Blog Post #5

The first two video's of the assignment for this blog post are interviews with Anthony Capps a Third grade teacher in Baldwin County that talk about some of the projects that he does in his class.. Project Based Learning Part 1: Experiences of a 3rd Grade Teacher and Project Based Learning Part 2: Experiences of a 3rd Grade Teacher are the links to these interviews. The things that I have taken away from this interview are that that kids in Mr. Capps class are very eager to learn and love doing most of the projects that he sets forth. He explains, in this interview, that the projects he does also keeps him learning things. I love the thought of doing projects based learning and Mr. Capps, by explaining just how much the kids in his class enjoy it, has only strengthened that thought. The one project that really intrigued me was the one about writing letters to a congressman. The students had to do a lot of prep work to get these letters ready and Mr. Capps explains what went into this project during the interview. Another thing that interested me in these interviews was the way Mr. Capps explains how well it is received by the administrators of his particular school. From what Mr. Capps explains project based learning is very well received and liked by the administrators. This type of reception leads me to believe that project based learning is the type of teaching that is going to gain ground and take over the traditional method of "burp back education" as Dr. John Strange puts it.

In this interview,iCurio Mr. Capps does a short explanation of what iCurio does. iCurio is a search engine that is put together for educational purposes. There is a lot of material out on the internet that is inappropriate for students. iCurio makes it so instructors can be less wary of where students get their information. This website also has other features that Mr. Capps explains in detail like the folder options for storing information that students have gathered. I believe that this is a suitable search engine for educational benefits. iCurio will be something that I look into further, and once I've done research on it, may possibly use it for my educational endeavors.

Discovery Education is a short video interview with Mr. Capps about how he uses discovery education. Without going into to much detail, as I encourage you to watch the video, I will tell a little of this application. Discovery Education sounds to me like a very useful tool in the arsenal of a project based learning educator. This application brings video and experts of certain areas into the classroom via video. Video and reading these days go hand in hand in our technologically based civilization.

In The Anthony - Strange list of Tips for Teachers Part 1 Mr. Capps and Dr. Strange go through a short list of things that may help teachers who are just now coming into the field of teaching and those that have been teaching for years. After watching this short interview I find that they come up with a short list of things that should be used by every teacher. The most intriguing one to me is to be flexible. I find that if you are flexible, and not just set into one way, that as a student or teacher you can enjoy the fruits of labor put into the projects put before you. Being flexible allows for small or large adjustments that may be necessary. If one was not flexible with this it would make for a very unsatisfying project.

In Don't Teach Tech - Use It Dr.Strange and Anthony Capps talk about whether teaching technology or just implementing it is better for students. The overwhelming result from both Anthony and Dr. Strange is that it should be implemented along with the regular teaching. Mr. Capps says that scaffolding the projects and the implementation of technology and leaving time for reflection has helped his students very much. I must say that I agree with how Mr. Capps thinks. We don't need to teach the technology only give time for the students to get the basics and they will more than likely know more about the technology that we do.

One last little bit of information is given in additional thoughts about lessons. In this very short video Mr. Capps explains the four layers of a lesson. As I end this assignment I can only think that I have learned a bit more about how project based is implemented and how well it does in the eyes of those instructing it.