on the balc.: September 2012

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

The theme of the chat was focused around differentiated instruction; teachers having the ability to reach each student in their classroom.

Did anyone post links that you found helpful? List one or two and explain why you found them useful. Use bitly to shorten and share.

There were a few really helpful articles that were posted throughout the duration that I observed the chat - two of which I re-tweeted. The articles were posted by @weareteachers (an online community of teachers), and @cybraryman. The article posted by @weareteachers focused around how to reach every student and provided seven helpful facts about differentiated instruction that new teachers might not have thought about. The link posted by @cybraryman was one that was full of information, including definitions and the best ways to help differentiate. The links are included below:

A professional tweeted "I like to open with something that can easily be related to life/present day" (@williamjgabriel). I really found this tweet interesting because he notes how important it is to really hook your students each lesson, and in order to do so, it is crucial that you know your students.
The notion of knowing your students was something that was continually repeated, particularly with differentiated instruction because as the teacher you need to know your students strengths and weakness and address each to ensure they are successful.
It was also discussed that delivery methods can and should be altered with each lesson so that the students are benefiting most from the instruction being given. As teachers, we have a preconceived notion of how we view an outcome in a lesson; however, if the students are not understanding, than adjustments must be made.
When using differentiated instruction, teachers can refer to Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences, which allows students to engage in visual, tactile, and kinaesthetic activities.

Choose at least 3 people from he chat and start following them. Tell me about these new people who are now in your PLN.

The individuals that I chose to follow this week were individuals that posted valuable articles or tweeted valid information. I am now following @ScottBGoldscher (Education Consultant and Teacher), @Weareteachers (Online community of teachers), and @teachingwithsoul (Lisa Dabbs - the founderof #ntchat).

Thursday, September 13, 2012

1. Which chat did you participate in?

I participated in the innochat (#innochat); however, I did go back and read the new teacher chat, and found some good resources.

2. Was there a theme to the chat?

The chat was centered on social media and its abilities to be both positive and negative in the in the real world. This chat is primarily focused around organizations and different companies, rather than the world of education, but can be interpreted and applied to both.

3. What did you learn? Give specifics and cite examples.

As a student in the twenty-first century, it is hard to understand much of what life was like without everything being at my fingertips. It seems as though many of the individuals that were participating in the chat were around when conducting research or collecting data could not be done through the internet. The participants of the chat acknowledge that there are benefits of social media sites, but the negatives can still be detrimental to the repuatationSysparatem); http://ht.ly/dGCF4, this article is an example of the negative effects.
It was also discussed through an article provided that social media can be beneficial, but there are specific things companies should know, http://jawbrain.com/brandchat-brand-lessons-for-the-social-media-age/. Also, it was discussed that because it is still new and upcoming, organizations may under estimate how harmful social media can actually be.

4. Did anyone post links that you found helpful? List one or two and explain why you found them useful? Use bitly to shorten and share.

Overall, I did not find this chat applicable to the classroom; but I personally found it useful because of entering the professional world and understanding how serious social media is when being hired and remaining in that position. This chat helped to hightlight some of the negative effects social media sights have and how important it is to be aware, and know how to manage social media sites.

5. Chose at least 5 people from the chat and start following them. Tell me about the 5 people you chose to follow.

I only chose three people to follow because I felt as though this chat did not have a ton of people that would be beneficial to follow in the future. Most of the participants were CEOs or worked for organizations that are now facing issues with social media. I did however follow some educators from the new teacher chat that I missed last evening, but thought they had valid information that would help in preparing to teach. The websites they provided are included in my blog post today.
http://eyeoneducation.com/Blog/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/2575/Three-Steps-to-Engage-Students-in-Science
http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2012/08/great-teacher-websites.html