Creating Videos for the Classroom

QUOTE: By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
           By:Benjamin Franklin

 Teachers across the world are now getting involved by learning different techniques and methods that can be used  in order to transfer learning. These strategies are now been administered in different modes and patterns and is becoming more comfortable to the student teachers within the Teacher Training learning faculties.

The video you are seeing here is one that is created to speak about the different types of families that can be found around the world.It was created to capture and integrate knowledge in students who are in a grade one level class. This video includes pictures and definitions which will explain to the students in detail about different family types.Therefore it will help the students to identify what type of family they have along with  the persons that make up there family and other families around.

In creating this video it will help to cater to students different learning styles.The reason being is some students learn more when they have information that they can view with their eyes and interact with. Therefore this will help to grab students attention span quickly when they are viewing things from a screen and it will enhance more openly discussions in class and students participation.

Reflection about the piece. 

The piece that was created is a video that is geared towards the topic The Family for a Social Studies lesson.This piece will be used to test students knowledge about the different types of family. Students will get the opportunity to list who are the members that can be found in the families that we have in our world today. Once they would have done that they would watch the video that will highlight the different type of families that can be found and the persons who make up these families and what name is given to these different types of families.

The challenges that we faced in creating the piece was that the different slides were not been navigated properly according to how we wanted each half to be viewed. With continued persistence we managed to overcome the obstacle.This piece could have been improved if the actually persons in the movie could have identified themselves and speak about the things that will normally do as a family.

Podcast

What is a podcast?

A podcast is the creation and distribution of amateur radio on the web. It is an excellent means for students to create and contribute ideas to a larger conversation and audience.


A podcast is an essential teaching tool that will help teachers across the world to share ideas about topics they are teaching and the different effective teaching methods that they can use to help students learn. This type of tool will also help students who are preparing for exams to exercise their creative skills in interviewing persons on specific questions that will help to enlighten the productivity of their assignment.

In preparing this podcast my colleague and I sat down together and decided how we will  begin to create this podcast. From the options given we decided on creating a podcast on the issues we are currently facing at the Teacher Training Department since this situation is affecting all of us holistically at the institution.

Each person decided on what areas of the podcast that they were going to concentrate on and came up with their information on the issue. Once the information was gathered we met together as a group and worked together tireless for the good production of the podcast.

Two ways in which a podcast can be used in a classroom setting is by allowing students/teachers to voice their explanations on power point presentations presented to a listening audience and another way a podcast can be used in the classroom is by allowing students to produce creative, fun and energetic projects.

     
Quote: You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity he will continue the learning process as long as he lives. 

                                                                               By Clay .P. Bedford
                                              
I agree with this quote and can relate it back to previous teaching experiences. It is often pondered upon why at the end of a school week children seems to forget what they have previously learnt. It is not all the time lessons that have been taught using the old chalk and talk method that students grasp the concepts been taught. The piece that is been displayed was created by my colleague's and I focusing on personal hygiene on ways we can keep the body clean. The piece is designed for students in the grade one level. This will illustrate the things in which we can use on a daily basis to keep our bodies clean and healthy away from dirt and diseases.
This interactive tool will help students to pay close attention as to how they deal with themselves in keeping clean and well groomed. Students will get an opportunity to identify things that they have/have not been using from the hygiene chart been displayed and place them into sub-headings as to what they are used for in keeping clean.

However my colleague's and I were faced with some challenges in getting this visualizing portfolio piece to a start. First we couldn't decide on a topic and the approach in which we will create this visual learning tool.
After deciding on the topic and the format this exercise would take, we now had to figure out how we will get all this information gathered presented only using Microsoft word application.From pooling our ideas together we take notes and began using hygiene images to create our piece and organizing the information together.
After completing the assignment I believe that with the use of this interactive tool students would be able to see things more often and interact with them to remember concepts been taught to them on a daily basis.
This material would help teachers to exercise their creative skills in getting creative manipulative for children to work with to enhance learning activities.

The importance of planning for a lesson

As an educator it is essential for teachers to adequately prepare for each lesson to ensure that they have accomplish the learning objectives placed in the curriculum. This will enable the students to get a clear understanding of the concepts being taught in different lesson areas. It will give students as well as teachers the effective communication flow in a classroom setting which leaves room for positive or negative feedback. Educators need to realize that even though a particular topic was taught many times using one method it is always rewarding to change their approach in teaching the topics because students have different learning styles and each learning styles need to be catered too if we intend to reach the students highest potential in which we teach.

Utilizing blogs in the classroom

I've created this blog to help teachers like myself and especially students to  advance their learning in the technological world. This blog will help students understand that there is no one way in doing something or in getting things done,it will help them to create and send messages, projects and do classroom assignments so that their friends or even teachers can make adjustments to the work been done. This will improve the quality of instruction by allowing them to access the web for educational purposes and working in a properly organized time frame.
Please feel free to offer your comments and suggestions in making our teacher learning environment more friendly, energetic and fun filled.

Good day

Hi,
    My name is Natasha Fenton. I am a teacher who has been working  in  the education system for the past 3 years now. I am presently attending the teacher training department where I  am studying on how to improve quality learning  in children.