Podcast Reflection #10: The ELL Bill of Rights- An Interview with Ruslana Westerlund

            For this week’s podcast reflection I choose to check out Wesley Fryer’s website and podcasts, Moving at the Speed of Creativity.  To find the list of his podcast on his website click on the iTunes icon under Stay Updates on the right side of his homepage.  The podcast that I listened to was number 364: The ELL Bill of Rights- An Interview with Ruslana Westerlund.  I choose to listen to this podcast because my concentration is ESL.  I am interested in helping students that come to the United States learn English to be successful. 

            Ruslana Westerlund is an immigrant from Ukraine.  She has experiences ESL classrooms and has worked with ESL students.  In the podcast before Wesley Fryer interviewed Ruslana, he read a poem that she wrote about how ELL students fell as they enter a new American school.    This poem was very powerful to me.  It really made me think about how an ELL student feels.  It is hard enough being a new student, but being a new student that does not speak the language that other students do would be even harder.  

            In Wesley’s interview with Ruslana, he asked her about her business.  She said that the ELL Bill of Rights T-shirts and website were an outlet for her passion of helping ELL students.  She said that communities need a visual to help them be more aware of what English learners and their parents go through.  Ruslana said that she created the ELL Bill of Rights to inform ELL teachers, students, and parents of their rights.  They need to be aware that there is not equality of treatment by just providing the same facilities, textbooks, teachers, and curriculum as other students because students that do not understand English are denied a meaningful education. 

            Ruslana went on to say that one of biggest misconceptions about ELL students is that if they are fluent in conversational English they should be fluent in academic English.  This is simply not true.  It takes a deeper understanding of English and different vocabulary to succeed in different disciplines.  Fluency with conversational English does not equate to fluency in academic English.  Ruslana’s goal is to help all teachers in all disciplines to become language teachers.   

            I really admire what Ruslana is doing.  I think, especially in this day in age, it is so important to learn how to teacher ESL students.  There are more and more immigrants coming to the United States and they are our future.  We have to be there to support and help them succeed. 

Comics in my Classroom

            These days there is a push for teachers to get away from the traditional lecture style teaching that has been so popular in the past.  We need to find new and more innovative ways to reach our students.  Making a fun and colorful comic to present new information could be just one way to do this. 

            I created a comic on ToonDoo to introduce some simple parts of speech: nouns and verbs.  On ToonDoo you can choose your background, characters, props, and speaking bubbles.  You can also choose the layout that you want your comic to be in.  Teachers could use a comic at the beginning of a unit to capture and focus students’ attention on what they will be learning.  It would be a nice change from the original lecture presentation.  Teachers could also use comic strips as assessment tools.  They could have their students make a comic strip to demonstrate what they learned in a particular lesson.  Student would enjoy the change and be motivated to use their creativity.    

Podcast Reflection #9 Salman Khan: Let’s use video to reinvent education.

In this podcast reflection I watched a video of Salman Khan talking about the website he started, Khan Academy.  Salman said that he started creating math videos and posting them on YouTube to help his cousins in another city.  These videos were meant to tutor his cousins, but still allow them to learn at their own pace.  After he started posting these math videos he started getting positive feedback from all kinds of people.  More people than just his cousins were using Salman’s math videos to learn math. 

Because of all the good feedback Salman decided to quite his job and start a non-profit organization called Khan Academy.  He has since created 2200 videos from very basic math to advanced calculus, physics, and finance.  All of these videos are posted on his website so kids can learn at their own pace.  Salman’s goal for Khan Academy is to have it used in schools to help kids get a firm grasp of concepts.  He wants teachers to remove the one-size-fits-all lectures and let kids learn at their own pace.  Salman says one of the reasons that good students all of the sudden start failing higher-level math classes is because they have “Swiss Cheese” type holes in their basic understanding of concepts.  He claims that Khan Academy will help to fill those holes from the start.                

Salman has taken his 2200 videos to the next level.  He has written exercises that generate as many questions as the students need until they get that particular concept.  When the students get 10 in a row then the exercises move on to more difficult concepts.  The students can use Salman’s videos to learn the concepts before they practice them. 

A Los Altos school is actually using this free program in their math classes.  The students come into class, watch the videos, and then do exercises.  Every student can work at his/her own pace.  The teacher can look at a dashboard to monitor progress.  Each row on the dashboard is a student and each column is a concept.  Green means the student has mastered the concept, blue means they are getting it but need more practice, and red mean they are stuck.  With this teachers can go right to the students that are stuck.  But before the teacher intervenes she can look at all of the data that Khan Academy has collected on the student to try and pinpoint the problem.  This way the interaction between the student and teacher can be as positive as possible.    

I think this is a wonderful tool.  It could really transform math education.  My favorite part about this tool is students can work at their own pace!  They don’t have to be embarrassed by having the entire class go ahead of them just because they don’t understand something.  I also like all of the information that Kahn Academy generates about each student.  Teachers can really monitor what the students are actually doing.      

Podcast, Website & Blog Mid-term Critiques

Part 1: Podcast

            Hayley Hunsberger created the first podcast that I listened to.  She is a senior at K-State majoring in Family and Consumer Sciences.  In her podcast she talked about how exercise increases learning.  She defined exercise as any physical or mental exertion to increase skill or strength.  Hayley also mentioned how being physically fit increases problem solving skills by 10%.  She mentioned a school that sends students that struggle with math and reading to PE before those subjects.  This particular school also has balls and stationary bikes in their classrooms for students to use.  According to Hayley and the research that she did, fitness based exercise, like strength and flexibility, makes our brains more ready to learn.  It has a direct correlation with academic test scores.  Those who are deemed fit score twice as well on academic tests as those who are deemed unfit.

            All of this information makes sense to me, just from my own experience.   If I sit at my desk and do homework for several hours without taking a break I start to make mistakes.  I always feel like I can get more done after I take a walk or exercise.  I think more schools should have exercise balls in their classrooms for students to use.  The students could even sit on these balls instead of hard chairs.  I think this would definitely increase productivity and motivate kids! 

                Natalie Archuleta created the second podcast that I listened to.  In her podcast she discussed three ESL websites that can be very helpful for teachers of all levels.  This podcast was especially helpful for me because my concentration is ESL.  The first website that she talked about was Dave’s ESL Café.  On this websites there are pages for teachers, students, and everyone!  On the teacher page there is everything from icebreakers and games to a place for teachers to post their résumé and teacher forums.  The second website that Natalie talked about is called ESL Party Land.   This website claims it is a fun place to learn English as a second language.  There are separate pages for students to learn English, and for teachers to teach English.  On the teacher page there are links to lesson plans on a variety of topics including teaching conversation, teaching with the Internet, and teaching grammar.  The final website that Natalie mentioned is called ESLAmerica.US. On this website anything that students do has sound.  They can complete activities under all kinds of topics including conversation, life skills, vocabulary, and reading.  Students can click on a topic that will take them to a page with many more resources on it.  

Part 2: Website & Blog

            After listening to Hayley and Natalie’s original podcast, I browsed around their websites and blogs.  Both of their websites were attractive and inviting.  The colors that they chose were neutral but invited viewers to explore the sites further.  Both websites were easy to navigate with a navigation bar on the left side of the home page.  Their other pages were clearly marked with appropriate names for what was on the page.  Hayley and Natalie had a list of links on the right side of their homepages that were appropriate and easy to read.  They both also had pictures that helped me get to know them a little bit.  They also included their DED 318 projects on a separate page in a logical order.  Natalie had a separate page for each of her Block A classes while Hayley had one page for all of her Block 1 classes.  Personally, I prefer the one page for all of the classes, but it is a personal preference. 

                Next I looked at the girls’ blogs.  I love Hayley’s blog background! It is purple paisley and almost reminds me of Vera Bradley patterns.  I also like that her blog entries show up on a plain white box.  This makes them easy to read.  The only thing that I would change about Hayley’s blog is the font that she chose.  It is all caps, and a little bit hard to read.  I also liked Natalie’s blog background.  It is a purple-checkered print.  Natalie’s blog entries also show up in a framed light pink box that makes them easy to read.  Her writing is black and easy to read.  The only thing that I would change about Natalie’s blog is the navigation bar.  The writing on it is not on top of a separate, solid box.  It is kind of hard to read. 

            After looking at these girls’ websites and blogs, I found that I have much of the same features on mine.  I am glad that I decided to use iWeb to create my website, however.  I am able to move everything around however I want, and not have to stick to a specific format.  After seeing the more neutral colors in Natalie and Hayley’s website, I might tweak the colors on my website.  It could feel too bright to a new viewer.  But I also have to remember that I am going to be an Elementary teacher and want a website that is fun and inviting.     

Kan-ed Reflection

            Kan-ed is a program that was created by the Kansas Legislature to help bring technology to schools around the state.  It is a free service to educators that provide them resources that will help them in their classrooms.  This site gives educators access to normally free resources and resources that they would normally have to pay for.  This site does not only provide resources for teacher, however.  It also includes resources for students. 

            There are several tabs on the Kan-ed website: Homepage, Portal Designer, Test Builder, School Administration, Teacher Tools, and Backpack.  The homepage provides teachers and students with necessary resources for classroom success.  The Portal Designer allows teachers to change the layout of the websites, as it is convenient for them.  As a pre-service teacher, however, I cannot change the layout because there are many other students using this site.  Under the Test Builder tab service teachers can build tests for their students.  These can be practice state assessment tests, or regular chapter tests.  Under this tab, teachers can also upload tests that they have already made and choose tests from the test bank.  The School Administration tab is for Principals and Administrators.  Administrators can require teachers to administer state assessment practice tests a certain number of times before test week.  If they choose to do this, the Administrators can check this tab to see if their teachers are administering these tests.  In the Teacher Tools tab, teachers can tend their gradebook and class information.  Finally, under the Backpack tab students can upload their work and work on it anywhere they have Internet access.  Whether they are at home, the library, or out of the state, students don’t have to worry about putting their work on a flash drive.  They can just logon to Kan-ed and work on their assignments!  Even though this site has many tabs that are very useful, the best tab is the Homepage tab.  That is what I am going to discuss in more detail.

            The Homepage provides teachers and students with a seemingly unlimited amount of resources for their classroom.  There are so many resources on this page that I am going to only discuss some of my favorites.  The first excellent resource is called Kansas Education Resource Center or KERC.  On the KERC website you can look at building report cards.  This is a feature that I will definitely use as I’m looking for a job.  I can search for the school that I applied to, and review all of their statistics.  I can look at ethnicity, test scores, male/female ratio, and much more.  As you go into an interview you need to know as much about that school as you can.  The building report card will definitely help me do that. 

            The main part of the KERC website is lesson plans.  You can click on one of five content areas, then click on the grade level and see all of the resources that are available for that age group.  For examples, say I need an idea for 6^th grade math.  I would first click on math, 6^th grade, then choose from four standard titles: number and computation, algebra, geometry, and data.  Clicking on geometry brings up an entire list of lesson plans and resources that correspond with specific standards. I can see this being an excellent site as I go through my teaching classes and into my professional career.  There is no need for teachers to start from scratch when there are so many ideas already out there. 

            netTrekker is another resource on the Kan-ed desktop that is very useful. This site works much like KERC.  First you can choose a topic from one of twelve different content areas.  Lets use my same example of math.  I first go to the math content area box and click on geometry.  From there I can narrow my search to, say, basic geometric terms.  Then I can choose another more specific topic like area.  This brings up all kinds of resources and sites that have math, geometry, basic geometric terms, and area in common.  Under each site is a description of what you will find there so you do waste time searching.  You can even use the right side bar to narrow your search by reading level, multimedia, language, ect.  The makers of this site definitely created with teachers in mind.  The information is organized and easy to use.  You can find what you are looking for fairly quickly.

            The final resource, although there are many others, that I want to show you is called Thinkfinity.  On this site you can find education news, informational blogs, interactive tools for kids, lesson plans, webinars, and more!  Under the lesson plans tab you can find interactive activities, media, museum artifacts, professional development, and links.  The cool thing about Thinkfinity lesson plan searches is you can use the “Refine Your Search” bar on the right side of the screen to really narrow your search. For examples I can click audio, visuals, interactives, and worksheets.  Then I can search by a specific grade level and subject.  When the search results come up you can read each description and decide if you want to go to the site or not.  The best thing about Thinkfinity lesson plans is you can click on the yellow star to see what Kansas state standard goes with the lesson.  This could be a definite time saver for new teachers.

            I have only scratched the surface of all of the resources on the Kan-ed desktop.  After digging around the resources I have discovered that they are not just sites with meaningless games and information, they are resources that have been proven to help teachers.  They can definitely be used to facilitate student success.                

Classroom 2.0 Reflection

            Classroom 2.0 is an award winning social networking site for educators that are interested in Web 2.0.  This networking site is free to join, but because of spammers your membership does have to be approved before you can participate in the community.  This site is full of resources, photos, videos, and collaboration opportunities with other educators from around the world.  Just on the homepage you can few the forums, search videos and photos, find groups that interest you, and sort information on the site by tools, subject, and area. There are so many parts to this website that there is no way I could talk about everything.  I will mention a few of my favorite areas that I think would be most helpful. 

            The first tab across the top of this website is called Forums.  To me this is the “meat” of the website.  This is where any member can post a comment or question and then have others reply to it.  There are 762 pages worth of discussions that are going on right now.  With the sheer volume of topics, you are sure to find something that is helpful.  However, this number could be very intimidating.  How could a teacher ever find enough time to look through every one of these 762 discussions?  Well they don’t have to.  There are several options on this site to sort discussions and find what you are looking for.  First you can use the search box on the forums page.  If you are looking for discussions that have to do with language for example, type in language.  This might bring your pages down to 161 instead of 762.  You can also use the drop down menus on the forums page to sort by latest activity, newest discussion, or most popular. 

While these few sorting features can narrow your search some, you can use other ways to narrow it even more.  If you go back to the home page, scroll half way down, and look on the left side, you will see that you can also choose topics under Tools, Subjects, or Areas.  For examples, my emphasis is ES L.  So I might want to find a discussion about that.  All I have to do is look under By Subject then English as a Second Language.  This search brings up a much more manageable, two pages of discussions.  These discussion forums would be a great resource for new teachers.  All teachers remember their first year and are very willing to pass on advice and resources if you ask. 

Another great feature to this website is the Groups tab.  On this page members can choose from 658 different groups that better fit their interest.  You can meet other educators from around the world that have the same interests as you.  For example there are 19 groups that have to do with ESL that I could look at joining.  As with the discussion forum, you can use the search box at the top of the Groups page to narrow your search of groups.

The final area of this website that I think would be helpful is the Shows and Recordings tabs.  Under these tabs you can find information for different educational webcasts and audio recordings.  Some of the shows like Classroom 2.0 Live are live shows that allow viewers to participate in the show itself.  Other shows include: Future of Education, EdTechTalk, LearnCentral.tv, and Edublogs Live Events.  On the shows page you can find a date and time schedule as well as a description of the show’s content.  It even provides a time zone converter so you don’t miss your show!  Under the recordings tab it lists all of the recordings that Classroom 2.0 has access to.  This page includes the shownotes to all recordings, which includes the links that were talked about in the recording.  These shows and recordings are a wonderful resource to find professional development opportunities.     

Overall, I think the Classroom 2.0 website is an excellent place to meet other educators around the world.  It gives you the opportunity to learn in a safe, and comfortable environment.  This site would especially be good for new teachers.   

EduTecher Reflection

            EduTecher is a free website that was created by Adam Bellow to share educational resources for teachers to use in their classrooms.  One of the really great things about this site is there are no adds!  Your students can even explore the links and resources without an obscene, and inappropriate adds popping up in front of their face.  On the homepage of Edutecher they have a section called “Recently Added Links”.  Here you can find links that are new to their resources without having to search the site.  Also on the homepage you can go strait to exploring the available webtools, share resources with your colleagues and friends, or contribute to the wide variety of tools yourself.  There is a place toward the bottom of the homepage where you can subscribe to their newsletter, and always stay informed.  At the top of the homepage there are several important tabs that I want to talk about in more detail: links, eduTecherTV, conferences, and blog.

            The first tab is called Links.  On the left side of this page there is a large list of topics that you can search by.  Some include: art, ESL, foreign language, music, professional development, software, teacher tools, and technology.  You can also search the normal subject areas like: math, language arts, and science.  To narrow your search even further you can search by grade level.  Once you choose the criteria in which you want to search, all of the links that match your criteria appear on the right.  To go to the resource you can click on either the picture (logo) or title.  Each resource also comes with a description that you can read before you actually go to the site.  This is a definite time saver.  This site has many, many links that have to do with all kinds of topics.  There are resources for teachers and educational help for students. 

            The next tab is called eduTecherTV.  On this page you can find short tutorial videos (webisodes) for all kinds of other sites and resources on the web.  Some videos show you how to do something, while others give you an overview of what is on a site.  This is a wonderful feature for teachers who are just learning to use technology in their classrooms.     

            The third tab that I want to talk about is the conferences tab.  This is just a simple page that shows a running slideshow of EdTech conferences that have already past and ones to come.  One this slideshow, you can click on links to short video summaries of the conferences.

            Under the blog tab you can read about all kinds of eduTecher news.  This includes eduTecher in the media, new educational apps that you can download, and much much more.  There is pretty much everything that you would expect to find in a website blog. 

            After digging into the eduTecher website I have found that it is a useful tool for all educators.  The way I see it, they have gathered a seemingly unlimited variety of links in one website.  This site eliminates the frustration of searching all kinds of separate websites to find one specific resource.   

Podcast Reflection #8: Educational Apps

            Today I decided to listen to one of Tony Vincent’s Learning in Hand podcasts.  I listened to Episode #22: Education Apps.  This link will take you to the page with the podcast on it.  You can also find the show notes there which includes the links to everything he talked about.  In his podcast he talked about all of the different education apps out there for iPhone, iPod, and iPad.  I currently do not own an iPhone or iPad, but I have realized the benefits these devices can have in a classroom. 

            Tony mentioned that the apps for these devices are growing rapidly. He said as many as 700 apps are added daily!  Because of this, it can seem daunting to find apps that will fit your classroom and students.  In his podcast, Tony mentioned several websites that include lists of available applications for educators.  On most of these pages there are also reviews of how the app worked.  One of these websites is IEAR.org.  Here you can click on the grade level or subject that you are looking for an app for.  Most of these apps also have review to go with them.  Another one of these websites is the Recess Duty blog.  This websites contains 99 apps for iPod touch that are used by a middle school teacher.  Macworld has a large App Guide that includes reviews of educational apps.  Another website that Tony mentioned is Scribd.com.  This particular website consists of a 24-page document, made by Eric Sailers, of apps for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch that have to do with Special Education.  

            In his podcast Tony talked about how he finds many educational apps by looking at tweets on Twitter.  Educators tweet about apps that they have found, or are even using in their classrooms.  Here are some of my favorites that Tony talked about:

            The first one that I really liked is called Long Division 1.4 for iPhone.  This app allows kids to solve long division, long multiplication, column subtraction, and fraction math problems.  This would be a fun way to allow students to practice their math skills.  A second apps that I thought was cool is called StoryKit.  Here students can add text, upload drawings or images, and record themselves reading the story!  This could be used as a culminating project to end a Fairy Tale reading unit.  A third really interesting and useful app is iCell.  With this app students can take a 3D tour of an animal, plant, or bacteria cell.  They can rotate the cell, and tap on it to learn the name and read more about it.  This would be excellent for 6^th grade students when they are learning the parts of the cell.  Learning the parts form an app would definitely be more memorable than learning it from their textbook.   The final app that I thought was really good is called Read Me Stories.  This app could be used with very young kids who don’t know how to read or are just learning to read.  This is a talking picture book.  Teachers can get 7 books during their free trial, but after that they are only 10 cents per book. 

            I really enjoyed learning more about these educational apps.  I had no idea that there were do many for teachers and students.  I can definitely see how this could enhance the learning experience for many children!

Podcast Reflection #7: Seeds to Success Using Skype

 This week I listened to a Classroom 2.0 podcast.  To find this podcast first go to the Classroom 2.0 website, then click on the Achieves and Resources tab at the top of the page.  The podcast that I listened to is a ways down on that page called Seeds for Success Using Skype. 

As the name suggests the podcast was about how two teachers Jan Wells and Paula Naugle use Skype in their classroom.  They had some wonderful ideas that are not just fun for the students, but also fit into the curriculum and meet some standards. Using Skype in the classroom gives students a break from the traditional academic work, while still learning essential skills for the real world.  Jan and Paula talked about so many things, but I am only going to mention a few.

Jan and Paula are from two different states, but met on Skype.  They decided it would fun to bring their classrooms together through Skype. One of their first mini projects used the poem “Them Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”.  During a Skype call Paula’s class read one verse, then Jan’s class read the next verse, and so on.  To further their project, students created original artwork to go along with the poem, then made a voice thread to explain it.  

Another project they did was called OREO (Our Really Exciting On-line Project).  Both classes got on Skype and watched each other stack Oreo cookies as high as they could until they fell over.  The students collected the data of how many Oreos each student could stack, posted it on Google Docs for everyone to see, and found mean, mode, and other statistic related information.  This actually was put into their schools curriculum to meet certain math standards.  

Another great thing that Jan did was to bring in a reading tutor via Skype.  She said that the tutor was fun and lively.  It really helped her students become motivated to read.  Staying on the reading topic, Jan also found a 1st grade teacher in another state for her 3rd grade class to be reading buddies with.  The 1st graders read originally created books to Jan’s third graders, and the 3rd graders read picture books to the 1st graders.  

            Paula had some other great ideas including finding another teacher from somewhere around the world teach a lesson to your class via Skype.  If they were more of an expert on the topic than you, why wouldn’t you give your students that opportunity?  Skype could also be used to conduct parent teacher conferences with parents who are not able to attend the regularly scheduled meetings.  This would be a great way to still talk to parents at their convenience.

            I think these ladies had wonderful ideas that are very practical to use in an elementary class.  However when using technology like this you should always have a backup plan in case something happens.