Live Blogging- Web 2.0

out of the blog loop...

So it has been 3 months since my last post, and that feels like forever ago and only a day ago at the same time. The MAC program is flying by in a painful sort of a way, but some how I am surviving...

Anyway, on to more relevant matters: technology... Starting off the semester, I had high hopes to incorporate technology into my classroom. I wanted to use a wiki and I wanted to try to incorporate technology in every way possible. I even checked to see who had computers at home, etc. However, I didn't ask the students about their comfort level with technology. Asking students to type their papers is something that most teacher do NOT require. I even have students, who do not know how to double space a word document. Many students took losing 10 points over typing their paper. This should make me want to use technology more to help out the students in our technology driven world... But instead it sort of flew out the window with lesson planning.

I feel somewhat disappointed in how little I am using technology in my classes. I think that the students at my field placement would really benefit from it, too... but it seems like there is so much more to manage with using technology. For example, I tried to use a grammar girl podcast. I checked to make sure it worked on my mentor teacher's computer the day before, but then it was blocked the next day. In the end, I had to download the podcast to my computer and burn it to a CD. It worked out, but it was a lot more complicated. The other downfall is the technology illiteracy of some of my students. I know this should make me want to use it more, but the thought of having to explain all of the technology aspects seems overwhelming on top of just getting content knowledge to the students and making sure that they are following directions, etc.

Anyway, I did use a PowerPoint for a game and I am using it to post what we are doing each day, so at least that is working out. And I am giving assignments where students can use technology as an option. But for now, I am putting the wiki and other technology ideas away for May. In May, we will be reading Lord of the Flies and I will no longer have MAC classes! (less than 2 months, I think I can, I think I can). Thus, I hope that I can force myself to reexamine the role of technology in my classes then. But for now, it will be overheads, blackboards, worksheets, and my daily PowerPoint...

Edublogger...

So as the end of the semester nears, I figure that I better post about an edublogger. For me, this has been one of the most difficult tasks when it comes to blogging...

Let me explain: I am fine to put my own thoughts out there on my own blog, I am fine to respond to classmates' blogs, but I feel kind of creepy about commenting on a strangers blog. It is like friending someone that you have never met on Facebook. That being said, it was sort of a big step for me to comment on a complete stranger's blog.

The first blog that I commented on this summer was Watson Common http://watsoncommon.blogspot.com/. I think I felt comfortable commenting on his blog mostly because his name is the same as my dog's name. (I hope if he reads this he is not offended!) And because he was in Hawaii at the time, and I was about to go there for vacation... Anyway, it was a good start to commenting on random people's blogs.

Since then though, I guess I lost some momentum... I tried to follow some blogs, namely http://www.huffenglish.com/?p=819 and http://lightinthewoods.edublogs.org/ on my Dashboard. However, I guess that once the semester got going, it was hard enough to follow my own life, so I didn't really keep up on looking at the other blogs.

My boyfriend's brother does have a cool blog that I did comment on, but I don't know if that really counts! He went to Moorea, an island near Tahiti, and did research there. He had a blog, where he would communicate with elementary school kids to tell them what life was like as a scientist. I thought this was pretty cool! But I guess I am biased. Here is the blog in case you are interested: http://mattinmoorea.blogspot.com/2006/04/hello-ms.html

Today, though after reading Cristi's blog, I felt inspired to go to this edublogger:
http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/nine-reasons-to-quit-teaching-and-ten-reasons-to-stick/
Anyway, if you are feeling down about teaching, it is a pretty cool list!

In a final reflection about commenting on edubloggers, I think that the more I do it and the more I look at other people's blogs, the less I will feel like an education stalker and the more I will feel like I am in some sort of edu-community.

Ok, now I have to get back to working on papers for my finals... :(

A snow storm

Here is a cool Web 2.0 tool. Perhaps it could be used to draw something and then to create a poem about it?



Learn how to draw cartoons, comics, and anime at Sketchfu!




Learn how to draw cartoons, comics, and anime at Sketchfu!

Check out my wiki!

For one of my cognate classes, I had to make a German wiki. Here is the link: http://oesterreichischemusik.wikispaces.com/

Culture Shock and Colored Paper...

Last week, my school was on strike, so I decided to go to Community High School for the day. The school was really cool in many ways, but I suppose more than anything, I felt shocked and a little bit defensive of my school. The shock and defensiveness didn't stem from the fact that there weren't any school bells or the teachers were called by their first names, but from the fact that the students knew so much. They seemed to enjoy learning, and in fact, when class was over, many stayed to continue discussing the subject at hand. It seemed that their prior knowledge gave them a huge advantage over many of the students with whom I work. It just didn't seem fair and made me want to defend my students and say that if they had this kind of learning opportunity maybe more of them would be coming in at lunch to discuss biology. Moreover, the amount of technology and supplies that they had was overwhelming.
But for me, the thing that somehow epitomized it all was the color paper. One may ask, so what's the deal with color paper? Well, my school doesn't have it or at least I haven't seen it yet. In fact, it was even an ordeal at the beginning of the year to find paper for the bulletin boards. Anyway, Community had it and used it arbitrarily for almost every worksheet that I saw. Each bright sheet of paper seemed to flaunt the unfairness in my face. The bright pink paper wasn't just paper, but it represented the laptops, the well-paid teachers, and the exuberant faces of kids learning. My school is a bit more faded and so the paper is bland and white. And the schools in Detroit don't even have paper.
Why is it that only 30 minutes away, we have to be careful about the amount of copies that we make? And that only 45 minutes away, there is no paper at all?
I know that money isn't everything, but it seems that where one grows up shouldn't effect the kind of paper and everything that goes along with it that you get.
Lastly though, I must say that I am very happy to be placed at the school where I am now, and I could not think of a better fit for me...

Death by PowerPoint?

This last week, we watched a very interesting presentation on PowerPoint. First of all, I want to say that while I said that there was no use for PowerPoint, I may have been a little bit wrong and I probably shouldn't make blanket statements... I think sometimes I do that in class just to get myself reengaged (but I think that is a personal problem).
Anyway, I guess I think that a lot of people use PowerPoint as a crutch, so that they don't have to be that entertaining. Anyway, that presenter, however, would probably be boring no matter what... I guess I have just seen a lot of that or a PowerPoint being used for an hour lecture. That just gets tedious! Students are not sponges to just absorb information. It is not a constructivist approach at all in those situations (look at me using cool ed school terminology, hopefully in the correct way).
Anyway, after attacking users of PowerPoint in class (sorry about that again) and then reconciling with at least some of them, I have come to the conclusion, while I am often heading off on a snooze cruise during PowerPoint presentations, perhaps there is a time and a place for PowerPoint. Gren told me how she would label things about the math problem on the board, while the PowerPoint was demonstrating the math problem. Brenda often gives fantastic PowerPoint presentations by incorporating really cool pictures! Additionally, Dan used it to play a game that was really awesome. I think that the frequency of its use and interaction within the presentation is the key to a successful PowerPoint. When PowerPoint is used as an interactive tool to give the information and the presentation is enhanced and not hindered by PowerPoint, then I will use it! However, I hope to never use it as a crutch, because that is just boring! And please, never make me sit through 6 hours of PowerPoint presentations again... It just makes me cranky and it makes me cringe when I hear PowerPoint!