Thing #6

I really enjoy the ability to quickly skim items that the reader gives you. I selected a piece from tech learning on using Wordle in the classroom. I know at West we are trying to focus on using academic language and i think wordle might help us bridge some of our gaps. When I listen to students using academic vocabulary that is on a higher level I often get the feeling they are just regurgitating what they have just heard from the teacher. I worry that they don't have a good grasp of the concept. I'd like to see our science teachers work with this in developing a deeper understanding of the terminology they are using. often when you ask students about a term they can spout the definition back at you but if you ask them what that means you get a very glassy stare. We're getting better but it has a ways to go.

my second article in thingy #6 was a post by Steven Hardon focusing on the use of gaming to improve instructional effectiveness. I posted a comment on this article and I'm curious to see if the author will respond. My praise for the concept is that it definitely piques students interest in material they might not otherwise engage in. My concern is twofold, first is the difficulty we have in getting a portion of our staff to take technological advancements into their regular instruction cycle. I worry that gaming will be seen by these teachers as trivializing the content. My second concern is that we have yet to develop effective ways of consistently transferring student success on these applications to success on traditional assessments. Maybe the answer is to ask TEA to develop an interactive shooter game that will supplant the TAKS test.