Saturday 21 April 2012

The Core Problem : My third Podcast

The Harvard EdCast is a weekly series of podcasts, and for my last podcast, I chose a video called " The Core Problem ". You can find it on itunes, it has been made by the Harvard School of Education. Professor Richard Murnane shares new research on how family income affects education equality. He wrote a book about the subject, and he talked a lot about his book during this conversation with Matt Weber. They also explain how works the public school system, and why, sometimes, children from low income families are excluded from this system. The video lasts about 13 minutes.

Pr. Richard Murnane is co-author of this research. He explains that there is a strong relation between family income and studies. Moreover, values of America seem to have changed. It was the foundation of the American dream : A children, no matter which social sphere he was from, could become richer and more educated than this parents were. A child may grow up poor, but he can change his destiny if he works for it. But Max Weber says that richer getting richer, and smarter, and the poor getting less educated.

 There is an increase in segregation, and especially in school segregation by income : it means that children from low income families often live in the same area, and that they are more likely to be concentrated in school together. This problem has increased for the last 30 years. It affects the ability of teachers to make good work, because these schools are marginalized. But making these people in categorie contribute to American Capitalism.

Max Weber asks Pr. Richard Murnane what are the reactions to his book, and he answers that this is too soon to know. He says that his book is only available for a month. But a lot of educators are pleased that the book recognized the fact that school can make a difference for children from low income family. He thinks that the different school disciplines must work together in order to resolve this problem.

Furthermore, he thinks that, as citizens, children are our futur. A substential pourcentage of children are growing up in a low income family which means that a majority of children are concerned by the problem. The investments that teachers will make for these children will pay sooner of later.

Friday 20 April 2012

What I have learnt this semester

What have I learnt this semester ?


New vocabulary, new websites ...

The last two months in The Didactique de l'anglais class, I have learnt a lot of things.
 We talked a lot about technology, and how to use it with students. I've learnt new vocabulary : tools, Input/Output, Cognitive, to improve, task...
I really love the work we had to do this semester, because I'm really comfortable with computers, and working with websites like Wordle, Voicethread, Blogger, was really interesting. 
We created a complete story with Mandy, just using our drawings and Voicethread !

Moreover, watching podcasts and summarizing them was a nice experience. I've learnt where I could find university podcasts ( such as Harvard or Stanford ) and now I'me able to find them by myself ( on itunes and youtube ) and understand what is said on it.
I really think that when I will be a teacher, I will use all these tools with my students, and I will make them work a lot with technology, because it is our futur. Students and Teachers have to learn how to learn with web 2.0, because it is an unlimited source of knowledge. 

Others teachers are constantly publishing new videos and new audio podcasts, and we should all watch them. 
To conclude I would said that using voicethread was a really funny experience :) We created a story, using our drawings and our voices.



Thursday 19 April 2012

Podcast 2 : The Great Teacher Checklist

The Great Teacher Checklist

A podcast from Harvard Graduated School Of Education

How can effective teaching be identified and developed ?

I chose this podcast, which last around 15 minutes, from Harvard university. Thomas Kane ( deputy director of Education for the Gates foundation ) is talking about how we should measure teacher effectiveness. The main subject of this podcast is Classroom Observation, and how teachers should be evaluated in the futur.


Pr. Kane is explaining, at the beginning of the video, that the heart of the project is to provide better feedbacks for the teachers. The project has brought together 3,000 teacher volunteers in six different school districts. This is  huge a debate in the USA, and, according to him, students should be aloud to provide feedbacks too. These measures are important, because they are related to students achievement. That is why teachers should triangulate the problem, and find a combination of solutions. 3 sights : The teacher / The students / The content, and the classroom observation will see how these three are working together.
Pr. Kane compare the super power of measures with Super Heroes, every measures should be different.
For him, what makes a classroom observation complicated ?
 1 / different observers will have different judgements and different points of view.
 2/ The work of the teachers and his ability to explain a lesson is changing.

It also depends on how many observations you do. More you observe, more objective you'll be. Which means that students could be judging the teacher, and give their opinion. But there should be a confidentiality to protect students, and they should watch videos to know how to become best observers.
But Pr. Kane also explains that teachers should see themselves teaching, to learn from their own mistakes. It would make excellence in instruction.

Pr. Kane ended the video talking about a website related to the video. I went on it, and it is really well made, that is why I invite all of you to check it : http://www.metproject.org/
There is a complete report about gathering feedbacks.





What is VoiceThread ?

In class, we are all working on a new project with VoiceThread. By group of 2, we will have to make a story ( with photos, drawing ... ) for the end of the semester.

VoiceThread can be used for a presentation with video, audio, photos ...you can also record " live annontations " with you own voice :)
What is great, is that you can upload pictures, and create an audio narrative to go along with them ( this is what we are going to do ). VoiceThread is a teaching-learning experience.

This is one of the drawings of our voicethread ( Sorry the quality is not very good )