Blog #9 PowerPoints and Flipped Classes

         A "Flipped Classroom" is a class that delivers content in the opposite way of the traditional class.  The lectures and lessons are assigned as videos as homework.  The students then watch and take notes on these lectures, and bring their newly gained information to the classroom.  Once in class, the teacher helps them put that lesson into practice by exploring the subject.  To do this, the students and teachers will work on what a traditional class would call homework, together.  This ensures the students are grasping the concept and can get help as needed.  Flipped classrooms are probably the most common form of blended classrooms in modern schools.

          I have had experience with flipped classrooms, however, I did not get out of it what one might have hoped.  This is mainly because the homework that we would do in class became actual homework if we didn't finish it.  The assignments were always too long to finish in class so we had both traditional and flipped homework every night.  This was frustrating and quite exhausting.  However, I still do believe that if implemented properly, this system can work well.

          Khan Academy is a great place to find math and science video lectures.


          As someone who group in the American public school system, I have created my fair share of PowerPoints, so I did already know a lot of the skills needed for my assignments five and six.  However, there were still some things that I was able to get out of it.  For example, learning how to properly use animations.  I never tried to use them before because they had always seemed too tacky. However, by learning how to select the right ones and how to edit when and how they appear, I learned how to make animations fit very well within a presentation.  I also had a similar experience with learning how to properly implement SmartArt.  The biggest skill that I learned, however, was how to use the Slide Master.  I had never even heard of it before, and even thought it to be a little unnecessary when I did.  But now that I am comfortable with it, I use it as much as I can.

          For Assignment Five, I was very proud of my work.  What I was most proud of was the fact that I was able to implement SmartArt and shapes into my project, along with transitions and animations while still having them all fit the theme of the presentation.  It was my first ever PowerPoint that was not based on the standard bulleted structure, and I am proud of myself for being able to accomplish that.  However, if I could fix anything, it would be to trim it down a little as I felt not everything was super strong on topic, and to maybe have the SmartArt be somewhat more uniform.  I felt as though sometimes it did not fit as well as it could have.

          For Assignment Six, what I like most is that it is a little more uniqie than the usual jeopardy and that I wrote all of the questions myself.  Initialy I was going to just grab some questions offline, but I thought that since I will one day be a teacher, it is important to learn how to do this myself and I worked very hard on it.  My only complaint is that I could have worked the transition buttons a little better and figured them out more.  For the most part, they work perfectly fine, however I was unable to find out how to keep the answers from coming up immediately if one had already viewed the slide, gone back to th home screen, and made their way back to the questions.