PBS TeacherLine is an online resource for professional development for educators. On the page titled Why PBS TeacherLine, the website provides reasons they think their software is beneficial including that you can receive graduate credit, the courses are based on standards and can be customized to align with your district, experienced instructors, and their content is created through a partnership with educational leaders like ISTE. Reviews on their testimonial page were all positive and hit points of the website being high quality and easy to use.
Courses are offered in 1-5 hours, 15 hours, 30 hours, or 45 hour levels in grade levels pre-k, k-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. The categories of the course include instructional strategy, instructional technology, math, reading/language arts, science, social studies/history, and leadership. One of the courses offered is even about flipped classrooms! The courses offered are often work at your own pace which is wonderful for teachers who have to work during the normal school day hours and spend their evenings planning or grading tests. The courses vary in price for enrollment, and for an additional fee you can use the course to receive credit at some universities listed beneath the course descriptions.
This week through the powerpoint assignment I learned how to create a master slide, use a template from the internet, create smartart, and set a picture as the background of the slide. I personally prefer software like prezi as opposed to powerpoint because they are more interactive and interesting to look at. Many of my teachers use powerpoint to put up the schedule for the day or lecture notes, which is probably how I will use it in the future as well. I want to teach kindergarten and/or social studies in the future so I decided to align my powerpoint with a kindergarten social studies standard. I realized halfway through my work that this was kind of silly since kindergarteners cannot read well yet. I decided to finish the powerpoint with the standard I had previously chosen, but I do not see the merit of using powerpoint in primary classrooms.
I think that using Powerpoint in primary classrooms does offer an incredibly difficult situation in itself. I agree with your statement on primarily using the presentation to explain the schedule for the day, especially with younger students.
ReplyDeleteThe PBS TeacherLine thing is really cool! I like that you can choose how many hours you want the course to be and that you can work at your own pace. Also, I wish I understood Prezi better - I've seen some crazy awesome Prezis before, and I wish I could create them, which is the only reason I prefer PowerPoint, because I think it's more user friendly. I like your slide!
ReplyDeleteI think the flipped classroom is a helpful concept because, a lot of times, I find when I am home doing assignments that I have a few questions that I will not be able to review with the professor until our next class meeting which can be frustrating if the assignment is due that evening. Also, everyone arranging their schedules to meet up for a group project is often a challenge and this could help ease that annoyance
ReplyDeletei totally agree that powerpoint may not be the best for kindergardeners but maybe if you use only pictures and just verbally describe it would be usable.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Julia. Using power point primarily with images, charts, and media (sound/video) is great for Kindergarten. As we learned by using the Florida ELA standards, even Kinder students need to be media literate. And you will be surprised how well your kinder students can read at the end of the year. When using text, remember to couple it with images, but definitely use text. Teach to the students zone of proximal development.
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