Presenters are Jan Brown and Beth Sullivan from Newton County Schools
Jan is a Kindergarten teacher who hated using Technology. She took iNTech and still hated it, but after a few other classes, she has become a Tech Savvy teacher bringing her classroom into the 21st Century. She has one computer and an LCD projector. Here are some ways she is using technology...
*Virtual Field Trips using Google Earth
*Google Lit Trips
*Visit locations that start with the Letter of the Week
*Using WebCams and websites with WebCams like the ones at American Museum of Natural History
*Uses PhotoStory 3 to create videos and slideshows
*Discovery Streaming (United Streaming) including songs downloaded as MP3
*Author Studies and websites
*Tumble Books
*Personal eLearn site or blog
Learning is better facilitated when...
*New information builds on prior knowledge
*Information is organized or refers to a schema or mental structure
*Students are actively involved
His presentation will be posted soon at http://netsquirrel.com for those of who would like to see it.
Piaget's Theory
Constructivism
The nature of Knowledge (Scheme), Concept and Structure
Learning and Knowledge growth - Assimilation, Accommodation, Equilibration and Stages
Vygotsky's Theory
The Nature of Knowledge - Concepts and Functions
Learning and Knowledge growth - Zone of proximal development and scaffolding
Six Functions of Schemata
1. Provides ideational scaffolding
2. Facilitates selective allocation of attention
3. Enable inferential elaboration
4. Allows orderly searches of memory
5. (As things go fast, I of course missed 5 & 6. I will try to go to his ppt once it is posted to add it on here.)
6.
Key Points I Gathered
*Attention is KEY!
*Emotion guides you!
*Give the BIG Picture First!
*Organize Your Content
*Encoding - watch one, do one, teach one
Prep
*Plan how to get the students' attention (emotions matter)
*Structure your content
*Prior Knowledge
*CHUNK - Group like things... 4 items per chunk
*Don't make the students search for important items
Head of the Ron Clark Academy and Teacher of the year for Disney and touted by Oprah as a great educator.
Key to success in the school is Technology! Students have laptops and Interactive Write Boards. His students are featured in the YouTube hit about debating the election.
You can have all the technology you want, but you need to have a spark to light the fire of education! Innovation, Creativity, Technology are used in the classroom. We must be Innovative and Creative as teachers if we want our students to be Innovative and Creative in the world.
We should not dumb down and hold back the bright students to tutor and teach the struggling students. We need to teach everything to the brightest student in the classroom and then use innovation and creativity to bring all the students to that level. Use what the students are interested in and work from that, whether it is a song or movie. The key to student success is atmosphere in the classroom. Even if the teacher does not like what they are teaching, get behind it 110% and be passionate about it to get the students excited.
Be specific about the rules and structure in your classroom. He has 55 rules and expectations for his classroom. How to celebrate student success, structure, respect, and so on...but the key is to be specific and structure.
The Essential 55 is one of Oprah's book picks. With that promotion, the book when from the bottom of the list to #2 overnight. It is now a #1 book all over the world.
His foundation bought an old warehouse in Atlanta in a crack infested neighborhood. He went door to door during the construction for four months. He sold the neighborhood on the idea of the school. They helped paint and clean up the area for the school. Now that neighborhood is a cherished gem in the community and so far there has been no vandalism or destruction at the school!
We are called to do things. We have a mission to do things! We need to listen to our heart. Ron started teaching in a struggling school with low student achievement because his heart told him to do it! It was also his heart that moved him to a school in Harlem. We have to show our students respect in order for them to learn how to respect so they will respect us.
Ron Clark was very energetic in his presentation. He was running around the room, jumping in the chairs...if his speeches are like this, I can understand why his students love his classroom!
This week I am attending the Georgia Educational Technology Conference (GaETC) in Atlanta. I will be presenting The Google Classroom tomorrow morning, so I am excited about that! I hope to be able to blog some of the great sessions I will be attending so that you can learn what is on the cutting edge of Technology at the state level.
