"Please let me know how you feel you are doing in the class so far. Is there anything that you are struggling with? Is there anything you would like to learn about that we haven't learned yet? What are some things that you have learned from this class? How are you planning to put these things to use in your teaching? Is there anything I can do as a teacher to better support your learning?"
The class has been extremely interesting so far and I think that I am doing fairly well with my assignments. Although I wish that I did not have to come to Husson every time I wanted to do my homework, I've still enjoyed the work that we have done and I have learned a lot. The first two assignments were things that I had done before, but had done through the use of different programs such as PowerPoint. I'm not quite sure if I prefer Keynote to PowerPoint yet, but it was very easy to use and I enjoyed the simplicity of it. The templates that Pages provides are amazing and I'm excited to explore with the different lesson plan templates when I become a full time teacher. I've been curious about the GarageBand program ever since I first saw it as a student in the ninth grade, but my teachers never allowed us to use it or even try figuring out what it was. I was super excited when we got to explore the program and create a song, although I would have preferred picking a poem of my choice (I'm quite partial to the sonnets of William Shakespeare!).
I think that I might struggle with the most recent assignment, the digital story, because I have never used anything similar to the IMovie program. I'm finding it difficult to organize my thoughts into a storyboard and bringing all of the pictures together to create 'emotional content'. I normally don't organize my work into something like a storyboard, and I probably would find it much easier just to do it rather than outlining everything out first. If its ok, I will probably do the storyboard after everything else is done, because thats how my mind works (please let me know if thats ok?!! I really need to get all of the pictures first before I can figure out a storyboard, so I definitely will have a hard time having that done for Tuesday). I would have loved to do something super controversial, because I tend to get extremely passionate when I argue for something that I believe in and that correlates into great emotional content. However, I'm going home this weekend to visit with my grandmother and I'm hoping to get some great old black and white pictures to add to my IMovie to add more emotion. I think coming up with a song will be more difficult then I want it to be, because I'm quite the perfectionist when it comes to things like that (I'll want it to be 'just right'). I'm thinking about maybe even creating my own song using the GarageBand program, but we'll see how much time I actually have! I'm not quite sure that I will have as much done as is expected for Tuesday (especially the storyboard!), mainly because I need to go home (four hours north) in order to get a lot of the pictures that I need, but I'm sure I will have it done by the due date.
I think I'm also going to struggle big time with the online portfolio project. I think that its a great program, but I just don't know enough about the ISTE-NETS to be able to connect the assignments with them. I think it would help a lot if we took time in class to go over each standard and what exactly they mean. I don't know how to write a description about each standard if I'm not quite clear on what they mean. The entire aspect of the content of the portfolio confuses me a bit, but I am extremely glad that we are doing it so we can be better prepared for our online portfolios during student teaching seminar.
I love the fact that examples are available for almost every assignment. The IMovie example was simply amazing (by the way, I absolutely love Steven Curtis Chapman, and I saw him play that song live! It was amazing :) ) and I'm glad that I actually got to view one before I was assigned the project. I'm also excited about exploring with the Sketch program for my final project. I loved creating things using SecondLife in high school and this seems like the perfect way to create a 3D amusement park ride. I think that I'm also going to incorporate the Inspirations program into my final project as well, possibly as part of the Internet workshop or a follow-up activity before the students are expected to do the Ride project. There are so many different programs available on the Macs that I've never seen before, and I'm excited to explore the ones that we won't be covering in class.
In my future classroom I hope to incorporate what I've learned so far in this class as much as possible. I definitely hope to have a SmartBoard in my classroom, not just for my benefit but for the students as well. Its great that whatever you write on the SmartBoard can be uploaded to the Internet, because that is such a great resource for students to go to. I fully agree with Authentic Lessons, especially when it comes to science. High school students ask 'why will we ever need this in the real world' more often then not, and authentic lessons almost completely prevent that. As a hopeful future human anatomy teacher authentic lessons will be essential to creating an exciting classroom environment. I hope to do plenty of diagnostic work with the students, because you have to be knowledgeable in how the body systems work normally before you can understand how they can be dysfunctional. Microbiology is also a great subject to create authentic lessons, and I hope to use the SmartBoard to help me with microscope projections. Nothing irritates a student more then when they are trying to find something on a slide using a microscope and they have no idea what they are looking for. By projecting the teacher's slide, everybody knows what they are looking for and how to get there. I think Pages, Keynote and the Inspiration program will be great for student projects and as learning tools. I think GarageBand might be a little bit harder to incorporate, but I'm sure that I'll find some way to use it!
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Authentic Learning..
First, give your overall impressions of this model of learning. Be observant of how the technology is used as a tool in this kindergarten classroom. What different applications or devices were utilized? What were some ways you saw the teachers using technology with their students? How did this support learning?
First of all, I think that this model of learning is absolutely wonderful and that every single classroom should use it, if not all of the time, at least once a week! This model of learning completely exhibits the authentic lessons idea, in that everything that students do in the classroom should reflect upon an authentic experience that happens in the real world. I hope to incorporate this type of learning in my own classroom, although it will be a little harder to do with high school science then it is in a kindergarten classroom. I love the idea that everything the students do in the class is connected to every single subject (its the ideal complete integrated classroom!). The trip to Brazil lesson incorporated math skills, technology skill, geography skills, writing skills, hands-on art creation, social skills and science! The students were not only learning something from every subject domain, but they were having fun doing it. Each student was generally interested in what they were doing, because it corresponded to something they could do in real life.
I also feel that this type of lesson planning is great because it makes learning fun for the students. First of all, it is essential that students take a huge part in lesson planning in order to keep them interested in the learning and for them to feel that learning is fun. This classroom gives the power to the students, in that the students' curiosity is responsible for everything they do. A lesson is created by student questions and the teachers find ways to integrate all of the subjects into that student question. Instead of just writing about anything to practice sentence structure and letter formation, the students write in journals about an experience one of their classmates had. The students are not only taught new information, but are taught how to learn. The students in the class are not expected to go to adults to find the answers, but to find the answers themselves using resources around the classroom. This is great in establishing the basis for self-mediated learning. It is also essential that students feel free in expressing themselves and have fun learning, and this classroom supports this amazingly. The students are not expected to do everything right, but just to try and have fun trying. Students are amazed that they are actually writing and are having fun doing it, rather than being lectured every time that they spell a word wrong or write a letter incorrectly. This reflects upon my blog last week in that students should be allowed to make mistakes, because they learn from them and have more fun in the learning process. This type of learning is so important in our society today because it builds self-esteem rather than tearing it down, which is essential when so many of our students suffer from extremely low self-worth.
The use of technology in this classroom was absolutely wonderful and astounding for a kindergarten classroom. The teachers took something basic like Show And Tell that is used in almost every early childhood classroom and made it special, by giving the child who is sharing a microphone. They also used a SmartBoard which is a great tool, especially for kindergartners who can get messy when dealing with markers and chalk. The SmartBoard also allowed for manipulation of whatever they were writing (pulling the letter d onto the letter b to show that they were different), which is impossible when using a marker or chalk board. The SmartBoard also allowed projection of the Internet onto a large screen, making group work much easier (everybody can see everything) and a lot cheaper than having a laptop for every student. I love how the used the Internet to teach the children how to use the resources they are given to find answers to their questions- for example they used dictionary.com to look up a word instead of the teacher just giving them the answer. During the Brazil trip lesson, the students also role played using telephones to reflect upon the communication between an airplane pilot and the airport/weather station.
First of all, I think that this model of learning is absolutely wonderful and that every single classroom should use it, if not all of the time, at least once a week! This model of learning completely exhibits the authentic lessons idea, in that everything that students do in the classroom should reflect upon an authentic experience that happens in the real world. I hope to incorporate this type of learning in my own classroom, although it will be a little harder to do with high school science then it is in a kindergarten classroom. I love the idea that everything the students do in the class is connected to every single subject (its the ideal complete integrated classroom!). The trip to Brazil lesson incorporated math skills, technology skill, geography skills, writing skills, hands-on art creation, social skills and science! The students were not only learning something from every subject domain, but they were having fun doing it. Each student was generally interested in what they were doing, because it corresponded to something they could do in real life.
I also feel that this type of lesson planning is great because it makes learning fun for the students. First of all, it is essential that students take a huge part in lesson planning in order to keep them interested in the learning and for them to feel that learning is fun. This classroom gives the power to the students, in that the students' curiosity is responsible for everything they do. A lesson is created by student questions and the teachers find ways to integrate all of the subjects into that student question. Instead of just writing about anything to practice sentence structure and letter formation, the students write in journals about an experience one of their classmates had. The students are not only taught new information, but are taught how to learn. The students in the class are not expected to go to adults to find the answers, but to find the answers themselves using resources around the classroom. This is great in establishing the basis for self-mediated learning. It is also essential that students feel free in expressing themselves and have fun learning, and this classroom supports this amazingly. The students are not expected to do everything right, but just to try and have fun trying. Students are amazed that they are actually writing and are having fun doing it, rather than being lectured every time that they spell a word wrong or write a letter incorrectly. This reflects upon my blog last week in that students should be allowed to make mistakes, because they learn from them and have more fun in the learning process. This type of learning is so important in our society today because it builds self-esteem rather than tearing it down, which is essential when so many of our students suffer from extremely low self-worth.
The use of technology in this classroom was absolutely wonderful and astounding for a kindergarten classroom. The teachers took something basic like Show And Tell that is used in almost every early childhood classroom and made it special, by giving the child who is sharing a microphone. They also used a SmartBoard which is a great tool, especially for kindergartners who can get messy when dealing with markers and chalk. The SmartBoard also allowed for manipulation of whatever they were writing (pulling the letter d onto the letter b to show that they were different), which is impossible when using a marker or chalk board. The SmartBoard also allowed projection of the Internet onto a large screen, making group work much easier (everybody can see everything) and a lot cheaper than having a laptop for every student. I love how the used the Internet to teach the children how to use the resources they are given to find answers to their questions- for example they used dictionary.com to look up a word instead of the teacher just giving them the answer. During the Brazil trip lesson, the students also role played using telephones to reflect upon the communication between an airplane pilot and the airport/weather station.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Creativity in Schools...
"Do you agree or disagree with Sir Robinson? In the video, he makes some pretty serious statements such as "I feel creativity should be as important as literacy in today's schools." Do you agree or disagree with this statement. Why or why not? What have your experience with creativity been in the past? How do you express yourself?"
The first thing that I would like to reflect upon concerning Sir Robinson's speech is his statement that "All kids have tremendous talents, and we squander them". I completely and utterly agree with this statement. I feel that all students have talents, but the majority of them are not in the areas that we consider 'important'. So many students are talented in the art and trades like carpentry and machine tool, but these subjects are barely covered in our school systems. Schools look at students who are three grades below their reading/writing levels, or extremely behind in math and see them as 'unintelligent, untalented children', when in reality most of the are exceedingly talented in other things. For example, I know of a student that is pretty average academically (she maintains a B average or so), but she captures the interest of every single person in the audience when she is on the dance floor. I also know of a former classmate who has extreme literacy problems, but is making amazing money (more than I will as a teacher!) as an underwater welder. When our schools do not support talents other than those in English, math and the sciences, we are leading these students (often the majority) into thinking that their talents are nothing of importance. I love Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, because it supports the fact that everybody is intelligent at something!
I love Ken's statement about children that 'if they don't know, they'll take a go'. Children are always guessing at things, because they do not have the knowledge yet to know the right answer. Children use their imagination to come up with the answer to something that they do not quite yet understand. Our schools, however, frown upon the use of imagination to reason something- they want 'critical thinking' skills instead. They put so much pressure on students to be right, that slowly this wonderful skill of imagination is dead, with logical thinking in its place. In order to keep creativity, it is important not to concentrate so much on the 'right' answer, but the fact that they thought of an answer and were courageous enough to take the risk on it. Giving a wrong answer, or even just an answer that is different from the norm, opens the eyes of people. When the first person suggested that the earth might be round, everybody thought he was wrong, but in the process he opened the eyes of others to get them thinking. This is an extremely important process that we need for the future- people need to open their minds to possibilities that are not possible yet! Students need to feel that it is OK to be wrong and that sometimes wrong answers turn out to be not-so-wrong. Even if the students are wrong, it should be stressed that people learn from their mistakes and they grow as a person. If you never made mistakes you would not know what it would be like to learn.
Everybody has a different way of thinking and brains work in different ways. One of my best friends in high school had a thought process that was extremely different then everybody else. In physics, she would often times come up with the right answer but she had used the most original means of getting that answer. The method that she used could have been viewed as 'wrong' by the teacher because it was not what we were supposed to do, even though she did have the right answer at the end. Students should feel comfortable enough in their classroom environments to feel that it is OK to think differently and OK to be wrong sometimes. To be wrong means that you will ultimately learn from your mistake, and eventually be right. To be comfortable with being wrong means that you will take chances and risks. All scientists and engineers need to be comfortable with being wrong, because the majority of the time they are! To make our students believe that they need to be right all the time, diminishes their risk taking and subsequently squanders their imagination and creativity. They are too scared to think 'out of the box' or come up with something that the world views as out of the norm or impossible. If we continue to make our students believe that wrong answers are bad ones, then we are killing the next generation of engineers, scientists, doctors, authors and all other careers that need imagination.
I also completely agree with his theory of academic inflation. I feel that our society stresses way too much on the importance of getting a college education. In all honesty, I feel that I could have became a successful teacher without going through four years of college. Being in the classroom learning about how to do your job has suddenly become more important than actually being out in the field practicing the job itself. People learn from doing, not memorizing and taking tests on how to do. Our schools are built upon the idea that they need to educate students in order for them to be successful in college. Rather, I think our schools should educate to create well-rounded exceptional human beings instead. Our world would be a much kinder place if we emphasized the importance of human behavior more than human achievement.
I completely agree with all aspects of Ken's statements, including the statement that he thinks creativity is just as important as literacy. In reality, we would not have literacy without creativity. Someone had to come up with the letters to the alphabet, and that required original thought. All writers are writers because they are creative and have original thought, or else nothing new would ever be published. We expect our students to write creative stories, but limit their imagination and creativity by giving them constant boundaries and telling them what is right or wrong. We put so much emphasis on grammar, but its the fact that the student is expressing themselves that is important. Many famous authors have absolutely horrible grammar. What attracts people to new books is the plot point, the creativity of the story itself, not how the sentences are structured.
Fortunately, my education provided me with ways to express myself other than in the form of writing and academics. I enjoyed being 'different' unlike most students and I was able to experience gifted and talented classes, which always sought out to harbor our inner creativity. The gifted and talented students were able to put on plays and create inventions like Rube Goldberg machines. Unfortunately it was only the students who excelled in the 'regular' academics of English and math that were allowed to experience other ways to express yourself. In reality, the students who needed that other means of expression to boost their self-esteem by possibly finding something that they excelled in, were trapped in the classroom doing what they did not excel in. However, they were allowed to join band in fourth grade. I began to play the flute and explored other instruments until our band class was dropped due to finances when I was a senior. The most important class that I feel I took my entire high school career was drama. That year they had an extra slot open during the day for the juniors because they had dropped an SAT preparation class, so they put all juniors into two drama classes. We explored famous plays and were taught how to express our emotions on stage. At the end of the year we put on a play for the entire school, which each member of the class participating in some way (the one student who did not want to be on stage, controlled the lights and camera). I feel that every student should have to take a drama class at some point in their education. Drama teaches you how to deal with your emotions and put pain/negative emotions towards growth and positivity. The arts and shop classes allow those students who do not excel academically to find something that they do excel in, an important thing to find during your adolescent years when you are searching for your identity.
The first thing that I would like to reflect upon concerning Sir Robinson's speech is his statement that "All kids have tremendous talents, and we squander them". I completely and utterly agree with this statement. I feel that all students have talents, but the majority of them are not in the areas that we consider 'important'. So many students are talented in the art and trades like carpentry and machine tool, but these subjects are barely covered in our school systems. Schools look at students who are three grades below their reading/writing levels, or extremely behind in math and see them as 'unintelligent, untalented children', when in reality most of the are exceedingly talented in other things. For example, I know of a student that is pretty average academically (she maintains a B average or so), but she captures the interest of every single person in the audience when she is on the dance floor. I also know of a former classmate who has extreme literacy problems, but is making amazing money (more than I will as a teacher!) as an underwater welder. When our schools do not support talents other than those in English, math and the sciences, we are leading these students (often the majority) into thinking that their talents are nothing of importance. I love Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, because it supports the fact that everybody is intelligent at something!
I love Ken's statement about children that 'if they don't know, they'll take a go'. Children are always guessing at things, because they do not have the knowledge yet to know the right answer. Children use their imagination to come up with the answer to something that they do not quite yet understand. Our schools, however, frown upon the use of imagination to reason something- they want 'critical thinking' skills instead. They put so much pressure on students to be right, that slowly this wonderful skill of imagination is dead, with logical thinking in its place. In order to keep creativity, it is important not to concentrate so much on the 'right' answer, but the fact that they thought of an answer and were courageous enough to take the risk on it. Giving a wrong answer, or even just an answer that is different from the norm, opens the eyes of people. When the first person suggested that the earth might be round, everybody thought he was wrong, but in the process he opened the eyes of others to get them thinking. This is an extremely important process that we need for the future- people need to open their minds to possibilities that are not possible yet! Students need to feel that it is OK to be wrong and that sometimes wrong answers turn out to be not-so-wrong. Even if the students are wrong, it should be stressed that people learn from their mistakes and they grow as a person. If you never made mistakes you would not know what it would be like to learn.
Everybody has a different way of thinking and brains work in different ways. One of my best friends in high school had a thought process that was extremely different then everybody else. In physics, she would often times come up with the right answer but she had used the most original means of getting that answer. The method that she used could have been viewed as 'wrong' by the teacher because it was not what we were supposed to do, even though she did have the right answer at the end. Students should feel comfortable enough in their classroom environments to feel that it is OK to think differently and OK to be wrong sometimes. To be wrong means that you will ultimately learn from your mistake, and eventually be right. To be comfortable with being wrong means that you will take chances and risks. All scientists and engineers need to be comfortable with being wrong, because the majority of the time they are! To make our students believe that they need to be right all the time, diminishes their risk taking and subsequently squanders their imagination and creativity. They are too scared to think 'out of the box' or come up with something that the world views as out of the norm or impossible. If we continue to make our students believe that wrong answers are bad ones, then we are killing the next generation of engineers, scientists, doctors, authors and all other careers that need imagination.
I also completely agree with his theory of academic inflation. I feel that our society stresses way too much on the importance of getting a college education. In all honesty, I feel that I could have became a successful teacher without going through four years of college. Being in the classroom learning about how to do your job has suddenly become more important than actually being out in the field practicing the job itself. People learn from doing, not memorizing and taking tests on how to do. Our schools are built upon the idea that they need to educate students in order for them to be successful in college. Rather, I think our schools should educate to create well-rounded exceptional human beings instead. Our world would be a much kinder place if we emphasized the importance of human behavior more than human achievement.
I completely agree with all aspects of Ken's statements, including the statement that he thinks creativity is just as important as literacy. In reality, we would not have literacy without creativity. Someone had to come up with the letters to the alphabet, and that required original thought. All writers are writers because they are creative and have original thought, or else nothing new would ever be published. We expect our students to write creative stories, but limit their imagination and creativity by giving them constant boundaries and telling them what is right or wrong. We put so much emphasis on grammar, but its the fact that the student is expressing themselves that is important. Many famous authors have absolutely horrible grammar. What attracts people to new books is the plot point, the creativity of the story itself, not how the sentences are structured.
Fortunately, my education provided me with ways to express myself other than in the form of writing and academics. I enjoyed being 'different' unlike most students and I was able to experience gifted and talented classes, which always sought out to harbor our inner creativity. The gifted and talented students were able to put on plays and create inventions like Rube Goldberg machines. Unfortunately it was only the students who excelled in the 'regular' academics of English and math that were allowed to experience other ways to express yourself. In reality, the students who needed that other means of expression to boost their self-esteem by possibly finding something that they excelled in, were trapped in the classroom doing what they did not excel in. However, they were allowed to join band in fourth grade. I began to play the flute and explored other instruments until our band class was dropped due to finances when I was a senior. The most important class that I feel I took my entire high school career was drama. That year they had an extra slot open during the day for the juniors because they had dropped an SAT preparation class, so they put all juniors into two drama classes. We explored famous plays and were taught how to express our emotions on stage. At the end of the year we put on a play for the entire school, which each member of the class participating in some way (the one student who did not want to be on stage, controlled the lights and camera). I feel that every student should have to take a drama class at some point in their education. Drama teaches you how to deal with your emotions and put pain/negative emotions towards growth and positivity. The arts and shop classes allow those students who do not excel academically to find something that they do excel in, an important thing to find during your adolescent years when you are searching for your identity.
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