Blog Post #11

Little Kids....Big Potential
This video is amazing. I am having a difficult enough time learning to do blog posts as a 24 year old and these 1st graders are doing it with ease. This video was about how Ms. Cassidy is teaching her students how to skype, blog, use wikis, and using Nintendo DS for learning purposes(just for the record, I thought that DS's were only used for fun!) They all know how to get on their class website and pull up useful information that can help them learn new things. They also skype with other classes as well as experts. The video showed them skyping with a Geologist and she was teaching them about rocks. Who better to teach your children about a certain subject than an expert in that field of study? I think this is great, because there are many students who won't have the means necessary to buy computers or DS's, so they will be able to learn how to use them properly at school. I wish I would have had a teacher to teach me these things when I was in Elementary or High School. 

Kathy Cassidy Skype Interview

Ms. Cassidy seems like the teacher that I should model my classroom and teaching methods after. She is so refreshing. She uses many different methods to teach her students and they are all something that I would be fond of using in my own classroom. Her students will be very well prepared for the future and will definitely know how to use technology at a young age. She uses technology to help her students learn and to problem solve, but she also does it in a fun way. This is what makes a good teacher. It was great that she took advantage of the fact that her school allowed computers to be installed there. She really dug in and taught her students how to blog. This shows that anything is possible. Nobody ever thought that 1st graders could blog, but they are doing it. 
One of the things that I would like to use in my classroom is skype. I am planning on being a High School English teacher and I think that this would be a wonderful tool to help them learn. Especially with summer reading lists, or reading that we do throughout the year. I would like to try to set up a question and answer session with the author of the book. This would inspire the students to read so they would know what questions to ask the author during the skype interview. It would also be fun to set up a type of game of some sort with spelling words. Using skype to connect with another classroom that is using the same words and compete with them, almost like a spelling bee.  I also like how they use the wiki's. I thought this was very interesting. I have never heard of anyone doing this. I know that there are such things as online forums where people can post their own opinion, but this is different. In the video above it showed them learning what a "tradition" was by reading the posts of others about traditions in their own families. What a great way for students to learn about something! Some of the benefits that I would earn would be to allow my students to learn about different people from different areas of the world. It also would make learning fun for the students and this would make my job much easier than just standing up there giving them lesson after lesson(that they will forget by tomorrow). This video excites me and gives me courage to do what I want to do, and that is to educate.