Rockstar Math Teacher on Twitter

I am following Rockstar Math Teacher on Twitter and she has been using Socrative in her classroom. She uses it a lot in the classroom and I enjoy reading all the way she's been using it in the classroom.  She uses it for group both activities and individual activities.  She teaches 1:1 math classes and math support classes.  She also uses a lot of paperless tasks in the classroom.  The students all use iPads.  One of her tweets stated that she does not like math games so she uses Socrative, Showbie, and ClassFlow.  I will have to work with Showbie and ClassFlow to see what a teacher can do with these.  She seems to use Showbie for all her paperless tasks.  It just seems to be a worksheet that the students complete on an iPad.  Students can pick different colors to write in which makes solving things a little easier sometimes.  I enjoy the pictures on her twitter and plan on trying the different apps she has mentioned.

Twitter

I began following Rockstar MathTeacher on twitter.  She does a lot of different things with her twitter account.  Her classroom allows for the students to all have iPads so she uses these regularly and posts pictures of the students doing paperless worksheets.  She recommends multiple different apps and posts things that she has used and what works for her.  The apps she uses look really cool and fun and I would love to try them out in the future at some point.  She also posts some of her favorite responses to her end of quarter poll.  The students talk about their favorite apps they used, what they learned in class, what they had trouble with in class, and other things.  It was really interesting to real students' responses about her class because you can kind of get a feel for her and how she runs her class.  She also posts links to her blog which is also very interesting and goes over her ideas in greater detail compared to just a twitter post.  I look forward to reading more about Rockstar MathTeacher.

Social Media in Higher Education

I really liked the different arguments for social media.  There are always arguments made against social media, but it is unusual to read arguments for the benefits of social media.  I felt that the article made some really good points.  I really liked the point of even though social media has decreased face-to-face interactions, it means that people are more focused on the discussion and what is being said rather than the person who is saying it.  Social media takes away people judging conversations based on appearances and how people talk. I also related to the idea that reading is now taking different forms.  Print is obviously not as popular now, but blogs and online articles have risen in popularity.  People get most of their news from the internet.  People also read things that interest them online more because it is so accessible which does not mean that the amount people are reading as gone down, the content has just changed.  I also really liked all the different ideas for using social media to better higher education.  I feel like a lot of these ways of using social media are already being used which is very exciting. I really enjoyed the article and enjoyed the positive spin on social media for once.

"Reading Film- The story of movies"

I really like the idea of using something that every student is exposed to teach other concepts.  Using something that students are familiar with and get excited about is a great idea.  I honestly never realized how much went into making movies and I think it is a great idea for students to learn this. The fact that students can study different affects of light by studying cinema is very interesting.  Students will also not forget what they learn in this program because it something that they are excited and engaged in.  Film is also something they see all the time so they will always remember because films will remind them of these lessons.  The students seemed so engaged in the videos and you could see them thinking critically when viewing each video.  They noticed things about the film that I would never notice in a film.  It also exposes students to different lines of work.  Many students would not be able to get this experience ever unless they went to a tech school or took a class in college.  The students were already liking the idea of making movies which is very exciting because it shows how much they enjoyed the lesson and the subject.

"Life on the Screen: Visual Literacy in Education"

I absolutely love this article!  His ideas about educating students on expression is brilliant.  I find that there are so many brilliant students, but they have no idea how to express themselves.  It is very common for the really brilliant presenters to use very boring power points with very difficult dialogue.  If these people were taught how to express themselves, there would be more people understanding and gaining knowledge from their presentations.  I also find it very common for lower level students to be very creative.  I watch the students that don't do very well in class and their doodles on their notebooks are amazing.  I spoke with one struggling student and he was telling me how he loved to write poetry and songs.  He really struggled in a math class, but his poems were really amazing.  If these students learned to apply expression to subjects such as math, they might be much more successful.

I agree that we need to teach students how to apply the skills they learn in school more rather than just how to reach one conclusion.  Like he said, you do not want students to just learn geometry, you want them to learn to build a house.  I also liked that he said that the education system was the base of everything.  I have always believed this and there are not many people who do so it is refreshing to see someone not in the education field to make this statement.  Overall, I really enjoyed this article and thought the ideas were really on point.

Why Some Schools are Selling All Their iPads

The arguments against the iPads are very legitimate.  I wish I had more experience with both the Chromebook and the iPad so that I could come to my own conclusion.  None of the classrooms I have been in have been so technology oriented and it is very interesting to read and see pictures of classrooms that are so technology oriented.  I understand how the iPad could be viewed as more of a recreational device.  They are very similar to iPhones and most students have been using them for fun for at least a year or two now so the transition to make it a learning device could be difficult.  The Chromebook is a little different, but I hope to have more experience with it because I honestly have never even used one so it was a little difficult for me to understand the article with no previous knowledge of the device.  I do really like the idea that the Chromebook uses a cloud because I remember it being so difficult when your computer crashed and you lost all the information.  The debate does not seem like it will be concluded any time soon and still needs to be tested.

What Will It Take for iPads to Upend Teaching and Learning?

I really enjoyed all the different perspectives in this article.  I really like the idea of using iPads to change the teacher role so that the teacher becomes more of a facilitator.  The iPads will hopefully give students the responsibility of learning more than most classrooms do now.  If students become excited about learning, and have the opportunity to learn by themselves, they will.  Hopefully the iPads will get students excited so that they will begin teaching themselves.  Teachers do need to feel comfortable with the feeling of losing control and becoming more of a facilitator for this happen, but this is why the organization and the efficiently of the iPad is really helpful.  If a teacher can easily check how students are doing with the material and the classroom is well organized then it will not feel like the teacher is actually losing control of the classroom.

I really liked how the article gave different perspectives of different teachers in different subjects.  Some of the teachers seemed like they were doing really well with the addition of iPads into the classroom, while others seemed like they were still figuring it out.  Using iPads in the classroom is definitely a learning process and will take a while for teachers and administrators to really understand how to get the best outcome with the iPads.  I understand how the iPads can be frustrating.  There are many apps that have to be purchased and if budgets do not allow for these purchases, then it seems a little pointless.  The use of iPads in the classroom is a learning experience and still needs a lot of work, but all the ideas are very exciting and the intentions are good.