Module 5 Summary

An Example of Effective Classroom Management Video
Literacy centers give students the opportunity to practice skills that have been modeled for them by the teacher quickly. Centers can be completed individually or with a partner. Teachers should make the centers work effective and related to the curriculum. Literacy centers should have materials changed out as necessary.

What is Literacy, and Why is it Important? Video
First of all, I love that the music in the video was Smooth Criminal! Although, I found it distracting at times when I was trying to read the information on the screen. Literacy is a key foundation and skill everyone needs to be successful in all aspects of life (personally, socially, financially, professionally). The video also featured one of my favorite quotes by Dr. Suess, "The more you read, the more you'll know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” As the video explained, being illiterate makes life extremely difficult in many ways and can contribute to poverty. Literacy is one of the most valuable things a person can learn in his/her lifetime.

Using Literacy Centers to Strengthen Reading and Writing Instruction Video
Literacy centers give students the opportunity to practice and implement the skills they have learned. Teachers also have the opportunity to work with individuals in conferences or small groups. Centers also allow students to be engaged in a fun and interesting way that is directly related to the curriculum. Centers should not be used as busy work, but to reinforce literacy skills and content.

Designs for Balanced Literacy Video
The teacher in the video has designed her classroom based around her goals of allowing students to become strong, literate individuals. She arranges her classroom for students to be able to work independently and in small groups. She also has smaller space to allow room for buddy work and a larger, whole group space. She also gave the advice, "If you model something well the students will be able to do it," and suggests that you work and collaborate with your colleagues.

Spaces and Places Video
This video is about Debbie Diller's new book called Spaces and Places. She explains how you can set up classroom to make it effective for you and your students. The book is divided up into five sections. The most interesting part to me was the before and after pictures. It allows teachers can see how classrooms were transformed and the potential their own classroom has. It also explains how areas can be used and a challenging thing for many new teachers, how to get your room packed up at the end of the year. She designed the book to be a spiral book that can easily be written in.

Module 6 Summary

Making PowerPoint Slides
I thought this presentation was a great reminder to how to properly make an effective PowerPoint presentation. It included many great tips and reminders on what to do and what not to do. Often times we want to make are PowerPoints stand out and be fancy, but the most important thing is to keep it simple and inform the audience. The PowerPoints we create shouldn't be distracting or full of useless information and this PowerPoint provided key ideas on how to make your PowerPoint the best for your audience.

Creating Good PowerPoints
This article focused on how to make an effective PowerPoint for your audience. The biggest thing I took from this was to have PowerPoints be a visual reinforcement. They should not be a replacement for the speaker, nor should they steal the attention from the speaker. I saw this happen many times in my undergraduate experience. Many teachers would read directly from the PowerPoint and it never captured my attention, nor did it help reiterate what I was learning. This article ties in nicely with the previous PowerPoint.

PowerPoint Slide Master
This video is a great visual aid for anyone that has not worked with PowerPoint before or is still learning how to use it. It would be great to show in a classroom of younger students that may be working on a new project. Personally, I'm very familiar with PowerPoint and this video was a refresher on some of the basic points of PowerPoint.

Kid Pix and PowerPoint
I've never heard of Kid Pix before, but it seems like a more kid friendly version of PowerPoint. Students can create their own artwork as the background and add text to the page as well. I think it would work well with students that are more artistic. Personally, I prefer to use PowerPoint as I'm not artistic, but I think many students would enjoy using Kid Pix over PowerPoint.