PDP and PLN

A part of my personal development plan is to incorporate project based learning projects into my class requirements. The current school year is almost over but I have a number of PBL lessons that I want to try with my students next year. In addition, I want to create a classroom blog for my students. Observing some of the classroom blogs throughout the semester was a prime example that blogs can be beneficial and engaging for students. Finally, I plan to attend technology workshops and courses that are offered through my school district to improve, learn, and stay updated about new technology.

My personal learning network has increased dramatically. I use Symbaloo to maintain my PLN. If you are not aware of Symbaloo, please check it out. Symbaloo is a great way to organize your PLN in one place. I’ve had a PLN since EDM310. My PLN includes many social networks, blogs, ALEX, and educational sites. However, since taking EDM510, I added BIE to my PLN. BIE has a wealth of knowledge on PBL and many free resources available for PBL lessons. In addition, I added the Teaching Channel, Moodle, and Reddit to my PLN. The Teaching Channel is awesome because I can actually search a lessons and see how other teachers are effectively teaching it. All in all, my PLN continues to grow.

Book Review: How It's Being Done: Urgent Lessons from Unexpected Schools

C4T Summaries

C4T Semester Long

Mr. Sladkey has not been active much in the month of April. In the one post that he posted he talked about The Engagement Wheel. The Engagement Wheel is where students teach the class. I thought this was a really interesting strategy. He made the point that having students teach the class in lessons will help them retain the information and make learning more fun. Most importantly, he made the point that when one teaches something, one can use it and will know how to use it better because he or she taught it. I replied with this comment: The Student Engagement Wheel is very interesting. I will most certainly try this activity in my classroom. For the most part, it will be a great way to get the students involved and keep them engaged. Most importantly, it will make learning fun! Mr. Sladkey, thank you so much for posting such useful information!

C4T Rotating

In the post I commented on, Mr. Spencer talked about an interview that he had with Meeno Rami. Meenoo Rami is the author of Thrive: 5 ways to (Re)Invigorate Your Teaching Practice. He discussed how he was blown away by her braveness and humility. He made the point that the book reminds teachers of why they teach. In other words, some teachers are worn out and even burnt out but the book helps bring them back into focus. In the interview, they discussed mentorship and how mentorship is important for new teachers. Having a mentor is helpful to new teachers because teaching can be very intimidating in the first couple of months of teaching. Meenoo made the point that no one knows better what you need than someone who has been through it. In the interview, Meenoo also talked about the importance of networking with other educators around the world. In other words, to better increase one’s teaching practice, it is good to know what is working for educators not just in one’s own area but all over the world. In my comment, I commended Mr. Spenser for giving us readings a great interview with the author. I also commented that I will most likely be purchasing the book.

Blog Post Assignment 10

Glogster a great tool to use for the classroom. With Glogster, teachers can create pages, assignments, journals, and a host of other things to make learning fun and exciting.

In a technology advanced classroom, Glogster would work well in class or at home. For example, Glogster can be used to post assignments that students can access anywhere. The great thing about using Glogster for assignments is that teachers can provide everything that students need for the assignment in one place. Most importantly, it eliminate the need for paper and time at the copy machine. Glogster is free but to get the best benefits out of Glogster, teachers will need to become a premium member. Some districts already has district wide membership. Nevertheless, premium membership is $35 for 1 year for an Elementary teacher with 30 students and $95 for 1 year for Secondary teacher with 125 students.

Try Glogster out by following the directions for creating a classroom assignment. In this project, you will use Glogster to create an assignment. First, go to Glogster.com and sign up; sign up as an educator. If you have a Google account, you can sign up and sign in using your Google information. After you have signed in, click on create a new glog. Choose the assignment template. Once you have chosen the template, you can edit the template to create your assignment. Your assignment must include instructions and some form of media (video or audio).

Here is an example of what your final product should look like: A Poison Tree Assignment This assignment is on “A Poison Tree” by William Blake for 12th grade British Literature class. Have fun!

PBL Lesson 2 (Late)

Students (seniors) will be broken into groups to help create a collection of movie clips for incoming freshmen on how to adjust to high school life. The 1st group will discuss study habits, group 2 will focus on academics, group 3 will focus on extra curriculum activities, group 4 will focus on teachers, and group 5 will focus on student life. Students will have to plan their movie, include text in their clip, decide how to best capture their topic, and come to together to put their clips together to make one movie. In addition, students will upload the video to Youtube. Here is the link for this project: PBL Lesson 2

Interview with Anthony Capps, Blog Post Assignment 8 (Late)

What I learned most from the question and answer session from Anthony Capps was that Project Based Learning must become a habit. The question that was asked was can Project Based Learning be done overnight. Mr. Capps answer was yes. However, it must be practiced and the students must be involved in PBL. He stated that before one can move on to another tool, one has to master the first tool. In other words, the tool has to be practiced over and over and must become a habit. Once the tool has been successfully master, the teacher can move on to the next tool. In addition, he made a point to use the tool that has been mastered in the future projects.

Another interesting thing that I learned was that students have a great desire for an audience. Because of this, Mr. Capps stated that he frequently invite parents so students can showcase their projects. In addition, he uses stuff animals as an audience. Students tend to perform better when they know that someone is watching and that they have an audience. He stated that the stuff animals worked well for his students.

All in all, the question and answer session between Dr. Strange and Mr. Capps was very informational. Mr. Capps is an experience teacher who frequently uses PBL in his classrooms so it was interesting to hear his responses.

Teaching Digital Natives Book Review

C4K Summaries

I commented on Alfa’s blog from Ms . Lavakula class. Alfa is a 5 year old student enrolled at PT England School. Alfa wrote a short essay on swimming. The essay was broken into an introduction, 3 body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Alfa wrote about the importance of learning how to learn and why someone should learn how to swim. Overall, Alfa did a great hob on his post. I commented on how well of a job head did and encouraged him to keep up the great work.

Emmanuel posted a blog post of a video that he created using picture animations about the life cycle of the butterfly. Emmanuel did a great job on video and it was well very well considering the fact that he is only 5 years old. I commented on how well his commentary was on the video and how he did a great job putting it together. Most importantly, the video was very informational and I learned about the life cycle of the butterfly.

Mrs. She’s class is working on constructing simple sentences correctly and independently. I commented on Bitner’s blog. He created his simple sentence about swimming. Apart of their assignment was to create the simple sentence and record a video stating the simple sentence. Bitner did a great job on both and commented on how well of a job he did.

Joshua is a 6 year old from in Miss. Garden class. Joshua created a powerpoint about native tress in New Zealand. Joshua did a great job and I learned something about trees that are typically found in New Zealand. I commented on how well he put together his powerpoint and how much effort he put into his work.

Teachers making learning fun

For this week’s blog post, I had to watch of number of videos of numerous teachers using great strategies to help students learn. For the most part, watching some of these teachers in action was truly fascinating. In particular, Brain Cosby. One thing that stuck out for me in Mr. Cosby’s presentation was when he said that learning must be motivational and have meaningful context. Making what students are learning relevant is extremely important to keeping students engaged. Many times, students are disengaged because they find no purpose for what they are learning. Cosby’s example in the presentation demonstrated that the students had something invested in what they are learning. Because of this, the context was meaningful and motivational. In addition, he made the point that teachers cannot keep racing kids through school. In other words, teaching to the test while ignoring real learning strategies is not effective. Teachers must invest in what they are teaching to help students develop into productive citizens of society.

Paul Anderson’s video was also interesting. Mr. Anderson created a video about blended learning. Blended learning was something new to me. Blended learning is using technology in powerful way; in other words, combining mobile, online, and classroom together. Mr. Anderson stated that teachers must first start with a question. A question to something that gets the students interested. The question acts as the hook or the attention getter. The blended learning strategy is a great way to involve technology in every lesson.

Mr. Pane’s video on building comics was awesome. I long for the days that I could have the tools for every student in my class to pull something off like that. The students were engaged and their assignment was extremely interesting for the students. I think students of any age would have enjoyed such an assignment.

All in all, what I learned from all of these teachers was that they were all involving technology in their lessons some kind of way. Because of this, students were actively engaged and they were interested in what they were doing. They were not merely reading out of a text book and disengaged from the lesson. These teachers prove that incorporating technology into lesson can be done more frequently and make the learning experience productive for the students.

C4T Summaries

C4T Semester Long

Mr. Dave Sladkey only posted one post during March. The article was a post on titled “What is the Weight of the Snow You Shoveled this Winter”? The Article was taken from the Chicago Tribune and it included a lot of math. The reason why he thought the article was interesting was because of the fact it had a vast amount of math problems. Consequently, readings of the Chicago Tribune would have had to pull out their math skills to determine how much snow they shoveled during the winter. Mr. Sladkey worked the problem out himself and determined how much snow he shoveled during the winter. He stated that he would make his students work out the problem because it gives them ownership over their work and suggested that other teachers do the same. All in all, the post was great and very interesting.

C4T Rotating Mrs. Manaiakalani talked about innovative teachers in March. She discussed how she had the privilege of working in a community which encourages innovation among teachers. Every year, teachers receive 12 days of paid leave to focus on teaching a project they have developed for their own classes. For the most part, I thought that was an excellent incentive for teachers. Having the time to actually create the project is essential. In addition, she discussed how they come together to share projects and discuss how the projects can be enhanced. I believe that if more districts offered this type of program for teachers, teachers would be more innovative. Teachers should be innovative anyway but having an incentive will changeling teachers to put out their best work.

Useful Educational Tools

Animoto is a great tool to use for making great videos and slideshows for presentations. This tool is fun and cool. Students would enjoy using Animoto because it has numerous features, and it is easy to use. Students can make video slideshows from over 50 different styles. In addition, they can add captions and titles to their photos and video clips. Most importantly, the program is a cloud based program so students can share their videos on social networks and access it anytime through iPhone or Androids. Here is a video on how to create your first Animoto video.



Studysync is a great site for English Teachers. Studysync is great because it has weekly writing practices, numerous critical thinking lessons, and tools for peer reviewing of online writing. The site also has a virtual library that has a vast amount of titles that has accommodating informations for Common Core.

Ning allows students and teachers to create their own personal social network. The site is great for classrooms or even the entire school. All the information is in one place; students and teachers can post and share information. Schools could use it to send out announcements and other information. For the most part, it is a great tool that teachers can use in the classroom. Here is a video about highlighting some of the features on Ning.

ALEX Project

My documents for the AlEX project can be found on my website. The website is a work in progress and is evolving. Nevertheless, here is the link where the location of the documents are found. Mr. Rease's Website

You may view or download the files by clicking the appropriate link below:

11th Grade English Course of Study

12th Grade English Course of Study

Lesson Plan 1

Lesson Plan 2

My Personal Workspace

Technology Course of Study Grades 9-12

Alabama Virtual Library

In today’s world, students have access to countless amount of information. Most students are very knowledgeable about social networks and social media as a whole. Students are constantly posting pictures, status updates, and tweets through social networks. Because of this, the information available to people today is ever increasing.

Concerning education, students have many resources available to them to get information on any subject for any course. Alabama Virtual Library (AVL) is a great website that provide students with access to 54 databases for information. Most importantly, AVL is a great tool that students can use for research papers.

In my high school class, I taught my students how to use AVL and required them to use two AVL resources in their research paper. During this lesson, I showed them the various resources offered and their purpose. As a case in point, EBSCOhost was one of the best databases to use to locate an article on any subject of research. Students were shown how to search the topic, locate an article, and get the MLA works cited information from the article to place on their works cited page. Students found the EBSCOhost very helpful.

To introduce AVL, I created a PowerPoint to inform students about AVL and to go through some of the benefits of AVL. After the PowerPoint, students would log on to AVL and actually search information to gain some hands on experience using AVL.