Webinars

Globe Stemx Education Conference on Saturday, September 21, 2013 Best Practices Around Implementing Educational Games - Lindsey Tropf, M.Ed. Lindsey went through the theory behind educational games. She then discussed the role of teacher and administrators. She also discussed the benefits of teaching with games and the roadblocks that can be encountered. During the session I mentioned that it is difficult to find the games that match with the content being taught. I also asked if she thought that companies would begin to produce educational games. Is it worth their wild from a financial point of view? This session made me think about my math class and how I can focus on implementing games in my class.

Globe Stemx Education Conference on Saturday, September 21, 2013 Best Practices Around Implementing Educational Games - Lindsey Tropf, M.Ed. Lindsey went through the theory behind educational games. She then discussed the role of teacher and administrators. She also discussed the benefits of teaching with games and the roadblocks that can be encountered. During the session I mentioned that it is difficult to find the games that match with the content being taught. I also asked if she thought that companies would begin to produce educational games. Is it worth their wild from a financial point of view? This session made me think about my math class and how I can focus on implementing games in my class.

Using Video Games to Assess Students' Noncognitive Skills Angela Duckworth, associate professor of psychology, University of Pennsylvania James Gee, presidential chair and professor of literacy studies, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University The discussion was centered on how games to assess students non-cognitive skills. There was also a lot of debate about what role video games in education and what relevance they have. The side discussion that took place provided some insight to peoples thoughts on video games in school. Many people were excited about the use of games, but there was some skepticism about their benefit and how they relate to real life experiences. I had some discussion in the side chat with other educators about the difficulty of implementing video games in the classroom that relate to the outcomes that need to be taught in our local curriculum.

Integrating Content and Technology to Differentiate Instruction and Personalize Learning Gayle Mathis, 7th grade English teacher, Hickman County Middle School, Centerville, Tenn.; and master teacher, SAS Curriculum Pathways Dennis Stockdale, superintendent, Garrett-Keyser-Butler Community School District, Garrett, Ind.; and a 2013 Education Week "Leader To Learn From" Moderator: Scott McQuiggan, director of SAS Curriculum Pathways This webinar sounded like a SAS Curriculum Pathways commercial. They talked a lot about common core and the standards used in the United States. This was not a helpful webinar. I did not even participate in the chat. I knew nothing about SAS Curriculum Pathways or common core. This was a colossal waste of time.

I feel that the webinars were not very useful. They were actually a waste of time. I found several webinars that looked really interesting, but they cost money. Two of the sessions that I attended seemed like infomercials. It was if they were trying to sell me something (ie. SAS Curriculum). Many of the conversations that took place in my webinars were distracting, because the majority of the time they were not on topic.

Twitter
#gtchat Gifted and Talented Chat 5:00 pm The focus for this chat was the impact of global connections for gifted learners. It was interesting to hear all of the comments regarding gifted children. All of the strategies we talked about (video conferencing, blogging ) would be such a wonderful benefit for all students. We also discussed digital citizenship. We discussed how it needs to be taught over and over and reinforced. We discussed the importance of students learning about the culture of the students they are connecting with.

#globalclassroom Global Classroom Chat There were people present at this session from Iran, Canada, USA, Russia, and South Africa. We began by discussing why teachers should explore ways to share, connect, and collaborate globally? The reasons we said this was important was because connecting exposes students to a new audience and perspectives. It teaches students to show empathy for people from different countries. We discussed how some of us have connected with other classes. They shared a webpage that had many ideas: http://globalclassroom2013-14.wikispaces.com/ . Finally, we discussed how to help teachers who have never done a connected project take that leap of faith and do it. We talked about setting them up with a support person or a coach who has done it before.

#edunight Blended Learning

The first question that we discussed was what are some words that you would use to describe Blended Learning to someone with no knowledge of the technique? I was definitely that person. This discussion really helped me understand what blended learning is. I learned that it is a technology integrated approach to learning. It allows students to be more self-directed and accountable. We then talked about difference between flipped classroom and blended learning. The discussion centered around the fact that a teacher is more of a facilitator in a blended learning classroom. A flipped teacher provides a process so students find information at home and then share at school. A blended class sounds like teachers must have a stronger knowledge

of their content. Then they must help students at various levels of learning. They help students create knowledge and not just consume work. We then talked about the drawbacks. Most people agreed that as long as parents know process of a blended classroom they will see the benefit of the class. Strong relations still need to be created between teacher and student and that makes the process sounder. Also, constant feedback to students on how they are doing (formative assessment) is a must. One clear drawback is that some students dont have access to technology like others may. Finally, we talked about informing parents about the importance of technology in the classroom. Parents must see that careers and jobs in the future will rely heavily on technology.

#sschat

Film & media as a text in the SS classroom I participated in a social studies twitter chat. The first question that we discussed was how do you integrate art, film, and other mediums into your classroom? What strategies do you use? We talked about the benefit to some kids who are visual learners. We talked about how film needs to be shown in chunks. This way the students can do a better job of interpreting the video. I also commented on how pictures can tell a lot about geography or history. We then swapped stories about some of our favorite social studies lessons using videos. Many people discussed the American history videos that they have used. I was not as familiar with what they were talking about, but I got a lot of good ideas. The next discussion was the use of music in the classroom. There were several dynamic teachers in this group. Many of them talked about using centers with a variety of media centered on one topic. This was probably the chat that I got the least out of. There were many people in here and they did not chat back and forth much. It was mostly people entering their ideas.