Blog Post #9

I have dealt with a flipped classroom once in my life and it wasn't for very long. In eleventh grade, my psych teachers began doing flipped classroom and I genuinely disliked it enough to switch out of the class. Anyways, a flipped classroom is when teachers upload videos of themselves teaching to a certain website, whether it be a school-related website or youtube. Students are supposed to watch the videos as homework and learn the information at home so when they go into class the next day, they work on things that would otherwise be homework. A flipped classroom is meant to give students an active, hands-on learning experience, rather than just listening to a teacher lecture. Flipped classrooms are supposed to be more engaging and give students better learning opportunities. According to Teaching and Learning with Technology, whether it actually does give students a better learning opportunity is up for debate. Here is a link to a website called WatchKnowLearn.org, they supply thousands of videos related to a multitude of different grade-related subjects. http://www.watchknowlearn.org/

Open education allows for a greater amount of people to gain access to educational information. Open education is so important because it allows people without the proper means, such as money or even location, to gain valuable knowledge. The podcast discussed how MIT uploads videos of lectures and course material that anybody can access for free, even though a person is not a part of the school they are still getting the opportunity to learn the same information as the students there. Open content is the idea of sharing learning material between educators. There are 4 "Rs" of open content: reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute. Reuse is meant for one person, revising and remixing are changing the content and mixing it together with other information, and redistribution means distributing resources in a different way than previously gained. Whether it is students or educators, open education allows for people all around to connect with valuable learning material that will further increase the learning abilities of many.

The two PowerPoints were one of my favorite activities we have had to complete thus far in the class. In the first PowerPoint created I learned how to record my voice over the entire slideshow and I believe that will be very helpful for the future. The voice recording feature could be used when teaching an online class and would allow students to get a more classroom-related feeling as they are learning. In the second PowerPoint the main thing I learned was going between slides with a hyperlink. I was actually surprised when I learned about how much more there was to learn about PowerPoint and how helpful it could be when teaching. I enjoyed creating both PowerPoints and I know as I generate more I will continue to enhance my ability to become a better instructor.