Flipping for Ted Ed

You can use TED-Ed's videos and lessons to supplement almost any subject.  Their videos and lessons are engaging and can take even sometimes-boring subjects and transform them into wildly interesting content.


The lesson I created on TED-Ed was on what happens to a plastic bottle after it is thrown away.  My main objective for this lesson is for students to the importance of recycling and protecting our planet. The two common core standards addressed in my lesson are CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.6-8.6: Analyze the author’s purpose in providing an explanation, describing a procedure, or discussing an experiment in a text. and  CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.6.7: Conduct short research projects to answer a question, drawing on several sources and refocusing the inquiry when appropriate.

I can see showing my flipped lesson to learn about protecting the environment, pollution, or celebrating Earth Day.  I can also see myself showing this video during a social studies lesson that teaches students what it means to be a good citizen. 

Catch you on the flip side

"Aren't you supposed to be doing your homework and not watching videos?"

"But mom, this IS homework!"

This is a conversation I have with my mother at least once a week.  Homework isn't all about worksheets or readings in the text book anymore.  The flipped classroom is changing the game of education.  

With a flipped classroom, teachers are able to provide instruction while students are at home and work on homework during school hours.  In the article Flipping Your EL Classroom: A Primer it states "learners gain control over their learning. Learners have the power of the pause button to control the videos. Learners who get lost in class as the teacher explains more quickly than they can process can now stop the video and review. They can use the Internet to research issues the video may have raised."

Since the students are learning the main instruction outside of the class, they are able to have more time with the teacher to clarify confusing topics.  

In the article Three Reasons to Flip Your Classroom, the author mentions that "Flipped classroom adopters state that the approach is not about the videos, but about the best use of class time."   Since the students already received instruction through the flipped video, students come to class ready to contribute and collaborate.  This gives the teacher to implement more in-depth projects and debates.  The teacher can also assign work that would usually be for homework.  This way he/she can see the students at the moment frustration or confusion appears.  Students receive immediate feedback and  

"Dude get off Twitter the teacher is coming"

A teacher that allows student to use Twitter in class? Best day ever! Although Twitter might be the latest social media "fad" it has many ingenious ways to be integrated into the classroom.  

 The National Education Association  gave some examples how Twitter is being integrated into the classroom.  Some teachers use it to review lessons and remind students what is going to be covered in class that day or the next. In the article, Christopher Bergeron states: "Twitter is like the ticker at the bottom of CNN -- only a ticker populated with information about those people or things you care about, want to learn from, or want to know about.”

Amanda Wynter writes about one English class utilization of Twitter in her article 

Bringing Twitter to the Classroom.  Twitter provided the classroom with the social and communicative platform that the previous curriculum failed to foster.  Once the students were familiar with the "dos and don'ts" of Twitter, they were multiple times a day, even after school has ended.  This provided a sense of an ongoing conversation about one theme in a book or a current event.  The students seemed to be reading more closely and the shy kid in class was being retweeted and favorited by teachers from around the world.  

So Teachers, please look past all of the selfies, memes and the other nonsense and see the potential of using social media in the classroom.  It makes learning more fun, interesting, and caters to many 21st Century skills the students may need for their future career endeavors.  

#games4ed

I have never really been into Twitter or using hashtags.  But that was before I ever heard of a Twitter Chat.  A chat on Twitter is people with similar interested coming together to discuss a certain topic using a #hashtag.  Finding a chat I wanted to participate in, that also fit my crazy schedule, was the biggest challenge.  Then I came across this website called Education Chats.  It maps out all of the hashtags for the Twitter chats and in what time frame they are.  The website also could add the chat you desire to participate in to your google calendar.  It will also send you a notification when the chat is about to start.
The chat that I participated in was #games4ed.  I appreciated how organized a Twitter chat is.  #games4ed was a chat specifically designed for teachers from around the world to discuss how to implement different games into their lessons.  Our chat was based on games with mysteries.  The chat leader posted the image below to guide our discussion with open ended questions.  

I read about so many great ideas on how to make my lessons more interesting.  Students learn best when they are having fun.  Gaming is a great way to facilitate that learning and put their skills to the test.  I thoroughly enjoyed participating in a Twitter chat and I will definitely be researching new hashtags to take part in them more!

Living in a bubble?

I grew up in a very sheltered small town in the Hamptons where nothing really bad ever happened.  I always called it my "Sag Harbor Bubble."  Children still walk to school and around town with out supervision and everyone feels safe in the bubble.  When I left for college, I realized how sheltered my town really was.  There were no homeless people on the street, gang violence, or really any armed robberies.  There wasn't anything in the newspaper about excessive drug use or thieves breaking into peoples cars.  Everyone in my town knows everything about one another, which can get quite annoying, but we all look out for each other.  

After listening to the TedTalk from Eli Pariser, I realized that not only places like Sag Harbor are in there own bubble.  The Internet is doing the same exact thing.  This "Filter bubble" monitors what we view on the Internet and only shows things that are relevant to our interest.  I noticed that ever time I search for something on Google, I would see an add for it on Facebook within the hour. With Pinterest, I noticed that once I open one pin about a science experiments, I will see dozens pop up on my timeline just like it.

Now Facebook isn't taking responsibility for the filter bubble or echo chambers.  In the article written by Mariella Moon, Facebook is claiming that "It's not our fault! You do it too!" But how are we filtering our results? I have never once been asked if I wanted to filter my results or news feed by relevance,  interests, importance, etc.

If the algorithmic gatekeepers are going to filter our results, at least have the viewer decide how it is filtered.  Sometimes we need to read news that makes us feel uncomfortable, but it is still relevant to our society and is important.  By reading other people's opinions about a situation, people are able to form their own view points.  But when something is filtered, then all we get is the same view point over and over with nothing else to compare it to.  

Pen Pals to ePals

When I was in third grade, my teacher turned her classroom into a new city from around the world each week.  We learned how to make all different types of food and read stories native to the city.  Can you see why she was my favorite teacher? 

ePals is a hands on way for today’s learners to experience different cultures around the world.  It allows teachers to connect with other classrooms across the globe.  Students can be a pen pal to a student that speaks the foreign language they are learning.  No better way to practice written language than with a native speaker!

In the Taste of Culture collaboration, students are sharing recipes that include

local ingredients, use interesting cooking tools and techniques, and reflect local culture, traditions, or holidays.  I can see doing this activity with my students.  I vision my class being broken up into different groups designated to a country.  They would make a presentation on what they learned about the country and its culture.  They also can prepare, with adult supervision, the recipe that most reflects that country to share with the rest of the class.  

There is No "i" in TEAM

I am always telling my field hockey players that the key to success in this sport is communication.  When they communicate with each other on and off the field, they are able to get around the toughest of defenses.  As teachers, the defense we are up against is catching up with this ever adapting technology.  

In Alan Levine’s video New Media Consortium, he discusses how effective communication between colleagues is. In his video he states, “keeping that sense of excitement about new technologies not being afraid is definitely a key skill and getting something out of trying something new experimenting, asking people to look at it, and keep growing and learning”

In an effort to experiment with something new, I joined the Yahoo group Maestrosdeespanol.  I love the Spanish language and have been studying it since the 6th grade.  I always try and look for ways to include the language in my everyday lessons with my first graders.  This group allows Spanish teachers to share their files with one another and discuss the best ways to teach different topics.  It is also a space to share frustration in search of a way to do something more effectively.  Personal learning network like this one are a great resource for teachers, new and experienced, to learn and grow.  

We can never get anywhere alone.  Together we can help each other keep up with this ever changing, technology driven world.   

A learner is...

A learner is like a scientist, there is no exact rhyme or reason to it.  Learning (and science) can be messy, you may fail dozens of times, and you need to work with new data and problems as they enter the real world.  There is no exact recipe for success, but we all can achieve it in our own way.  

In George Seimen’s video, he states “I had a dramatically different type of a need for knowledge than what I see learners having when they come into higher education today.”  A student can do more with a computer than they have ever been able to in the past, thanks to the advancements in science and technology.  

In his article about the theory of Connectivism, he states “Learners as little as forty years ago would complete the required schooling and enter a career that would often last a lifetime. Information development was slow. The life of knowledge was measured in decades. Today, these foundational principles have been altered. Knowledge is growing exponentially. In many fields the life of knowledge is now measured in months and years.”

Students need to be prepared for their futures.  Current facts may be refuted by the time they enter the working world.  For example, when I was a student in elementary school, I was taught there were 9 planets orbiting the sun.  Due to new evidence and data, we now know that Pluto is no longer considered a planet, making the planet count 8.  If we capture our students curiosity  and encourage creativity and imagination, they will be more willing to stay current with their knowledge and become a lifelong learner.  What you learn today, may not be the same as what you may learn tomorrow.  We need to be receptive of change and know that this information will only allow us to grow and keep learning.  

Connectivism allows students to use their prior knowledge to create discussions with others.  It draws attention to the role of social contact with technology to enhance learning.  Students are now expected to supplement their learning with outside sources.  Websites that allow for discussion, such as Facebook or Twitter, should be allowed to be used in the classroom.  It allows student to connect with more than just their own classmates and get involved in a conversation on an important topic.