C4T #1

This is Andrea Henandez

It does not take long when you read Andrea Hernandez's blog, the edtechworkshop, to see that she is full of fresh ideas and is a bit fearless when it comes to trying new things. On this particular post, Andrea shares about a "parent night" of sorts where the students were able to share about their 1:1 ipads and the learning apps with their parents, (or guardians). The students were placed in groups of 3 or 4 and each were assigned a station where the parents would go to learn about the particular app that the kids at that group were demonstrating. This allowed for the parents to see first hand how the apps were used and also generated excited among the students for the apps they were demonstrating. I commented that this was a creative idea. I liked that the kids were facilitating the demonstrations and the parents were given opportunity to witness first hand the use of the ipads and learning apps. Yay for Andrea and the other faculty for thinking outside of the box. This one was a definite home run!

The second post that Andrea Hernandez wrote was entitled "Authentic Literacy". This post is about the importance of reading but also it proposes a new strategy in getting children to read. To make the point of "out with the old and in with the new", Andrea uses a soup analogy. She compares canned soup with hand crafted soup saying "processed, canned food was all the rage and seemed like the answer to all the problems of feeding the people. However, it didn't take long to figure out that an authentic, hand-crafted soup was not only more delicious but was healthier and generally the better all-around option". Andrea is a strong proponent of doing what it takes to make learning its most effective, even when it means changing the way we teach things.
I commented that I loved Andrea's analogy to soup and I love her willingness to try new things in order to keep learning fresh and relevant for her students.