Okay, so I had a dilemma earlier this semester. I am creating my own wikispace for a project, but at heart I am a personal being and I don’t know how I feel about having myself “plastered all over the internet”. But recently I have started to switch over to the dark side. It is pretty nice being able to access my lesson plans, bookmarks, and research on the internet, and it is very convenient having it all in one place for me to access. I actually getting kind of excited to be able to let people access my lessons and research projects, and really just to be able to help them out by giving them access to my ideas and gaining knowledge from theirs. I wouldn’t exactly call myself a convert, but I am tentatively creeping in that direction.
Here is a screen cast that I made of my wikispace, or what I have done on it. I apologize that the audio isn’t that good, but I don’t have an external mike. Thanks Steph for the how-to. I was having all kinds of trouble uploading it! Enjoy!
I was reading “Teaching Gen Yers”, an article by Barbara Bray, and I found many of the tips she pointed out to be relevent not only to me and students I’ve encountered, but students in general. What student doesn’t learn better when what they are learning about is fun and relevent? I found that part particularly accurate to my learning style. If I cannot see how something will be relevent and useful in my life, it will definitely be harder for me to learn it. I can and will learning it, but it will be harder than if I can easily see how I will need to know this information.
I have learned about all kinds of technology that I love and can easily see how I will incorporate, like Google docs, Delicious, and Wikispaces. I have also learned about others that I am having a harder time incorporating, like Twitter. Twitter could be fun, but I am having a hard time getting into it. Something I need a little more work on!
I am overwhelmed. I enjoy learning about technology, but technology does not like me. I tried to upload my Jing screencast, but each time it starts to upload to the screencasting website, it stops half way through and says it “is having issues”. Well, I am “having issues” too! Nothing seems to work for me, and I know that it is supposed to be easy, but when I am working for hours on end trying to upload this thing so that I can post it in my blog, I tend to get a wee bit frustrated. So thanks for listening to my technology driven rant. Maybe the technology gods will have pity on me now and will give the gremlins in my laptop the evening off!
The TED talks are really a great resource with some very interesting speakers with powerful messages. Here is what I took from some of the talks I watched.
Sir Ken Robinson had some very insightful things to say on the topic of creativity in schools. Near the end, he told the story of Gillian Lynne. When she was around eight in the 1930′s, her teachers thought she had a learning disability because she couldn’t sit still and always was distracting kids and turning her homework in late. (Today she might have been diagnosed with ADHD and put on drugs). They took her to a doctor, and after speaking with her and her mother, the doctor left Gillian alone in the room with the radio on and she immediately started dancing. The doctor told her mother that the girl didn’t have any problems, she was a dancer and to put her in a dance school. Long story short, she excelled and went on to choreograph the plays Cats and Phantom of the Opera and is worth millions of dollars. What would have happened if ADHD had been around back then? Would she have gone to dance school? Or would the doctor simply have told her to “take this pill and sit still”? As a Special Education major, I am intrigued by this. I know how many individuals with disabilities have valuable gifts to offer, but how many of those gifts are never given the chance to grow due to the way our education system runs? I agree with Sir Robinson, creativity is too often squashed in our society because of the difficulty of making a living at it. And as a parent, I wouldn’t want my child to have to go through that difficulty, so I can see where I would encourage a more marketable career path. But creativity is too valuable to our society not to encourage it.
P.S. I tried to picture Shakespeare as an eight year old, and I laughed so hard I almost cried. I really recommend watching this talk, even if only for some stress relief because it is quite funny.
I also watched the TED Talk hosted by Bill Gates. It was enlightening to see how optimistic he is. You could really tell that he wants to change the world and that he will do everything he can to do it. I think it is sadly true that since malaria is not longer a huge threat in rich countries, the progress in combating it has slowed down. I was surprised to see that the amount of education one has and such has no effect on what makes an effective teacher, but past performance does. I really want to find out more about the KIPP program in the Houston schools. It sounds like a great program, and I hope I can learn more about it.
I was amazed after listening to Bill Strickland. I loved his matter of fact statements of “Well, what do you do for a living?” and the amazing responses of “I built a company called Ebay” and “I work for a company called Hewlett Packard and I want to help you”. Definitely networking at its finest. I am so blown away by the fact that this man took what he had and where he came from and worked not to make money to buy more sports cars, another house in the Cayman Islands, or a 10 million dollar mansion in the Hollywood Hills, but to make life better for welfare moms and poor kids who needed better schools and steel workers in a bad economy. He has truly inspired me to try to make a difference in this world.
I am completely in love with google docs. I use it for some of my personal documents, but it is really great for group projects. Then everyone in the group can see and add to whatever you are working on, and it helps everyone be involved. Also, if I don’t have my laptop for whatever reason, I can check and work on anything from any computer with internet access. I use it to check up on things when I am at my parents house. Try it out and see what you think!
Here is my practice screencast with jing. I was researching immigration for a lesson plan that I am working on. This is really fun to do!
1. School shapes so much of who a person is, no matter how old, that being a part of any school is a huge responsibility.
2. Reading is the foundation of education. If a student can’t do that part, everything that follows will be hard.
3. As teachers, we should try to avoid the “comfort zone.” Put the text book away and do something new and creative!
4. In elementary school, my favorite time of the day was when the teacher would read to us.
5. I think that while the curriculum changes will push our students to keep up with the rest of the country and show that our country has a good educational system in place, I worry about the special needs students I’ll be working with and how they will manage and adapt to this new system without falling through the cracks.
6. More teachers should give open assignments, where students have an option on the type of assignment they are to do. I think this would help students who are all different types of learners.
7. I love to read. Period. If it has words on it, I’m game.
8. Students who are not getting good grades aren’t in that situation because they’re bad kids or don’t try. They just don’t get things they way the rest of the students do, and after a substantial amount of failure, I’d be afraid to put myself on a piece of paper like that as well.
9. I am very grateful to Mr. & Mrs. Dean, two of my high school instructors, for preparing me for college more than any of my other teachers combined.
10. I was terrified when I first assisted in a classroom (about 2 years ago now). The kids are friendly, but when your in charge it can be quite scary! By the end of the day, everything was cool.
11. I have known that I wanted to teach since I was in second grade.
12. I didn’t decide to go into special education until I started working at a day program for developmentally disabled adults about a year and a half ago.
13. I think teachers are born, not made. If it’s in you, it’s in you, and if not, it’s not. You can tell “teacher types” by how they interact with kids, even if they aren’t teachers.
14. That being said, even if you aren’t naturally a “teacher type” you can still work to be a teacher, it just won’t come as naturally and comfortably to you.
15. I see many links between my life as a education student and my life as a mom. There are so many parallels from what I learn in class to what I use with my son, I am constantly amazed.
16. Teachers have power. I still remember getting yelled at for not paying attention in 3rd grade, and I can play it in my head like a movie. That will always be there, and it’s not even a big deal now, but it was at the time. I was kind of a goody-two-shoes in school.
17. I mooched off of my older brother’s smarty-pants reputation in school. Teachers liked me because they liked him. Then my two younger brothers came along and ruined the cycle. They were decidedly not like my older brother and I academically.
18. When I was a senior in high school I was an art aide, and I got to help teach the elementary kids art. That solidified the desire to teach in me.
19. When I “grow up” I want to teach abroad, but I don’t know if I would be able to uproot my family like that.
20. I used to sneak into the preschool where my boyfriend’s (now husband) uncle was an administrator to read to the little tykes. The teachers all let me:)
21. I don’t think I could ever teach high school. As fun as it would be, I just don’t think it could ever compare to the “little kids” for me.
22. Everyone warns special education majors about the enormous amounts of paperwork to fill out, but I secretly like filling out paper work. Even the ones at the doctor’s office.
23. I would much rather go into cognitive impairment than emotional, because of all of the disorders, the anxiety disorders are the hardest for me to deal with. I just feel so helpless, because it feels like there is nothing I can do to help.
24. I would rather teach in a school with a great sense of community than a higher paying school. The sense of community is so important to me, that the money just couldn’t make up for it.
25. One of my all time favorite quotes is from Dr. Suess: “Unless someone like you cares a whole lot, things aren’t going to change. There not.” It’s from The Lorax, which as a point of interest, is on the banned and challenged book list.
I am so addicted to these wordles! I have made a few with various papers and poetry I’ve written. Here’s one based on my blog entries to date:
I am so excited to be spending so much time with the kids in my second grade class! Mrs. H is great, and I feel like I am learning so much!
As far as technology goes, we use word to publish their writings that they create during writer’s workshop, and the kids use the classroom computer during their “safari” time to work on their vocabulary. But really, that’s as far as I’ve seen it go. We use the CD’s that come with the textbook, but I could see it being beneficial to use some of the applications on the publisher’s website ( I think it is www.houghtonmifflin.com )or even www.itunes.com, which has many different audio books and other applications that can be incorporated into the classroom. Since the kids already use the computer for Safari time, and there are so many great kids sites out there, like www.kidsknowit.com, www.funbrain.com, and www.brainpop.com, it would be great to maybe show all of the kids how to use the websites on the projector ( and use the wii remotes like we saw in class! )
I found this really neat video on www.youtube.com on how to teach autistic kids. Since I am a special education major, it really interested me. I thought it was pretty good, see what you think!
