Open Educational Resources

According to an article called 7 Things You Should Know About Open Educational Resources, Open Educational Resources are any resources available at little or no cost that can be used for teaching, learning, or research. This covers a very wide variety of options like textbooks, quizzes, games, etc and for the most part it is done with technology.  What I would say is most impressive about Open Educational Resources, which came from the article, is that all of the resources have been reviewed or approved so you know that it is credible.  

One website that offers many open educational resources is OER Commons.  I found multiple resources that I plan on using in my future.  The first one that I liked was Learning Math: Measurement. This open educational resource teaches you about measurements from K-12 and gives tips on how to teach the information.  Click here for an example of a video from this resource.  

The next resource that I liked was Teaching Math: A Video Library, 5-8.  These videos are a great resource because they show middle school teachers incorporating the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics standards into their lessons.  The programs demonstrate how teachers guide and assess student understanding, and offer strategies for keeping students motivated and engaged at this critical age.  Click here for an example video from the source.

Possibly my favorite open resource is a flexbook that provides high school teachers an introduction to the main principles of modeling and simulation as used in science and engineering as well as a set of lesson plans. It was called CK-12 Modeling and Simulation for High School Teachers: Principles, Problems, and Lesson Plans. 


Here are some other resources that I have found on Open Educational Resources that I think you should look at that will be beneficial for classrooms
OER Knowledge Cloud
Mission To Learn
Open Educational Resources

Teaching Channel

In my Technology for Teaching/Learning class our teacher wanted us to look at the Teaching Channel website.  The site seams like it can be very useful for all teachers with a wide variety of videos to go through.  The videos give many good ideas and tips on many different subjects.  I watched a video about a class discussion on whether two math equations were always equal, sometimes equal, or never equal.  The class was given two equations and they discussed what the answer was and how to prove it.  It was interesting to see a discussion like that in a math classroom.  I will absolutely look at this website again in my future.

Flipped Learning

A good definition of a flipped classroom, from The University of Norther Colorado, is a model of teaching in which the traditional lecture is viewed outside of class as homework on a vodcast or some kind of video. Then class time is spent on inquiry-based learning which would include what would normally seen as a student’s homework assignment.

Another good definition, from The Daily Riff, of a flipped class is:

• Where videos take the place of direct instruction
• This then allows students to get individual time in class to work with their teacher on key learning activities.
• It is called the flipped class because what used to be classwork (the "lecture") is done at home via teacher-created videos and what used to be homework (assigned problems) is now done in class

Those are two different sites and definitions that clearly tell what a flipped classroom is.  This kind of classroom certainly has its advantages and disadvantages.  The video to the right is a great way to show the benefits of a flipped classroom.  Katie Gimbar, an 8th grade math teacher, talks about why she flipped her classroom.   Pay attention to how in her normal classroom she could not reach all of the students' needs, but now she can meet all of the students' need and that they can all learn at their own pace.  The students at home can go over the information as many times as they want until they understand it.  Also now there is plenty of time in the class to ask questions if they do not understand.

When flipped classrooms can be very beneficial, there can be drawbacks.  First if the video is not made well the students will not understand the iformation.  Then when the student gets to class they can not do any of the in class activities.  It may set a student back and make it hard to catch up with the lessons being at home away from the teacher.  Also some of the lower income families may not have access to the videos at home.  How can they learn if they do not have the technology?  Some people say that another disadvantage is it may be difficult for some students to learn from a screen.  When there are these disadvantages, I believe this can be very effective if done correctly.





I will more than likely not use this strategy completely in my classroom in the future, but I may still use videos for home.  This if a student is confused at home they can look at the videos to help and if a student wants to look at what is coming up they can look at that as well.  Also I will not have to spend so much time on lecture in the classroom and could spend more time on helping the students.



Here are some other resources about flipped learning that you may find helpful and interesting.

Edudemic

21st Century Educational Technology and Learning

Experiencing Group

In my Sedu 183 class we had to do a group research project.  My group talked about how to be a successful 21st century teacher.  We talked about how to use technology, teacher strategies, and student success.  It was a fun project and we used Prezi, which was a fun new thing that I have never used before.
It was also nice to see the other projects about the 21st century and how schools need to change to make our future better.  There was a good variety of topics and that make our eyes open to many ideas for our future classrooms.  This was a successful project to see where the classroom needs to go in the near future.

Prezi

This is a Prezi that two of my peers and I made for 21st century teachers.

What Does Success Really Mean in 21st Century Middle Schools? on Prezi

PowerPoint (terrific)

In my Tech for Teaching and Learning class, at Edinboro University, my teacher required the students to make a powerpoint that we could use in the classroom.  The powerpoint could not be part of the actual lesson though. It had to be some type of review of what we had already taught them.  I am going to be a middle school math teacher so my powerpoint was on the order of operations.  I hyperlinked a creative rap video from youtube to help the students remember the order of operations.  Then I created good practice problems to review the order of operations.  Right after the practice problems I hyperlinked this review page in case they needed some further help.  Once the students completed the practice problems and reviewed they could play jeopardy, which was the last part of the powerpoint.

After creating the powerpoint, to assess what we have created, the teacher had us present it to a couple of our classmates.  Then our classmates were the ones that graded what we have done.  I was comfortable with this because I have worked with powerpoint for a long time so I was confident in what I had created.  My classmates' powerpoints were also pretty good and I am sure they will all be able to use technology in their future classrooms wisely.

Two More for The Roll

The first blog, called Let's Play Math, is a blog that can benefit any present or future math teachers.  There are a lot of topics in this blog, but the main idea is great games that math teachers can use to help their students have fun and learn at the same time.  This is a fun blog for teachers to learn many things and I intend on taking advantage of it.

The second blog is about something I have had a passion for all my life, basketball.  I have played basketball since I was two years old and have never stopped.  This blog is about everything that is happening inside the NBA, hence the name of the blog InsideHoops.  This is very up to date about every little detail on injuries, staff changes, deals, and everything else you can think of that has to do with professional sports.  Another reason why I chose this blog is because, even though this is my professional blog, I feel people should know more about me in a professional blog than just I want to be a teacher.