Collaborative Blog Post

Slapout: Anna Meitzler, Evan Grace, and myself.

1-Brian Crosby- Back to the Future-each class is full of different students. Not only different students in each class but different classes in each grade. No class is the same. Mr. Crosby’s class is a very low income class or live in poverty. Most students could not answer simple questions regarding their home state, address and country. As their teacher Mr. Crosby did not want his students to have a different curriculum than than other students. Mr. Crosby’s classroom is much like any other class room today. He has many technological devices such as laptops, smartboards and video cameras. The class takes part in many different projects and they really seem to enjoy them and it also helps keep them engaged in the material they are learning. After the projects are completed the students use their own working blog to upload the videos of the projects they have just taken part in. The students are also instructed to write a quick summary about what happens in each video. Students in Mr. Crosby’s and also other 4th grade classes at his school also have wiki pages and flickr accounts. This helps the students show what they have learned on a specific topic. after using these softwares online they cut and paste them into their blogs. When the students realized that other people are reading their stuff it makes them feel accomplished and makes them strive to work harder and do better. In this, they also added personal goals. The students were assigned to write a “high hope.” What this is something positive that the students hope to happen in the school, community and also around the world. After doing this the students sent out a plea for people all around the world to add their high hopes in the students comments to send out into outer space along with Mr. Crosby’s classes. This spread around the globe quickly and the students got a great response, in which they had all hoped for. After this project was added to their blogs students from all around the world wanted to take place in this and teachers wanted to know how to complete the project. The students not only used blogs and writing but also video skype to show and teach other students around the world so they could learn and take part in this same activity.

2-Learning Blended Cycle- Basically all blended learning is doing is taking the parts of an online, mobile and classroom learning and blending them into one classroom setting. There are 5 e’s in the learning cycle, engage, explore, expand, explain and evaluate. This is a great way to present material and material that is to be learned. By putting those two formulas together you get the blended learning cycle. In his blended learning cycle he has 6 steps:
1-it starts with a really great question. Hook in learning. students are given data and asked a specific question.
2-investigate and experiment. using given material students try different experiments and are timed at doing so.
3-use a video to help them understand. this is a form of direct instruction.
4-elaboration. reading and research.
5-review. making sure students have a clear understanding of the material discussed.
6-summary quiz.

3 - This video is done by Mark Church, Making thinking Visible. The main idea behind this video is how Mark makes his classroom think aloud. By doing this all the brainstorming is out in the open rather than just sitting quietly in their head. Each group has a couple of minutes to brainstorm a headline of their new lesson. Once the time is up they have to write it down. Later in the lesson Mark will have each group do it again so they can see how their thinking has evolved. This PBL does a great job covering collaboration and self reflectivity.

4 - In this video Building Comics , Sam Pane teaches his kids about internet safety by building their very own superhero. After making the hero the students have to build a comic book strip where the main character is doing something that is not safe on the internet. Then their hero comes in and stops them before it is too late. Before they do all this they have to discuss at their table what are things that are dangerous to do on the internet. I like this PBL because it includes so many things that are important. Discussion of the dangerous actions is a great collaboration method, building their own comic and hero is a great way to build up creativity, and then reviewing each other work is a good reflection method.

5.Project Based Learning
This video is about a school in Canada who combined History, English, and Technology into one class. The students work on individual, group, and class projects that incorporate all three subjects. What we can learn from these teachers is if you really believe in something, don’t give up. When they first started this they hit a couple roadblocks. The program was not compatible in a regular school setting. They worked through the kinks and now the program is up and running.

6.Roosevelt Elementary's PBL Program
Roosevelt Elementary takes a Project Based Learning approach to teaching. What I learned is that Project Based Learning can help bring the community together. It encourages community participation and it encourages teachers to work together. PBL helps the students stay more interested in what they are learning. The students become self motivated, interactive, and critical thinkers. PBL helps students be more prepared the future.