitant to let students work on their own; I felt like I had to be in front of the class lecturing in order to feel as if my students had learned something. As I have become more comfortable with my curriculum and the resources that are available to me I have become more open to this teaching concept. I still believe there are days that I am responsible for introducing new ideas, but I have learned the importance of allowing students to experiment on their own to master learning objectives.