Thing 8-14 - Reflection

I plan to use several of the resources that we have learned in this segment. Differentiated instruction is important to any classroom and now more than ever I feel that teachers need to use the available resources to vary their instruction.

I plan to use resources like Glogster and VoiceThread to give students a new way to present information and also share their learning with others. Having peers evaluate their work often inspires students to work harder. Also, student feedback can be a great way for students to collaborate and learn.

Rubistar and Quizlet are also two of my favorite web tools. Rubistar is great for finding pre-made rubrics or for creating your own. Quizlet is a new tool that I have learned about that is great for creating flashcards, review games, sample quizzes, and interactive review and tests. It is an awesome tool for preparing students for assessment.

The creative commons is another topic that I learned more about in this section. I will be teaching students how to add their work to the creative commons and how to use these available resources in their education. It will be a nice addition to the material that I already teach about copyright.

Additionally, I will continue to use video websites in my instruction. I plan to test out Itunes U more and incorporate it in my teaching as well.

2. All of Marzano's stategies can be employed at different levels through the tools used in these lessons:

Similarities and Differences - online interactive sites are great for this task
Summarizing and Notetaking - Quizlet
Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition - VoiceThread can give this feedback
Increasing Value in Homework and Practice - Interactive websites, video lessons, Quizlet
Using Non-Linguistic Representation - Google Earth
Incorporating Cooperative Learning Effectively -Glogster, Google
Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback -Quizlet
Generating and Testing Hypotheses -online interactives
Utilizing Questions, Cues, and Advance Organizers - Image stored in Picasa

3. I plan to use the Quizlet site to create a list of key terms and definitions for each of the units that I teach. I find that with every unit comes new terminology and often I struggle to find new ways to review or teach this terminology other that through lecture or standard examples. However, with Quizlet I can now enter all my terms and definitions and turn them into any combination of interactive learning examples. In an upcoming unit about Online Security and Digital Citizenship I plan to have students work with the terms in a review game format, as well as in a practice quiz format of my choice (fill in blank, matching, etc.) I think this will be useful for both teaching the material and for reviewing it.

This tool will help to teach the following Michigan Standard: METS 9-12.DC.2 (discuss possible long-range effects of unethical uses of technology (e.g., virus spreading, file pirating, hacking) on cultures and society.