Questioning is Learning

Source: http://pixabay.com/en/foot-question-universal-being-450370/

    Students are always asking questions.  Some people, especially parents and teachers, don't like kids asking them questions.  Questions can make adults feel like they are being challenged by the child or inadequate because they don't have the answers.  Questions can be viewed as annoying or a time to say, "just do what I say," or "listen to me because I...."  I can sympathize with some adults, sometimes too many questions can get overwhelming but if we view questions as students wanting to learn about us, the situation, or even what to do next time, our views on questioning will change.

Source:  Matt Reinbold on Flickr at http://goo.gl/05DSOO

    I believe, and I know many other people agree with me, that we should celebrate questions.  Questions represents that they want to know more and wanting to know more means they want to learn.  Isn't that one of our goal as teachers, or even adults, is to teach or be great role models the younger generation?  If we don't allow students to question they may become gullible and uninterested in all the beauty of the world.  We want the youth of our world to ask questions and explore.  That is how they develop and understand who they are as a person.  This will help them find their place in the world.  As adults we should support our kids and students exploration through questioning.  

     Sometimes I feel like I am being asked so many questions from my students that I can't keep up!  I always respond with "I will keep your question and get back with you."  I even had my student write their questions down on the board or Post-It but then I had to make mistakes by losing their question or someone accidentally erasing their question from the board.  The best answer I had to this problem was technology.  I decided at that moment I needed to create a Wonder Wall.  I created the Wonder Wall on Padlet.  This is a place for students to post all their question they have.  We then take time every other week to research and explore their questions.  If they can't find the answers to their questions, I will then help.  I have even jumped on Twitter to ask ColAR app questions about a bird on one of their coloring pages and received a response from a creator of the app.  The Wonder Wall is also a great place for us to record our research results and share it with the other classes.  The students have found the Wonder Wall to be very helpful and powerful.  Students no longer feel like they may forget their question or afraid to ask a question.  They now can just post it to our Padlet and we will get to it later.  I am welcoming my students questions because I want to encourage them to learn through questioning.

    

A Hunt for Adjectives

     Students in my 3rd grade resource room have been working hard on reading, writing, and identifying adjectives.  We looked for adjectives in sentences we were reading in books.  We described pictures using adjectives.  We described things we saw in our lives around us using adjectives.  We used the ColAR app and describe our coloring pages that came to life.  We even used our 5 senses to talk about adjectives by eating food like grapes and pop rocks(I will post more pictures soon).  Soon, we will be learning about cocoa (because that is something our students wanted to learn and we posted on our Wonder Wall) and trying out.  I am pretty sure we will be talking about adjectives then too(they don't know what REAL dark chocolate and cocoa tastes like).

Students on a hunt for adjectives

    One of the projects we did to wrap up our adjective unit was go on an adjective hunt.  Each student was given an iPad and sent out into the school for about 7-10 minutes in search of things they wanted to take pictures of to describe.  To manage the time they took on this activity, I had their timers set up on their iPads, so they knew when to return to class. Students LOVED this activity.  They had so many pictures.  I had to convince them to only choose between 4-6 pictures.
    Once the students picked out the pictures they wanted to use, we listed adjectives to describe their pictures.  The graphic organizer for this activity is located at http://www.fcrr.org/studentactivities/v_007a.pdf. When they completed the list, we edited it by checking their spelling.  We practiced sounding out the words and finding word patterns in the words. If they did not know how to spell it completely, I taught them how to use spell check features using technology like Google.  I had the students see if the picture of their item matched up what they were trying to spell. 

    Finally, when they had their words spelled correctly, I had the students get onto pizap and text to their pictures.

    Pizap was very easy for my students to use.  They really enjoyed the all the creative features that were available on Pizap.  Some of the students edited one picture with me and could upload pictures from the computer onto Pizap quickly without my help.   On a side note, As student were working on finishing their project a student said, "Miss Breneman, are you going to post this on the internet?"  I said, "well, of course!  You guys are doing such a great job at this."  He responded, "Well, good!  Are you going to post it on Twitter?"  I said excitedly, "Most definitely!  I have to tell the world how awesome my students are.  You guys did all this hard work and had fun doing it, might as well share it!"  He smiled.  I could tell that he found more value in doing this unit now that he knew people outside of the school would see his finished product

    When the students were finished with editing their pictures, I had my Maymester student from Albion College record the students introducing themselves and their pictures.  I gave them an option of a scripted introduction or they could make up one of their own.  Many of the students wanted to do the scripted recording this time.  I think next time I am going to tell them they have create their own script.  Since this was the first time around, I wanted my students to feel comfortable speaking.

    When all pieces were finished, I pulled all the videos and recordings together and created a video using iMovie.  The video turned out great!  Please take a moment to view it and feel free to comment on their video on this blog.  I told my students I would share some of the comments that I get about their video.  

#Flipclass Flash Blog

Photo taken from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/DMI_conference.jpg

  

  Last Thursday and Friday, I attended one of the best conferences I have ever been to.  There was so much to do and learn.  I went to several sessions and followed other sessions that I was not able to attend, that I wanted to attend, on Twitter.  
    There are many ways to make the content that you get at a conference stick.  When I leave a conference, I like to review what I learned from a conference with people that went with me to see how everyone has been applying what they have learned.  I also create accounts, experiment with tools I learn about, and create assignments within within the next few days I get back from a conference.  I also found that if I teach others, that did not attend the conference about what I learned, I will remember and used what I learned more in the classroom.
    I have not presented at a conference.  I would like to have some ways to help information that I present stick.  I have applied to present at an upcoming conference and any tips and tricks would be helpful. 

Options Off The Traditional Bookshelf

 

Image taken from http://pixabay.com/p-67049/?no_redirect

    It is the end of February, and I wanted to wrap up Black History Month with a great book that I could do some close reading of with my 4th grade group.  I also felt I needed try someone else's example of close reading and compare it to how I have been doing close reading with my students.  Also, I craved something that I haven't read before and I needed more than 1 copy.  Where can I get more than 1 copy of a book that I haven't read or the students haven't read from my school's Book Room?  There are many options.
    To start, I went to readworks.org to view some of the book lesson units that they have provided on the website.  There are a variety of lesson units for each grade level.  I chose a grade level lower than what my students are at because my students are reading at a 3rd grade reading levels.  As, I was going through the list of lesson units, I noticed I didn't have most of the books that were listed.  I decided I would start browsing the digital world for the books that were listed.  I hopped over to one of my favorite websites called wegivebooks.org.  We Give Books has a splendid amount of books to choose from that parents, teachers, and students can read for free online.  I have use this website in the past do read books as a whole group with a large class and a small group with my students with learning disabilities.  I have read the book from the Promethean Board to reading books from iPads with the students.  We Give Books also has lessons and activities to go with some of their books.  A book that interested me from ReadWorks lesson units was The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind By William Kamkwamba.  I got lucky because We Give Books had that on their bookshelf.  Yay!
    To help students saffold before reading the book, I will be using Padlet for students to reflect on what they think life would be like without electricity and running clean water.  That question was apart of step 1 in the lesson from ReadWorks.  I thought it would be a great way for students to be engaged with the book and reflect at the end of the book on what they thought before reading and how they felt about it now.
    Now, I had a plan, a lesson and a book that my students would find interested.  My students and I will be reading a great book this week to wrap up Black History Month.  The students really enjoy the change of reading books on digitally on the iPad.

DTL- Thing #3 Reflection- Google Docs

Image taken from https://www.flickr.com/people/mrsdkrebs/

    Google has taken charge of the world in many ways. They have a wide variety of tools to use in and outside the classroom.  Some of the most amazing tools that Google has created is their collaboration tools.  Google docs offers so many options with their collaboration tools.  You can make slides, documents, and sheets very easily.  Once created, you can invite others to work on those documents with you.

    Google Doc Templates have made my life more professionally productive by allowing me to collaborate with my co-teachers on documents and work with other staff to organize school events.  Preparing for co-teaching or school events have become more of a team task, not a division of who is doing what task.  An example of using Google Docs in my classroom is using Google Docs for conferencing notes with my students.

    Google docs could change working in the classroom by allowing my students to collaborate on projects and me joining them to see what they have completed.  It also allows to know who exactly is doing what by presenting their name and a color associated to their name on where they are inputting information.  I could also use these tools for students to show their completed project and allowing their peers to comment on their project right on the Google Drive.  Another positive note of Google Docs is that students can work on a document from anywhere. Students would have the option of working together, without being together.  

    No matter what way you look at it Google Docs are one of the best collaboration tools available.  It is free, easy to access, and easy to learn.  There are so many options of different types of docs and templates available to make you feel satisfied with all the options provided. 

DTL- Cloud Initiation- Reflect

Image taken from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/catspyjamasnz/5205995052/

                                                             Create a PLN and share your cloud with them.

  There are many ways and sites to create a professional learning network(PLN) on.  Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, and Google are just a few options.  PLNs provide each other with ideas, new information, professional development opportunities, and collaboration on ideas on how to make education better for students, and so much more.  Another great option on how to create a PLN is by connecting with other professionals in cloud-based websites such as Diigo.  The groups on Diigo provide professionals the opportunity to collaborate why sharing documents and links on their clouds.

There are many advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing.  

Advantages

• Well organized resources.
• Capability to tag your resources to easily search them on most clouds
• Upload capability of videos, documents and more on most clouds.
• Bookmarking websites is easy.
• The ability to access documents saved, on the go.
• Tools available to organize media on the clouds in many different ways.
• Ability to share most cloud with others.

Disadvantages

• Some clouds won't let you upload documents in different formats(such as word documents).
• More passwords and usernames to remember for most clouds.  I have too many as it is.  :)
• I have a fear of the cloud I am using to be obsolete someday, and I will loose all the documents and links I saved.
• Can't cross clouds.   It would be nice to save 1 site on 2 different clouds.  For example, if I wanted to share a website in my personal cloud and my classroom cloud, I would have to upload them seperately.

DTL- Cloud Computing and You Reflection

https://www.flickr.com/photos/linhngan/2580325511/
Find the rainbow in the clouds.

  Cloud computing is a outstanding way to organize documents, pictures, websites, videos, music, and more.  Cloud computing is a useful tool for students to use inside and outside the classroom.  Students can save links to your favorite pictures, searches, and stories.  On several clouds, user are able to upload their own documents and media files.  This would be a great place for students that enjoy doing art, photography, and creating things to store pictures of their completed work or even the process of completing their work.

    Students can be more efficient using the cloud in many ways.  One of my favorite clouds that I use is Dropbox.  I have been using Dropbox recently for students to pool the stories we have read in class, images of their Word Their Way studies that they did using Padlet, and documents that they have created that they want to share with me or others.  Dropbox can also be used for students to save worksheets they completed digitally on their iPads or tablets.  The other great thing about Dropbox is that is so easy for students to access.  Students and teachers can access their Dropbox or a shared Dropbox through the website or through applications on the PCs, smartphones, and tablets.

    A cloud computing tool that I use will use personally is Diigo.  I love this cloud because I can add documents, links, and images on this cloud.  I think this would be one of the easiest ways to share professional journals, activities I have done in and outside the classroom, and so much more with others.  To share information, I would just give them the link to my Diigo page.  The other great thing about Diigo is the wide variety of groups you can join to learn more about topics that interest with you.  Who doesn't want to having a bigger personal learning network?  Diigo is just another was to connect with other educators.  Diigo would be a great tool for anyone, personally or professionally.
    I have just started using Dropbox to help me share documents with students.  I will continue using Dropbox to share books that I am reading with my students.  I also would like to get some applications on the iPads for students to complete their worksheets from their iPads and drop their completed worksheets back into the dropbox.  I also would like my students to be able to create videos on their iPads to show what they have learned and share them on Dropbox with each other.