Tuesday, May 29, 2007

R-Directed Thinking and 21th Century Learning Environments for Students

Hi All!

Another week has pass and we are almost done. But before a reflection on what do we need to change in our thought process or learning styles to begin to adapt to R-Directed Thinking for the purpose of creating 21th Century learning environments for students?

Well let me define first what the R-Directed Thinking facets are:
1) Design: create something that is beautiful, whimsical or emotionally engaging
2) Story: the essence of persuasion, communication, and self-understanding
3) Symphony: seeing the big picture crossing boundaries and being able to combine disparate pieces into arresting new whole
4) Empathy: what will distinguish those who thrive will be their ability to understand what makes their fellow woman or man tick, to force relationships, and to care for others.
5) Play: benefits of laughter, lightheartedness, games and humor
6) Meaning: finding purpose, transcendence and spiritual fulfillment

Now that the 6 facets are define above, I have to admit that without knowing, I was practicing the R-Direct Thinking myself. I also have to admit that it would be a great to introduce and maintain these thinking facets on our students. These will allow students to develop as better human being. Teaching them these 6 facets, we are teaching them to be design what ever they want with passion, engaging their creativity. Students will also learn the importance of self understanding, and how this will benefit them in transferring their knowledge to others.
Most of all, I am all for teaching my students on finding the purpose of life and all the things they do. School stuff, church stuff, sports, what ever they do, they need to find purpose and spiritual fulfillment, because then everything else will come with it. They will gain laughter and humor, satisfaction on caring for others. You name it, they will have it, if they practice at least some of these R-Directed thinking facets, we can probably have a better society in our future.

Truly,
Wida

Saturday, May 19, 2007

How can digital stories fit into Math and Science?


Hi All!
This week the blog assignment was to answer to one of the students that posted their What's In the News? I have decide to answer Priya's questions.
When I first was introduced to the idea of digital stories in science I had some questions myself. But with some time and reasoning I found that indeed it can be a very nice tool for teachers. For instance, I am a chemistry teacher, and depending on the grade that I will be teaching I can definitely use a digital story to introduce the periodic table. In another education course I was introduce to the idea of using comics books to introduce the periodic table. I am attaching the link of were you can see some of these comics books (
http://www.uky.edu/Projects/Chemcomics/), by using the same idea but with another technology, digital stories can be great tool to get students interest in chemistry. For example, I will use the open source Blender to assign my student to create their own animated digital story of one particular element. While they are doing a great project that includes new technology, they are also learning about the element they chose to work with. Same can be applied to math, with a little of imagination, if we ask them to create a baseball or soccer digital story, here they have to incorporate the Pythagoras theorem for the baseball story and for the soccer story they have to incorporate geometry. It is possible to incorporate digital stories into math and science, it just a matter of being a little creative. There are a lot of ideas on the Internet, you can start with one as the base but then make it your own by designing it for your assignment.

Hope this was helpful!
Truly,
Wida

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Reflection, reflection, reflection...

Hi all!

Well I guess this is the time to be sincere. In my case this class has being very interesting in the sense that I have felt mix emotions. I recognize myself to be a visual learner, and when I first knew that we would have a mix of online and in class lessons, I was very upset and nervous. It is my first term taking online classes and it has being quite an experience. Some days I am like, yeah! finally I see how I can use technology in a positive way, and then some days I am like, Ok, what ever!

Let me mention some of the good things. I have learn about different tools that are useful for teachers, like the Web 2.0 tools. I loved the Gliffy web page, since I know I could be using that very often. Knowing about the new technology of Smart Board. That is amazing, I can definitely see myself using one of those.
The down side of the course, is that some times I will like to ask question, but I know I won't get an immediate answer, and that frustrate me. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with all the task assigned "in class". I do think though that this could be because I get upset pretty easy if I don't understand what I am doing. Once I figure out what I have to do and how to do it, I am ok.

Overall the course is good and is helpful for teachers. It introduce a different perspective on how to do good use of these technologies.

Truly,

Wida

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Web 2.0 tools

Hi all!

This week blog is about our perception of the usefulness of the Web 2.0 tools in the classroom.
I have to say that these tools are great to use, since are useful to engage student into learning. Based on Mark Prensky article, today's' students are craving for interactivity, so he you have it! These tools provide that spark that our students need to become more enthusiastic in learning or even going to school. Our goal as teachers is to teach and make sure that our pupils understand or at least get the message that we our imparting to them. I understand the challenge that today's teacher have to do so, but is not impossible. The tools our out there, we just have to know where to get them from and most importantly, how to made good use of them.

Know that we know that there are so many types of learners, there are Web 2.0 tools that helps use reach probably each one of those students. For instance, Gliffy, provides the concept maps tool, where we can use it to reach our visual learners. Wikispaces provide use the tool of creating our own web space and put up every single topic possible, and helping our students to have that technology interactivity that they so much crave for. These are just some examples of these tools.

These tools are useful for the classroom, but they are also helpful for the home. Home schooling or tutoring are some of the reasons of also making good use of this sites. These are useful not only for teachers, but parents as well.

So let's not be shy and lets work to obtain the best outcome possible out of our students. They are the future!
Until next week...

Truly,

Wida