It may or may not be corny, but I have already picked the song I want to use in my student teaching portfolio presentation. The song (Difference Maker by Needtobreathe) has been one of my favorites for the past few years, but I was recently listening to it while driving back to Gardner-Webb one weekend.
Some of the lyrics include: "...he climbs on up the hill on the rock on which he stands/he looks back at the crowd/he looks down at as his hands and he says/ I am a difference maker". This song really spoke life into me the past few weeks when I was questioning why I was bothering to pursue my degree in education. April 2016 has not necessarily been kind to me so I was about ready to throw in the towel. But this song reminded me that I can be the difference maker with my own two hands. Education is amazing and challenging and beautiful and difficult I can be a part of that. And you can too!
On a slightly less emotional note, I attended #EdcampWNC this past weekend! It was a great experience and I am so thankful I went! For those of you who are not sure what edcamp is, be sure to check my last blogs as I've written on them before. This weekend's edcamp was really great for several reasons. For one, I got to meet some really awesome teachers and professors in the area of education. During edcamp, we alternated between sessions that discussed various topics; anything from social media to gamification.
One discussion in particular that I LOVED was gamification (using games in the classroom for learning purposes). In this discussion, someone brought up the teaching app/tool "Class Craft". A spinoff of Mine Craft, this tool allows students to work collectively as a "village" to maintain behavior, overcome challenges, and solve problems. Not only are you able to give unique content delivery, but you are able to work on classroom management at the same time. There is a cost to this classroom tool but I will most definitely be investigating this program in my own classroom.
NCTCS Standard 3d (teachers make instruction relevant to students) connects to this practice and could help me with hooking my students. I also see a connection to NCTCS Standard 4a (Teachers know the ways in which learning takes place, and they know the appropriate levels of intellectual, physical, social, and emotional development of their students). This use of 21st century technology will allow me to reach my students. As I was told at edcamp, all K-12 students will be digital natives as of the 2016-2017 school year!
Yes! I loved the gamification session we went to! Talk about pure awesomeness! We are going to be awesome teachers friend! All we need is two classrooms right next to each other! Love you friend glad this week was better than the last few! I think I would have to agree with you on that!
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