C4T#2

J. Hadley's Blog, Middle School Matrix
Comment 1
In J. Hadley's post "I Don't Know the Questions to Ask", he talks about doing a project with his seventh grade students concerning a book they read about the Black Plague. He asked the art teacher to borrow some crayons for the project so his students could draw a woodblock from the book. The art teacher taught him so much about creativity, because she showed him drawings of woodblocks and even found the perfect colors for the crayons as well as other utensils. J. Hadley learned that teachers must work together to build on each others strengths.
I commented about what a great post this was! I absolutely agree that teachers can greatly benefit from everyone's different strengths. As educators, we need to increasingly find ways to make learning more fun for the children, and this is a great place to start. I also commented about how I want to teach my students that they are great at something, and I think this coincides with adults learning from each others strengths as well.
Comment 2
In J. Hadley's post, "Teaching Current Events", he told a truly inspiring story of a day in his seventh grade classroom. He wanted to encourage students to learn on their own and get excited about events happening around the world. He used his Smart Board to pull up Tweet Deck. He showed threads about Egypt and other events. His students became fascinated with how many people were commenting on these subjects, and for the rest of the class period they searched and posted their own information. At the end of the class, the students learned so much and enjoyed discovering new knowledge.
I commented about how amazing this post was. I said that I loved the message his post conveyed: students can and will learn on their own if you can make it interesting. I also commented about his idea to use Twitter on the Smart Board, and how it showed a useful method for Twitter that I have never thought of. Lastly, I said that more teachers need to come up with plans to get their students wanting to learn and to make these plans work like he did.