In Less Than 30 Minutes, I Discovered...

1. A link from ReadWriteThink.org (@RWTnow) about Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, detailing and providing lesson plan ideas from the ReadWriteThink website that cover different aspects of the novel and ways of teaching the book.  This link was featured in a tweet to celebrate the anniversary of the book's publishing and give teachers ideas of ways to celebrate the anniversary in their classroom through literary lessons.

2. A link, posted by Eric Sheninger (@E_Sheninger), to an article ("Social Media in Physical Education") that gives ideas for physical education teachers to grow their PLNs.  This article gives very basic instructions for PE teachers on how to find information about PE ideas on Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook, while also listing more options at the end of the article.  While many of the instructions on this website are very basic, I found this very interesting because PE is not a subject I normally would have imagined would be able to use much technology.

3. An article titled "Updating an Age-Old Class Activity" tweeted by Edutopia (@edutopia) that gives teachers ideas of ways to incorporate "artifact sharing," or show and tell, into classrooms of older students.  In this teaching method, middle and high school students are encouraged to bring in objects or pictures of objects that showcase something about their family or who they are as a person, not just a show and tell item like a drawing or a pet.  Then, teachers allow classmates to ask questions and are able to use these questions to formulate future unit and lesson plans based of student curiosity.

4. A link in Kelly Walsh's (@EmergingEdTech) tweet for teachers to "Put a Planetarium in Your Web Browser."  In this link, teacher's find a blog post that details how to find the Planetarium app for computers and a brief explanation of ways to use the app in the classroom, mentioning the idea of using to to teach students about astronomy and where constellations are in the sky they see versus in other parts of the world.  This seems like a way to teach this aspect of science and space that students would be very interested in and would enjoy using to learn.

5. A link from Alan November (@globalearner) to an article titled "Inviting Global Perspectives into the Classroom."  This article is from November's website and details the importance of teachers using global learning in the classroom and teaching students not only the subject matter, but also the importance of being well-rounded global citizens and being able to understand and empathize with people of other cultures.  At the end of the article, November mentions simple steps teachers can take not only to incorporate teaching "global empathy" in the classroom, but also ways they can use social media to find ideas for lessons that incorporate this topic.

From RSS Feeds, I Discovered...

            From the RSS Feeds, I decided to follow the TEDTalk link to the TEDTalk blog and watch a video about how different languages and people in general give meaning to the words they use to communicate.  John Koenig, the speaker in the video, focused on the idea that words do not have meaning except for the meaning the speakers give the words.  As a foreign language student and a future language teacher, it excites me that this is something people are beginning to talk about and research.  It is not something I have ever thought much about, but it is very interesting and is, in my opinion, something that is very important to understand as a language learner, especially at the upper levels of language learning.  Koenig listed examples from a few different languages of words that do not have equivalents in English and must be translated as phrases or ideas, but not as exact word-for-word translations.  This can add a whole new level to language learning that many early learners, including myself, can tend to overlook.

            Near the end of the video, Koenig mentioned an idea that, as language users, people can put themselves in a box when it comes to the meanings of words.  In this sense, he is arguing that people tend to only use words for which they know the accepted meaning and not create new words or use some words in a new context.  Because of this, language is never growing or expanding to allow new terms to explain known feelings or ideas that previously could not be explained in a single word.  This is one reason I believe learning a new language helps speakers learn about their own first language; as they learn terms in their second language that may not translate perfectly, they are able to learn about ideas and descriptions they may not have known beforehand.  This RSS Feed video was very interesting for me because it related so closely with my subject matter and information that will be vital for me to teach my students one day.  It also allowed me opportunities to continue viewing videos about similar topics or to search for videos on new ideas or different topics.

John Koenig, Beautiful new words to describe obscure emotions, TEDTalk, February 2016 at TEDxBerkeley http://www.ted.com/talks/john_koenig_beautiful_new_words_to_describe_obscure_emotions?rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TEDTalks_video+%28TEDTalks+Main+%28SD%29+-+Site%29#t-436348

Professional Learning Network

            Learning from other teachers is a great way to expand my knowledge of useful teaching tactics and classroom activities that have allowed other teachers to best teach their students.  I strongly believe that it will be my job, as a teacher, to never stop learning; part of that learning is studying and researching teaching styles, lesson plans, and activities that other teachers have used in the past.  To do this, I can use Twitter, Pinterest, blogs, Google Scholar, and other online media to communicate with other teachers – outside my normal sphere of colleagues in my district or area – to share information and teaching tactics.  I will be able to communicate with them and learn not only what is working in their classroom but share what is helping my students learn best in my class.  Via websites like Twitter, I can follow research and studies of experienced teachers and educational researchers to better understand how they are best seeing technology and other learning tools learned in the classroom.  I hope to use my Professional Learning Network to expand my ideas and repertoire of classroom activities and to create an environment in my classroom that is more conducive to learning.  I hope to learn teaching tactics that will allow my students to learn in new ways that I may not have ever thought of before, while also sharing information that I have found works well with other teachers.