Blog Post #11

Of course throughout this class we have learned the advantages of technology use in the classroom. In Back to the Future, by Brian Crosby, he gives some pretty scary statistics about second language students and how it is difficult for them to learn our language. It is scary to think about teaching kids who are from a different country and only knowing the language of which they were born into. Watching Mr. Crosby use technology such as blogging, wiki, and other online tools helped them be able to explore the countries and listen to that of their native language while also learning the English language. This was a very clever idea that I would definitely pick up if I was to ever teach a second language student.

Another key thing that I have learned from taking this class is that engaging your students is very important. When trying to get kids to have fun while learning it is important to engage them and get them excited about what it is they are about to do. It also makes it easier on you as a teacher and much more enjoyable for the students. In Making Thinking Visible, Mr. Church gets his students to create headlines about what they are about to learn and after they learn the topic in more depth, they are able to go back and change their headline and explain why they would change it. This allows the students to think ahead and then research the topic and go back and change their headline based on what further information they found out. Also in Sam Pane 4th Grade, Mr. Pane engaged his students to create a superhero to protect and help keep out bullies and hackers on the internet. He engaged them by quoting the movie Spiderman and then had them discuss in groups internet safety. This allowed the students to get excited about the project they were about to do while still learning the different things they need to be aware of on the internet.

We have learned a great deal about Project Based Learning this semester in class. PBL is a great way to keep students interested and be able to work collaboratively on projects that have to do with the subject they are learning. In the video Project Based Learning, that word engage is used again. Clearly it is very important to engage your students before they actually start a project. In this video there are 3 classes that are blended together into one big class (History, English, and Computer). A lot more is able to be accomplished and students are able to work on their work by having more time and improving their skills on PBL.

Overall from these videos I learned that engaging your students is very important. Above I have stated the many ways engaging your students can be successful for your classroom. It draws them in and actually makes them want to be there and learn. It makes them think outside the box and look further for information about the particular topic they are learning.