Miss Sarah, Teacher/Principal

  The Use of Games & Gameful Learning in the Classroom   Is the use of games and gameful learning the answer to students’ short attention spans, tendency to become bored, and difficulties staying engaged? Before we go any further, we need to differentiate between playing online learning games and gamification. Playing games is self-explanatory: Playing either different board or computer games that are in some way to a learning goal (or even just for fun and to learn social interaction and collaboration skills). On the other hand, gamification is the “application of game design elements to non-game tasks” (Langille, 2017, para. 3). I like how one video called it “game thinking” (MrWhitbyd, 2016). That’s just what it is: Approaching everyday life with “game thinking,” or a game spirit. An example of introducing games in the classroom would be a teacher who assigns her students a spelling game online that incorporates a fun storyline around spelling the words correctly. A...

  A Unique Solution to the Problems of Flipped Classrooms               Flipping a classroom is essentially switching around what the students would normally do at home and what they do in class with the teacher. Rather than completing projects and practice problems at home, and listening to the teacher lecture in class, students watch video instructions at home on their computers (or do readings), and complete group projects and work through practice problems in the classroom with the teacher. Before teachers implement this method, there are two main steps they should take first. First, I think the advice of a PBS NewsHour article is very important to consider: Teachers must think through what the problem is in their classroom. Perhaps the flipped classroom model is not for them. Just because others are flipping their classrooms and it sounds new and innovative, doesn’t mean it will be the right fit for you and you...

  Purpose and Benefits of Digital Storytelling in My Teaching Context               If you’re like me, when you first heard the term “digital storytelling,” you thought it was talking about the many education videos you can find on YouTube that you probably often show to your kids. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that digital storytelling was about more than just passively watching someone else’s digital creation. Digital storytelling is all about actively involving your students in the process of blending “video, audio, images, and text to convey stories, information, and ideas” (Warfield, 2016, para 1). Basically, it’s like writing an essay or story or information paragraph, but instead of just using paper and pencil, you incorporate multimedia to share the information or tell the story.               Digital storytelling can have many purposes...