Hangry Henry and Summer School

My nephew is hangry. When I would pick him up from school everything was a chore. The sooner he was fed the better for everyone. Once fed he wanted to do anything but homework. He'd go outside and play for awhile, then it was time for dinner, stories and bedtime. When was he to get his homework done?
I've been teaching for a decade now, and more than before I hear "we just don't have time." I understand how demanding life is these days so I was struggling with how I could implement my module.Flipping the classroom works, only if your students have time to complete the work at home.
While researching another project I stumbled upon a list of "Use of Technology in Education and Learning" published by the U.S. Dept of Ed. The list mentions a school that uses online learning for credit recovery (summer school.) That is my answer. At the end of this school year I plan on sending my module to the kids that will be in my class the next year. Sure, not everyone will follow through but those who do will be a step ahead at the beginning of the year. This is also the answer to a question I frequently hear "what should I have my child do over the summer?" Now that I see another use for my module I am even more excited to start putting it together.
I should mention that Henry did get to attend Camp Invention this year for summer school and loved every minute of it. Is your module strictly for use on the job or during class time? If it is for outside of the workplace, how do you suggest people fit the time in?

TEDx: Your Brain n Technology

While working through my readings this week I kept thinking of a presentation I saw about a year ago "Your Brain on Technology" by Joe Du Fore. I found a TEDx talk he did on the same subject about a year before that. The readings discussed Congnitve Load and comparing pedagogy to digital pedagogy. I zeroed in on the part of the Tedx talk that talked about the brain making connections to other learners and learning and how connections help the brain grow.
I got to thinking of a discussion I was having with my sister about curriculum being pushed down and how many kids are missing out on just being Kindergarteners. I wonder how online schools educate Kindergarten kids? Do they miss out on finger painting and dancing like different animals? Do they get to negotiate with other kids about which one gets to play the waitress in the class play kitchen? Do they ever get to see their neighbor sneaking a taste of the Elmer's paste? If children miss out on early learning experiences like these, how different will their schema be? Will online modules of today be able to teach the online kindergartener in 20 years when she is working?

QR codes: Saving a Few Steps

So this is how I've been working smarter with the help of qr codes. One day last summer I read all 135 math worksheets for the year to my phone. I uploaded each to Sound Cloud and filed under the lesson number. Last year I'd email 5 links for the week to my struggling readers and they'd listen to the directions while completing their homework. It worked well but mostly because one particular student (I call him Tornado and if you are/were a teacher you know who I mean) took the job of finding the link very serious and it was the perfect outlet for his energy.
But my kiddos this year aren't quite as driven and I'd love to not have to remember to cut and paste those web links every week. Enter qr codes. This year each week as I am preparing my lesson plans, I grab the links, drop them in a qr creator and paste the link on my lesson folder. Next year, the qr code that links to the audio lesson will be ready to go for every lesson. My struggling readers take the ipod to the lesson folder, snap a pic of the code and the ultra wordy math lesson is read to them.
I also plan on using qr codes for game directions, sentence dictation, artist statements, book reports, lesson review and sight word bingo.
How does this fit with online learning? Using a qr code format is much more basic than logging a 6 year old into Blackboard. The next time I send home extra practice games, I can just send qr codes. All of my students have access to a Smartphone so I don't even need to send the technology home. If you haven't tried qr codes you should. How will you use them with your learners? Could it link to a google form that asks questions about a work setting?

Evaluation

This week while reading through a few discussion threads a common theme of evaluation came out. A few learners mentioned the lack of timely feedback, others being graded on the final product rather than the process. As I relate this to my young learners I immediately think of their favorite game "Teach Your Monster to Read." This game like most edutainment provides Assessment AS Learning. So if the student chooses the wrong consonant they have an immediate chance to learn from their mistake. One of my biggest challenges in my analog classroom is teaching sight words. The class practices with a variety of games but unless I am playing with them, they receive no feedback as to whether they read the word correctly or not. In my module I plan on creating games that provided immediate feedback to the learner so they can learn the word correctly.