Week 3 Responses

Response to article from Edutopia Feed-

"Myth-Busting Differentiated Instruction: 3 Myths and 3 Truths" By: John McCarthy

I chose this particular article because my school has been focusing on differentiated instruction (DI) for the past several years.  I am a special education teacher and I spend a lot of time co-teaching in the general education classroom.  DI is something that I am constantly doing to meet the needs of my students.  I liked the way this article gave the myths and the truths about DI.  

One of the myth's the author discussed was, DI is incompatible with standardized state testing.  I was glad this was addressed in the article because I sometimes worry that when I differentiate instruction for my students I am somehow putting them at a disadvantage for when they take a standardized test.  The truth is if we don't differentiate instruction to meet the needs of all students the learning gaps will continue to grow and those students may shut down completely.  "As the knowledge or skills gap widens, the learning obstacle may turn into something too massive to overcome. If we know that not all students learn at the same pace and may not process skills and concepts in the same way, then differentiation is the solution to maximizing the number of students who can apply their understanding of standards on high-stakes tests."  After reading this "truth"  I felt much more comfortable with the way I teach.  It just makes to sense to make sure that all students are learning and succeeding even if we have to do things a different way at a slower pace. 

Response to "7 Things You Should Know About Flickr"

I probably should of read this document before I completed the Flicker assignment...I had been searching for images through the Creative Commons search but every time I wanted to get the HTML code it wouldn't let me.  I finally figured out that you had to be logged in order to "share" photos.  

I was very interested to read about the partnership that Flickr has recently made with the Library of Congress.  The project is called "The Commons" and it has 3,100 images that you can add tags and comments to.  Having students search pictures on "The Commons" and add their comments would be a great assignment for a history or writing class. 

I really like how you can search for images on Flickr that have a Creative Commons License.  It makes it so much easier to know that you are doing the right thing.  The document also mentioned how useful Flickr can be when creating a Digital Story.  I will be sure to keep that in mind as I am creating mine!