Friday, December 10, 2010
End of Semester Note
Here's my end of semester note: Whew! This class was like one of those 1970's movies about around the world races! Always running to keep up, stay up, and stay in the race! Mr.McGilvery was a very good and consciencious racing coach, always letting me know where I was, where I was going, and helping me get there. Thanks, Mr. McG.! You saved my life too many times to mention, and it really made me want to do a good job. I learned an incredible amount in your class and I will use it all in my future work. Have a boatload of fun this holiday season, and thanks!
Friday, December 3, 2010
Final Project Reflection
Whew! I can truly say that I learned a whole lot in this class. I feel somewhat "enabled" now where computers are concerned. But let me get on with my reflection...
In case some have not viewed my video: "Captain Strategy", let me say that at first I was unsure if this was the right concept to go with, but as I worked on it more and more I realized that it was something very close to my heart because I worked with third graders for many years as an instructional aide and was able to see first-hand how they felt about taking the TAKS test. Most of them seemed confused and bewildered by the immensity of the task and I wanted to make a video that related to their age and grade level, and also, to their love of superhero's and fun!
Years ago, I realized that many students had trouble with the concept of punctuation and grammar, and I originally invented a superhero named "Captain Capital (leads the way), and his trusty sidekick Period Pete" in order to bring home the concepts of capitalization and periods. When I demonstrated the reasons why the capital at the beginning of every sentence and the period at the end were vital to sentence structure, it was better understood by the students because they could relate to the cartoonish concept. I realized at the time that in order to help students understand basic concepts, I had to couch the explanations in kid terms, while still staying within the framework of the state standards. And it worked. The students would quote "Captain Capital" to me whenever I saw them in the hallways and I learned the power of "kid-sizing" educational concepts. So while making this video, I changed my hero's name to "Captain Strategy", because I realized that "Captain Strategy" could be adapted to all subjects, not just language arts, and went from there.
I will use this video in my classrooms and I feel that I will make even more such videos as I learn about the concepts that kids have trouble with. Mathematics come to mind since this is a subject without closure and many students have trouble with the concepts and skills needed to cope with it.
Media is very important in the classrooms now. To most students, life is all about videos. Movies, games, Internet, MTV, etc., have gotten them used to the smaller watching/internalizing format. They are able to internalize information in a fashion that previous generations have not and the classroom and teaching profession must adapt to this. This is a simple social and technological change that is inevitable, and in order to keep educating the students of tomorrow, we must also become the teachers of tomorrow.
In case some have not viewed my video: "Captain Strategy", let me say that at first I was unsure if this was the right concept to go with, but as I worked on it more and more I realized that it was something very close to my heart because I worked with third graders for many years as an instructional aide and was able to see first-hand how they felt about taking the TAKS test. Most of them seemed confused and bewildered by the immensity of the task and I wanted to make a video that related to their age and grade level, and also, to their love of superhero's and fun!
Years ago, I realized that many students had trouble with the concept of punctuation and grammar, and I originally invented a superhero named "Captain Capital (leads the way), and his trusty sidekick Period Pete" in order to bring home the concepts of capitalization and periods. When I demonstrated the reasons why the capital at the beginning of every sentence and the period at the end were vital to sentence structure, it was better understood by the students because they could relate to the cartoonish concept. I realized at the time that in order to help students understand basic concepts, I had to couch the explanations in kid terms, while still staying within the framework of the state standards. And it worked. The students would quote "Captain Capital" to me whenever I saw them in the hallways and I learned the power of "kid-sizing" educational concepts. So while making this video, I changed my hero's name to "Captain Strategy", because I realized that "Captain Strategy" could be adapted to all subjects, not just language arts, and went from there.
I will use this video in my classrooms and I feel that I will make even more such videos as I learn about the concepts that kids have trouble with. Mathematics come to mind since this is a subject without closure and many students have trouble with the concepts and skills needed to cope with it.
Media is very important in the classrooms now. To most students, life is all about videos. Movies, games, Internet, MTV, etc., have gotten them used to the smaller watching/internalizing format. They are able to internalize information in a fashion that previous generations have not and the classroom and teaching profession must adapt to this. This is a simple social and technological change that is inevitable, and in order to keep educating the students of tomorrow, we must also become the teachers of tomorrow.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Chapters 11 and 12 Reflections
It is not always easy to be a culturally responsive teacher in today's classrooms. With the growth of the changing cultural landscape in America, the number of cultures represented in our school has increased. According to Wikipedia, there are now nine major languages spoken in Texas,these include Vietnamese, Chinese, Hindi, Korean and Tagalog. It is imperative that teachers learn and understand the diversity in customs, beliefs, values and communication skills of their students. With so many students learning English as a second language, assessments are now taking the form of portfolios which can include work from the arts and visual fields in order not to limit ELL's to written content which they may not yet have the skills to interpret and master.
In the classroom, it is important for the teacher to facilitate the learning of her students so that they can learn to make connections on the lesson through reflection and meta-cognitive thinking. Meta-cognitive thinking is the ability to learn to think about thinking. This higher level thinking helps the student to integrate the lesson into their learning process and then be able to generalize it into other areas of study.
One aspect of the ISTE standards is that teachers become more and more capable in technology integration. In a sense, teachers are to become "computer experts" as they employ the newer technologies. This will enable the teacher to demonstrate "leadership" and be seen as the "go to" teacher to the students. It is important that teachers become well versed in the immense variety of resources available to inform technological learning in the classroom. These range from fellow teachers in one's school, to continuing education through universities, to professional conferences that will not only give a great amount of technology information, but with the right networking skills, will create a vast network of contacts in the technology world. Additionally, a teacher can create their own research and build a technology base that they will add to through the years as the technology expands.
In the classroom, it is important for the teacher to facilitate the learning of her students so that they can learn to make connections on the lesson through reflection and meta-cognitive thinking. Meta-cognitive thinking is the ability to learn to think about thinking. This higher level thinking helps the student to integrate the lesson into their learning process and then be able to generalize it into other areas of study.
One aspect of the ISTE standards is that teachers become more and more capable in technology integration. In a sense, teachers are to become "computer experts" as they employ the newer technologies. This will enable the teacher to demonstrate "leadership" and be seen as the "go to" teacher to the students. It is important that teachers become well versed in the immense variety of resources available to inform technological learning in the classroom. These range from fellow teachers in one's school, to continuing education through universities, to professional conferences that will not only give a great amount of technology information, but with the right networking skills, will create a vast network of contacts in the technology world. Additionally, a teacher can create their own research and build a technology base that they will add to through the years as the technology expands.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Technology Article Reflection
The article that I decided to write about was "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants" by Marc Prensky. As we all know, I am a digital immigrant-I came into this new nation, Digital, as an adult. There were no computers of any type or peripherals in my high school years. Even then I recall looking at the whole computer field with great suspicion. It just wasn't something that we were accustomed to in our daily lives. There was no way to mentally encompass the complexity of this new and powerful tool.
While reading Marc Prensky's article, I heard my mind saying, "a-ha!I knew it!". I realized that learning all about computers is a difficult concept for those of us who grew up with pencils, paper, and books. We don't think as fast as the natives nor do most of us have the expansion capabilities to see what can be done with all this new technology. As the author stated,in referring to natives learning from immigrants, "school often feels pretty much as if we've brought in a population of heavily accented, unintelligible foreigners to lecture them". This is due to the "new language" of the natives being taught to them by the immigrants. Ha! Look at it from the immigrants viewpoint when we decide to go back to school! We are trying to learn a new language that everyone seems to be fluent in, yet there are no dictionaries we can read. We have to figure out the new language with our old, dinosaur minds while trying to maintain a decent grade point average.
It is wonderful to read such articles and realize that the perspective is not just mine. I can't "multitask digitally, and parallel process". I still use the one step at a time approach to learning that I learned in school. Will I ever become as fluent as a native? Nah... As my son, Sam, tells me, "Mom, you just don't have a technological mind". True. But that's because I was born about twenty years too early. However, I am ok with that. I love to read books, and I am known by my first name at the county library. I enjoy thinking slowly about things so that I may think about all aspects. Kind of in the old dinosaur way.
While reading Marc Prensky's article, I heard my mind saying, "a-ha!I knew it!". I realized that learning all about computers is a difficult concept for those of us who grew up with pencils, paper, and books. We don't think as fast as the natives nor do most of us have the expansion capabilities to see what can be done with all this new technology. As the author stated,in referring to natives learning from immigrants, "school often feels pretty much as if we've brought in a population of heavily accented, unintelligible foreigners to lecture them". This is due to the "new language" of the natives being taught to them by the immigrants. Ha! Look at it from the immigrants viewpoint when we decide to go back to school! We are trying to learn a new language that everyone seems to be fluent in, yet there are no dictionaries we can read. We have to figure out the new language with our old, dinosaur minds while trying to maintain a decent grade point average.
It is wonderful to read such articles and realize that the perspective is not just mine. I can't "multitask digitally, and parallel process". I still use the one step at a time approach to learning that I learned in school. Will I ever become as fluent as a native? Nah... As my son, Sam, tells me, "Mom, you just don't have a technological mind". True. But that's because I was born about twenty years too early. However, I am ok with that. I love to read books, and I am known by my first name at the county library. I enjoy thinking slowly about things so that I may think about all aspects. Kind of in the old dinosaur way.
Autobiographical Reflection
My Reflection on My Autobiography Project
Before I begin my reflection, let me first apologize to my professor and fellow students for the slowness of my work lately. Life happens. No excuses. I will now attempt to catch up and hope everyone bears with me.
When I began the autobiography project, I had no idea of the size of the bite I had taken. I say this because, at the time, this project was a complete unknown in structure and content. What did I know about Windows Moviemaker, or about making movies? How hard could it be, I asked myself? Ha! It was difficult to me, not just because of the dragging and the folders and all the little minutiae of making it, but because of the depth of the thing. Microphone? Audio Track? Publish? All new stuff to me. I not only had no idea how to accomplish it all, I had no idea how to go about learning all about downloading music from LimeWire , or scanning an old photograph into my computer. I have learned so much about making movies on my computer from Mr.McGilvery, and from my son, Sam. Next time I have an assignment like this, I will not fear it as much.
Before I begin my reflection, let me first apologize to my professor and fellow students for the slowness of my work lately. Life happens. No excuses. I will now attempt to catch up and hope everyone bears with me.
When I began the autobiography project, I had no idea of the size of the bite I had taken. I say this because, at the time, this project was a complete unknown in structure and content. What did I know about Windows Moviemaker, or about making movies? How hard could it be, I asked myself? Ha! It was difficult to me, not just because of the dragging and the folders and all the little minutiae of making it, but because of the depth of the thing. Microphone? Audio Track? Publish? All new stuff to me. I not only had no idea how to accomplish it all, I had no idea how to go about learning all about downloading music from LimeWire , or scanning an old photograph into my computer. I have learned so much about making movies on my computer from Mr.McGilvery, and from my son, Sam. Next time I have an assignment like this, I will not fear it as much.
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