Blog Assignment #7

      How Do We All Become Learners?

   In the video, Using iMovie and the Alabama Virtual Library in Kindergarten, Mrs. Bennett discusses how advanced her kindergarteners are with using technology to complete innovative and interesting tasks that keep the students engaged in their learning. Elizabeth Davis is also there from another school to advocate the learning techniques. Mrs. Bennett describes how the kindergarteners take their reading book for the week and create book trailers in iMovie about the book. Mrs. Bennett's school, Gulf Shores Elementary School, uses group stations to reinforce learning. These stations always include an iMovie trailer. Mrs. Davis discusses Alabama Virtual Library, and how they use it at Daphne Elementary School to teach basic researching skills in the kindergarten classroom.

   In the video, We All Become Learners, Mrs. Bennett and Mrs. Davis discuss how the dynamics of learning changes with the addition of new technology in the classroom. Basically, they state that everyone teaches each other; students teach teachers, and teachers teach students. Bennett discusses Padlet use in the classroom. She shares a story about how a kindergarten student taught her how to take a selfie in the Padlet program on her iPad. She also shares how teachers just get the students to show them how to use programs that they do not know how to use. It gives students initiative to learn. It was basically all about putting the teacher and student on the same level of knowledge and allowing them to learn together.

   The first video I chose to watch from Mrs. Bennett's Google+ list was Mrs. Lauber Interview, featuring Dr. Strange and Mrs. Lauber from Gulf Shores Elementary School. She states that the better the technological tool available, the better the task at hand is completed by students. She states that her second graders will be given a topic and they go out on their own and create their own projects on iPads. She states that she doesn't teach her class at all. She stands in the front of the class, presents a topic, and guides the students on how to go about learning on their own with peer teaching. The students begin projects with paper and pencil, and go further by taking their written work and creating their own presentations. She emphasizes the use of rubrics as well. According to Lauber, students' test scores have increased tremendously with this new tactic of learning.

   The second video I chose to watch was Interview Rosado How to Get a Job. Dr. Ernie Rosado is a principal at Gulf Shores High School. Rosado discusses how hiring changes every year. They look for more qualities in teachers every year when they hire. He states that he needs a teacher coming out of the university that uses technology, understands technology, is a team player, and does not lecture. You need more than a lesson plan. You have to adapt the lesson to reach different learning styles. At Gulf Shores High School students are working with the community to complete tasks that are useful. Their engineering students were building a boys scout building, working alongside the architect. Marine science students were working with live salt water animals, and working with salt water reefs and fish.

   The third video I watched was CW PBL 1, featuring Christie Whitehead and Michele Bennett. Christie taught at Gulf Shores Elementary School, left, and has returned to teach at the school once more. She is getting to experience the new technological changes to the classroom environment at GSES. She says that it is exciting and refers to it as a new wave of learning. The do a lot of cooperative learning and students get to teach each other and sometimes the teachers as well. It is a very hands-on, nonthreatening, learning environment. The do project based learning that ties in all of the students' subjects. She states that she has never seen studetns so eager to learn, and they are now that they have their own projects working with this new technology. She again states that she is very excited and encouraged by the attitude her students have towards learning.

   The fourth video I watched was Altmyer and Bennett First Practice Session. I chose this video because it shows just what everyone has been talking about. It is a video of two teachers learning how to use the technology that their students will use in the classroom. They are figuring out how to use Google Hangout and its advanced tools. Bennett describes the ability to record these Hangout sessions as a teaching tool. Teachers can get together during the summer and discuss things. The benefits of recording these sessions are also discussed. Basically, with the ability to record Hangout sessions, everyone doesn't have to be present for the session. They can just watch the recorded session later. It is also described as a Personal Learning Network (PLN).

   All of these videos focused on one main thing: technology used to promote project based learning in the classroom. Every level of education is looking for teachers that know how to use today's technology, and use it effectively in the classroom. These videos show how advanced Baldwin County schoools are with technology in their classrooms. These videos also promoted self teaching and peer teaching. Students are teaching other students how to perform tasks on the iPad or computer. Students are sometimes teaching their teachers how to use the technology in the classroom. I feel it puts everyone on a level playing field in the classroom. Kindergarteners are being taught how to use technology that college students were introduced to not too long ago. Students are being born into a technological era and the classroom is adapting to this. In the next few years I have to become more creative and proficient in using technology and adapting it to lessons. I believe that project based approaches are very beneficial to teaching students not just what they are learning, but why they are learning it. Often times, students ask "Why do we need to learn this?". With project based learning, they are being given explanations for why they "need" to know how to do something without a teacher telling them flat out why they are learning it. Students like to see the "big picture" of information on their own. Project based learning is a way for students to do that. The technology that students are using in the classroom is helping students to do so.