Blog 9

     A new strategy teachers are staring to use is a Flipped Classroom. This strategy is basically the opposite of the traditional classroom design. Instead of teachers giving instruction during class and assigning homework for students to do at home, they post lectures online for students to listen to and basically teach themselves while during class they work on assignments that would normally be homework.  I think this strategy as pros and cons. Some pros would being allowed to really asses students during class to see what areas they struggle in and what they've mastered. During class all you focus on is answering questions students have, it's more student centered. The negatives to a flipped classroom would be most students probably wouldn't listen or read the lessons so when they get to class they'll be lost. Then you'd have to waste class time teaching so there's no point to posting lectures. Also, some students need the guidance of a teacher to help learn lessons and a powerpoint isn't enough. Students might have trouble keeping up.
     Open Educational Resources are very beneficial for teachers. It's a way teachers can create their own teaching material but share with other teachers to use while still getting credit for their own work. Teachers can choose what parts of their work to share with others and also view other teacher's work for some extra guidance on their own lesson plans. It gives teachers tools to help create their lessons or materials they need to teach for no cost. They help other teachers by sharing their own work and also get help from other teachers when they post their work. In Merlot's blog they talk about how they created a KEEP Toolkit for the Carnegie Foundation. KEEP is a web application many teachers used to create web-based teaching and learning materials. This blog talks about the progress it's made and the impact it's had on many educators that use it. You can check out the blog here! https://blog.merlot.org/category/open-education-resource-oer/
     I've learned so much creating these past two PowerPoint assignments. At first I thought I knew how to work PowerPoint by just completing assignments in the past but these two assignments have helped me learn outside the basic features. I've learned how to hyperlink buttons to go to certain slides, I've learned how to record a presentation, and I've learned how to create a jeopardy game! It was very challenging at first learning how to create everything, but it turned out to be very helpful for future projects. I can improve on making it more geared to a certain age group and add more graphics to make in more interesting instead of just words. I can make certain things pop more and stand out.