David Curlette

The new buzz word in education is flipping a classroom.  A flipped classroom is a teacher’s website where their students go to get class lectures or class teaching notes.  The expectation is that students will watch the lectures videos the night before the material used in class the next day.  Then material taught in class is done through practice problems, “real world” problems, projects, or activities.  Because the students are watching the typical teaching lectures online, this frees up class time to be spent on engaging students into the lessons through “real world” problems or activities. Does the flipped classroom work?  This all depends on the teacher, the students, and the expectations of the class.  Teachers who have the expectation of students watching the videos and force the students to watch the videos in order to understand of to solve the “real world” problems that are completed in the classroom, then these teachers find much success.  O...

Many teachers use word walls to help students remember learned vocabulary.  Tipically, each word on the word wall contains the definition and/or examples of how to use the word within the subject that it is being taught.  Here is a technological way to create a word wall using QR codes.  Each vocabulary word contains a QR Code that is linked to a webpage with an example, a YouTube video, or a lesson video from my website.  An advantage for using a QR Codes is to allow more information to be associated with each word.  Also, the QR Codes are a quick way for students to access and store the voabulary words associated with your course.   How to create this word wall? Choose the words for your word wall. Google each of these words Choose the website or webpage for your QR Code Create your QR Code with a QR Code Generator such as  www.qrstuff.com     or    http://www.the-qrcode-generator.com/  Now place the QR Co...

Formative assessments made easy, just use a student response system such as Smart Board clickers or eInstruction Clickers .   Instantly find out how well your students are learning the concept s you are teaching.   Instead of wondering when you will have time to grade a quiz or any other type of formative assessment to gage your students understanding, create a lesson using a student response system which will instantly tell you the percentage of students that mark, choose, type, and input their answer choices.   Are there student response systems apps?   YES !!       IPad   --   Socrative        http://www.socrative.com/                                      C an you use cell phones?   YES !!      Poll Everywhe...

Technology is the world of our students. Elementary students have the  ability to read books without turning a single page, search instantly any  thought they may have and get several if not hundreds of possible responses, and  can instantly watch videos of other teachers teaching the same concepts they are  learning at school on with the click of a few keys and a mouse. Technology  has embedded itself into all of our lives and to teach without using it leads  students feeling disconnected in the learning process. I am not saying  that teachers must use technology, and I am not saying that learning can only  happen with technology. I am saying that technology enhances the learning  environment and helps teachers to design lessons that can produce instantaneous  formative assessment feedback, videos created by students or teachers, and  interactive games. Technology is a tool to enhance the learning  experience, it cannot r...

The integration of technology in the classroom will help to enhance the learning for students.  Students use technology on a daily basis with cell phone, smart phones, computers, and MP3 players (the new name for a cassette player).  The days of listening to music on a CD or tape is out dated much like caring around a boom box while listening to music, so are the days of not incorporating some type of technology into our lessons.  Technology can be simply Incorporated by using a document camera, interactive white boards, or graphing calculators.  Too many younger teachers these types of technologies are common and they are technologies that they may have grown up using.  For example, the graphing calculator was not used many until around 1990 and the Internet showed around this time too.  So how do we teaching with technology - easy.. one step at a time.   I suggest finding one type of technology you seem to link, play with it, then find anoth...