Blog Post #1

If I built a school, It Would Be in the Cloud

For our first blog assignment, we explored Venspired, an educational blog by Krissy Venosdale. Krissy has been in the education field for over a decade. She started blogging in order to gain more prospective on her teaching. She uses her own Personal Learning Network to collaborate with other educators. In her blog, If I Built a School, Krissy tells her readers what her dream is. She wants to build a school that teaches students how to think, not what to think. We also watched Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the Cloud. Sugata Mitra is an educational researcher with the experiments "Hole in the Wall". His "Hole in the Wall" experiments focus around the fact that children can teach themselves and others in a situation where no education is provided. He wishes to give every child a computer, no matter where they are from. His experiments have proven that children in the most rural of places can teach themselves without any teaching from an educator.

I want to teach in an elementary school, teaching grades one through fourth. I would prefer to use a student oriented way of teaching. The students will learn from each other as well as me. This type of learning is based on building relationships with peers and learning the material. I want my students to think for themselves, but have enough direction from me to know how to do that.
What I Want My Students to Know
-I want them to know that they will not and cannot know everything.
-Technology is constantly changing. They should know how to adapt.
-They have the ability to teach themselves.
-And lastly, I am there to teach them how to be better learners and thinkers. I will never tell them they are learning or thinking wrong.

What I Want My Students to be Able to Do
-Think with an open and thoughtful mind.
-Be technologically literate.
-Teach me something that maybe I didn't know how to do before them.
My Methods
My primary way of teaching will be student oriented. I want my students to build good communication skills while learning the material. I will show them to an extent how to do something, but I expect that they finish it and excel in whatever they are learning at the time. It is not my job to do anything for them. It is their job to learn. I am only their to show them how.
Tools I'll Use in the Classroom
-Computers.
-Maybe iPads depending on the schools availability to provide them.
-SmartBoard to be hands on and interactive in class.
-Classroom blog to keep up with all students current work.
Role of the Student
The students in my classroom will not only be the learner but also the teacher. I want my students to learn from one another and me. They will manage a class blog for themselves. They will be active participants in the classroom with one another and others outside of the classroom.