It is no lie that a teacher's life is very busy. So, our cohort has decided to meet via Google Hangout once a week to share ideas, talk about strengths and weaknesses, and approach these essential questions of "How" and "Why" we should incorporate more technology into our already stringent, focused, and challenging curriculums.
During our first meeting we talked about wanting to find some reliable online tools we could integrate into our lessons that would not be merely used because they were cool. We talked about how Blendspace is a great organizational tool, but how our students seems to be getting Blendspace fatigue because so many teachers are using it. I mentioned how Blendspace still has a place in the classroom, but if you pair it with other tools like Kahoot, Tackk, Padlet, Linoit, youTube etc then it can be more engaging. This conversation led us more into the discussion of blended lesson planning verses just lecture style classes. No of us are really large fans of the lecture. I feel like there is a time and place for lecture in every class, but I do not think it needs to be all the time. Here in lies the challenge for us this year. How do we successfully tackle all of our content without making our classes predominately lecture based? We ended our first Google Hangout pondering this question.
For our second Google Hangout meeting, we picked back up with this idea of Blended learning. First we shared some successes we had in our classes since the last meeting. Some of our most successful lessons did not entirely incorporate technology, but we found they incorporated more of the blended lessons like we had discussed in our previous hangout. I found it interesting that we then spent some time talking about what "good teaching" really was, and that if you were a good teacher before technology, you're still a good teacher with technology---it's just an enhancement. However, technology cannot be seen as a savior to those who are struggling to as teachers prior to having more technology. Good teaching is rooted in good instructional practices and an understanding of the students in your classroom.
I then showed my group members an example of a lesson I was using in my AP English 12 class for Heart of Darkness using Blendspace, YouTube, Google Drive, Tackk, and Padlet. We talked about how that same frame of a lesson could be used in various content areas and different types of lessons. I enjoyed how we all wanted to put more of the learning in the hands of the students instead of us being the sole keepers of the information.
I'm looking forward to our third meeting on Wednesday night. I cannot wait to pick this conversation back up.
Tools Discussed:
www.blendspace.com
www. tackk.com
www.padlet.com
Example Lesson:
During our first meeting we talked about wanting to find some reliable online tools we could integrate into our lessons that would not be merely used because they were cool. We talked about how Blendspace is a great organizational tool, but how our students seems to be getting Blendspace fatigue because so many teachers are using it. I mentioned how Blendspace still has a place in the classroom, but if you pair it with other tools like Kahoot, Tackk, Padlet, Linoit, youTube etc then it can be more engaging. This conversation led us more into the discussion of blended lesson planning verses just lecture style classes. No of us are really large fans of the lecture. I feel like there is a time and place for lecture in every class, but I do not think it needs to be all the time. Here in lies the challenge for us this year. How do we successfully tackle all of our content without making our classes predominately lecture based? We ended our first Google Hangout pondering this question.
For our second Google Hangout meeting, we picked back up with this idea of Blended learning. First we shared some successes we had in our classes since the last meeting. Some of our most successful lessons did not entirely incorporate technology, but we found they incorporated more of the blended lessons like we had discussed in our previous hangout. I found it interesting that we then spent some time talking about what "good teaching" really was, and that if you were a good teacher before technology, you're still a good teacher with technology---it's just an enhancement. However, technology cannot be seen as a savior to those who are struggling to as teachers prior to having more technology. Good teaching is rooted in good instructional practices and an understanding of the students in your classroom.
I then showed my group members an example of a lesson I was using in my AP English 12 class for Heart of Darkness using Blendspace, YouTube, Google Drive, Tackk, and Padlet. We talked about how that same frame of a lesson could be used in various content areas and different types of lessons. I enjoyed how we all wanted to put more of the learning in the hands of the students instead of us being the sole keepers of the information.
I'm looking forward to our third meeting on Wednesday night. I cannot wait to pick this conversation back up.
Tools Discussed:
www.blendspace.com
www. tackk.com
www.padlet.com
Example Lesson:
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