Comment4Teachers Week 13 through 14

For the past two weeks, I have been following Jenny She's blog for Comment4Teachers. She is a primary school teacher in Auckland, New Zealand. She loves her job because she believes she can make a difference.

FEBRUARY 6, 2009: PICASA (FOR MAC)

Jenny found this video and put it on her blog. It is about how to use Picasa. This video seems very informational to me. So for all of Mac's user, I hope this is helpful for you too.

FEBRUARY 27, 2009: THIS COULD BE THE FUTURE WAY OF READING: WE COULD READ WITH ONE HAND.

This is another video Jenny found talking about ebooks. It sounds interesting that you can put so many books into one ebook and it has a lot of different features on there. One of the features I heard was that it will read the book out loud to you as you are reading along with it. For me, this is would be really helpful because I understands better when reading aloud. Plus, it would be nice to read with just one hand. This video is a little funny too. You'll see why.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Jeff Bezos
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

MARCH 20, 2009: DON'T FIGHT AGAINST TWITTER

This video is about a young man who has never heard of twitter and can care less about it. Sounds like me.

MARCH 30, 2009: TWITTER IN THE CLASSROOM: COULD IT BE A FUTURE TREND?

The next video Jenny posted was talking about using twitter in classroom. It talked about how twitter can engage more participation from the students in classrooms. I think I can agree with this statement because students tends to be more interested in stuff like facebook and twitter. Using them in classrooms could possibly help encourage students to be more willing to learn. I would not mind using facebook in classroom but twitter, I probably do not see the point in it. Since I have created an account in twitter, I have only been on it 3 times and that is it. So I will probably use something that I use more frequently like facebook. I am constantly on facebook. Here is the video:

MAY 23, 2009: TWITTER ADDICT!! COULD YOU BE ONE?

This is another video Jenny posted. I am not a twitter addict for sure because I do not twitter very much! This is video is just a comedy of twitter. I did not like it but you may.

Twitter Addict - watch more funny videos

JUNE 27, 2009: SONG ABOUT TWITTER THAT JENNY LIKES

So I come across more posts about Twitter!! I'm sorry for saying this, but what is so special about twitter? My opinion? Nothing. All you do is update the status and read what is going on with other people. I don't know; I am not a fan of twitter. I think it is insane that there are some people that will be willing to change their status every two hours or so. I do not have that kind of time. I have facebook, but I only get on it twice a day: when I wake up and before I go to bed... if I get on it more than two times on a particular day, then it is probably because I needed to send a message to a person, whose email address I do not have.

So Jenny loves to twitter!! Here is the song about twitter she loves:

APRIL 9, 2010: ARE TASK BOARDS USEFUL IN CLASSROOMS IN THE CLASSROOM?

Finally, something that is not about twitter! Jenny is talking about how to use Task Boards to keep the children from year 1 to 6 on track with their learning. "The task boards are essentially a list of rotation activities that the children can do while the teacher carries out his or her mircro teaching groups. Why micro-teaching? Well, the little children can not handle whole class teaching. They get lost easily and many can't bear listening to a teacher talking in front of the class for a long duration of time. The next reason which could be a more valid reason is that the children are of different abilities or levels right across the curriculum areas from reading and maths and social studies. Because of this, the children are sorted into different ability groups and hence there are small groups teaching."

Here is how the task boards work: the children's names are listed under the names of the activities and when they are asked to change activities, they look at the chart and go do the appropriate activities that they are assigned to do. In this way, all children have something meaningful to do while waiting for their turn to be called to the teacher.

Task boards were very helpful for Jenny and the children she teaches. They help manage the class in which the activities are helpful and kind for the children. "Nowadays, I have progressed so much in use of integration of e-learning that I have found the constant interruption of the rotation cycle actually break the link in e-learning," Jenny wrote. She also wrote that many children do not like leaving the computers and coming back to them later when they lose their great ideas in their heads. Because of this, she has modified the task boards in a way that the children ar allowed on the computers till they have finished the projects.

Not only did she modified the task boards, so that the children can finished their computer project, but she also changed the way task boards work. "The task boards that are just lists of things on the charts that the children can do. They are encouraged to choose wisely --like attempting different activities, never overcrowd an activity (Max:4 persons). " So far, this technique is working for her class and it allows more flexibility.

I find this post very helpful. Since I changed my major to special/elementry education, I will probably use this technique, especially if I want to teach at the Regional School for the Deaf and Blind or any other schools for deaf and blind children. I think this technique will help the deaf students to keep track of what they are suppose to do and what they have or have not done. For the blind students, I would create their own task boards in braille. Either way, I would probably use this technique in my classroom. Not only will it help the students keep track of their activities, but it would help me keep track of their work.