Flip+Flopping+passive+and+active+learning

Differentiation of classroom instruction using tools instead of toys.
Consider this; a classroom that allows students to move at their own pace; a classroom that allows spend time on topics that they find interesting; a classroom where mastery is the goal and not satisfactory. Consider a classroom that you will never have to say "oh well, most of them seen to get it so I guess I'll move on". A classroom where that one kid in the back sleeps through most of your and still gets a C, B or even A can finally be challenged.

Welcome to the 21st century classroom, the blended classroom.

In 2010 the department of education released a study on the effectiveness of online class compared to traditional (face to face) classes. The study determine two things.

1. On standardized tests, student who received instruction via an online class score the same as students in a traditional class. The study followed it up with the statement that school districts should use online classes to help relieve budgetary concerns and as a replacement for canceled classes.

2. On standardized tests, students in a blended (a class that is a blending of online and tradititional classrooms) scored 35% better then classrooms that relied only on tradition our online methods of instruction.

The short of it, traditional classroom can be replaced with online classes but blended classrooms can't.

So, what is a blended classroom, and how can I get the district to pay for (or more to the point how can I do it for free).

The phrase "blended or hybrid classroom" means different things to different teachers. For most teachers blended means sending home 60 minute lectures home instead, or in some cases in addition to, the 60 minute in class. Blended also means class time is resuscitation time, students working groups in groups on what was once called homework. For me, blended means differentiation, it means mastery, it means self paced. This next video is of Salman Khan and how he accidentely changed the way we look at blended class design.

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Here is some good news, his stuff along with a ton of other lectures can be found online for free, including lectures from the top colleges, universities, museums, and organizations around the world. Most are embeddable and some even come with additional support material (like "homework problems").

The list of tools here are to be used as tools and not toys. What makes a tool not a toy, its how you use it. To sit in a training about voicethread, classmaker, or google docs with out the discussion of usage of that tool turns it into a toy, something you'll once or twice in the course of a semester so you can check of the "uses technology in the classroom" box on your evaluation. You can't do that with these tools they have to used everyday to make an impact.

The first tool I used in my classroom was iTunes U. Colleges, universities, museums, and organizations from around the have placed video, audio, and support material in this "centralized" location. You want to know how it fells to sit in on a lecture on classical physics at MIT, its there. You want to tour the great museums of Europe, it's there. You want to learn Russian from a Russian, it's there. You could litererly walk into a new school, a new classroom and start "teaching" BC calculus on your first day. It's as simple as this, go to iTunes U, open up the link to Stanford search for Calculus 1, assign one lecture a week, or break it up into chunk; watch the fist 30 minutes on Monday; 45 minutes on Wednesday and the rest of the weekend. So then what are you going to do for the rest of the week? The important part, the part where the highest levels of learning happen for student, it's also the least guided part of instruction, it's what traditional classrooms call "homework".

=** Rant Alert !!!! Rant Alert !!!! **=

We know as teachers that students learn more when they're stressed (not over stressed), learning in the stressed environment is called "Active learning"; learning that happens environments that other very little stress is called "Passive learning". Think of your class, when is active learning going on, when is passive learning going on?

Taking test -- Active learning

Doing Homework -- Active learning

listening and taking notes in class -- Passive learning

So test taking and homework are the most stressful things in any class, they are also the least guided, while lecture time is passive, but is the most guided. Think of it this way, if time is currency, and you only could spend one dollar on each student, where would you spend it? Where do you spend it now?

**[|ITunes U]**
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Academic Earth is much like iTunes U offering much of the same lectures and information.

[|Academic Earth]
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Now here is something different, Khan Academy (when I here the "Khan Academy" I want to shake fist and yell out KHANNNNN, thank you James T Kirk). Here is the new thinking, which is old thinking, a two hour lecture on the Russian revolution could be hard to sit through, it's even harder sit through when there is an X-Box 360 sitting in front of you. Sooooo what kind of crazy person would do that? well most blended teachers do. The Khan Academy lectures are 15 minutes in length, so I could even sit through them.

** [|Khan Academy] **
So life is good, this teaching thing isn't so hard, I don't need to lecture, I can homework problems from iTunes (or the book that came with the room) and all I have to do is work the room. It sounds like I can come in at 7:30 and leave at 3:30 not bad. Well working the room just got a lot harder, if you do what i do and put everything online, every homework assignment, every lab, every pretest. So now I have a student that is struggling and is behind asking me about one dimensional kinematics (sorry i'm a physics guy) another student asking me about simple harmonic motion, and the last student who decided that Nuclear sounds cool and needs help. I need to know it all every day, i don't and can't phone it in.

But in this chaos that is a blended classroom I found something out; all of my students are different and have different needs. My gifted kids needed more text less talk, the struggling students wanted more talk in class with lecture, other kids would like to do more labs etc....

So what is a teacher to do? Do it all. Now you may think i'm a tech guy, but i'm not. I'm a people person, I'm an idea person, I have spent many a night trying to get some new program to work, so when I use something I want to use all the time, and it has to work well. I used Issue.com to embed books (yes entire books) into my website, good for the readers. I shot video, my video for my students, even had students shot their own, and even went one step back and have in class "discussions" once a week. I have embedded labs from PhET straight into the website. All of this so I can meet the needs of my students, and i did it with little or no training on how to do it.

I have put together some links and videos on how to use some of the tools that could be helpful in putting together a blended classroom. Other tools I have used are listed in the side menu (I also teach Classmarker, but consider Edmodo, google docs, google forms and wikispaces (i use Yola.com personally but you will get a lot more support from wikispaces)

If you would like to see some blended classes are like (at least there Web foot print) try these

www.Ipodphysics.com (my website) [] []

[|Voicethread.com]

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[|What it looks like]

[|Camstudio]

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What it looks like

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IMovie

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What it looks like

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Dell Web Cam (Works the same for Windows 7)

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Use your Doc Cam

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