Open Educational Resources

Open Educational Resources are becoming the new rave among many teachers and educators. What is open educational resources you may ask. According to an article published by Educase.edu" Open educational resources (OER) are any resources available at little or no cost that can be used for teaching, learning, or research. The term can include textbooks, course readings, and other learning content; simulations, games, and other learning applications; syllabi, quizzes, and assessment tools; and virtually any other material that can be used for educational purposes. OER typically refers to electronic resources, including those in multimedia formats, and such materials are generally released under a Creative Commons or similar license that supports open or nearly open use of the content. OER can originate from colleges and universities, libraries, archival organizations, government agencies, commercial organizations such as publishers, or faculty or other individuals who develop educational resources they are willing to share." Basically it is resources that help students with disabilities to succeed in the classroom.

How it works is simple teachers and students will use different resources such as voice technology or computers that give helpful hints in lessons or talk for the student that is unable. In this century alone technology has exceeded all imagination and continues to move forward. In the Journal a website has attributed its time to inform teachers and parents of the new technologies available to students so that they can be better informed. It is sites like these that help to attribute to more people becoming aware of open educational resources in the classroom.

However with every new idea or technology there are always pros and cons to each. Some of the cons that have been presented in the article 7 Things to Know about Open Educational Resources is the common quality or OER whether it is uneven. Also the value of educational resources often decreases without periodic updating, and many open resources are not kept current. The flipside of the flexibility of open resources is that many need to be adapted for use in a departmental or institutional context to meet local requirements or needs. This is because some open resources do not comply with accessibility requirements for users with disabilities.

In the article on Open Educational Resources by the Hewlett Foundation it also discusses some pros and cons of Open educational resources and how they define what it is. Another good educational article on Open Educational resources is provided by the College and Research Libraries News and even gives classes for teachers to enroll in. Also in additional resources provided by the link given to us you may want to visit these resources for great additional information on things like how do teachers apply this technology as well as specific resources. The main resource is the best way to find a plethra of material and can be found in this link. Also follow these resources for additional information OER TRAINING, LESSON PLANS. INFO ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY . As a closer here is a video that describes OER.

Flipped Learning and Teaching

What is flipped learning? If not studying the subject I would not be able to tell you. However, flipped learning is a new strategy used by teachers to switching things up in the classroom. Before I tell you what flipped learning is it may be a good idea to understand what a normal classroom looks like.

In a normal classroom a teacher may teach a subject and then have the kids do an activity on their own at home or with extra time in the class. What many teachers do is give the students the information and then have the students reiterate the lesson in order to  check for understanding.

Flipped learning on the other hand is different in that the teachers have the students do research on their own at home. Check out this video to see how flipping a classroom works. The teacher has various options in which they can assign the students to develop questions from their research and then post them or send them to a designated area. On the other hand teachers can use the class period the next day to do an activity or to create and in class discussion on what the students learned in their research. For more information on the basics of flipped learning visit Flipped Teaching.

With every teaching strategy there are going to be pros and cons. One of the pros to flipping the classroom is that it incorporates blended learning. Blended Learning is a formal education program where a students learns partly in an online manner to promote individual research. Keep in mind that instruction that makes use of technology, is not necessarily blended learning if it doesn't give the student control of time, place, path and/or pace. Flipped teaching also promotes a responsibility and an obligation to students. As well as maybe help to get parents involved in a students homework as well.

On the other hand, some setbacks that may be included with flipped learning is one a students access to the Internet, or even in poorer communities a computer. If a student doesn't have access to a computer how are they expected to do their own research? If a student can't do research on their own then they won't be able to learn properly in a classroom. Also with the students doing their own research then the teacher may not be able to fully know that the student has a complete understanding of the problem.
 
What does flipped learning mean for those teachers entering the job force? First of all visit and outside source called the flipped teaching website to find a plethora of videos that explain flipped teaching. It means that you are going to have to keep up with the latest technology. I believe that it is important to know and find different teaching styles. Why? Because if students don't learn about new technology in the classroom where are they going to properly learn these things? Also every students learning style is different. On student may learn really well in a certain environment and another in a different. To create different lesson plan with various ways of learning may prove to be more work for the teacher but I believe that the result of the more rounded students that they are producing will be worth the effort. For a great example of a flipped classroom and one that is technology prevalent visit Mrs Pac's Class. But before you go and jump into flipped teaching make sure that you watch this video on what 5 things this teacher would have wanted to know before he switched to flipped teaching.

Experiencing Group

Experiencing group was an interesting project. There are always pros and cons to group work. As a class we were all introduced to google documents. I had never heard of google docs so I found it to be very fascinating. The part that I liked the most about google docs is that two of us can be working on the document at the same time which really helps people with busy schedules and is not able to meet in groups all the time. The second part of the project our groups all had to take our paper and put it into a presentation to share with the class.

There are many ways in which group work can be a help to students. Overall it can help with students willingness to open up to other students and to use social skills that they may need in future jobs. However, in order for these groups to be successful there are some essential key components that need to be present. The group needs to be able to communicate with each other effectively using tools and involving each member. Secondly the group has to learn to trust each other and use a effective group process. Group members must collaborate with each other and be able to resolve conflict within the group. If these key factors are present it makes for a positive group work experience. Here is a video on team work

As most people know though, group work can also be a very negative experience. In many groups participation can be seriously lacking from all group members. Even if one group member does not properly participate it has a dramatic effect on the project. This is what my group experienced although some of the group members put in a lot of work. The project turned out to look like not much effort was put into the project because of lack of participation which showed when each member was not confident and even one didn't even know how to work the project. To the students that do put the effort forth it can prove to be very frustrating when other members don't participate making group work a con.

For our presentation we used a online format called PREZI and our project can be found below. Also, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Blast From the Past: Progression of the Education Classroom on Prezi

PowerPoint (Ehhh + Sweet!)

PowerPoint (Ungh + Sweet!) was a recent project assigned to us in my technology class. I know that many of my fellow students were not completely clear on the assignment requirements until maybe the last class before it was due. What was requested of us was that we create an interactive power point that would be able to be used as a part of a lesson that would help the students to practice or review the lesson. I think the part where most of us got confused is that we weren't actually teaching a lesson first, but only creating the interactive part of the lesson where the students could actually click on the power point themselves. Then the power point could be used in conjunction as a game or with a review sheet.
Although the power point project had a rough start to it I ended up really enjoying being able to be creative with my project and ended up learning a lot about power point in the process. I liked that the project made me think critically about how to approach the classroom that I chose appropriately and interestingly. I think that once there was a detailed narrative given to us it was a lot easier to narrow down a subject that you could teach. I chose to teach middle school math reviewing the formula D = R X T. One source that helped me in this project was how provide the students interactive learning. You can read more about this site by clicking on the following URL http://tinyurl.com/8dp87v9.

In my narrative I said that I was teaching a small rural school in Montana and tried to find fun "farm or horse" examples to keep them entertained. The power point started off with a fun activity where the students bet on a race horse which then led them to a youtube video of a race in an effort to get them excited about the project at hand. I created my power point with the thought in mind that I would give a worksheet with the power point that let the students work on the examples presented. Then I provided the answers at the end of each problem so that if they had any questions I could assist them. How would I keep them from just writing down the answer, you may ask. Well in the worksheet instructions it would state that all work to find that answer must be shown to recieve credit. At the end of the worksheet examples I then provided a critical thinking bonus question that would spur the students to try to put together numerous learnings into one problem. In the question Buffalo Bill has to round up escaped cattle and at the end of each step the horse moves to the cow and the cow disapears. I really enjoyed this part of the project because I learned so many new things that power point can do.

For assessing our projects we had the opportunity to assess each other as peers. I really liked that we were able to do this because it gave us a chance to get other ideas from other students power points as well as think critically about how a student may look at a power point and how they would grade it. All of my fellow classmates did a great job in their blogs I thought that they were fun and interactive and properly fit to the age groups that they presented. If you would like to read about their blogs or how they felt about the power point project visit:Leah Stearns project or Katie Lybrook's project. To find more helpful tips on power point projects visit this url: http://tinyurl.com/5q2sdh.

So even though this project started out as a pain it turned out pretty sweet and I would encourage anyone who does not know much about power point to learn because it can provide a great teaching tool that is fun an interactive for the students.



Narrative for PowerPoint Project (1)



Teach Smith 183 (1)

Two More For The Roll

Middle school do you remember all of the teachers that you had in middle school? I know I do. I remember my 3rd grade teacher like it was yesterday. I remember all the activities we did in class and how she made what she was teaching so much fun that you couldn't help but to want to learn more about those subjects. That's how I want to be as a teacher. To be that kind of a teacher I know that I need to listen to other teachers with experience that can maybe give tips and ideas so that I can better teach my students. There were many math games that you can play as a math teacher. I remember the around the world times table games that I got to play in middle school. Everyone got so excited about playing the game and wanting to win they forgot that they were actually learning as well. There are jeopardy games, team games, and so much more that you can do with your students. There is a blog from a middle school teacher that gives lots of great information on how to survive as a middle school teacher. Visit http://tinyurl.com/cup8mk4 to find some awesome games to help with ideas to keep your students involved and excited about learning. Now you can't always play games in the classroom because then how would you learn things such a vocabulary words. Or can you? There are always ways to put a little twist on things. One teacher tells how she put up vocabulary words on a board and then as the year went along the students could find those words, when they were brought up in class, and place them on their vocabulary word tree. I think that is a pretty cool way to help students remember their vocabulary words and to keep them on their toes for new vocabulary. To read more about that idea visit http://tinyurl.com/8p6f5uw. As I am finding out there are so many different ways that you can make the subjects that you are teaching interesting. I am so excited to be able to think of more ways to keep my future students interactive and excited about learning.

My Beliefs about Technology and Learning

TECHNOLOGY. Technology has become a very large part of our daily lives today. Teaching as a whole is being changed to be more technology oriented. I have differentiating thoughts on technology. I believe that it can be a good and bad thing. First of all, as a teacher technology should be used only in the most professional manner. In this case computers can serve as a valuable teaching school. Personally it is hard for me to accept the all the new forms of technology. After all I just purchased my first smart phone recently and even that I was not sure I wanted to do. I enjoy paper the feel and smell of it and how I can touch it. I
learn best by seeing and touching things so it helps me to highlight and underline things. For me my personal experiences have shaped how I feel about technology. Beliefs can be set according to many things such as personal experiences, social cultures, commitments, ideologies, etc. It is important however to hold an open mindset on new technology especially when you are entering a career field such as teaching. That does not mean that we should completely get rid of the old such a chalk boards and paper because every student learns differently. There are now many programs for math and science that use new technology such as smart boards. Programs like those can be helpful to teach skills that are likely to be used in future jobs for the students. I think that a mixture of "paper and pencil" skills and technology skills will be a very important part of the classroom in order to produce more "well rounded students". So whether you are open minded about technology or still trying to get used to the idea I would urge those who are preparing to teach to look into certain technology programs and weigh out pros and cons of them. Why? Because it will make you a more rounded person that can help others to understand technology. Have a little fun with it too. Be creative and be willing to accept and change your belief system. I know I have been pleasantly surprised at the technological world and maybe you can to. Now go learn :) Suggested Reading:  http://www.melanieevemiller.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/technologyineducation.pdf

Important to Me

Have you ever felt like this in a classroom. Where you are looking at the clock every 3 minutes and just want to slam your head on the desk? I have felt this way and I am sure many others have to. But we shouldn't have to experience school that way, especially in my opinion science. Science is so fascinating and can be taken to so many different levels. I don't want to be one of those teachers that just teaches out of the book to the point where my students lose interest in what they are learning. There are so many ways that you can make science interesting. Take Bill Nye the Science Guy for example. Now he may have been a little crazy but everything that he did caught peoples attention while learning science. Even though Bill Nye passed recently I want to take my inspiration in teaching from him. To make science interesting and fun so that students can better learn and appreciate what they are learning.