Author: arochor

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Let’s talk about case studies.

In the field of education, there are a couple of terms for case studies. We can use them to study our students in specific areas; suck as if they need more support, have a disability, or be put into another class or grade level. In case study teaching it involves using real world situation as a basis for learning. This relies on students to explore the topic and and using critical thinking to solve it, rather can asking the teacher to do that.

In our textbook, The Global Educator gives us examples of global collaboration case studies. It shows us examples of projects that other teachers have used in their classrooms to stay connected with people worldwide. It also allows students to stay connected with people and collaborate on projects and case studies together. While reading about these case studies in my textbooks, I have found two that would really help our students and the world.

The first case study I have found was Pernille Ripp: Global Read Aloud. Pernille Ripp is the GRA creator. It is a global reading project that connected more than 500,000 students on six continents since it started in September of 2010. This is a great way for students and teachers to stay connected. Teachers can share read-aloud books they have used in the classroom with other teachers worldwide. They can also send what assignments they are doing around the books. By doing this, teachers can make connections and add more supplies and techniques into their educator tool kit.

Another case study that I found helpful was Peggy George and Wesley Fryer: The K12 online conference. I thought this was helpful for global collaboration because teachers worldwide can work together on one platform to give their ideas and tell other educators what works best in their classroom. This is a free online annual event run by volunteer educators. By teachers joining these free online conferences, they can learn a lot about the new teaching methods and how other teachers are working with their students. There is also a section about global eductors and help teaches stay connected and work together. Going to this conference is also a good way to make sure our students stay connected with other students worldwide. We can get ideas for assignments to have our students working in their classroom, but partners with someone around the world.

Leave a comment below and let me know if you read the textbook The Global Educator and looked into the case studies they have talked about. Also let me know if you have any of ideas of case studies that I would enjoy using in my classroom and what worked best for you!

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What does Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality do in the classroom

Us teachers are always trying to find a new way to teach our students both fun and educational. Using old faithful PowerPoint and textbooks is boring; we need to stay up to date with the technology and find a way to include it in the classroom. Nowadays, students are getting cell phones, computers, and tablets at younger ages and are very skilled in using these technologies. We should now use our students’ technology skills in the classroom; our assignments and lessons should be more technology-based. This is when Virtual and Augmented Reality comes into play in our classrooms. I was reading an article today about VR and AR and using it in the classroom to make it more fun and creative. This article also compares the two to see which one would work best in your own classroom.

Let talk about Virtual Reality; all of us most likely have seen the commercials with the big goggles over someone’s face and controls in both hands. This is a Virtual Reality set; they can cost good money and can be difficult for young students to use. My dad has a set from Microsoft, and I have tried it before and believe me when I tell you, it is not easy to do. I also got scared. I was playing a zombie game, and the zombies just get right into your face you jump back. Of course, in my classroom, I will not be using it to play zombie games, but I have to consider that it may be harder for my younger students to use.

Using VR headsets in the classroom is going to change the way we teach our students. It is going to be in the classrooms from first grade to college. Using this set in the classroom, students will see the content of every subject taught in school. Soon students will even be able to use them for gym class. When it comes to the VR headset, I am not sure that I would like to use it in my classroom yet.

Augmented Reality is the tool I am very most excited to try in my classroom. Mostly because it is easier for young students and teachers to use in the classroom. Since it is so easy to use, students can also outside of the classroom when they are home. Using AR in the classroom allows students to see textbook images in 3D instead of 2D. Using the app for AR on the phone or iPad, students can hover their camera over the picture, and come to life in 3D. Using this feature allows students to get a better insight into the topic they are learning and keep students interested in what is being taught. A big reason I would pick AR over VR is that there is no additional cost, the school does not have to buy the headsets. They just have to hover the phone camera over what they want to be put into 3D and made interactive.

Using these tools will keep students interactive and keep them connected. It also allows them to be global learners and teachers to become global educators. We can stay connected with other teachers and students around the world using VR and AR. We have found ways that other teachers are using it. With VR, we can have our students be in our classroom but experience the rainforest, cities, and deserts worldwide.

Let me know what you think about VR and AR. Will you be using it in the classroom? How would you use it? Check out this youtube video that also compares to the two for more information.

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Eden Walk

This week I explored a website called Out of Eden Walk, it was a fascinating website that takes a look into the past of mankind. It all began in 2013 when a reporter set out to trace our ancestor’s global migration. This was all done on foot; on this website that I highly recommend looking at, you will see all of the amazing places and their history that this reported stepped foot in. Thinking from a teacher’s point of view, this website is a great way to teach your students about the great migration of the human race and what they had to go through. From the harsh weather conditions, danger, and violence. While exploring this website, I found 3 great attractions that I would teach my students about before anything else on the website. Ghost City in the Autumn War chapter, Troubled Currents in the Riverland chapter, and After the Gold Rush in the Riverland chapter. While going through all of the articles and stories on this website, I have found that these stories are interesting and important for my students to learn from.

While exploring the Autumn War chapter, I have come along Paul Salopek’s article about Ghost City. It talks about Cypriot city and how it used to be a tourist resort. Now mostly abandoned with only a few people left in this city. It uses to be a beautiful place that grew its own food and had who were happy to be living there. After the war, not a lot of people went to visit or even wanted to live there. I would want my students to read these articles because it causes them to think that this can happen to any city and anyone. I would want my students to use their critical thinking skills when I pose the question, “Do you think your city will ever become a ghost city with few people living or visiting there? Why or Why not explain your answer”. Having my student read the article will help them answer the question and have them thinking outside of the box about their town they grew up in and what would happen to it if there was a war or serious damage that would cause them to leave.

When reading Trouble Currents, it got me thinking about how many of our students do not know the hardship of not having fresh water to drink in the United States. They can go to the water fountain in school or their refrigerators at home to get to water when they are thirsty. Many young children do not that other countries struggling in finding water that is safe to drink. Our planet is full of water, but less than one percent of that water is safe for people to drink. Why showing my students this article opens the discussion on how we can save water since, in fact, there is less than one percent to drink. It will also have them think that even though not everyone in the United States is rich, and we do have many people living in poverty, we are all very fortunate to have safe drinking water. I enjoyed reading articles because it allows your students to think and be engaged in conversations worldwide and be globally educated.

The last article that I believe is important for my students to read is After the Gold Rush. I thought that this would be an interesting article to show my students because, in the United States, our Gold Rush happened years ago in the 1800s. I would want my students to read this article to understand that gold had happened and continues to happen worldwide. I would want my students to learn from what can happen after the Gold Rush, that not everyone strikes big and becomes rich. That a lot of people are still poor and that it is, in fact, hard to find gold. I would teach them about the Gold Rush in Htaw Thar, Myanmar, while learning about the Gold Rush in California and comparing the two. That although these events happened years apart, sometimes history can be the same and be different. I would also want to teach them that many people looked for Gold in Myanmar because they were being paid in rice or food for their families to eat. After all, they were very poor. They were not making money off the gold they found. If they were to find gold, they were to give it to the people to hire them. After discussing this article as a class and comparing this Gold Rush to the one in the 1800s, I would give my students a project. To develop an easier and better way to mind for gold, this will also boost their critical thinking skills.

For my other fellow teachers, I recommend that you check this website out! Let me know what articles you read and how you would use it in the classroom. I look forward to hearing from my other fellow educators.

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Educational Tool: YouTube

For this week’s blog post, I decided to discuss another educational tool that I think is useful and use every day. YouTube is a platform that people can post videos about anything and everything. Lately, YouTube has become a career for plenty of people. They get paid for the videos they post based on the views they get. While reading an article, I have learned about Youtube’s transformation and how it was not used as an educational tool, and now it is. That schools use to block the website, and now it is allowed in the classroom teachers.

Teachers are using YouTube as a global educator tool and staying connected with other teachers and students worldwide. I had experienced this firsthand when I was in high school and even college. My teachers and professors have given me youtube videos to watch that have to do with what we are learning. Watching these YouTube videos have actually helped me in school, and I believe it helped my grades. You can search for anything on youtube and will be able to find it. For example, I wanted to find videos to help me study for the praxis 2 exam, and I found many videos that I have watched and learned from. I believe because of the YouTube video, I passed my exams.

While going on YouTube and watching videos, I have found many other educational tools; there are plenty of YouTube channels out there that are about teachers. On the YouTube channels, I watch teachers who document their experience and show the viewers what goes on in the classroom. While watching these videos, I have discovered the type of teacher I want to be and how I want my classroom to be set up. I have also learned how to make a portfolio, lesson plans, and classroom management. I learn all of this in college, but watching youtube videos about it has helped me become a better teacher. I believe that it is such a great tool for teachers to teach their students and teach themselves.

Please leave a comment below and tell me what you think of YouTube as a global educator tool. It is an amazing tool to use, and it has taught me a lot about education and becoming a teacher. It is also a great way to stay connected with other teachers and students around the world.

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Virtual Field Trip

Going on the website my Professor gave us was very informative and gave me many ideas of places I would want to take my students, whether it is an actual field trip or a virtual one. On this website, there are places to take your students right in our backyard and places across the world. The field trip I decided to pick was the 9/11 Tribute Museum.

I decided to pick the 9/11 Tribute Museum because I believe it is not talked enough about in school, and we really do not look at it and see all the lost lives. 9/11 is not even in the history books yet; when I was in high school, 9/11 was not in the books, and we did not even talk about it. This is such an important part of our history; it shows how we, as a nation, came together to help people. My parents know exactly where they were when 9/11 happened. Our students won’t know that, and that is why I think they need to go to the Tribute to learn what happened, how many lives were lost, and how we came together as a nation to help each other. Especially because we live in New Jersey, some people could see the towers falling from their backyards. My father is a police officer for New Jersey Transit, and he had to rush my mom home from work so she could watch me and him go to the train station to get people off the trains coming from New York. I want my student to learn about how many lives were affected.

Going on the website and seeing all of the information about the 9/11 Tribute Museum, it was fascinating to see what was donated and reading people’s stories. It also shows the aftermath of that day and what New York looked like. The museum is also a non-profit. It was built in 2006 to share family experiences, survivor stories, and people who lived in Manhattan. I would love to take my students here and have them learn about 9/11 and how it affected everyone and changed people’s lives. That 9/11 is the reason for all of the security measures when getting onto an airplane, that if we see a bag by itself, we report it.

Please let me know if you will take your class to this 9/11 Tribute Museum and what you think will add to your classroom and help your students learn about 9/11. After looking at the website, I would also want to know what other places you would like to take your students on a virtual field trip!

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Subtitles

This week I am watching a show called Aprende a Vivir. Check it out if you would like to watch it! I have watched so far the first two episodes, and I have to say it is excellent. It is school appropriate, but I would not play it for my elementary school kids. I would play it in a 6th-grade Spanish class or a health class. It is only 3 episodes and easy to watch in school. It is a show that teaches about diabetes and how to manage this disease. Even though this is a different language, you can learn a lot about diabetes, a different family, and culture. Also, while watching this show, you see a love story as well. This reminds me of the Spanish soap operas I used to watch with my Abuela.

While watching this show, you can see many Spanish cultures and how they are as a family. They only speak Spanish in the house and say a couple of words in English. You can also tell this is a rigorous family, where the oldest daughter who is in a serious relationship and is going to get married, still lives at home with her parents. It is very family-oriented and sticks to gender roles. The oldest daughter will be a nurse and marries a doctor; the mother stays home, cooks, and takes care of their children while the father works. There is nothing wrong with these gender roles. It plays out as being your typical family we see on Tv. The young boy is very athletic, and his sister goes to all his games and watches them play. You can also tell that the mother is running the household and takes care of everyone. Especially her husband, she will be going to his doctor’s appointments with him to tell the doctors everything they need to know. You can tell this is a typical Spanish family; it looks a lot like how the family is and how I grew up just without everyone speaking Spanish. Only my father and grandparents spoke Spanish.

While watching the episodes, you only saw the family in their kitchen, but it was a typical kitchen that you see in everyone. The mother was home, cooking, and waiting for her family to come home and eat. This is what it is like in my family; my mom will cook, and we will all gather in the kitchen when we get home, and it is time to eat. We know from watching the episodes that the family loves soccer and plays it for fun and watches the games on Tv and when their son plays it. With families in the United States on our, Tv is mostly football and basketball are the sports we watch. I noticed that there staple food they would have and even eat as snacks were rice white or yellow with beans or without, and I liked seeing that because it is a staple food in my house, we always have rice. I thought it was the normal food to have with every meal, but when I started going to friends’ houses for dinner, I realized they did not have it with every meal; they mostly had pasta or potatoes with their dinners. I always thought it was weird until I realized people could be thinking the same thing about my having rice for every meal. Our cultures are different, and what we eat is different, and it does not make sure weird. In this show, you saw that these family’s values were health and their family members’ safety. They put family above everything else. It is nice and refreshing to see in a Tv series because it most Tv shows, we do not see that. The one thing that I thought was very different is the same. His oldest daughter got engaged in front of the whole family and not just them together. I thought it was sweet that the only family got to be involved. We do not see that in our culture anymore, especially the man asking the father permission for his daughter’s hand; I loved watching that part. It means that this young man has respect for his new family.

I highly recommend that everyone check this quick series on youtube, and I have provided the link as well. I believe it is a great mini-series to show in our classroom to learn about health, Spanish, and cultures.

Please let me know what you thought in the comments!

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Communicating With The World

There are roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world today; we do not have the time or the resources to learn all these languages, and if you do, I admire you! Just imagine all the different languages spoken in your town or state; it’s hard to learn them. Since it is hard to learn them, it is hard to communicate with people who do not speak the same language, but this does not mean that you can not speak with them. There are tons of new technologies out there to communicate with people who speak a different language. We will be talking about one that I believe will help us communicate with the people in our community and the people in our global classroom. I know I talk about Microsoft a lot, but I love it; my best teaching tool; is my best friend. Now that I can use it to communicate with everyone just makes me so happy.

Microsft has plenty of information on its website about the translator app; check out the website to learn even more. Microsoft translator is used to bridge the gap between students and teachers, and even when students communicate with each other. I will be using this in my classroom all of the time. Not only with my students but also with their parents to ensure I have good communication with them. I want my classroom to be very community-based, and using this tool will make sure that everyone is connected and there is no language gap. I can even use this to teach languages and bring it in with social studies lessons. I am coming up with so many ideas to use this app in my classroom.

Besides just being able to use it in my classroom, my students and I can use it when communicating with other students and teachers worldwide. We can take global education to the next level with this tool. Instead of having my students only speak English to the other students worldwide, they can use Microsoft translator and talk to people in their native language. This will help my students learn even more than speaking English to the students in our global classroom. This can also help me become a better teacher and learn from other teachers worldwide about what they do in their classroom.

I am so excited to use Microsoft translator in my classroom and make connections with students and teachers all over the world. I will definitely come with even more ideas around Microsoft translator; stay on the lookout for that. Please let me know if you will use Microsoft translator in your classroom and how you will use it.

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Sustainable Development Goals: Environmental Protection.

This week I took a course in Microsoft called Teaching Sustainable Developmental Goals. Going through his course, I learned a lot about the United Nations and the goals they want the world to reach by 2030. While reading the different sections they had, I thought that these are all fantastic topics to teach our students about; for the grade level I want interested in, some Goals might be too intense for younger students. The one that I thought would be super important to teach young children is Environmental Protection. When I was reading about it, plenty of future lesson plans came to my mind. After reading about it on Microsoft, I wanted to do a little more research before teaching my students. I came across this website that has so much information on how to protect the environment. After finding this website and learning more about environment protection, I have been come up with an idea on how to teach SDGs in my classroom, that I want to share with other teachers.

When I got onto the website I went to the section that talked about Clean, Healthier Environment and I was thinking how can I do this in my classroom, how can my class be part of creating this healthy environment. What I want to do in my classroom is create a virtual book, each student will have there own page or pages in the book, and talk about what it means to have a Clean and Healthy Environment. We will use the website I found to find information and do our research and then we will create a book coming from the child’s perspective about the environment and how to make it clean and healthy. I will also inform my students since the book is virtual it saves the planet because we are not using paper and that we can send it to everyone in the school and to our friends all over the world.

I thought this lesson is a great way to teach about SDGs and use global education all in one. I am very excited to see how this will work out in my classroom. Please let me know if you have tried this!

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Pinterest as a Global Educator tool?

Since I can remember I was using Pinterest to get ideas about absolutely everything. From the hairstyles, to how I want to decorate my house. Not only me, but I got my mom and boyfriend’s family hooked on Pinterest. It was not until recently I thought of using it for my classroom. Just to get ideas on how I would set up my classroom, what supplies other teachers are using, and fun projects to do in my classroom. Here is my Pinterest if you would like to check it out, another tool in my teacher toolbox to becoming a global educator. That is how I thought Pinterest would be useful in my classroom. However, I did not know that it would be used as a global educator tool until last night when I was reading my textbook. This textbook was The Global Educator Leveraging Technology for Collaborative Learning & Teaching. Teachers are using Pinterest as a global educator tool and I will tell you how!

I found this article 40 Ways Teachers Can Use Pinterest In The Classroom. I will not be discussing all 40, but I recommend reading this article to learn all the ways to use Pinterest. Today I will be talking about the one that I believe is the best way to use Pinterest for global educators. I did not know that Pinterest could be used to swap lesson plans. You can either message the other teacher directly for there lesson plans, or you can follow there Pinterest board about lesson plans, classroom setup, management, and a whole lot of other helpful teaching tips. For me, I just created this awesome worksheet about partial sum and the way to do it. Within the next week when I make sure I finished it completely I will post it on Pinterest for other teachers to see it and be able to use it in there own classroom. Instead of using Teacher Pay Teachers, we can use Pinterest as the freeway to give ideas and get ideas for our classroom.

I am so excited that I learned Pinterest can be used as a global educator tool; it already is a social media platform that I love, and now being able to use it in my classroom and to connect with other teachers all over the world makes me want to use it even more than I already do.

*Make sure to check out the articles about the different ways to you Pinterest in the classroom! Also, make sure to check out my Pinterest so we can all stay connected as global educators.

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Media-rich Technology with Collaboration

2020 has been a crazy year, mostly everyone in the United States was affected by Covid-19. Students could not go into school and adults could not go into work. All of us had to learn how to use technology to collaborate and work together. There as been a lot of new media-rich technology that has been introduced in these trying times. Such as zoom, google meets, and Microsoft teams. Even though we are in the safety of our homes we have been able to collaborate with others. Today we will be talking about Microsoft teams and how it has impacted our collaboration.

In Abby Schilbach’s blog about Microsoft teams, she discusses the new updates given to teams, for hybrid, virtual, and in-class instruction. Microsoft Teams have come up with 6 updates to make it easier for parents, students, and educators to work together to make it a successful school year for our student while Schilbach’s blog talks about 6, today I will be talking about the one that I believe has made it easy for everyone to collaborate. If you want to read about all of the others check out her blog.

A feature that is new on Microsoft teams is Spotlight. I believe this is going to the most effective in teams when it gets released. It allows collaboration with students, parents, and educators. Spotlight is a video of the educators or presenters. It is like zoom or googles meets if you are familiar with them, but the difference is that teams allow the teacher to control the main video feed that the students see. This also allows the teachers to be able to see all of their students in one place. The spotlight will also be useful when having parent-teacher conferences, meet the teacher night, and other parent-teacher contacts. This allows the teacher to be in charge of the video and control what is going on. Spotlight is also useful for when students are working in group activities, they can go into their own groups, and the teacher can see what is being done. Spotlight is going to be useful for teachers, but it will also be useful for all other business that requires meetings and has access to Microsoft.

I am excited to try this feature out, please leave a comment if you are going to try it and how you will in corporate it in collaborative learning.