Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

Don't sweat the small stuff is a saying that I need to remember.  I learned this over this past weekend.  This weekend I had a large portion of my family in town from Cleveland to visit (aunts, grandfather, parents, and my siblings).  I was very nervous, there was going to be 9 people that I had to entertain, and all different age groups.  I panicked, I didn't know what I was going to do.  I began racking my brain to think about different activities we could do to help pass the time, dinners/breakfasts we could have and the places we could visit.  

After the much anticipated arrival on Friday evening everything worked out perfectly and very smoothly the whole weekend.  I feel like sometimes we can get overwhelmed and or stressed with news, events, gatherings, that we need to realize that it will all work out.  It always works out.  Once the weekend was over and everyone had traveled back to Cleveland, I thought, "Why do I get so worked up and stressed out about nothing?  It always turns out just the way it was suppose to."  That's how this weekend was, and it only reminds me to not sweat the small stuff.

20Time in Education

I just started researching more on 20Time.  I know we talk a  lot about it in class, but I never truly understood how to begin this amazing program in the classroom.  After reading 20Time in Education I realized that this is a very simple project to conduct with your students.  There are also many fantastic opportunities for students to learn and explore on their own.  This website goes into great detail on how to introduce 20Time to your students/parents, how to incorporate blogging, ideas on how student can present their projects, and even areas that are highly suggested for grading.  

After being in our ED584 class for just a few weeks I am beginning to learn the importance of failing.  In this 20Time project students should not be fully graded if they did not accomplish his or her goal.  Students are allowed to fail.  If you fail, you learn from your mistakes.  We need to start letting students figure things out on their own and begin learning on their own.  By doing this, I feel that they will take more ownership in their work and in the long run, learn more.  I understand that this can be a challenge for some teachers; however, after perusing many 20Time projects, the possibilities are endless and so is the learning!

Animoto

      In our last blog post we were suppose to explore videos and learn how to create one.  I had recently discovered a new app on my iPhone and thought I would focus my blog on this app.  After looking at everyone's blog posts,who utilized Animoto, I knew I wanted to explore this.  After just a few minutes I was hooked.  I love the different formats you can use and there is such a wide range of uses for this.  Above is a short video I created after just exploring for a few minutes.  
       When I get my own classroom, I would love to create my own video about myself and my room.  What a wonderful way to break those first day jitters for students.