Sunday, November 15, 2015

Web 2.0 Tool: ClassDojo

     The awesome new Web 2.0 tool that I have recently discovered and expect to use in my classes is ClassDojo.   Teachers using this tool can award students for behaving well and doing what they are supposed to be doing, and they can also penalize students for not doing these things.  In addition to a point system the website and mobile app also offer the teacher access to communicate with parents via messages.   Also another neat feature that is provided with ClassDojo is the ability to have a stopwatch and countdown timer to help during transitions, class projects, and other various activities.  To help you further understand this information I have created a brief tutorial to help you get acclimated to the information   previously presented.  If you wish to watch this tutorial Click Here.
 
     One key feature of this blog that is very useful to the overall usefulness of the tool is the report feature.  This allows the teacher to take a deeper look into what that students strengths and weaknesses are in classroom behavior.  It can also be an indicator to that teacher, that perhaps one of the reasons the student is struggling is that potentially constantly being unprepared for class may be a result.  Also it allows the teacher to go back and see which come to class everyday willing to work hard and being on task.  Ultimately the product of this point system  review report allows the teacher to go back and check and review why that student is excelling or struggling.  It also provides another resource to review for Parent-Teacher Conferences. 


     Overall I believe that this can be a very beneficial tool to use classrooms by teachers.  I believe that the donut chart is very beneficial for students because they can read, interpret, and understand where they are losing points.  Also for younger kids, they can understand that green means good and red means bad.  In addition to emailing parents reminders about upcoming dates, a teacher can also use this resource to relay messages to parents. 

Sunday, October 4, 2015

Introduction to Blogging


        I am currently a junior at Northern Kentucky University.  My hobbies outside of school are hunting, fishing, and coaching.  I currently coach at the middle school level in football and the freshman level in basketball.   I like rooting for Kentucky, Notre Dame, Michigan State, and Florida State.  A few of my favorite books that I have read are Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Old Man and the Sea.  I come from a smaller family, in regards to family outside my immediate family.  My immediate family is regular in size.  I have two younger brothers, one older sister, and one younger sister.  At our house we have two dogs, Timmy and Casper.  After spending my freshman year not really sure of what I was going to be studying, I settled in on education.  I did take an introductory course my freshman year at a previous school, and my professor really got me interested into the field.  I learned from that class that there truly is a lot more that goes into teaching then what I originally thought.  Ultimately what got me into the education field was all my previous teachers and professors.  With the combination of the good and the bad, I hope to use my personal experience  incoming a good teacher.

Photo "Classroom" by Flickr user James F Clay / Creative Commons Licensed 
          I believe that blogging in the classroom can be an excellent tool.  It may be helpful in a classroom because of all the resources it has to offer.  One thing a blog can do is communicate to parents, whether this is field trip reminders, homework for the week, test days, and/or days off school.  Blogs may also let other teaching professionals connect with each other, whereas without blogging they might have never connected.  This is important because now that they are in contact through blogging, they can now share classroom ideas with each other. taking it one step further, these teachers could potentially have these classrooms compete against each other or work on assignments together.   Even if teaching professionals do not meet, simply reading through blogs can spark an idea that the teacher may want to do in his/her classroom or it can give them news of whats going on in the education world.  For students, blogging opportunities in the classroom may be very beneficial.  Blogs can help students with reading and writing skills.  The students will most likely be writing blog posts, but getting them to read and comment on others can help with critical thinking skills, and reading skills.  Quad blogging is one way for each of these skills to improve, and if teachers get different countries it can potentially make the students think about different perspectives. From blogs students can learn a magnitude of information about various subjects, however it comes down to how committed is the teacher to staying on students for blogging assignments, and how committed is the student to blogging.

                One great website that I have been using since about the 7th grade is Quizlet .  This website allows the student to create flashcards and study them. This website can help students at any grade level, as long as the parent gives permission and navigates the younger ones around on the internet.     This can potentially make the flash cards more accessible and less messy to them because it is also an app that can be downloaded to various devices.  If the subject that the student is studying for is popular like states and capitals there are already created sets for it.  Not only will this website hold a card up and the student has to say what it is, but small games are also included. Quizlet can allow a teacher to create a set of flashcards and post the link so parents know what to help their children study for.   This website provides  a different way for students to look at flashcards.