Flipped Learning

This past week, a teacher who teaches math to 6th grade tried flipping her math class.  She used Kahn Academy for the vodcast and then followed up the next day with an in class learning activity.  Going into it, we were nervous about the following:

• What would happen if students encountered technical difficulties at home?
• What would happen if students did not do the viewing of the video at home?  How would she know this?  What would she do the next day; not allow them to participate?  How would she make sure they learned the material?
• What would happen if a student watched the video and did not understand it?  How would she reinstruct them before the follow up activity without boring those students who did understand it? 

The teacher did a fantastic job of motivating her students, modeling how to access the video for them, and as luck may have it, none of the above became an issue.  The class had a fun application investigation that normally there would not have been time for. 

A parent of a child in her class wrote the following email after the follow up activity the next day:
" I wanted to commend you for such an interesting and creative assignment tonight. ----- spent a long time thinking about it, writing it up, getting involved. You really got him, and I imagine, other kids engaged, and the names of the suspects were so funny! I hope you save this piece so you can use it again. "
I can really see how this could give those of us who teach on the "yeshiva crunch schedule" a chance to use more hands on/application type experiences with our classes.

I am still concerned about the questions I wrote above, if anyone is using flipped learning and has good strategies for the above please respond and let me know!

Twitter Power!

Last week we held a professional development after school.  This professional development was focused on using different technology tools.  Rabbi Hochbaum gave a presentation on creating a wiki/class website, Morah Shira on "Go Animate", Rabbi Koslowe on Pod/vod casting, and I gave one on blogging/ microblogging.  In my session, the teachers set up their own blogs and signed up for twitter accounts.  We discussed how we could use both these tools in our classrooms.  Twitter specifically was an interesting discussion.  We all saw its potential in helping our own personal development or finding resources.  We also were able to see how it could be valuable in collecting data or following or connecting with specific people like authors of books or candidates.  We saw the benefit of using an edmodo type site for creating a classroom of tweeters and using it that way. We were talking about how we could create different personas for ourselves depending on what purpose and audience we were tweeting to.  I can't wait to see how different teachers use it over the next few months!
On a personal note, I have been thinking about how to use the platform of tweeting.  Similar to blogging, it is hard to decide what message to send to the larger community/ audience.  Should I use this platform to talk about what we are doing in technology at our school?  About how I am inspired by teachers or students each day? I imagine children find it so easy to let go and express themselves on this global platform.  It is much harder for me!

Nervous

I feel such conflict about posting on this blog.  On the one hand, I am terrified to put my thoughts out on the web for all to read, see and comment on.  On the other hand, I feel empowered by being able to share my thoughts with an audience that chooses to be interested in them.  I find myself thinking carefully about what I want to share, how I want to express it.  Since reading about blogs, seeing some teachers use blogs, and now actually writing on a blog I have begun to believe in the potential it has to empower students to refine their thoughts, express them in a sophisticated way, and share them with others who will challenge and agree allowing the cycle to continue.
I chose to use Google as a host for my blog because I find Google to be user friendly as well as a being a provider I feel familiar with.  So far it has been as easy to use as I hoped it would be.  I am looking forward to blogging about my experience this course as I try these different technologies for the first time. 
We set up a blog in school to use as a forum to create a community of readers.  Students will need to review books and comment  on each other's reviews.  We are giving it out tomorrow, I wonder how successful it will be!  Hmmm I wonder how to post an attachment to share a document????

There is a first time for everything, and technology will be full of many firsts.  Today I have begun my first personal blog.