Electronic Contact Assignment

For this assignment I contacted Stacy Pugh, a Biology teacher at Vestavia Hills High School in Vestavia Hills, Alabama.  I taught in the Birmingham area for 6 years and know of the reputation of this school system.  The Vestavia school system takes pride in being on the cutting edge of technology and engaging instruction.   Mrs. Pugh was very prompt in replying to my e-mail and was very eager to help.  The first question I asked her was about the greatest and latest technology that she is using in her classroom. She was very helpful and she sounded very excited about the technology that she uses. According to Mrs. Pugh, Vestavia Hills has some of the most advanced educational technology tools available at this time. The Board of Education in this system just spent several million dollars outfitting each and every classroom with Promethean boards (pictured on the right) and the software to support them. Each teacher attended a two day mandatory training class. Mrs. Pugh referred to this class as a "crash course". Each teacher learned how to connect, turn on, and operate the actual hardware. She expressed her disappointment in the fact that the teachers did not have any time allowed to brainstorm with her peers and formulate ways to use the technology.

What is a Promethean Board (pictured at the left) and what does it do?   Mrs. Pugh provided a little information about the Promethean Board and provided me with a website in order to discover more about this new technology.  I visited two websites. The first website prometheanplanet.com is the site Mrs. Pugh suggested. This site is a for lack of a better word, "support" site. There are lesson plan links, flip chart link, and other links that I don't quite understand. This site was not as helpful as the second site I visited. Prometheanworld.com had everything I wanted and needed to know about this new technology.   A Promethean Board is an interactive white board. This board was designed by teachers, so they could "transform the classroom into a truly interactive learning environment". The boards come with 2 Activpens that write like a pen but also can function as a mouse. There is a multitude of software packages to go with this board. With this new technology teachers can create engaging lessons that will capture their students and enhance the learning experience.   These boards have battery free pens, wall mount brackets, low-glare, wire free technology,and best of all, award winning lesson development software that helps teachers create lessons in a click.   Of course there are accessories to go with these boards, and Mrs. Pugh has a document camera that displays objects onto the board.  She gave the example of a dissected flower.  She can place the flower underneath the camera and point, draw, and label the parts of the flower on the board.  This is a wonderful asset for a teacher, especially a science teacher during labs.  

The second question I asked Mrs. Pugh was, " How often do you use technology in the classroom and how do your students respond to it?"  She responded with a very simple answer.  She told me that she uses it "every single day".  According to Mrs. Pugh her students love the interactive aspect and she said that even the freshmen love to "play" with the boards.  After visiting the websites above I can only dream of all the ways to use the Promethean board.  What an excellent technological tool to use in engaging students in the learning process.  Mrs. Pugh takes advantage of this technology on lab days.  She is able to use the document camera to help her show students "live" examples of what they have been discussing in class.  If a lab group has a particularly good example of a specimen, Mrs. Pugh can share it with the entire class with great ease.   The Promethean board makes learning easy and adds novelty to the same old "stuff".  The picture below shows a science class using the board to study the parts of the heart.  

The last question I asked Mrs. Pugh was about support that was provided by her school system to help teachers with the technology that is being used.  She was very positive in her response to this question.  She said the teachers have excellent support.  If a teacher has a need and contacts the appropriate person, that need is usually addressed within one school day.  So when a teacher is making out his or her lesson plans and knows that they will need tech support for a specific lesson all they need to do is contact the technology coordinator.  Teachers keep the coordinator aware of the lessons planned and the coordinator can be available to assist if needed.  This component of technology usage is critical.  Without a strong support system the teachers at Vestavia High School would have a difficult time using the wonderful tools available to them.  There was no hint of frustration in my conversations with Mrs. Pugh.  I could hear it in her voice ( I asked permission to call her at her school and she was happy to oblige).  She was excited about the Promethean Board and I know that her excitement flowed over into her lessons and activities.  Her students saw and felt this excitement and the chain reaction continues.

If you would like more information about Promethean Boards you can take a few minutes to watch this you tube video.  This video was created by a group of teachers and students at Evangel Christian Academy.  It is informative and entertaining.  

Week 11 Stanford Podcast

In this video podcast Carol Dweck, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, compares a "Growth" mindset and a "Fixed" mindset. She believes that there are two categories of students. The students that have a growth mindset are hard workers, and are finding ways to increase their intelligence. The other group of students have a fixed mindset and only choose activities that will show that they are intelligent. The students in this group do not try to branch out or try things to stretch their minds or to make their neurons work harder. Professor Dweck offered 8 sessions to students and split them into two groups. One group was offered study skills plus growth mindset lessons and the other group was offered just study skill lessons. The group that was offered the growth mind set lessons were exposed to articles about growing the mind and took part in discussions about a growth mindset. These students used the study skills lessons that were offered to them and used them in their classes. After the 8 week sessions the group had a rebound in grades and teachers could pick out the students who had taken the growth mindset lessons. The students who did not receive the growth mindset lessons did not do well, grades went down, and were not motivated to put the study skills into practice.

Professor Dweck also is working in conjunction with a race car driver on her topic of mind growth. The race car driver read her book and wants her to help him grow his mind with his racing. She believes that she can help the race car driver to have a growth mind set in order to learn from his mistakes and become a better race car driver.

I know this professor has written a book and done major research, but what she is saying is not anything new or profound. Teachers have been dealing with these types of students for a very long time. In a class room a teacher is going to have the students who try to appear smart, who are smart, and who try really hard to be smart. I know that as a professional I am not suppose to have favorites, but my favorite student is the one who gives 110% every day. They do not have to be the most intelligent, or make the best grades. They just have to be a hard worker. Watching this podcast has solidified the fact that we should not only expect our students to learn from their mistakes, but we, as teachers, should learn from ours. We should be able to admit to our students when we mess up. This would be leading them by example. They would be able to see that it is ok to mess up and that teachers are still in the learning process too. Teachers also need to be very mindful of the students who are trying to grow their minds, and try to encourage these children to take get out of the comfort zone of learning. Learn things that are not fun or interesting. STRETCH those Neurons!!!! I have taken many classes (most all of my graduate school classes) that made my head hurt and that I hated, but I didn't give up. And I came out on the other side with a great degree and even better than that a confidence in myself that I would have missed out on. This is what we should want for our students.

Week 10- WGBH video podcast

In iTunesU, in the WGBH section there are many video resources for teachers. The section of WGBH we were referred to is called teacher's domain. The description of teacher's domain was as follows: " It is a free digital library featuring media adapted from NOVA, frontline, and other sponsors. The library helps educators enhance their students learning experience and advance their own teaching techniques." I agree with this statement 100%. The quality and quantity of the video podcasts were top notch. These are a great resource for teachers. I just hope that more become available.

For this weeks assignment I viewed 5 video podcasts. I am a science teacher, therefore, I checked out all the science categories. The subject of science was divided into the following groups: Life science, Earth and Space science, Physical science, and Engineering.

Earth and Space Video Podcasts:
The first video podcast that I watched was in the Earth and Space Science section and it was about solar eclipses. I remember teaching about solar eclipses and drawing all the diagrams on the board and doing demos using tennis balls. I wish I would have had access to this short little video clip. It used great diagrams, great examples, great visuals, and it covered the vocabulary associated with a solar eclipse. The video was only 3 minutes long and that its perfect to me because it would be the perfect size to reinforce what was covered in lecture and would help solidify terms and the movement involved during an eclipse. I also watched Earth as a system, observing clouds, and characteristics of the sun. The podcast about the earth was narated by James Earl Jones and I thought that made it interesting because you were listening to a famous person ( and who doesn't like to listen to Darth Vadar talk?), This podcast was more like a documentary and a little more lengthy, but it would still be very useful. The podcast about the sun had all the basic information students need to know about the sun and it put things in a perspective that the students could understand. The terms and definitions were present and easily understood. The observing clouds podcast was very simple. You sit and watch clouds float by and watch them move and change. This podcast would be great for elementary aged students or as a fun introduction to clouds for upper level students.

Life Science Video Podcast:
I watched one video in this section about the frozen frog. It was very interesting and could be used to explain several things. Camouflage was mentioned several times. A teacher could use this frog to start discussions of the topic survival of the fittest, or could use this video to get students thinking or should I say hypothesizing about why the frog freezes and what it accomplishes. Students would love this video because it has green slimy frogs and they freeze and then thaw out and hop away.

I am very excited to use this resource in the classroom. Looking back on my past teaching experience I wish I would have had these then. I can see the possibilities and learning opportunities these podcasts provide. To reach these podcasts you go to iTunes store, then click on iTunesU, then click on featured educational providers, and then click on WGBH.

Week 8- Fall 08 Podcasts

I listened to "My classes at South: How technology is used in them" by Matthew and Jill and "What I learned from Randy Pausch" by Brandy, Amanda, and Daniel. In listening to these podcasts I realized how easy it is to say certain words to use as a filler. The words um, like, you know, and uh were in almost every sentence. I will be doing my podcast this Tuesday and I am going to try very hard to keep myself from using those word. It becomes annoying and distracting. I caught myself counting how many times one lady said the word "um" and was not listening to what she was really saying.

The positives about the first podcast were that the guy had a nice slow clear voice. He was very easy to understand and I was able to follow him easily. Both podcasters knew what they were talking about, but at the same time both became confused half way through their talking points. The negatives about the first podcast were they both seemed to get confused, they both jumped around a bit on the topics, and the flow of the conversation was choppy. Their different points did not flow together. I became a little confused about some of the things they talked about.

The positives about the second podcast were that this team had fun with each other. They teased one another and that made it fun to listen to. The 2 ladies sounded professional and knew what they were talking about. The young man was a bit rude and insensitive. He did not seem to have put alot of work into this assignment. I could only find one negative thing about this podcast (besides the young man) and that was their thought could have been a little more organized and they could have had specific points they wanted to talk about.