Blog Assignment #13

In Brian Crosby's video Back To the Future, he tells about a class that he teaches that has students who are "at risk." He explains some of the troubles that they go through ,and he does not understand why there is such a disconnect with these students. They are so behind that he worries that their lack of creativity and imagination may cause them to lose their passion. Mr Crosby finds ways to reach these kids by making learning fun for them. He incorporates technology into the classroom by providing all the students with laptops to create blogs, and he also conducts several projects that the students are able to take part in. This type of hands-on learning peeks the students interest and inspires these students to take a more active role in school. He gets the students to explain what they learn on their blogs, and this replaces the standard multiple choice tests. By using blogs, they realize that people from around the world actually read their posts, and this provides motivation to strive to be better. Mr. Crosby does not only stops there. He skypes other teachers and classrooms around the world to help them learn how to do some of the same projects as his class. The students benefit from this type of learning because they are now connected and collaborate with people from all around the world when they were not even connected and with their own neighborhood before.



Mr. Paul Anderson's video,Blended Learning Cycle, explains his new idea of a blended learning cycle. He takes the compelling parts of online, mobile, and classroom learning and blends them together in the classroom, and he then adds in the five "E's" of the learning cycle:explore, explain, expand, engage, and evaluate. He goes on to explain his idea by breaking his blended learning cycle down into six different parts. To start off, he askes a good question that will get the students interested, and then he lets the students investigate and explore. Then, he likes to incorporate a video for the students to watch instead of only giving a lecture, and he also begins elaborating on all of the other important factors that the students need to learn that deal with the question he has asked. Finally, he reviews all of the information with each student, and if he/she can explain what they have learned, he gives them a test.
I think that Mr. Anderson's blended learning cycle idea could be very beneficial to students. It gets the students more interested and involved in what they are learning. I like how he is very hands-on and makes sure that each student actually understands the subject matter before letting them move on to the next thing. This forces the students to actually learn the material instead of memorizing the information just for a test.