Structuring Classroom Lessons Around Power Point Presentations

As a veteran Power Point user that had used them in numerous classrooms when I worked overseas in South Korea, I know and understand the value of a well-constructed presentation with a ton of content for classroom learning projects. I learned early in my work with Power Point that they are far more vibrant -- and attract far more attention -- when they contain relevant content to keep students hungry for more. In my opinion, it's always important to create a Power Point lesson that is focused on a specific theme or topic rather than one that just contains a general focus across several areas of interest.  By focusing a Power Point lesson on a specific theme that is connected to current material that kids are passionate about, a teacher is able to tap into the desire of students to do work that matters. It is also important that a Power Point has clear starting and ending points and covers an issue completely before the students and teacher are ready to move on to something new. All of these things are important for teachers to remember when they begin to design a Power Point lesson for their classroom.

Social networking sites help students and teachers in Florida connect online

There are, as I wrote in my last post on the subject, potential benefits to the use of social networking sites in the classroom and how creative teachers can be when they use the social networking site Facebook to teach a history lesson. In the link that follows this paragraph, read about how a public school in one small city in the state of Florida are currently utilizing the social networking site Edmodo.com in their classrooms to connect students with teachers, by providing "a safe way for [them] to connect, share content, access homework, participate in discussions, manage due dates and receive class information."



http://www.newssun.com/news/091313-sg-edmodo

Alternate choices to the Apple iPad.

As a follow up to the previous post about educational applications for the iPad that students can use in the classroom, I should also write about the other various tablets currently being offered by companies other than Apple such as Intel, Samsung, Google, and Amplify. According to the article that follows this post, "44 percent of kids are using some kind of tablet for learning, 92 percent of kids surveyed believe that using a tablet in school will change how they learn in the future. And 90 percent of students said using a tablet makes learning more fun." This article is an enjoyable read for teachers or districts looking for alternate options in tablets for use in their classrooms.



http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/09/beyond-the-ipad-schools-choices-in-tablets-grow/

Applications for Apple handheld devices, available from the Apple iTunes store ever since the arrival of the first Apple I-Phone and I-Touch in 2007, have revolutionized the education industry in school districts throughout the United States over the past few years. According to a September 2013 report by the New York Times, "the ITunes store offers more than 95,000 educational apps, many of them free." Currently, they have taken the form of cognitive games available for the iPad or iPad Mini, that are aimed at the development of preschoolers and grade schoolers. Although touch screen applications have provided a boom to teachers as an alternate way to teach students, certain questions remains: do young students understand how to play the games? Do the students like them? Do the students learn anything? The answers seem to all be yes. Although a search on Google reveals that scientific research done on the educational value of iTunes applications is nearly nonexistent, I feel that any well-made educational app has its benefits. But what about iTunes apps that have been created by major companies such as MacMillan/McGraw Hill to replace traditional book and pencil learning? I believe that the best educational apps are those that allow the teacher to network with their students while teaching a lesson in any discipline. The applications themselves should cover the same material that's within the class books, and downloaded onto iPads that the teacher and students use. When the teacher asks the students to provide an answer to a specific question, the students can provide an answer - with a touch of their finger -  and be monitored by the instructor in a real time format. This not only eliminates the need for book and pencil based learning but gives the child complete control of their own learning. These apps - with an accompanying set of materials for teachers to use- if they are created in the future, will make a difference in the classroom.

With over 300 million users today, Facebook is regarded as a social marketing juggernaut. Ever since the day Mark Zuckerburg made the service available to the general public instead of just students enrolled in universities, the site has become host to hundreds of pages devoted to a myriad of different things, from vegetables to bands. Also included in this list are famous historical figures who "relive" their famous accomplishments from life, such as marriages, the birth of offspring, or written works they are noted for. Created by some of the most brilliant users on Facebook, a majority of these historical figures are also able to manifest "friendships" with other historical figures and engage in humorous banter with them. While the idea to use Facebook in this way is pure genius, notably absent from the site are things such as wars and the important battles or invasions that were spawned by them. Which leads me to wonder...what might those pages look like if they existed? Fortunately, Facebook can handle something like this. Any battle from any war can be contained as a role play within the confines of this social media site, from the Battle of Thermopylae between the Greek King Leonidas and the Persian Emperor Xerxes to the Battle of Agincourt between Henry V and the French to the Battle for Berlin during World War II. There is no limit to how this can be done in a classroom during a history lesson. After profiles have been created by students for famous generals or kings who fought in these battles, and a group has been created for the activity as well, the class can  recreate the battle in real-time through the use of historical evidence, to make it as realistic as possible. This gives the person reading it the opportunity to imagine what it would be like if these battles had a news feed which the public could view at any time.

  For the past two decades the internet has been a valuable resource for educators because of the number of beneficial uses it presents teachers with. As an educator myself I understood very quickly when I first began working in as an ESOL educator in South Korea understood how useful the internet was for teaching adult South Koreans. One very popular social media website I used to teach them how to correctly type in the English language was Facebook. Additionally, by using Skype, I was able to teach these same adults how to use English in casual conversations with native English speakers so they could get to know people within the foreign community in Seoul. Regarding my thoughts about social media and its various uses within education, I believe that only great opportunities will arise in the classroom if teachers use social media as a medium through which they teach students. Social media can support education in a number of ways. For example, one way is to have students within a classroom in this country connect, through a video camera and Skype, to students in a classroom in another country, wherein they can learn about each other by typing text messages within Skype, or in a classroom Facebook account, or exchange emails weekly. Doing all three of these things helps to create a cultural exchange between both classroom and takes these children out of their country and helps them understand the wide variety of people and places within this world. In conclusion, these tools should be utilized within the classroom rather than neglected.