TIE #2 (post VT)

  It's over! The lesson of the semester had finally come and gone. The idea was to create a VoiceThread that students could interact with and be successful in teaching them the importance of using correct grammar. Correct grammar is a vital necessity for students of all grades. Writing is a skill that can take years to master. In today’s society writing is viewed as a talent more than as a means of communication. We view good writers as persons with higher intelligence and treat them accordingly. The vast growth of internet usage has greatly impacted the world’s view on writing. With so much information typed and posted over the internet, the value of words and the way in which people express themselves through writing has grown. It is crucial that as teachers we install the importance of correct grammar usage to our learners. .

    

 Teaching grammar as we can see is very important, but it can be challenging. In school I remember learning grammar rules by constant, boring repetition. My challenge for this lesson was to try my best to eliminate the boring repetition by incorporating activities that would get students motivated to learn and be engaged in their learning. I wanted students to feel more as though they were simply playing and not learning. In my efforts to think of ways to make learning contractions fun for my students and how to use VoiceThread, I finally was able to construct a lesson. Since I had not yet used this cool interactive site, I figured that using it with this grammar lesson would be an excellent way to grab my students attention. My third graders enjoy their time on the computer and so this idea seemed like a no brainer. Little did I know that this fabulous idea would come with much more than just a few headaches.

    Lesson Plans, I’m learning, never really go as planned. Though the initial statement has proven to be true time and time again, I am not in any way condoning the planning process of lessons. I believe that having a well written established set of plans for any lesson is key to student success. What I am also learning is that adding a quick run through over lessons, especially when using technology, is also a good post-planning adaptation. Knowing that this would be the first time my students would deal with VoiceThread, I took it upon myself to do a run through prior to initiating my lesson on contractions. Yet, even with the run through we encountered problems during the actual lesson. For practice I used one computer instead of five. Therefore I did not have any problems with getting kicked off of VoiceThread. During the actual lesson, many of my students kept getting logged out of the VoiceThread, even though I had them logged in under different emails. I figured that this was due to the high amount of PSTs conducting their VoiceThreads simultaneously. Due to this experience I have realized the substantiality of  not only running though a “practice lesson”, but replicating the practice lesson to the exact way I wish to conduct the actual lesson.Technology sometimes seems to have a mind of it’s own but using it not only increases the student’s skills, it increases their willingness to cooperate. Though some students were not able to use the record option because of no headsets, they were still very engaged. I realized that having headsets in my classroom will be something to consider in the future.

    Even though the plan didn’t go quite as planned, I still was able to enforce the Voicethread to my students on later dates. The students were all very eager to jump into the conversations online and show each other where they found contractions. I think that I did what I could with the situation. It taught me to remember the importance of remaining flexible. In teaching it is important to be able to think on your feet. Each teaching opportunity has tested me to do just this. I feel like the more I have to, the better ideas I am able to conspire. In the end, I believe that  all this practice will help not only myself but also my students, keep in mind that we are all only human.


The final project is below. I am welcoming any comments or constructive criticism.
Would you have done contractions differently? Ideas please!
Also, what different problems did you encounter that I did not come across?   

I have looked at the following classmates blogs. 
Mindy
Laura
Christina