Blog Assignment #8

YouTube is a video gallery that has been around for awhile. You can find funny, instructional, and even educational videos in its archives. (Note: Just like text sources, you should probably make sure the author is a legitimate source for your information.) This is the first tool I go to for intstructional information, and we have watched many YouTube videos in this class. In the writing prompt for this blog post, Dr. Strange gave us a few links to Flipping the Classroom videos. The one I found most useful was Katie Gimbar's "Why I Flipped My Classroom". As discussed in one of my previous posts Blog Assignment #2, I was wary about "Flipping the Classroom". I was not sure it would work or if the students would participate. After watching Gimbar's video and her many FAQ videos, I have changed my opinion. I really do think it is a great idea. She said that since flipping her classroom, she is now teaching in the middle of the room and has time to be with her students one on one. 90% of her class time is now devoted to application while only 10% is devoted to delivery and review of content. With this, all of her students are engaged and challenged- no matter their intellectual level. As more schools are moving towards this method, I am glad her videos answered all of my questions and gave me the confidence that this method works.

The Learning Tool I want to discuss is the Teaching Channel. Its statement is "Great Teaching. Inspiring Classrooms." It is basically like YouTube, but for teachers. I immediately signed up for it so I could receive a weekly newsletter about new videos, etc. When signing up, it asked my position. You could choose from Student Teacher, Teacher, and many other positions you would find in the education field. After you choose a position, you choose which subject areas and grade levels you teach and/ or are interested in. Their videos are categorized under subject area, grade level, and topic so it is very easy to find whatever you are looking for. It even has videos explaining Common Core and example lessons. Most of the videos I watched incorporated technology within the lessons as well. I could not be happier that I was exposed to this website. I know it will be very helpful to me, especially during my first year teaching.

You can find information about other learning and communicating tools for the 21st century classroom in some of my previous blog posts. iCurio and Discovery Ed are both explained in Blog Assignment #5. You should also check out Khan Academy which is a website with hundreds of instructional videos for math. I have used this website countless times myself, and found it to be very useful.

Thanks for reading!

Jennah Rose