Where I Come From..

This past spring I took senior pictures for a friend at his family's property. I just loved this old barn, so I snapped a quick picture and with a little editing this was the result. This picture resemebles home to me because you see this gorgeous landscape down every road in my town. I truly love where I come from and I feel this picture displays it perfectly.

Creativity in the Classroom

J.P. Guilford describes creativity using four concepts: fluency, flexiblity, elaboration and originality.

I struggle the most with flexiblility. When I think about something or feel strongly about a topic, I have a hard time viewing it from another person's point of view. I want to think that only my way or belief is right and that anyone that opposes it is just crazy. Even when it comes to school work, if I am having to write a paper or create a project from a point of view that I do not agree with or if I think it should be from another perspective then I do not want to do the assignment, but I feel the assignment is harder when its not something I agree with or understand fully from that perspective.

Probably the most simple tool we have used in class that I feel helps spark some of these dimensions is google doc. With a google doc we are able to show fluency in the classroom, constantly being able to add our thoughts and ideas which sparks originality.Our classmates are able to elaborate on a point one has made either with facts or their own thoughts and ideas. With being able to see our classmates points of view, flexibility is expressed.

Another tool would be jing. While working on a project you can capture an image or additional text to help support an idea showing elaboration. To get other perspectives into a video, you could use the video tool from jing to capture parts of a classmates video or a youtube video to put into your video demonstrating flexibility.

Bubblr would be a great tool to create entertaining clips for younger children my classroom. It would be an original way to explain a certain topic or even to work through a problem. We could create one as a class letting each child have their own slide with their own ideas.

Being Creative

Creative: having the quality or power of creating; resulting from originality of thought, expression, etc.; originative; productive (dictionary.com). Most people think being creative has to be a new crafty project or something similiar, but as the definition states there really are no parameters. I believe being creative can be anything you want to create or do, just trying something new or adding a new twist to something you already have. To be creative, I chose to try a new recipe. I have over 400 pins on my recipe board on Pinterest and decided to finally try one, Strawberry Sheet Cake. For most cakes I just use a mix out of the box because they taste great to me and whenever I try to make one from scratch they do not taste near as good. That changed this time, the cake turned out great! I have never had a recipe turn out so perfect. I felt I was being extra creative trying a recipe without my KitchenAid mixer. I really should try being creative more often!

Horizon Report Response

Just as I have stressed before and as the article mentions, learning is more effective and engaging when you can relate it to your own life. What better way to relate to young student today than through technology? The Horizon Report details several uses of technology for educational purposes.

One point that caught my eye was that many schools are now turning to students completing their core classes online. I was actually told that Gainesville State College is going to turn to this since they joined with North Georgia. The first two years of these students college career will be spend mostly at home. If the students are ok with this new policy and it saves money for the school then by all means do it, but personally I would be very unhappy. If I am paying for education I want to be able to have a physical classroom to come learn and have face to face contact with a teacher and other students. When it came time to attend school and start my major classes, I would feel so unprepared and shocked. I think it is important for students to adjust to the college life and being on campus, attending classes with strangers is essential to that adjustment.

There are two technologies in the Horizon Report that I look forward to seeing how they integrate into education. The first being gaming, I just find it hard to believe they can design some kind of program that is educational, but actually fun and engaging. For elementary age students I know they already have some because my sister plays educational games on the computer when she comes home and the must be fun for her to choose those games over sitting on YouTube watching pageant or gymnastics videos. The other technology is gesture-based computing. I am intrigued to know how they will incorporate this into education. I think it is a great idea to use these technologies for helping disabled students, but I want to see it incorporated into other areas of education. Considering gesture-based computing will not be adopted for four to five years, the Horizon Report predicts, I guess I will have to be patient.

Meaningful Learning

Meaningful Learning

First off, I strongly believe all teachers and professors should have to read this chapter. I could relate to so many things in it from my experience as a student. The first topic that I stronly agree with is the Authentic attribute.  A majority of the material I have learned throughout my education that has actually stuck with me is because I can relate it to something. I have either experienced it, see it everyday or had a teacher who easily related the material to every day life. Some accounting material was easier because I could relate it to my own personal finances. "Most contemporary research on learning has shown that learning tasks that are situated in some meaningful real-world related task or simulated in some case-based or problem-based leanring environment are not only better understood and remembered, but also are more consistently transferred to new situations." (p. 5) If research is proving that relating the material to every day life is more effective then I do not understand why teachers still just copy and paste material from the book into a power point and read through it. "When a teacher tells students what she or she knows, too often the teacher assumes the student will know it just like the teachers, that is, that the teacher has transferred knowledge to students." (p. 15) I could not agree more. That is exactly what the teacher is doing when just showing a power point presentation or writing notes on the board. Majority of the students just copy the notes down then don't bother to look at them until the night before the test and just memorize what they have to. The students never actually learn the material in any useful manner.  "We believe that students should use the technology to represent what they know rather than reproducing what teachers and textbooks tell them." (p. 7) I feel these blog posting are a great way to use technology for our learning. They turn what is usually boring repetitive readings into a creative way to show our thoughts and knowledge on the subject. The whole time I was reading the chapter I could think back and relate to my own personal learning experiences making the reading easier to understand and more intriguing. So if all classes were designed in this manner to relate the material to our experiences and to be able to show our knowledge in creative way, not just writing a paper or answering questions then I strongly believe students would be more engaged in the learning process and retain the material at a much higher rate.