Blog #7: Why Coding?

1. How can coding be effectively integrated into your teaching?

Coding can be effectively integrated into your teaching through many different lesson plans. My classmate and I created a sun with our Hummingbird Robot, and created it so it . would light up yellow like the sun and rotate. While teaching about the Solar System in Science you could have your students create different parts to the Solar System to help demonstrate their understanding of the Solar System. You can use coding to grab your students attention at the beginning of a lesson whether you are teaching about the Solar System, habitats, people in history, your options are endless. Not only is it fun for students to create a Robot they will remember what they learned in class about that specific lesson taught because they had to create something from the lesson. 

2. How will this help your students?

Coding is a fun activity to bring into the classroom because it helps students become engaged in learning. You can have the coding equipment ready for students and when they come into your classroom they will want to know what they are going to do with all the tools/technology in front of them. You can then let the students discover the technology and see what they create/come up with. Coding helps students use their brain in a unique way and helps your students learn how to work and communicate with other students. Technology is a huge part of our world today and students need to be exposed to it and learn how to create/use different types of technology that will benefit them now, and in the future. 

3. What are your goals with regard to this topic?

My goals are to learn more about coding and specifically about the hummingbird robot so I can better help my future students learn and use this type of technology. If my future school does not provide this technology for us teachers to use in the classroom I will talk with UVU about using theirs or find a grand that will help us get these tools into our classrooms.

HummingBirdTutorials

Blog #6 UDL Action & Expression (Summative)

1. How can effectively integrate Finch Robots into your teaching?

As a teacher you can integrate the Finch Robot into your teaching in so many different ways. and with so many different lesson plans. The way we integrated the Finch Robot in class today was through teaching 4th grade science. The objective was about teaching students about physical characteristics of Utah and common animals found in Utah. We chose an animal from Utah that we wanted to do some research on and then we created that animal on our Finch Robot and created a habitat for it.
You could also use a Finch Robot in your class with your reading/literature lesson plan. The students could create a story and create a character on their finch from the story. They could also create a character from a story that you as the teacher read to the class and have them identify characteristics of the character and create their Finch Robot character. They options really are endless.

2. What are your goals with regard to this topic?

The goals with this topic would be to help students learn new technology and different ways to use technology to show what they are learning in class. In science the goal was for students to research and show what they learned while using the Finch Robot this was used for a Summative Assessment. The goal for reading/literature would be for students to show their understanding of characters in a story and describe the character in the story that was read in class or in a story they created. Another goal with using a Finch Robot would be to helped students be engaged in the learning process and add variety to your classroom and your teaching.

3. How does this shape your vision for empowered learning for your students?

I thought this was a great tool to use to encourage empowered learning. It helped me see how learning and summative assessments can be fun and very interactive. I can see how the students would be engaged and how the Finch Robot would help them think more about technology. I also think this will help their minds expand and become more creative.

Finch: The Red Fox

Blog #5 UDL Action & Expression (Formative)

1. How can Principle 2: Action & Expression: Formative Assessment be effectively integrated into your teaching?

Formative Assessments can be effectively integrated into teaching using formal and informal assessment procedures. Some tools you can use for Action and Expression: Formative Assessments are AnswerGarden, Interactive White Boards, Kahoot, TimeToast, Word Cloud, Popplet, ThingLink, and one of my favorites StoryBird. We used StoryBird to assess third graders on Reading/Literature Standard 3. They are to create a story in StoryBird where they describe a character in a story (their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events. 

1. How will this help your students?

I think this will help my students be engaged in learning and will help them feel less stress when it comes to assessments because they are done in fun interactive ways. This will also help them have a desire to learn and will help them be creative in the ways they express what they learned. And finally I think this will help my students understand technology better and how they can use it to help them learn and express themselves in a good way. 

1. What are your goals with regard to this topic?

My goals are to become more familiar with some of the different tools you can use for formative assessments and practice using them so I can show my students how to use them and help get them excited about using these different tools. My goal is also to find more tools that were not mentioned that could be useful in the classroom. 

Ellie the Elephant finds a friend