Blog Post #5 Anthony Capps Interviews

Anothony Capp's is a project based learning, tech savy, third grade teacher in Baldwin County. He was once a student in EDM 310 so he has seen first hand the importance of this class in preparation for teaching in Baldwin County(a highly tech savy school for sure!) He went over several important points discussing project based learning and a couple of computer programs that have been beneficial for the setting of his class room.

Mr. Capp's stated in Project Based Learning that throughout PBL a positive outcome is that students "own their own learning." If a project has the student's interests form the get-go with a great hook, then the students will be driven to complete the task and the performance will be outstanding. Capp's feels that as a teacher you should NEVER underestimate your students. They will surprise you with their work performances in more ways than one. He gives the guidelines to what needs to be done and without hesitation his students outdo his expectations. He gets his students involved with collaborative work, which isn't always the easiest thing to get done, but it needs to be done in order for students to grow in working with peers. Capp's also felt that it is extremely crucial for reflection time in which you get your students to go back and revise their projects and peer edit their classmate's work. They see the positives and the negatives and can change what needs to be altered. I shall call this "reflection inspection." This method works out in favor for both the student and the teacher! It provides the students with immediate outcomes of what is wrong before they turn it in.

There are two computer programs discussed by Mr. Capp's that I had wished were around during my time as a student growing up. One is iCurio, this program is a type of search engine for students to safely browse the web for text, images, videos, graphs, etc. All of which is selected by a network of teachers. iCurio is designed for students to do research on whatever topic they are discussing in class and set up all of their findings in a virtual folder to go back and grab whenever they need it. Teachers, like Mr. Capps, adore this program because it takes off the stress of worrying what inappropriate website the kids will accidentally stumble upon. Plus, the teachers can add what ever articles they find to the virtual pool of information and then the students can all see what the teacher feels is important at that time for discussion. Discovery Education is a big part in Mr. Capp's classroom because this program offers more than just images. It offers visual explanation of topics via videos to clearly explain things rather (if not better) than a picture does.

Anthoney Capp's explained that technology doen't need to be taught all at once. Gradually incorporating different types of systems, gadgets, and programs needs to be done overtime! Througout the year you are to have accomplish a LONG list of standards that need to have been met throughout your time with your class. Each unit is to be asseblmed throughout a 6-8 week time frame. Each week you cover something that embellished the list of things taught the week before and so on. By the end of everyday you will see what was accomplished and continue on your weekly plan following what was done the day before. To be clear Mr. Capp's broke it down into those four layers: year, unit, week, and day.

What I gathered most from the series of interviews, was that teacher's are also learners. Mistake will be made, things won't run smoothly, and schedules will won't follow accordingly. But at the end of the day its obvious that Anthony Capp's loves want he is doing and passionately shaping the minds of today's youth one class at a time. I hope to do the same.