Practical Practicum: BrainPOP anyone?

Although popping one’s brain seems counterproductive in an educational setting, BrainPOP is far from that. A multi-subject, interactive multimedia site, BrainPOP could just be a teacher’s new best friend.

According to the website,
“BrainPOP® engages students through animated movies, entertaining characters, interactive quizzes and activities, educational games, high-interest readings, and more.”

http://www.brainpopjr.com/

I saw this used in my Practicum classroom to review subtraction. I don’t feel that it spent enough time on certain parts of the explanation to be a good initial lesson, but it seemed to be a great resource for reinforcing a concept that had been introduced, but not yet mastered by the students.

These students have been working on subtraction for several weeks, but they haven’t gotten the concept yet.  This reminds me of something I learned when I was taking horseback riding lessons. I kept making the same mistake over and over, and each time, my instructor would correct me. But she didn’t get upset or frustrated. She kept talking and talking as I was riding round and round in circles. My mom noticed this and asked her about it. Her response was, “I just keep saying the same thing in as many different ways as I can think of until it finally clicks and the light bulb comes on.”

That’s often how it is in teaching. Again and again, students need to be taught the same concept. Again and again, they forget what they just learned. Or maybe they never learned it in the first place. I’ve already seen firsthand that sometimes all a student needs is for someone to sit down with them and teach or explain the same thing in dozens of different ways until one of them finally clicks. I’m glad I had teachers that did that for me, and I want to be the kind of teacher who will do it for my students. 

Don’t give up–give more. More ideas, more explanations, more examples. Because sometimes all it takes is one more time of explaining it again to go from a blank stare and “I don’t get it” to the “AHA! moment” of the century. 

Lighting up my world,

A Persevering Teachable Spirit

I. Hate. Schedules!

I really do. I hate having to make lists and schedules to keep me on task.

But you know, I’m slowly learning that budgeting my time is a lot like budgeting my money (something I am also hesitant to do). Unless I keep track of it, I’m left wondering at the end of the week (or month . . . or year . . .) WHERE DID IT ALL GO???????

I’ve made a couple of spreadsheets to help myself. Using Microsoft Excel, it’s quite easy to create a schedule that gives an at-a-glance visual of what I need to do and how long I have to get it done. By using colors, I’ve also found that I can keep track of how important a task is and how much time I will need for it.

Despite my extreme dislike for scheduling, I’ve found that it can be a huge stress-reliever. Instead of constantly trying to remember what I’m supposed to do, I can be at ease about it, because it’s written down. No more nagging little voices in my head constantly whispering, “You forgot something! You know you did! Now what is it???”

So my advice to my fellow students is, get a schedule–a good one. It will make life simpler, and even though it might seem like it is restricting your freedom, it is actually giving you more freedom to do everything better.

Sufficiently Scheduled,

An Organized Teachable Spirit 🙂

Technology and the Holocaust

I recently returned from a short field trip to Washington DC. While there, I visited several of the museums and landmarks, but the main purpose of the trip was to visit the Holocaust museum. At this museum, one of the primary goals is to teach people what happened during the Holocaust, why it happened, and how to prevent it from happening again. As such, the museum aims for a wide audience, diverse in age and nationality.

The museum was well-equipped in regards to technology and other creative learning tools.  Many places throughout the museum utilized the short films, slide shows, and other audio/video tools that are common to museums. However, there were also some unique uses of technology and modern teaching tools in the museum.

The first exhibit I entered was called “Daniel’s Story.” In this exhibit, visitors were able to follow a young boy named Daniel from his home, to the ghetto he was forced into, to the concentration camp where he lived and his mother and sister were killed. All of this was done through walking through modeled rooms and reading pages from Daniel’s journal. Pages of the journal were posted in several places. At the beginning and the end of the exhibit, there was a short movie about Daniel, first introducing him, and then concluding the exhibit.  This exhibit tastefully utilized technology mixed with hands on exhibits to create a very real portrayal of Daniel’s life.

Before entering the main exhibit of the museum, each visitor is given a “passport” containing information about a real person who lived during the holocaust and was persecuted by the Nazis. Then everyone entered an elevator and saw a short movie on the ride up to the fourth floor.

In another part of the museum, there was an exhibit about Hitler’s use of propaganda in his scheme to annihilate the Jews. It was interesting and terrifying to see how Hitler used the latest technology to promote his goals. Now, ironically, the Holocaust Museum uses technology to expose Hitler’s schemes and prevent their recurrence.

Technology is a powerful tool. It can be used for great evil, as Hitler clearly demonstrated. But in the right hands, it can do a tremendous amount of good.

What if we used the technology at our disposal for good as fervently as Hitler used it for evil? We do many great things with technology these days, but it seems that we are not using it as efficiently as we could. In many ways, technology is still used for evil.  Identity theft, cyberbullying, and especially pornography are vastly destructive and dangerous, yet incredibly common uses for technology today.

Maybe you can’t single-handedly rid the world of these negative uses of technology, but you can most certainly do your part to fight against them. You can use technology to make your world a better place–not by ridding it of “imperfections,” as Hitler purported to be doing, but by overcoming evil with good.

See some of the Online Exhibits from the Holocaust Memorial Museum.