I was assigned to post on Elvira Dayemport's blog: Language Journeys (http://languagejourneys.blogspot.com). Her most recent post was about her class having their very first Skype call with a school in Nebraska. Ms. Dayemport had to choose a game to play with that school for the Teaching Enrichment Activities Time, and chose a math game called 0-99 Guess from a book called 'Mega-Fun Math Games: 70 Quick and Easy Games to Build Math Skill' by Dr. Michael Schiro and Anna Walker. The main objective in this game is to ask a bunch of yes or no answers to figure out the opposing teams number. Ms. Dayemport involved her students in a big way by having them participate in the entire activity. All the students had certain tasks they had to keep up with throughout the game. All of the students had a blast with it and this activity made learning math fun, and gave the students a chance to interact with other students from other schools.
The response I posted on Elvira Dayemport's blog was that having a Skype call with another school sounds like a fun way to learn, and a great way to meet other people. Math is usually a very boring and difficult subject, but making it interesting with technology and giving the students a responsibility on the game really grabs their attention. If I had had teachers that developed innovative ways to make math and other subjects fun then my whole perspective would've been different when it comes to math. However, now a days, learning math is easier because of all the online reasources there are.
I was assigned again to Elvira Dayemport's blog. Thisrecent post on Tuesday, September 27, 2011, blew my mind. Her class had their first Skype call to a TV star named Kristan Cunningham, former host of Design on a Dime on HGTV. Cunningham will soon be hosting another show the OWN network. The first thing she had her class do before the call was to research different career expectations in the field of the arts, then make a bunch of questions specifically about interior design. She had a different group of kids this time, and gave them all different jobs to do during the call, but made them relatively simple assignments as it was the group's first. Two of the students were "super stars" because they were asking the questions that had been compiled, and they got to answer the call. The "question keepers" kept track of all the questions asked, and wrote down any additional things that had been asked. The "blog writers" wrote down key points of the interview and made extra side notes for the class to put in their blog about Ms. Cunningham. The class had a very fun time, and they were all very thankful to have Ms. Kristan Cunningham have an interview with them. Plus, the class got be on the local news!
This particular post is what makes teachers love their job so much. When we can have a special guest speaker come in, and the kids have a ton of fun but also learn so much about a particular interest they might have. Skype really has its perks, especially when a famous person will gladly have an interview and be so kind about it too! I thought it was a perfect idea to have the kids research the puts and takes of interior design and also how diverse that field can be. This way they were able to have a better understanding of what all goes on and how things work and happen. Ms. Dayemport and her class were even on the local news for doing this Skype call with Ms. Cunnigham, and the kids probably loved that. I think the most important part of this post was how much the kids learned about interior design, especially since it has a lot to do with colors, shapes, sizes, texture, and other elements of art. They also had a ton of fun, and got to play with some really neat technology while doing so.
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