Service Learning Project

Service Learning Project

Lincoln Academy is a Charter school in Pleasant Grove, Utah.  We have been working with Mrs. Larsen in her health class.  The class is fairly small compared to other classes.  The number of students is 24, making it convenient for teaching purposes.  The class is not too big, nor too small.

Mrs. Larsen has been an excellent teacher to work with.  She has been helpful at providing ideas of what she would like for the classroom.  We all get along well and have never felt uncomfortable to ask her questions and get feedback on the digital story that we are working on.  
Our digital story was an introduction to her unit on drug use and abuse.  Mrs. Larsen loves our video.  She likes that we were able to show pictures of what a particular drug looks like and then what it does to a person.  She was glad that we created the video for her classroom use.   Mrs. Larsen was impressed with our work and thought it was very well done.  She expressed that it was a great piece of material for her classroom.
The lesson that we completed fit perfectly with what she was looking for.  It was a great introduction to her unit.  I think that she enjoyed that she was involved in the process of creating the video.  It enabled her to tailor the video to her needs and what she wanted.  Mrs. Larsen was able to gain new ideas for making learning exciting and received new materials that will capture her students’ attention.

The training session did not go so well.  She was not very interested in learning how to create such media herself.  She was able to see how media can be incorporated to enhance learning but felt like it was too much time and effort.  She appreciated the media and was interested in having media in the future but felt that it was not worth the extra time and effort.  We showed her some very simple ideas such as Photo Story, for quickly creating digital media for the classroom.  She was impressed with how simple it was but I don’t know that she will use it in the future.  Not because she doesn’t see the value, but because she feels the short amount of time is not worth it.

We felt that this experience was a little time consuming and it was hard to be able to get together with each other to collaborate and put the digital story together.  We liked the having Mrs. Larsen give us feedback on ideas that we have had on the project.  We enjoyed working with her and how observing how she may incorporate these technology-based lessons into her health class.

From this experience we were able to see other ways of teaching a lesson through technology.  Although we are both unsure of how we are going to use this information that we are learning in class in our future lessons, working with Mrs. Larsen has helped us with trying to see how technology can be used in the lesson, and with being creative in lesson planning and bringing different teaching styles into the classroom even though she wasn’t really interested in it herself.

We both had mixed feelings about this project.  Me as a PE teacher, I don’t find this information useful for my future lessons because we will be participating in physical activity pretty much every day.  Taylor thought that this project would be beneficial to her for her future lessons.  We did like working with another teacher to see how it could be used in an actual classroom setting, but we both are still a little unsure as to how often we will use technology lessons, like these digital stories in our classrooms.

copyright

What? We are learning about making digital stories, and storyboarding.  We are learning about ways to use technology, videos, pictures, music, to tell a story, and to teach a lesson. We are also learning about copyright laws and the importance of them.
So What?Digital stories don't really mean much to me as a teacher right now. I think that this takes a lot of time that I can be using to teach my students other things and keeping them active. We are doing this because we feel like we need to incorporate technology into everything these days. But as a pe teacher I am teaching my students the benefits of physical exercise and staying active. I think that knowing the copyright laws is extremely important but I don't have a clue as to why I am going to be using this in my PE class. Copyright is a big issue and means a lot to me as a student right now.  It helps me to understand what is free to use and what is not. This technology means a little to me. I love that I am able to look up so much information on the web so that I know my rights and the rights and protection of others. To my colleagues it means that we are all being treated or hopefully treated equally when publishing our works and ideas on the web. 

Now What? This means quite a bit for my future students so they know what they can and cant to and what is accepted. It doesn't really change my schema right now because I probably won't be using any of this in my future classes. It will make me more aware of rights and laws when it comes to internet use and research. I can give them a research paper assignment but thats really not what pe is really about to me.  I hope to keep my students physically active and have them enjoy having a fit life.  Having them know the importance and basic concepts of pe will be important but I dont see them creating anything more than a paper. This will only make me more aware of cheating and the copyright laws. This will make me a better colleague by making sure that my colleagues and I are following the right laws and that we are being fair to those that may have created lessons or that we give credit where the credit is due.

Vidcast Reflection

Vidcast Reflection  Dr. ABC for CPR
This vidcast addresses the core curriculum and standard number 4 which states that students will demonstrate the ability to apply prevention and intervention knowledge, skills, and processes to promote safety in the home, school, and community.  The objective that we covered in this vidcast was for students to recognize emergencies and respond appropriately and they will be able to demonstrate proficiency in basic first-aid and Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR).We chose this topic for our vidcast because we felt that every student should know the basic steps for CPR.  You never know when there will be an emergency and it is always beneficial to know what to do when an emergency arises.  This information is extremely beneficial for the students to have and to keep in their minds, because this could save someones’ life.This podcast connects to the NETS standard number 1 by giving the students information needed in real world issues that may come up in their life. With podcasts and vidcasts students can create projects that relate to the real world and can further their knowledge.  Knowing CPR can provide personal growth and responsibility for a student, and knowing these important steps can help a student realize how important these steps are because it can save a person’s life.Some drawbacks to using this series in my future classroom is time.  It takes a lot of planning to and sometimes a lot of creativity to put together a podcast or vidcast.  For PE I dont ever see myself using these tools in my everyday classroom.  I plan on having the students participating physically everyday.  I would have to make sure my information is current and it could take time to redo so that it does stay current.  I think one of the main drawbacks of this series is time.I cant say that I have any future plans for this series.  I know that I may need to broaden my horizon on lessons and using different teaching styles to teach my lessons, but I dont think that I will be using any of these tools in the future.  I think that I may use this only if weather doesn’t allow us to go outside and we can’t use any other facilities.