August 1

The Portable People TV Channel

YouTube is a tool used around the world to promote ideas and wonderings that we reflect on daily.  After using it in the classroom to view videos that might tie in with our learning target, I decided to make the jump to create videos myself.  This channel will documents news in the classroom and around the school.  Why? Well I think there are a number of reasons to video document.

  • It provides students with an excellent way to reflect on their learning.
  • It gives us ownership of the learning.
  • It makes us mindful of our learning.
  • It’s fun.

Can you think of some other reasons?

To be honest, it’s a little scary to put yourself out there in front of others in a way that makes you really vulnerable.  But I see that as the exciting part.  I’m definitely no an expert with social media. I hope this will be something we can learn about together.  Take a look at the first, very short video, and see what you think.

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January 6

One thing that could have the greatest impact on your learning, and it’s as simple as dreaming.

Today I shared another video with the kids.  But before I embed it into this post, let’s remember the reason for sharing it.

  1. I wanted to have the class reflect on one factor that may play a significant role in their learning.

The video talks about what we’ve learned about sleep through the help of good science.  Some of it is very complicated, but it simplifies one thing in particular, how sleep is connected to learning.  If we don’t get good sleep, we struggle to help our bodies in a number of ways.  For example, we become more forgetful.  So, staying up all night to study for a test isn’t really helpful.  In fact, we’d be better off getting more sleep the night before a test, versus staying up late to study for it.

I asked kids what their optimal level (just right amount) of sleep would be and to share it with a friend.  Zaira said 8 hours.  It’s different for everyone, but typically, most people say they need 8 hours.  A young person generally needs more, like 10 hours because they’re growing.  Next, I asked kids to figure the amount of sleep they were able to get last night and share it with a neighbor.  Then, I asked to show me with their thumbs if they exceeded their optimum (thumbs up), maintained their optimum (thumbs sideways) and didn’t get their optimum (thumbs down).  Wow!  Most kids had their thumbs down.  Are we sleep deprived?  We would really need to investigate it more to know for sure.  Remember that good science would be based on more than one trial.

Here’s the video

I leave you with one question.  Are you willing to study your own sleep habits?

Category: Learning, Variables | LEAVE A COMMENT