Blog Post #13

Back To The Future -- Brian Crosby

This is a video of Brian Crosby during a seminar in which he speaks about how he promotes and values technology in his classroom. Most of Mr. Crosby's class was made up of students who used English as a second language. He talked about how his students were taught on a narrow course, which hinders their learning abilities. A narrowed course only brings down the creativity level of a student. Each student is required to have a blog and record everything they do in it. He also required his students to set goals, but not only for themselves but also set them for their community, their school, and their country. He challenges his students to better the world around them through their own goals. He then managed a hot air balloon experiment with his students, this experiment engaged attention from all over! Mr. Crosby's class then assembled their own hot air balloon, it floated into the sky until it exploded. The students put all the recorded hopes inside the balloon. This experiment made students want to learn on their own. It also helped to break the language obstacle because so many students had to learn how to decipher written and spoken English. Mr. Crosby's classroom is very inspirational to me, as an future teacher. His balloon experiment developed a higher sense of confidence in the children and an overall sense of importance. It showed what kind of influence a sixth grade class can make. With a classroom like Mr. Crosby's the possibilities are limitless. If there were more teachers like Mr. Crosby, there would be a better future for our students.

Paul Anderson -- Blended Learning
In this video by Paul Anderson, Blended Learning, he explains how he unites the Blended Learning and the Learning Cycle into his own structure called QUIVERS. This includes six components he uses in all of his lessons. 1. "QU" for questions. 2. "I" which is investigation/inquiry. 3. "V" for video. 4. "E" is elaboration. 5. "R" for review. 6. "S" is summary quiz. The QUIVERS technique is extremely student focused and efficient. Mr. Anderson's techniques keeps his students energetic in their learning. This approach of teaching can be introduced into any classroom.