kathleenAD

Web quests allow the students to research topics using all of the different internet sources which I like.  The task was a bit daunting at first.  I found it helpful to have a question in mind for the students to search to answer.  Then I used that premise to introduce the SOL standards I want to teach.  I noticed that there are some software packages that will put the quest together for the teachers.  I may try the product, Questgarden, since it has a free one month trial period.  It had some interesting samples to show. 

I attended the above session of Tapped in.  It was awkward at first.  We introduced ourselves.  The person in charge was a retired Correctional Education Administrator with a background in special education.  Another participant was a retired communications teacher and then a midle school teacher.  I found her to be the easiest to converse with.  There was no set agenda.  However, the concern we started to talk about was vaccinations and whether they cause autism.  Some of this concerned a posting I had not read.  There was discussion on removing heavy metal from the bloodstream which sounded a bit scary.  We discussed the fragile X syndrome which I would like to learn more about.  There was also discussion of the reathorization of IDEA and the amound of paperwork it would generate.  I really could not comment on that since I work for a private school.  Lastly, we spoke about working with Dyslexia.  I brought it up and found it to be confusing.  I wanted to hear which programs other schools use for this problem, but did not get that information.

 I enjoyed our conversations but there were only 3 other participants.  It is a fun way to debate issues, but I don’t feel it was that beneficial as a real resource.

I have finally figured out how those great Jeopardy games are created using power point.  Also,  it has been interesting to see all the different changes that can be brought about on each slide.  I never experimented with all of the tools.  Lastly, my son told me that the lessons he learned the most from in school involved power points.  He said that the presentations did not have to be all that creative.  He liked how the information was easy to see and understand when presented this way.

Critical thinking in the classroom involves more than rote memorization.  Although I feel there has to be some memorizing of facts and figures too.  Discovery learning where the students have projects and take on jobs in their investigations leads to greater involvement in their learning.  I did a book club where the students had to come up with all of their own discussion questions, words to look up and artistic activities.  I also had the students create weather stations in groups.  They had to record measurements and then predict and respond to their findings.  Now that I have taken this class, I realize some of the options we could have used to look more critically at their work.  They could have created graphs to show the changes in weather patterns over a specific period using excel.  They could have made power points to explain the different cloud formations  to teach other.  

I finally went for my tour using tappedin.   I was very unsure on how to proceed but Keiko, my tourguide,  gave me instructions.  She explained how to earn a certificate for attending the festival that is occurring on the 23rd and 24th.  I discovered a session I’m interested in, so it is an option.  The session is on making the classroom a safe environment in all respects.  She also showed me how to learn about different groups that are available to join.  The area I’m interested in is special education.  I looked at the groups available.  I learned that some are public and some you need to join.  I am concerned about going into one of these sessions and not  having anything to share.  There is a session available on the 14th which I plan on attending since it pertains to special education.

I browsed Tapped in.