Victoria Ramsey

Access please. :)

Hi Heeweon, I really enjoyed learning about Vreakout! What a creative idea. I especially appreciate the integration of technology with skills such as collaboration which you don't often find together. This venture caters to a variety of learners as well, and promotes hands-on learning that one does not often think of when utilizing technology. Being a primary grades teacher, I understand this isn't necessarily targeted at my grade level just yet, but would be very excited for something like this to come to fruition. I really love that this program focuses on critical thinking and problem-solving - skills that are so important but also very difficult for so many learners. When you mention that a subscription gives you access to 10 rooms, does the consumer get to select from a variety to fit various themes or subject areas, or is it a one bundle available to all learners? The incorporation of a reflection at the end of each challenge is also so valuable, and often missing from lessons. Not only does this activity provide students with so many opportunities to practice important skills, it allows for continual self-improvement.

Bryn, I really enjoyed learning about Slingbit. At first, I thought it was merely a website, but as I read about how it differs from other competitors, I noticed it can be "duplicated, modified, embedded, and shared" which is incredibly useful, and certainly stands out from the likes of Mathletics and IXL that I'm used to. I'd like to know a little bit more about the interactive feature of it. As we move away from text books, and towards technology, is there any encouragement to make math a hands-on activity for the younger grades? Is the idea to watch the videos, read the text bits, and practice on one's own? Is it all set up to be figured out and recorded online? I know for many of my students in the primary grades, using concrete objects and manipulatives is the most effective way for them to master the abstract. Nevertheless, a very useful idea that can certainly help differentiate learning for each student, and help them work at their own pace, rather than rushing through concepts to keep everyone on the same schedule.

Adam, I really enjoyed learning about your venture idea. Being a primary grades teacher, I sympathize with this struggle very much as well. Learning about your concept and how it works makes a lot of sense, but I do worry however, that creativity could be lost. I suppose you would still carry on writing conferences for this part. There are so many writing rubrics and programs one can follow, that I particularly appreciate your idea of incorporating various rubrics into the program, so teachers can continue using what they like, but have it be a little more automated. As you mention, the program is meant to address the writing structure, yet you also mentioned 6+1 traits - would you be able to assess some of these qualitative traits such as voice and ideas? Your concerns about students still using handwriting over typing is valid, but I on the other hand, teach at a school for students with language-based learning disabilities, and their writing is almost exclusively typed (you'd be surprise how quick they learn, and the volume they pump out in grade 2!). So, from my perspective, this would not be an issue at all, in fact, such a program that can quickly assess structure would be hugely impactful for my school population - probably even more so then you anticipate in the mainstream, as structure such as a struggle for my students. I wonder if targeting this venture to a subset of the population would be more effective in the initial stages? Nevertheless, what a useful idea. You've certainly recognized a huge shortfall in the market..

I've used this app before in the my classroom, though we would use it connected to the Smartboard, where the students could come up and interact with it, though we never had parents connected to it. I appreciate Henna's concern about whether or not students are motivated by teacher attention or whether they are truly building up any sort of intrinsic motivation. As Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is becoming such a prominent part of the elementary curriculum, I think this is a great tool to incorporate into your daily teaching practice as a management tool and also a SEL teaching tool. Of course, there is a competitive nature to it, as students try to outperform each other and get more "points," but that's natural at a young age, where motivation age is almost always external still.

I love this idea! The fusing of engineering with art and creativity in such a seamless and easily usable way is very effective. Your mention that you believe the company is so successful because of its ability to stay current and agile in the market is also a great point. As technology evolves, I imagine this company will find many new ways to alter their product and keep it current.

This is a great idea. I appreciate seeing a program developed based on the founder's own experiences, as her insight can really help create an effective tool since she struggled with language herself. Not only does she have a pain point that hits close to home, she clearly has the background knowledge needed to create a startup as well. I'm interested in knowing how much funding they've secured and how popular the app is.

Social Media in the classroom can take so many forms that don't necessarily come to mind first. Simply websites like Google Classroom, Socrates, and Weebly have the ability to foster a social platform for students to engage, collaborate and share ideas and work with each other. The use of social media in the classroom can highlight and enhance learning in so many ways - it provides an outlet for those students to share in the conversation "online" when they would not otherwise feel comfortable sharing ideas, it provides enhanced accessibility, allowing students to use it from home and elsewhere, and it is simply an additional platform engaging students with different learning styles; all of these factors greatly increase participation and thus learning from each other.  All the while, educators can promote responsible use of social media, as its use outside of the classroom will certainly be part of students' every day life.

Being a primary school teacher, I haven't used cloud learning to the extent possible, but I do believe it holds a lot of opportunities for students to continue their learning beyond the classroom environment. Because my student population has learning disabilities, we do A LOT of writing on computers, I would say 80% of our written work is done with the aid of computers, mainly due to amazing functional toolbars like Google Read and Write. Instead of writing and saving our work to a file on the computer, everything is done through Google Classroom and other web-based programs, where work can be stored online, never disappears, and most importantly can be accessed from anywhere, on any device, and at any time. My students have the ability to share their work with their peers, and these formats grant parents the ability to share in their children's work from home. Cloud based learning also has an important social aspect to it, where sites such as Socrates can record and display student responses in real time. Having learners participate in an activity on individual computers, yet engage in it altogether as a whole in this way is such a valuable tool for teachers and students alike - it provides necessary adaptations for students with different learning profiles and styles, who would otherwise be unable/uncomfortable participating in activities. The many benefits of cloud learning - storage, accessibility, social participation, real-time sharing - can help educators provide new and meaningful learning experiences for our students.

I am looking at Microlearning from the unique perspective of a teacher whose student population struggles with learning disabilities and/or behavioural difficulties, and as such, think that Microlearning is, and will continue to become an even more effective way of teaching our students. In my experience, these students have so many things to focus on in a given lesson - the anxiety stemming from the text in front of them, the fact that they have to remember 2- or 3-step (or more!) instructions from a teacher before beginning a task, the fact that they have ADHD and are easily distracted by various external stimuli as it is, etc... Microlearning can help alleviate some of these anxieties and help students retain more information, particularly those who struggle with attention. More and more classrooms are seeing the effects of overstimulated and highly distractible students, thus I do believe that this topic is important not only in the special education classroom, but in the mainstream ones as well. From my experience teaching grades 2 and 3 in a class full of students struggling with dyslexia, ASD, and ADHD, lessons that go over a 10 minute mark of strictly instructional time results in a quick decline in student attention, interest, and thus retention. I would be very interested to learn more about the field and find ways to weave it into my teaching practice on a more consistent practice. I know Microlearning seems to have the goal of providing lessons/learning experiences for those who are busy and always on the go, but I think it can have a two-fold goal by also targeting distracted learners.